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We're pausing our live coverage for today, but you can still follow updates on the pandemic across the BBC News website.

Before we go, here is a round-up of some of the biggest global developments:

• More than 21.5 million cases of coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. At least 771,000 virus-related deaths have also been reported
• The World Health Organisation said more than 294,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours - the highest daily increase of the pandemic so far.

• Public Health England is set to be replaced by a new agency that will specifically deal with protecting the UK from pandemics, according to a report by the Sunday Telegraph

• The UAE and Israel have agreed to cooperate in coronavirus research, following an agreement by the two countries earlier this week to normalise relations
• Austria says it will introduce stricter border controls following a “worrying rise” in the number of coronavirus cases in the country

• New Zealand's PM is expected to make an annoucement on the country's election, following calls to postpone it due to the reappearance of the virus
• Students in England have been protesting as 40% of A-Level exams were marked down from teachers' predictions, after they were unable to sit their exams due to the pandemic

Our reporting today has been brought to you by: Vicky Baker, Thomas Spender, George Wright, Alex Kleiderman and Joshua Cheetham.

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Italy has announced that nightclubs and dance halls will be forced to close around the country from Monday.

The wearing of face masks will also be mandatory, from 18:00 to 06:00 local time, in public spaces where social distancing is not possible.

The measures, part of a decree signed by Health Minister Roberto Speranza, and will remain in force until 7 September.

It comes as infections continue to rise in Italy, with more than 600 new cases reported yesterday. The latest measures were agreed following a meeting on Sunday between regional governors and Italy's ministers of health, regions and economic development.

Here are three charts to give you a sense of how the outbreak has progressed in the UK.

You can also read our explainer on the key figures here.

On Wednesday, England revised how it counts deaths. Previously, people who died at any point following a positive test, regardless of cause, were counted in the figures.

But there is now a cut-off of 28 days. The new method reduced the death toll by 5,000 and is thought to provide a more accurate picture of the epidemic.

The UK has recorded 1,040 new positive tests for Covid-19, according to government figures.

It is the sixth day in a row that there have been more than 1,000 infections reported.

A further five people were reported to have died within 28 days of testing positive.

UK-wide death figures may not match the totals for the four nations, as they cover a different time scale and cover deaths in all settings.

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Authorities in the German state of Bavaria say they have tracked down the majority of people who tested positive for coronavirus after returning from abroad, following an outcry over delayed test results.

In a statement, Bavaria's government said it had found 903 of the 949 people who tested positive out of a total of 44,000 travellers. The remaining 46 have yet to be located due to a lack of "suitable personal data". But authorities did not elaborate on what the problems were, or how the remaining 46 would be found.

The tests were carried out at special centres - which have been open from late July - but some people have waited up to two weeks to receive their results, according to Reuters news agency. On Wednesday, Bavaria's Health Minister Melanie Huml said the main reason was that, until recently, data had been largely entered manually into spreadsheets.

State premier Markus Söder has since apologised for mishap, and promised to hire extra staff to speed up the testing process. He said he has also twice rejected resignation offers from Huml.

Hugh Pym
BBC News Health Editor

There has been talk in the air at Westminster for a while about a major shake-up or even axing of Public Health England.

Blame for the controversial decision to halt community coronavirus testing and tracing in March has been laid at PHE's door.

The organisation crops up with others in the political crossfire over the handling of the Covid-19 crisis. Now it has emerged that its remaining responsibilities for virus testing and infection data surveillance in England will be transferred to a new body including NHS Test and Trace.

PHE will continue to be responsible for now for prevention issues such as anti-obesity measures.

It is easy to point the finger at PHE, but it is an executive agency accountable to the secretary of state, Matt Hancock.

Decisions in March were made in collaboration with ministers and the chief medical and scientific advisers. Sources point out that PHE was never set up to be a body responsible for mass community testing and that what's needed now is an organisation fully responsible for pandemic planning.

A full examination of who is responsible and culpable for which policies will have to wait for an independent inquiry - whenever that takes place.

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Public Health England is to be replaced by a new agency that will specifically deal with protecting the country from pandemics, according to a report.

The Sunday Telegraph claims, external Health Secretary Matt Hancock will this week announce a new body modelled on Germany's Robert Koch Institute.

Ministers have reportedly been unhappy with the way PHE has responded to the coronavirus crisis.

The government was contacted by the BBC but declined to comment on the report.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "Public Health England have played an integral role in our national response to this unprecedented global pandemic.

"We have always been clear that we must learn the right lessons from this crisis to ensure that we are in the strongest possible position, both as we continue to deal with Covid-19 and to respond to any future public health threat."

The Telegraph reports that Hancock will merge the NHS Test and Trace scheme with the pandemic response work of PHE.

Read more here

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The rate of coronavirus infections in children has been rising in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The number and rate of cases in children in the United States have been steadily increasing from March to July 2020," the CDC's updated guidelines read.

The number of children infected with the virus is not known "due to lack of widespread testing and the prioritisation of testing for adults and those with severe illness", it adds.

While the virus is far less dangerous for children, they are still at risk of developing serious symptoms, according to the CDC.

It says: "The rate of hospitalization among children is low (8.0 per 100,000 population) compared with that in adults (164.5 per 100,000 population), but hospitalization rates in children are increasing."

Image source, Reuters

We've brought you news throughout the day about the furore over exam results in England, after a government algorithim stepped in when A-levels were cancelled due to the pandemic, leaving many students disappointed with their results.

Some have been protesting outside the Department for Education in London.

Much of the anger has been directed at Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, who Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner has accused of presiding over a "complete and utter fiasco".

Read more here: 'Huge mess' as exams appeal guidance withdrawn

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The statistical model used by the exam regulator in England to determine grades this year is facing two legal challenges.

Students were unable to sit public exams this year because of the pandemic, and almost 40% of A-level grades were marked down from teachers' predictions after an algorithm was used by Ofqual.

Lawyers from Leigh Day and Foxglove believe Ofqual acted outside its statutory responsibilities in basing judgements on schools' prior performance not "individual achievement and attainment".

Six students are also being supported in a case by campaigning legal group the Good Law Project.

Meanwhile, the Conservative chairman of the Education Select Committee, Robert Halfon, said an Ofqual decision to review appeals guidance left students and schools in confusion, describing the situation as a "huge mess".

Emma Hardy, Labour's shadow further education and universities minister, told the BBC the government must "urgently agree" to take grades assessed by teachers as final results.

Read more about the legal cases and see our analysis on the way the algorithm worked here.

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Former India cricketer Chetan Chauhan has died at the age of 73, a month after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

Chauhan was admitted to hospital on 12 July after testing positive. His health later deteriorated due to kidney-related ailments, and on Friday he suffered multiple organ failure, according to the Press Trust of India.

During his 12-year cricket career he played 40 Tests for India. Chauhan later entered politics and was a cabinet minister in his home state of Uttar Pradesh.

Many people have paid paid their respects to Mr Chauhan on social media, including India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Chauhan is the second minister from Uttar Pradesh to die after catching coronavirus. Earlier this month Kamla Rani Varun, the state's technical education minister, died aged 62.

There have been 43 new cases of Covid-19 detected in Scotland in the last 24 hours.

Of these, 14 of are in the Grampian NHS area, which includes Aberdeen, where a local lockdown is in effect. The city's measures will be reviewed again on Wednesday.

Over the past 14 days there have been 418 confirmed cases. There were 51 new cases reported on Saturday, and 65 announced on Friday.

Although localised outbreaks are still occurring, the number of new confirmed cases in Scotland has been slowing.

For more than a month no deaths have been registered for anyone who tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 28 days.

Read more: Where are the latest cases?

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The number of calls to Australia's Poison Information Centre (PIC) relating to alcohol-based hand sanitiser has risen sharply, reports say.

Genevieve Adamo, a senior specialist in poisons information at the New South Wales PIC said more than 1,000 calls were received from February to the end of July.

“There have been occasional cases where some kids have gotten very sick,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, external, adding that the majority of cases were accidental.

One six-year-old child needed intensive care treatment after ingesting four times the legal driving limit for an adult, said Dr Karen Zwi, a community paediatrician at Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick.

The child started slurring her words and vomiting, and had to be put on a ventilator after being rushed to hospital.

"She is lucky to have survived,” Dr Zwi said.

Adamo told the paper that a small lick of sanitiser would not do serious harm, but bottles should be kept out of the reach of small children in case they ingest more.

Coronavirus patients who have lived with symptoms for up to five months have spoken about the huge impact it has had on their lives.

"Long Covid" support groups have appeared on social media, and the government says "tens of thousands" of people have long-term problems after catching the virus, such as extreme fatigue.

Daliah, from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, said: "It's scary because we don't know how permanent this is. There are times where I feel like life will never be normal again, my body will never be normal again."

The NHS has launched a Your Covid Recovery, external website to offer support and advice to people affected.

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The US Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorisation to a new saliva diagnostic test developed at Yale University.

In a statement, external, the FDA said the new test, called SalivaDirect, does not need any special type of swab or collection device, and a saliva sample can be collected in any sterile container.

SalivaDirect is also unique because it doesn't require a separate step to extract nucleic acid, which holds people's key genetic information. Extraction kits used for this step in other tests have been prone to shortages in the past, the FDA said, so being able to perform a test without these kits enhances the capacity for increased testing.

It's the fifth test authorised by the FDA which uses saliva as a sample for testing. This method eliminates the need for invasive, uncomfortable nasopharyngeal swabs, which have also faced shortages during the pandemic, the FDA added. It also lowers risks to healthcare workers because saliva samples can be self-collected.

Sean Coughlan
BBC News, education correspondent

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"Baffling, mind-boggling, inadequate, shell-shocked" - these are the politer responses from school leaders, trying to make sense of Ofqual's bizarre retraction of its own rules over A-level appeals.

On Saturday Ofqual set out what constituted a "valid" mock exam for students appealing against A-level results in England - but the regulator has now suspended those criteria, and further information will be published "in due course".

• READ MORE: 'Huge mess' as exams appeal guidance withdrawn

An early morning email from an otherwise respectable head teacher was titled: "WTF?"

Ofqual is meant to be an independent exams watchdog, but assuming it didn't overrule itself, who did pull the plug on what they'd announced for appeals over mock exams?

The non-decision still leaves students anxiously waiting to find out if they can appeal and claim their university places.

There is also irritation that ministers didn't head off this chaos in advance, or even when problems emerged in Scotland.

In the end, whether it's by Ofqual or the Department for Education or Number 10, a decision will have to be made.

Do they stick with the current grades and retro-fit them with a functioning appeals system? And will that withstand the unpicking of the fairness of results and legal challenges?

Or do they take the political hit - and the risk of creating other types of unfairness - by switching to teachers' predictions, as eventually happened in Scotland?

For ministers, it's time to turn over the exam paper and start their answers.

The UAE and Israel have agreed to cooperate in coronavirus research, Emirati state news agency WAM says.

The announcement comes following an agreement between the two countries last week to normalise their relations.

Emirati company APEX National Investment and Israel's TeraGroup are seeking to develop a testing device to speed up the testing process with high accuracy, among other studies.

Telephone communications have also now been opened between the two countries. Until now, it hasn't been possible to call Israel from the UAE.

Image source, James Wamukota

As Africa passes more than a million confirmed Covid-19 cases, people across the continent have been coming up with a creative inventions to stop the pandemic in its track.

In Kenya, a nine-year-old schoolboy has invented a wooden hand-washing machine to help users avoid touching surfaces.

And over in Nigeria, a 20-year-old engineering student has invented a portable respirator to help with a shortfall in the country.

Read more here.

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Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz says there will be stricter checks on the country's borders, following what he called a “worrying rise” in the number of coronavirus cases.

In a tweet, he said health checks would in future be part of checks at the borders.

The health ministry announced 303 new cases on Saturday, a sharp rise from the daily numbers being seen in May to July.

A total of 725 people have died from the virus there.

A swab test is the preferred way to test if someone has coronavirus, but Egypt is using antibody testing instead, when deciding if frontline staff are able to work.

This goes against international advice. The World Health Organization says the tests do not show whether a person currently has the virus.

Doctors say this may have helped spread the virus in Egypt. Watch our explainer below.