Coronavirus live: White House official tests positive; virus spread grows 150% in a week in France

Official not found to have had close contacts with White House principals; infections in France grow at unprecedented rate due to Delta variant

• Delta variant accounts for 83% of new cases in US, CDC director says
• England border officials told not to make Covid checks on green and amber list arrivals
• India's excess deaths during Covid could be 10 times official toll'
• Twitter suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene's account over misinformation
• See all our coronavirus coverage

10.31pm BST

The Tunisian prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, sacked the country's health minister on Tuesday, the premier's office said, as spiralling coronavirus cases weigh on Tunisia's swamped health system.

AFP reports that Faouzi Mehdi's sacking came days after the ministry's spokeswoman said the health situation was overwhelming, with the pandemic causing more than 17,000 deaths in a population of around 12 million.

10.07pm BST

Here is our story on the clashes today between Dr Anthony Fauci, the US's top infectious diseases expert, and Republican senator Rand Paul.

Paul suggested that Fauci had lied before Congress in May when he denied that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded so-called gain of function" research - the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world - at a virology lab in Wuhan, China.

Related: If anybody is lying here, it is you': Fauci turns tables on inquisitor Rand Paul