the headlines: the first crewed mission by a private company to the international space station has safely returned to earth. the spacex dragon crew capsule splashed down off the coast of florida. nasa's administrator said the mission‘s success marked the beginning of a new era in human space flight. an investigation by the bbc‘s persian service has found the number of people who've died with covid—19 in iran is nearly three times higher than the government has admitted. they also show the first coronavirus death happened injanuary, nearly a month earlier than originally claimed. the philippines is bringing back strict quarantine measures in and around the capital manila, to tackle a leap in coronavirus cases. the measures are likely to include the shutdown of some businesses and public transport. they'll start on tuesday. now on bbc news:

katty kay speaks to doctor anthony fauci. he's the most famous doctor in america, and as head of america's institute of allergy and infectious diseases since 1984, anthony fauci has advised six different american presidents on everything from ebola to aids. over the last few decades, he has also seen his effigy burnt, heard the cries of protesters calling him a murderer, and had smoke bombs thrown at his office window. since the beginning of the year, he has been in the thick of a new battle — against coronavirus. for americans, he has become a trusted presence behind the podium at white house covid—19 briefings. but as a us struggles to contain the pandemic, six months after its first known case, tensions have been rising between dr fauci and the president. dr fauci has criticised the president's response on a number of occasions, pushed back on the president's

claims that the outbreak is improving, and attributing hasty state reopenings to the recent surges. the white house is targeting dr fauci by briefing reporters about his alleged mistakes. the move to undercut him comes as the us continues to see surges in covid—19. according to john hopkins university, there are well over 4 million cases confirmed, and more than 150,000 americans have died. dr fauci, we're now about five months into this pandemic in the united states. if i'd asked you back in april if this was the situation we would be in at the end ofjuly, is this about what you would have anticipated? well, i think the answer to that, katty, would have to be be no. i would have hoped that once

we had the initial surge gotten under control — as you recall we were particularly hard hit in the new york metropolitan area — that we would have come down to a baseline that is really a low baseline, namely hundreds to, you know, a few hundred cases a day. but that is not what happened. we had the big surge, then it came down, but it plateaued at a level of about 20,000 cases per day for several weeks in a row into may and june. and then injuly, with the attempts in some southern states to open up again, namely open up the economy, we had surges of cases, that is really quite u nfortu nate. and that's not what i would have predicted or liked to see, because we went from a baseline of about 20,000 cases a day up to 30, 40, 50, 60, and a couple of weeks ago we even hit 70 new cases a day.

70,000. that has now gone down a bit to between 50,000 and 60,000. that's not good. that is so high that you want to get a baseline that's much, much lower than that. so what went wrong? did people just get impatient? i think there were a couple of things, not one single factor that you can see went wrong, but a couple of things. in the united states, right from the beginning, we shuts down only by about 50%, even though it was a lot of inconvenience and a lot of very, very important negative effects on the economy and on employment. but in reality, we did not shut down nearly as intensively as was shut down in other countries, including the european union. and then the other aspect of it is that when we reopened, in the sense of, you know, we put out these guidelines for opening america again, and they were well thought out guidelines which had several checkpoints. the first checkpoint

was a gateway. in other words, you had to have a diminution in cases over time before you could move to phase one, and then phase two, and then phase three. and each of the different phases became a little bit more flexible in opening things up. the problem is we did not have a uniform adherence to that. and what happened is that some states, and i'm not going to name them, but some states actually skipped over some of the checkpoints. and in other states, even when the mayors and governors and others did it right, and gave the right instructions, many of the members of society just disregarded them. that's a sure—fire invitation to get a problem. so as you watched that, you watched the states jumping the gun, you watched people behaving in an irresponsible way, you knew it was going to go wrong. you knew this would not end well.

how frustrating was that, as you were trying to manage the pandemic? well, it was quite frustrating, katty, because i was getting on the media and tv and radio virtually pleading, particularly with the young people, because the recent resurgences that we've seen, if you look at the average age of the people in that, it's about a decade to a decade and a half younger than what we were seeing earlier on in the outbreak. and when i was looking at the film clips, you were seeing they weren't wearing masks, they were congregating in bars. it became really quite frustrating, because it became predictable what would happen if people did not adhere to the guidelines. so we're in this position that's bad today. when you look forward, dr fauci, for the next four or five months, how is it going to be? well, i hope it's going to be considerably different, katty. do you have any reason for optimism?

well, iwould hope that the country — i always say, and i still do, i have faith in the american citizens and the people living in this country that they will appreciate what went wrong. as we get up and say, you know — and that's the reason why i'm trying to do a lot of outreach, not onlyjust me, but many who are out there talking to the populace, explaining to them that there are really four or five simple things that we know from experience can turn things around. and we're trying to preach that as far and wide as we can. universal wearing of masks. physical distancing, six feet or more. avoiding crowds. avoiding bars, and if the states and the regions and the counties go along with it, closing bars if necessary. and physical hand hygiene such as washing your hands.

if you just do those five simple things, you're going to be able to turn a lot of this around, so hopefully we're getting that message out. i'm glad you still have faith in people, because my faith is being tested at the moment. i just wonder what makes you think that — you've been preaching this message, doctor, for the last few months and people are not doing it, and i wonder whether you actually would like to see much stricter enforcement of the rules. for example, here in washington, dc, there is now as of this week a $1,000 fine, potentially, if you don't wear a mask on the street. i go out into the street, and people aren't wearing masks. do we actually need to get a lot tougher? does there need to be a lot of stricter regulation, as there was during the lockdowns in europe? yes, i have always been, katty, in favour of a balance, of being really strict in areas where you feel it's going to have an impact. you know, i'm sure that there's some of this in the uk,

but in the united states, there's this independent spirit, that people in general don't like to be told by higher authorities what to do. i don't think that that's an excuse for us not being a bit more strict with people, particularly with regard to masks. the problem with mandating is that sometimes that gets people pushed in the opposite direction, and you've got to figure out how you're going to enforce the mandating. so you're right, i do have faith in the american people. i hope that when we strongly, strongly recommend that, that people will adhere to it and there will be lessons learned from what we have experienced over the past few weeks with the surging of cases in the southern states. so let me ask you more about masks, and first of all a medical question. can you clarify for me what the current thinking is on whether masks protect the wearer, as well as the people who are around the wearer? so if i wear a mask, does it protect me in any way, as well as stopping me

spreading the virus if i have it? yeah, there are more and more studies that are coming online, katty, that are indicating that it's a bilateral type of protection. originally, the data was showing that if you wear a mask, it prevents you from infecting someone else if you are infected. we get that experience from hospitalised patients with other diseases, including this disease, to prevent the spread beyond the person. but, since we know now that about 20—a5% of the cases are asymptomatic, and that clearly people who are without symptoms are transmitting the infection to others, that the recommendation of universal wearing of masks is more geared towards having people who don't know that they're infected from spreading

the infection to others. however, there's also data accumulating when you do what's called meta—analyses of studies that in fact there is a degree of protection. we don't know the exact percentage, but clearly there's a degree of protection, of protecting yourself from others, when you wear a mask. so i believe we know that there is now a benefit that goes both ways. and the benefit would be that i'm less likely to get it if i'm wearing a mask, or that the severity of the disease if i did get it would be diminished because i was wearing a mask. do we know that yet? yeah, we don't know that yet. i mean, obviously there's a discussion about the size of the inoculum, and what impact that has on you getting infected and what the course of the infection is, but there's not enough data. the only data that we do know is that it protects from infection.

we don't know whether it's going to protect you from severity. we just don't have enough data to make a comment on that. when the president, as he did again yesterday, retweets things from people who say you don't need to wear a mask, how unhelpful is that from a medical perspective? well, you know, i mean, this issue of tweeting and retweeting is something that i've never understood or gotten involved in, but i can tell you, you'd have to say it's not helpful if people get signals about not wearing masks, when we're trying to get people to universally wear masks. so you would ask the president not to do that, if he listens to you? well, katty, that's not the way it works. i think my feeling about what we should do with masks is very, very clearly understood by everyone, including those in the white house. what about hydroxychloroquine? and i ask you about this because it's come back

into the news because the president yesterday evening, in the white house, stood there and said that he believes in it and that it is safe, and again seemed to be touting this drug. is the president right? again, katty, it's not productive or helpful for me to be making judges on right or wrong. but what i can say is what i have said all along — that the overwhelming body of data from trials that were well run, randomised, placebo—controlled trials, indicate that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in treating coronavirus disease or covid—19. the reason i ask you this, dr fauci, is because there's a lot of misinformation out there, and a lot of people don't trust what they're hearing, either on the internet orfrom their leaders. you are one person in the united states who according to the last opinion poll has

a 65% approval rating. people do trust you. and i wonder whether, just in terms of your ability to fight this pandemic, your effectiveness in fighting this pandemic, you do actually need to call out the president and the country's leaders when they say things that are unhelpful, and potentially set the country back? because people trust you. and again, katty, i have to get back to see what happens is that that becomes the story, as opposed to the message. so, if what you say is true, which i believe, i don't follow approval ratings, but if people are listening to me, i want them to hear loud and clear what i'm saying. we should have universal wearing of masks, and the scientific data to this point, this might change with other studies, but the scientific data up to this point indicate that the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of covid—19 is not effective. 0k. the president has also

retweeted a tweet which said that you are misleading the american people. and just to put this on the record, have you misled the american public during your advice during this pandemic? no, that's easy for me to answer. no, categorically, i have not misled the american public during this outbreak. you've said before, dr fauci, that during the course of your career you have spent decades preparing for this possibility of a pandemic like covid—19. when you were preparing for something like this, did you ever imagine that the politics would make it difficult to effectively manage this kind of situation? that the politics would get so mixed up on this? no, i did not. 0bviously when you are dealing with things that involve politicians, there is always a bit of political manoeuvring. we've seen that in almost every outbreak, but it had been minor and didn't impact what we were

doing with regard to response, but i think it's no secret from looking at the situation in the united states that there is a considerable degree of political divisiveness to a level that everyone admits, you don't need me to make that declaration. i think anyone even those who have more experience and more ability to observe and make judgment on that, that this is a very unusual situation of political divisiveness in this country. you mentioned young people. the who today is looking at young people in europe. europe seems to have effectively managed the reopening process. when it started reopening a couple of months ago, things went well. we didn't see big spikes. now you have a number of european countries that are concerned. when you look at the situation

in europe, are you worried that they could be sliding back again? yes, as you said correctly, katty, at the beginning of their opening up, they really did very well. what i hope does not happen with our european countries is that they get a little bit complacent and as they open up and see that things are doing well and they are able to contain any of these little blips that might turn into spikes that might turn into resurgences, i hope that they pay attention to the fact that the reason that they've done well is that they've done it correctly and by doing it correctly, i hope they don't get complacent, essentially stepping over the line and taking additional risks. it has to do with what i was saying just a few minutes ago when we were talking about the situation in some places in the united states where people essentially skipped over the guidelines. in europe, they do have guidelines about safely

reopening. let's just hope that they follow them and not get into a situation where they trigger something that gets out of control again. could you see new lockdowns, either here in the states or in european countries? could you see us going back to the situation globally that we were in in march and april if people do get too complacent? i really hope that we don't come to that. that would be very discouraging. there was enough stress and strain, not only psychologically on our populations, both in europe, the uk and here in the united states, but also the effect that it had on the economy and unemployment and other types of unintended consequences of lockdown. i hope we don't ever get to go to that. i was being asked about what the response would be too the resurgence that we were seeing in the southern states. i commented that i hope we would not have to go to a complete lockdown and what we might do

is at least have a pause in our progression to reopening and maybe even take a step back. in other words, if you are in phase two and you are getting into trouble, you might want to push back or pull back to phase one and then restart the process of careful, prudent, step—by—step reopening because no one wants to go back to a complete lockdown again. you look at germany who did it so well, it was the poster child for europe, now you have the german centre for disease control saying they are concerned about spikes in the country. is it possible to combat this virus when you open up borders and allow people some freedom of movement? because when we look at the country is doing it

will at the moment that seem to have it under control, islands like new zealand or cyprus where the borders are controlled and people can't get in and so we have a bubble that they can protect, i'm just worried looking at what's happening in europe that it's not possible to have it both ways, to open our borders and have this under control. you're right, katty, this is not easy. anyone who thinks this is easy is really not doing a lot of reality testing. it is a very difficult situation and we've got to do the best we can and we believe that if we do this kind of opening and reopening prudently, then we have enough testing to go around to make sure that we can do the appropriate and adequate identification, isolation and contact tracing. that becomes very difficult. we've learned from painful experience that if you have a low level of cases and you have the adequate facilities and capabilities of testing, when you get blips

of new infection, you can adequately identify, isolate and contact trace. once you get to a level where there is community spread, particularly given the fact that a significant proportion of cases are without symptoms and spread occurs without symptoms, then things start to ratchet up and get out of control. so if we can keep the lid on things at a level low enough, i believe we can step—by—step open as much as possible of the economy but that doesn't mean we're going to get back to completely normal. i believe in order to do that, we are going to need a safe and effective vaccine to complement the public health measures and that's the reason why the information that came out very recently where we started a phase three trial of a vaccine just a couple of days ago and multiple other candidates over the next few months will be beginning phase three trials to determine efficacy and additional safety of a vaccine.

with that timetable, we would hope, given the fact these trials are ongoing now, for example the one that started a couple of days ago was going to have 30,000 people in the trial, that in the next several months as we get into the late fall and early winter, we might have an answer to the safety and efficacy of vaccine trials and i feel cautiously optimistic. there is a medical report from the centre for american progress this week in the united states that is very concerned about the production and distribution of the vaccine, even suggesting that it could take up to two years for americans to actually get the vaccine so it's great the research is producing these positive results now and i know

you've said that we could be getting some good news from that in the autumn or in the winter, but, realistically, how long is it going to be before i can get a vaccine? you'll probably get one pretty quickly but before most americans can get a vaccine. i think it would be well into 2021. i don't think it will be two years at the reason i say that is because what we've done here in united states. well into 2021 is what, near the end of next year? let me explain to you why i think that's not necessarily the case. what's being done now with the production of vaccine to have doses available that the united states government has invested billions of dollars, hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to start producing vaccine at risk. at risk means you are starting

to make the doses before you even have proven that the vaccine works. which means that if the vaccine does work, you've saved many if the vaccine doesn't work, the risk is you've lost a lot of money. you haven't risked safety, you haven't risked scientific integrity. in that context, the companies are telling us that they will have available within 2021 in the first few months to the middle, hundreds of millions of doses and by the end of the year, as many as1 billion doses. you're talking about per company. that being the case, and i don't know if it will be the first quarter, middle or the last quarter, but in 2021, there should be enough doses if the companies do what we are paying them to do, that they can give widespread distribution

of vaccines. dr fauci, thank you forjoining us and best of luck to you. thank you, katty, it's always good to be with you, thank you for having me. hello there. it took until the last day in july for temperatures to get above 30 degrees celsius. we only have to wait until thursday or friday this week before we see 30 degrees in august. but it won't be for the start of the week. we've got a little ridge of high pressure building in, which has been easing the showers back overnight. so, actually, it's going to be quite a chilly start this morning, but with plenty of sunshine before the shower cloud gets bubbling away. so, there will already be a few showers in north—western areas anyway, and with a weak weather

front brushing past here, that will tend to merge those showers a little bit. but plenty of drier weather for the south—east of scotland, possibly fewer showers than sunday in northern ireland. and, again, just a scattering for england and wales, but by the afternoon, particularly in eastern areas, they are likely to turn heavy with some thunder around, slow—moving downpours. but away from the showers in the sunshine, feeling pleasantly warm, but the wind will be picking up in the north—west of scotland. why? because we've got our next weather front on its way in. so, through the course of the night, it's likely to turn quite wet through northern ireland and also quite mild with lots of low cloud around, so a very different feel to our weather, i think, across north—western areas as we head into tuesday. in fact, through tuesday and wednesday, it does look wetterfor a time, some significant rain around and some stronger winds. but, again, it doesn't last. so, this is the low pressure which will be responsible for that rain, 50—60 mm over the highlands of scotland, tightly packed isobars denoting some stronger winds for many through tuesday and wednesday

further south as well. the rain looks it'll be a feature mostly for scotland and northern ireland, but there will be low cloud and drizzle setting in across northern england, wales, the south—west while southern and eastern areas may well stay largely fine and dry and warm with some sunshine around. clearly not feeling warm further north despite the mild air here and all the moisture. which will continue to fall, that rain, as we go through tuesday night and into wednesday. some uncertainty as to how far south it's going to come, but again the high pressure‘s closer to the south. so, if those weather fronts do come southwards, the likelihood is they won't produce much rain, they'll just fizzle out. and then the high pressure builds later in the week, just pushing those or nudging those weather fronts further north again. and allowing the temperatures to rise, mostly for england and wales, but some warmer, drier weather coming in further north for scotland and northern ireland as well. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. i'm sally bundock, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. nasa astronauts splashdown to earth after the first ever commercial crewed mission to the international space station. it took years to get here. we brought the capability back to america and we came home safely to our families. europe rolls out new measures to prevent a surge in coronavirus infections. one of president trump's top medical advisers says the us is entering a new phase in the coronavirus pandemic. built at record speed — genoa is opening its new