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Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments across the world over the last few hours:
- Tour de France in doubt after Covid red alert issued before Grand Départ in Nice. The 2020 Tour de France, scheduled to start in Nice on Saturday, is edging closer to collapse after the Alpes-Maritimes region, site of the opening stages of the race, was placed on red alert owing to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- France reported its second-highest level of cases ever and a new post-lockdown high. Over the past 24 hours, 6,111 cases were recorded, the highest level since lockdown ended and the second-highest ever since the 7,578 high set on 30 March at the height of the epidemic. It brings the total number of infections in the country to 259,698.
- Italy recorded its highest number of daily cases since May. A further 1,411 people tested positive for Covid-19, the country’s highest tally since 6 May, bringing the total reported to 263,949.
- Texas, Florida, California and New York among states not following new US Covid-19 testing plan. Several large US states including Texas are not heeding new federal health officials’ calls to reduce Covid-19 testing of some exposed to the virus, joining a broad rebuke of the Trump administration by public health leaders.
- The UK recorded its highest daily tally of cases since 12 June. Another 1,522 cases were reported and the UK’s cumulative death toll based on the government’s statistics reached 41,477.
- Poland reintroduces ban on flights from 46 countries. Poland will ban flights from 46 countries, including France and Spain, as of 2 September, according to a draft regulation published on Thursday, as the country grapples with a spike in coronavirus infections.
- Netherlands to close mink farms after coronavirus outbreaks. More than 100 mink farms in the Netherlands will be ordered closed by March after animals at dozens of locations contracted the coronavirus, Dutch news agency ANP has reported.
- United Airlines announces biggest pilot furloughs in its history. United Airlines is preparing for the biggest pilot furloughs of its history after announcing on Thursday the need to cut 2,850 pilot jobs this year, or about 21% of the total, without further US government aid.
- Pret a Manger cuts almost 2,900 UK jobs as sales plummet. Pret a Manger is to cut nearly 2,900 jobs in the UK after the desertion of high streets due to the coronavirus pandemic sent its sales plummeting, fuelling concerns about the economic impact of sustained remote working.
That’s all from me Jessica Murray, I’m now handing over to my colleagues in Australia - thanks for reading along.
Australia’s second most populous state of Victoria on Friday said 12 people died from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours and it reported 113 new cases.
Victoria, which has become the virus hot spot of the country, a day earlier reported 23 deaths and 113 cases, its lowest daily rise in nearly two months.
Strict lockdown measures have helped ease the daily rise of Covid-19 infections in Victoria after the state hit a one-day high of more than 700 cases about three weeks ago.
Coronavirus cases in Latin America have passed the 7 million mark, according to a Reuters tally.
The region has the most infections in the world, despite some countries beginning to show a slight decline in infections.
The daily average of cases fell to about 77,800 in the last seven days through Wednesday, against almost 85,000 the previous week, the tally based on government figures showed.
Six months since the first case was confirmed in Brazil, the country with the worst outbreak outside the United States reported on Thursday 44,235 new cases and 984 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 3,761,391 cases and the death toll from Covid-19 to 118,649.
Children and young people are far less likely than adults to get severe cases of Covid-19 infection, and death from the pandemic disease among children is exceptionally rare, according to UK research published on Thursday.
A study of Covid-19 patients admitted to 138 hospitals in Britain found that less than 1% were children, and of those fewer than 1% - or six in total - died, all of whom were already suffering serious illness or underlying health disorders.
Malcolm Semple, a professor of outbreak medicine and child health at Britain’s University of Liverpool, who co-led the work, said:
We can be quite sure that Covid in itself is not causing harm to children on a significant scale.
The highest level message really has to be that (in children with Covid-19) severe disease is rare, and death is vanishingly rare - and that (parents) should be comforted that their children are not at direct harm by going back into school.
Global data on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic shows that children and young people make up only 1-2% of cases of Covid-19 worldwide. The vast majority of reported infections in children are mild or asymptomatic, with few recorded deaths.
For this study, published in the BMJ medical journal, Semple’s team looked at data from 651 babies and children under 19 who were hospitalised with Covid-19 between 17 January and 3 July.
The six children who died all had “profound comorbidity”, the researchers said, and this was a “strikingly low” fatality rate compared with a 27% across all age groups - from 0-106 years - of Covid-19 patients hospitalised in the same period.
While the overall risk of children getting severe Covid is “tiny”, the researchers said, children of Black ethnicity and those with obesity are disproportionately affected, as previous studies in adults have found.
The study also showed that children can have a cluster of symptoms including sore throat, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea and rash alongside already-recognised Covid-19 symptoms of fever, breathlessness and cough.
UK workers will be encouraged to return to the office as part of a major media campaign to be launched by the government next week.
The television and newspaper messages will promote the government’s aim to reduce the number of employees working from home amid fears that town and city centres are becoming ghost areas as workers stay away.
Labour has criticised the plans as being “unconscionable” while the CBI said any return to work push should involve a “hybrid” approach that did not force people to return.
Labour’s shadow business minister Lucy Powell said:
It beggars belief that the Government are threatening people like this during a pandemic. Forcing people to choose between their health and their job is unconscionable.
Number 10 should condemn this briefing and categorically rule out any such campaign.
Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI, said a hybrid approach with home and office working is the best way forward.
Speaking to Times Radio on Thursday, Dame Carolyn said:
This is not about compulsion. I couldn’t say that more strongly.
This is about creating the opportunity and the confidence to get to a hybrid that gets the best of both worlds. We’re certainly not there yet.
Our offices are at risk of dying. And we would regret that very much if we allowed that to happen.
A government spokesperson said: “We are working closely with employers across the country to help them make workplaces Covid secure and give people confidence to go back to work during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Next week we will showcase the benefits of returning safely to work and raise awareness of companies getting this right.
“We’ll also provide practical steps businesses are taking to ensure offices are Covid secure as well as alternative ways of travelling to work.”
Brazil reported 44,235 new cases of Covid-19 and 984 deaths in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.
Brazil has registered 3,761,391 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll from Covid-19 has risen to 118,649, according to ministry data, in the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak outside the United States.
More help needs to be targeted at specific sectors of the UK economy such as the automotive industry in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Labour has said.
Shadow business minister Lucy Powell accused the Conservatives of “turning their back” on pledges to help areas where the vehicle manufacturing industry is concentrated, such as the north Midlands, Wales and Yorkshire.
They include parts of the country where Labour lost ground heavily in the December general election.
Powell said the automotive sector has been badly hit by the Covid-19 outbreak, stating that new car registrations were down 97% in April.
Labour said analysis by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) found car production was down around 50% in June compared with the year before.
Powell also called for support for the industry’s supply chain, as well as focus to be put on creating “green jobs” and ensuring the UK leads the way in decarbonisation.
The shadow minister said:
The UK’s world-leading automotive industry has been rocked by coronavirus and livelihoods are on the line.
But ministers won’t listen to reason and are refusing to recognise some sectors have been hit harder than others.
They must urgently target support at the sectors that need it with a focus on creating skilled, green jobs - and do right by the communities across the UK they promised to protect.
Anything less would be a betrayal of many communities which helped get Boris Johnson elected.
Texas, Florida, California and New York among states not following new US Covid-19 testing plan
Several large US states including Texas are not heeding new federal health officials’ calls to reduce Covid-19 testing of some exposed to the virus, joining a broad rebuke of the Trump administration by public health leaders.
Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey and New York all plan to continue to test asymptomatic people who have been exposed to Covid-19, despite new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggesting that such tests may not be needed.
“The current Texas guidance recommends testing for all close contacts of a confirmed case because it allows for early case identification among people who are at a higher risk of infection,” a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services in a statement. “There’s not a planned change at this point.”
California and New York made similar statements.
The Florida Department of Health said asymptomatic testing was continuing while the new CDC recommendations were evaluated, and Texas also said it would evaluate.
The CDC said this week that people exposed to Covid-19 but not symptomatic may not need to be tested, shocking doctors and politicians, and prompting accusations the guidance was politically motivated.
Even before the CDC guidance, coronavirus testing in the US had dropped. The US tested on average 675,000 people a day last week, down from a peak in late July of over 800,000 people a day.
Nationally, cases have fallen for five weeks in a row but infections are surging again in the US Midwest with four states reporting record one-day increases in cases on Thursday as the US death toll climbed above 180,000.
The CDC had previously recommended testing of all people who had close contact with someone who was diagnosed with Covid-19.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state of New York would not be abiding by the new guidance and challenged the assertion that politics played no role in the change.
“This 180-degree reversal of Covid-19 testing guidelines is reckless, and not based on science and has the potential to do long-term damage to the (CDC’s) reputation,” Cuomo said in a joint statement, along with the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut, who also said their states would not be following the CDC’s guidance.
Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said there was no political pressure from the administration. He said that testing asymptomatic patients too early could produce false negatives and contribute to the virus’s spread.
CNN and The New York Times reported on Wednesday that US public health officials were ordered by high-level members of the Trump administration to push forward with the changes.
CDC director Robert Redfield issued a statement on Thursday that “everyone who needs a Covid-19 test, can get a test,” but “everyone who wants a test does not necessarily need a test.”
Globally, many nations advocate early testing. The World Health Organization on Thursday said, that resources permitting, people exposed to the coronavirus should be tested even if they do not show immediate symptoms of infection.
European governments have used broad testing and isolation to control the virus. France, for instance, recommends that anyone who thinks they need a test should get one and in Germany, people with close contact of 15 minutes or more with a person with Covid-19 are advised to have a test.
Updated
A telephone call on coronavirus economic relief between US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and an adviser to president Donald Trump has with no breakthrough, and Pelosi said talks would not resume until the Trump administration agreed to $2.2tn in aid.
Pelosi and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows spoke by phone for about 25 minutes, the first chance in weeks to resume stalled Covid-19 aid negotiations. But the two sides soon appeared to be as far apart as ever. Pelosi said:
This conversation made clear that the White House continues to disregard the needs of the American people as the coronavirus crisis devastates lives and livelihoods.
We’re willing to come down - meet them in the middle - that would be $2.2 trillion, and when they’re ready to do that we’ll be ready to discuss and negotiate the particulars.
But we can’t go any less because we have to meet the needs of the American people we will not short change them we will not nickel and dime them.
Meadows and Pelosi are two of the four negotiators who were involved in talks on legislation to help Americans and businesses suffering from a coronavirus pandemic that has now killed nearly 180,000 people.
The others are treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and senate democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
The talks broke down on 7 August, with the sides far apart on major issues including the size of unemployment benefits for tens of millions of people made jobless by the pandemic, aid for state and local governments and funding for schools and food support programmes.
The Democratic-controlled House in May passed a $3.4tn coronavirus relief bill but Pelosi offered to reduce that sum by $1tn. The White House, which had proposed $1tn in aid, rejected the offer.
Democrats have since demanded repeatedly that the White House agree to “meet in the middle”.
The Pelosi-Meadows phone call came hours before Trump was due to accept his party’s nomination Thursday evening. Some Democrats have said they did not expect the White House to resume negotiations in earnest until after this week’s Republican national convention.
On Wednesday, Meadows said in an interview with Politico that he was not optimistic negotiations would resume soon.
Updated
A group of South America presidents have agreed to information sharing and coordination on access to eventual Covid-19 vaccines to counter the virus which has the continent within its grip, Chile’s foreign minister said.
Andres Allamand said there would be multiple benefits to a coordinated approach to obtaining a vaccine by members of the Prosur bloc, made up of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador and Guyana.
“A joint effort would bring benefits, particularly in terms of access, quantities and guaranteed prices,” he said.
The discussions reflect the intense jockeying for position of developed and developing nations to ensure their citizens get early and affordable access to Covid-19 vaccines.
More than 150 vaccines are currently being developed and tested around the world, according to the World Health Organization, with 25 human clinical trials.
Trials of vaccines including those developed by Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac and AstraZeneca are already underway or due to start shortly in Latin America, a current hotspot of the pandemic.
Allamand said the bloc discussed the production in Argentina and Mexico of the vaccine created by British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and the “very advanced” production work in Brazil, and the potential for those initiatives to benefit the wider region.
He said Chile was also conducting its own vaccine diplomacy further afield.
“We in Chile are following the evolution of at least five projects and we have been in contact with some of those laboratories and countries specifically to be able to get access to those vaccines at reasonable prices and as quickly as possible,” he said.
Allamand said the Prosur leaders also agreed to coordinate the eventual reopening of their borders, putting together a technical commission that will report back on how this could be done within 10 days, potentially including stricter entry requirements such as a negative PCR Covid-19 test.
Reports of Syrian health care facilities filling up, and increasing death notices and burials, appear to indicate that actual coronavirus cases in the war-torn country far exceed official figures confirmed by the government, a senior UN humanitarian official has said.
Syria has so far reported more than 2,500 cases of Covid-19, including 100 deaths.
However, UN Assistant secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Ramesh Rajasingham, told the UN Security Council that rising patient numbers are adding pressure to the fragile health system in Syria, now in its 10th year of war.
Many people are reluctant to seek care at medical facilities, leading to more severe complications when they do arrive, he said, adding that health workers still lack sufficient personal protective equipment and associated supplies.
Of the virus cases confirmed by the Syrian Ministry of Health, Rajasingham said, the majority cannot be traced to a known source.
He said several health facilities briefly suspended operations this month because of capacity issues and staff becoming infected by the coronavirus.
In the Al Hol camp in northeast Syria, where 65,000 mainly women and children connected to Islamic State fighters are detained, Rajasingham said 12 health facilities had to suspend operations this month due to staff becoming infected, having to self-isolate, or due to lack of personal protective equipment.
Both field hospitals at the camp have since resumed operations, he said.
Germany and Belgium, who are in charge of Syrian humanitarian issues in the Security Council, said in a joint statement that the spread of Covid-19 across the country is increasing exponentially.”
Testing capacities remain very low, so most cases may go unnoticed, they said. “Numbers we hear may only represent the tip of the iceberg.”
They also warned that “the destruction of health facilities and the shortage of health workers dramatically imperil any response”.
Updated
Poland reintroduces ban on flights from 46 countries
Poland will ban flights from 46 countries, including France and Spain, as of 2 September, according to a draft regulation published on Thursday, as the country grapples with a spike in coronavirus infections.
The move follows targeted measures to reintroduce restrictions on public life in the worst affected parts of the country, as the government tries to tackle the spread of the virus without resorting to a complete lockdown.
“Due to the threat of spreading SARS CoV-2 virus infections, it is necessary to exercise the right to introduce air traffic bans... in order to minimize the threat to public health,” the regulation said.
Poland closed its borders and suspended flights in March to stop the spread of the coronavirus. However, it progressively loosened restrictions on public life, with shopping centres, hotels and restaurants all reopening in May.
Polish national airline PLL LOT resumed international flights on 1 July almost four months after suspending them.
Other countries affected by the ban are popular tourist destinations Montenegro and Croatia, as well as Romania, the US, Israel, Mexico and Brazil.
Poland has reported 64,689 cases of the novel coronavirus and 2,010 deaths.
Updated
Gambia’s president Adama Barrow has extended a state of emergency in mainland Africa’s smallest nation by 21 days as coronavirus cases surged.
Gambia, with a population of just over 2 million, has reported 2,743 cases since the outbreak in March, and 93 deaths. The daily reported cases were relatively low until mid-July.
Cases have increased exponentially in the country, which is mostly surrounded by Senegal, in the last couple of weeks, prompting the government to reimpose restrictive measures.
Neighbouring Senegal has reported 13,294 cases with 277 deaths.
Public gatherings in Gambia have been banned, dusk-to-dawn curfew declared, and schools remain closed. Places of worship may remain open with restrictive safety measures in place, the statement said.
Pret a Manger is to cut nearly 2,900 jobs in the UK after the desertion of high streets due to the coronavirus pandemic sent its sales plummeting, fuelling concerns about the economic impact of sustained remote working.
Hours after the business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry warned that cities could become “ghost towns” unless the government acts, the sandwich chain said it had been ravaged by the loss of passing trade.
The group reopened 367 of its 410 UK shops last month but sales have been 60% lower than last year, leading to the expansion of a programme of cuts that was previously expected to affect 1,000 people, with 30 branches set to close.
Pret’s chief executive, Pano Christou, said:
I’m gutted that we’ve had to lose so many colleagues. Although we’re now starting to see a steady but slow recovery, the pandemic has taken away almost a decade of growth at Pret.
Netherlands to close mink farms after coronavirus outbreaks
More than 100 mink farms in the Netherlands will be ordered closed by March after animals at dozens of locations contracted the coronavirus, Dutch news agency ANP has reported.
Hundreds of thousands of the ferret-like animals, which are bred for their fur, have been culled in the Netherlands and other European countries since the virus outbreak.
The Netherlands had already intended to halt its mink breeding industry by 2024, but decided to bring forward the closures after several farm employees contracted Covid-19.
The government has set aside €180m ($212m) to compensate farmers, the ANP report said.
According to the Dutch Federation of Pelt Farmers, the Netherlands exports around €90m ($101m) worth of fur a year for use in China and globally. The country had roughly 900,000 mink at 130 farms, Statistics Netherlands data said.
Nigeria has delayed the resumption of international flights until 5 September, aviation authorities said, citing logistical problems.
The vast west African nation of 200 million inhabitants shut its airspace in March as part of measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, aviation minister Hadi Sirika said on Twitter international flights would resume on Sunday from Lagos and Abuja.
But the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authorities, Musa Nuhu, told reporters in Abuja on Thursday “international flights (are) now shifted to September 5”.
“While airlines and airports were ready, other non-aviation logistics require the one-week extension to be ready.”
Nigeria resumed domestic flights last month after a five-month shut-down because of the pandemic.
The virus has so far infected over 53,000 and claimed 1,010 lives in Nigeria, according to the health authorities.
Qatar has decided to reopen all mosques across the country for daily and Friday prayers from 1 September, a statement by the supreme committee for crisis management has announced.
The statement said this would be part of the fourth and final phase of a plan that started on 15 June, aimed at gradually lifting coronavirus restrictions.
Hazmat-clad officials rushed on board a Ryanair flight moments before it departed from London Stansted to remove a passenger who had tested positive for coronavirus.
On Wednesday night, a passenger received a text from test and trace minutes before departure informing him that he had Covid-19. He and the passenger he was travelling with were then taken off the plane before it was due to fly to Pisa in Italy.
The pair were moved to the airport’s isolation area, where they were met by health authorities. Their seats and the overhead cabin bins were then disinfected, with the plane finally leaving over an hour behind schedule.
Ryanair said in a statement: “The passenger and his travel companion were immediately offloaded and taken to a Stansted airport isolation area where they were assisted by local public health authorities.”
Updated
United Airlines announces biggest pilot furloughs in its history
United Airlines is preparing for the biggest pilot furloughs of its history after announcing on Thursday the need to cut 2,850 pilot jobs this year, or about 21% of the total, without further US government aid.
Airlines, reeling from the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on air travel, have asked the US government for another $25bn to cover employee payroll through March.
The first tranche, which banned any job cuts until 1 October, expires at the end of September, but talks in Washington have stalled as Congress has struggled to reach agreement on a broader coronavirus assistance package.
United’s planned job cuts, released in a memo to employees and shared with the media, would take place between 1 October and 30 November, and are significantly higher than those announced earlier this week by rivals Delta Air Lines and American Airlines.
Facing a shrinking industry in the years ahead, airlines have generally tried to mitigate the number of forced job cuts by offering early retirement or voluntary departure deals, but some carriers’ packages have been more attractive than others.
“While other airlines have chosen to reduce manpower through voluntary means, it is tragic that United has limited those options for our pilots and instead has chosen to furlough more pilots than ever before in our history,” the union representing United’s 13,000 pilots said in a statement.
United said the numbers were based on current travel demand for the remainder of the year and its anticipated flying schedule, which it said “continues to be fluid with the resurgence of Covid-19 in regions across the US.”
Chicago-based United is more exposed than its peers to international travel, which is expected to take longer to rebound from the pandemic.
Updated
The World Health Organization has said it is setting up a committee to consider changing the rules on declaring an international health emergency, following criticism of its Covid-19 pandemic response.
The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) over the new coronavirus on 30 January - at which time the respiratory disease had infected fewer than 100 people outside China, and claimed no lives beyond its borders.
But under the current International Health Regulations (IHR) governing preparedness and response for health emergencies, there are no lower, intermediate levels of alarm beneath a full PHEIC, either on a global or regional scale.
The WHO has faced accusations - notably from Washington - of mishandling the pandemic, and waiting too long to sound the alarm.
WHO experts had met on 22 and 23 January, but at that point did not conclude that the outbreak merited the high state of alert of a full PHEIC.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference on Thursday that the Covid-19 pandemic had been an “acid test” for countries as well as for the IHR.
Now the WHO will set up a review committee into the global regulations to see whether any changes should be made, Tedros said.
He added that even before the coronavirus pandemic, emergencies such as the Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo had exposed flaws in the IHR.
Such emergencies showed that “some elements of the IHR may need review - including the binary nature of the (alert) mechanism,” Tedros said.
Several countries have also called for a more nuanced system, for example with three levels of alert, or regional alarms.
Tedros hopes the committee will present a progress report to the World Health Assembly - the WHO’s decision-making body, made up of member states - in November, and a full report to the assembly in May.
“WHO is committed to ending the pandemic, and to working with all countries to learn from it, and to ensure that together we build the healthier, safer, fairer world that we want,” he said.
The committee is separate from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR), set up to evaluate the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The IPPR is being headed by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
An Italian court has slapped down a decree issued by Sicily’s right-leaning leader Nello Musumeci ordering the closure of migrant centres on the island to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The Sicilian regional administrative court approved an appeal lodged by the central government in Rome for Sunday’s decree to be scrapped, the AGI news agency reported.
Musumeci had clashed with officials in Rome but anti-migrant former interior minister Matteo Salvini had praised the move ahead of a flurry of local elections next month.
The Sicilian leader had ordered that all migrants on the island’s “hot spots” and reception centres be transferred to facilities outside the island.
Musumeci’s decree also banned any migrant from “entering, transiting and stopping over on the Sicilian region’s territory with vessels big and small, including those belonging to charities.”
But the court disagreed, saying “there was no rigorous investigation to demonstrate that the spread of Covid-19 was worsening among the local population because of the migration phenomenon”.
The measures announced by Musumeci, who was elected on a right-wing ticket, “seemed to go beyond the scope of the powers conferred upon regions,” in managing the coronavirus crisis, the court said.
Migration has for years been a hot-button political issue in Italy, a main EU landing point for people crossing the Mediterranean and arriving in Sicily and sister island Lampedusa.
The court will now convene again on 17 September at Sicily’s request which is planning to present new evidence to boost its case.
Dozens of migrants hosted on Sicily however have tested positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks.
After a pandemic hiatus, Extinction Rebellion plans to resume large-scale street protests next week in a bid to push for more rapid action on increasingly evident climate threats.
With heat records broken, and wildfires, hurricanes and floods wreaking havoc from India to the United States, “we know humanity itself is at very, very grave risk,” said Clare Farrell, a co-founder of the climate activist group.
But huge behavioural changes in response to the Covid-19 pandemic - and trillions of dollars in government spending in response - also indicate the viability of fast and large-scale action on serious global threats, she said.
“It’s shown us things can change very rapidly when people realise there is an existential threat to human life,” she said.
Activists said a series of smaller regional protests - many around airports, an important source of planet-heating emissions
- will kick off this Friday in Britain, followed by marches in London, Manchester and Cardiff starting next Tuesday.
The protests are expected to draw fewer participants than previous actions, as organisers try to adhere to government social distancing guidelines.
“Obviously we’re expecting lower numbers than in October because of Covud and because we’re encouraging social distancing,” said Anneka Sutcliffe, a protest organiser, referring to the group’s last major protests.
She said she expected “thousands” of activists to take part.
Planned action in May was cancelled amid the virus outbreak. But an easing of restrictions - schools, restaurants and offices are re-opening - has created space to resume, she said.
Paul Stephens, a police liaison for Extinction Rebellion, said restrictions on gatherings of 30 or more people mean the group risks heavy fines - though it says demonstrations should be exempt.
Updated
Tour de France in doubt after Covid red alert issued before Grand Départ in Nice
The 2020 Tour de France, scheduled to start in Nice on Saturday, is edging closer to collapse after the Alpes-Maritimes region, site of the opening stages of the race, was placed on red alert owing to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The tensions surrounding the race ramped up further still on Thursday evening after the Lotto-Soudal team announced that two of their team’s support staff has tested “non-negative” for Covid-19 and had been sent home from Nice. “Safety remains priority number one,” the statement read.
“Only world wars have stopped the Tour de France,” the Tour director, Christian Prudhomme, said in March this year, but the rapidly growing concerns over the wisdom of going forward with this year’s race led to a cross-examination of the prime minister, Jean Castex, by journalists on Thursday.
“We have taken numerous precautions and health protocols and I’d remind you that this is an open-air event,” Castex said. “The places where the virus spreads and there is transmission have no organisation. The Tour has an organiser.”
Confirming that Nice was one of 19 new regions to be placed under red alert, Castex stated that “the pandemic is regaining ground and now’s the time to intervene”, adding: “France must do everything to prevent a new lockdown.”
But the French education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, echoed Prudhomme in saying the Tour should go ahead. “It is a sign that we can continue to live, and of the resilience of our society,” he said.
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be leading the coronavirus blog for the next few hours.
As always, feel free to get in touch with any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Summary
- France reported its second-highest level of cases ever and a new post-lockdown high. Over the past 24 hours, 6,111 cases were recorded, the highest level since lockdown ended and the second-highest ever since the 7,578 high set on 30 March at the height of the epidemic. It brings the total number of infections in the country to 259,698.
- The United States’ coronavirus death toll exceeded 180,000, by far the highest globally. According to a tally by John Hopkins University, a further 43 fatalities took the total to 180,020.
-
Italy recorded its highest number of daily cases since May. A further 1,411 people tested positive for Covid-19, the country’s highest tally since 6 May, bringing the total reported to 263,949.
- Travellers arriving in the UK from Switzerland, Jamaica and the Czech Republic after 3pm GMT on Saturday will need to self-isolate for 14 days. The UK transport secretary Grant Shapps said the countries were removed from the travel corridor list in order to keep infection rates down. People arriving from Cuba, however, would no longer have to quarantine, he added.
- Schoolchildren aged six and over must wear face masks to class, the Spanish government announced, unveiling a plan to reopen schools just days before the start of the new academic year. The health minister, Salvador Illa, said that while closing down schools could be necessary if multiple cases of the virus were detected across different classrooms, that would be the last resort.
- The UK recorded its highest daily tally of cases since 12 June. Another 1,522 cases were reported and the UK’s cumulative death toll based on the government’s statistics reached 41,477.
- France is to order the mandatory wearing of face masks across Paris to curb surging coronavirus infections. With the R value in the country having risen to 1.4, the prime minister Jean Castex warned that the outbreak could spiral out of control if swift action is not taken.
That’s all from me, Lucy Campbell, ‘til tomorrow. Thank you so much to everybody who has been reading along and to those who got in touch throughout the day with tips and suggestions.
When Ángel Rodríguez Guzmán was admitted to a Madrid hospital in mid-March, Spain was in the early days of one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.
As Spain began re-opening its borders to tourists in June, the 70-year-old remained in the hospital fighting double pneumonia. At one point doctors gave his family special permission for a visit to say their goodbyes.
On Thursday – after 158 days in intensive care – Guzmán was wheeled out of the unit, his doctors and nurses cheering as word spread that he had tested negative for the virus.
His months-long stint in intensive care is believed to be the longest to-date of any Covid-19 patient in Spain.
After more than four months on a ventilator, he remains in hospital. “He has won the battle, but not the war,” his doctor Alexis Jaspe told Europa Press. “He’s not out of danger yet.”
The news was a bright moment in a day that saw Spain add 9,658 cases to a tally that already ranks as the highest in western Europe. More than 86,000 cases of the virus have been diagnosed across the country in the past 14 days – nearly a third of them in Madrid.
Still, the country’s health emergency chief was careful to draw a distinction between the current situation and the country’s dark days in March and April. “At the peak of the pandemic up to 55% of patients admitted were for coronavirus. Now it’s 5%,” Fernando Simón told reporters.
The rise in cases has cast doubt over plans to send children back to school in the coming weeks. On Thursday the government said it was aiming for all students to physically attend class for the first time since schools were shut down in mid-March. “It is mandatory to go to class,” the education minister, Isabel Celaá, told reporters.
The return to classrooms is subject to conditions: Children over the age of six will have to wear a mask at all times, including while in class, and all but the youngest pupils will have to keep a distance of 1.5 metres from each other. Children will also have their temperature taken daily and be made to wash their hands at least five times a day.
France records new post-lockdown record of daily cases
France has recorded 6,111 new confirmed coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the highest level since lockdown ended and the second-highest ever, since the 7,578 high set on March 30 during lockdown and at the height of the epidemic.
The French health ministry said the total number of confirmed infections now stood at 259,698. On Wednesday, the country recorded 5,429 new infections, which was a new post-lockdown record.
A senior official at the Czech Republic’s tourism board said they “deeply regret” the UK’s decision to remove the country from its quarantine exemption list.
Katarina Hobbs, director of CzechTourism UK & Ireland, said:
The Czech Republic remains a safe country to travel to. It will continue to monitor and manage the current situation whilst welcoming visitors to the country.
This is a British government decision that we deeply regret and hope that the UK government will reconsider their decision very soon.
She added:
We continue to provide important information to tourists who are visiting - which includes avoiding crowded areas and following the strict rules that have been implemented by the Czech Republic government.
The Czech Republic can assure all visitors that strict rules and measures are in place for travellers and citizens - wherever the location.
Nigeria might fall into recession, the head of the country’s budget office has said.
The director general of budget office, Ben Akabueze, told reporters:
Because of the twin effect of Covid-19 pandemic and the drop in oil price, subsequently that it is expected that Q3 will be negative and the country might fall into recession.
It would be the second quarter of negative growth after Africa’s largest economy contracted by 6% in the second quarter of the year. Nigeria’s last recession was in 2016.
As we have reported, US deaths from coronavirus have topped 180,000 after a surge of new cases in June and July, particularly in hotspots like California, Florida, and Texas.
There are signs of an improving outlook, Reuters reports. Last week, deaths fell 17% from the prior week and below an average of 1,000 a day for the first time in weeks, according to a Reuters analysis.
However, while US metrics on cases, deaths, hospitalisations and test positivity rates are all heading downward, health experts fear there could be another surge as schools reopen and colder weather forces more gatherings indoors.
US confirmed cases are now more than 5.8 million - the highest total number of cases in the world. The US death toll is also the highest in the world.
On a per capita basis, the United States ranks 12th in the world for the number of deaths, with 54 deaths per 100,000 people, and tenth in the world for cases, with 1,774 cases per 100,000 residents, according to a Reuters analysis.
US consumer confidence dropped to a more than six-year low in August as households worried about the labor market and incomes, casting doubts on the sustainability of the economy’s recovery from the Covid-19 recession.
The ebb in confidence followed the expiration of a $600 weekly unemployment benefit supplement on 31 July.
For weeks now, Republicans and Democrats have been deadlocked over the size and shape of a fifth coronavirus-response bill, on top of the approximately $3 trillion already enacted into law.
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US death toll exceeds 180,000
The number of deaths in the United States from Covid-19 has surpassed 180,000, according to a tally by John Hopkins University.
According to that tally, the recording of a further 43 deaths took total US fatalities to 180,020 on Thursday, the highest in the world, followed by Brazil and Mexico.
A total of 5,838,695 cases have been recorded in the US, also the highest tally globally, followed by Brazil and India.
There will be more on this story as we get it.
Spain diagnosed 3,781 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, health emergency coordinator Fernando Simon told a news briefing on Thursday, slightly higher than the 3,594 reported the previous day.
He did not immediately provide the cumulative total of cases, which reached 419,849 on Wednesday - the highest number in western Europe. Simon said 132 people had died from the disease over the past seven days.
Italy records highest daily number of cases since 6 May
New cases of Covid-19 continue to increase rapidly in Italy, as on Thursday 1,411 have tested positive in the last 24 hours. This is country’s highest daily tally since 6 May.
On Wednesday, Italy reported 1,367 new cases. Five more people have died with the virus in the last 24 hours, and the death toll now stands at 35,463. The total number of cases is now up to 263,949.
One cluster in particular is raising concerns among Italian health authorities as they are trying to trace visitors to former Formula One team boss Flavio Briatore’s Sardinian nightclub, after more than 60 confirmed Covid cases were linked to the venue.
Billionaire, on Sardinia’s Emerald Coast, has hosted thousands of guests in August, including hundreds of Italian and international VIPs. On Tuesday, Briatore was confirmed to have tested positive for Covid-19 after being admitted to hospital in Milan, according to a statement from his staff.
Officials are now facing the challenge of contacting everyone who has been at the club in recent weeks, Italian media reports suggest. Billionaire welcomed between 8,000 and 11,000 guests in the first weeks of August and authorities fear many registered with false names or phone numbers.
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Travellers arriving in the UK from Switzerland, the Czech Republic or Jamaica after 3pm GMT on Saturday will need to quarantine themselves for 14 days to slow the spread of Covid-19, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said on Thursday.
“Data shows we need to remove the Czech Republic, Jamaica and Switzerland from our list of coronavirus travel corridors to keep infection rates down,” Shapps said in a statement.
People arriving from Cuba however would no longer have to quarantine, he added.
More on our UK coronavirus live blog:
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Stricter measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak will be introduced across Portugal from mid-September as students return to schools and many workers go back to the office, the government said on Thursday.
The cabinet affairs minister Mariana Vieira da Silva told a news conference the new measures would only be announced in early September but said the whole country would be put under the so-called state of contingency.
“The measures will be worked out over the next few days and presented after a meeting between experts and policymakers,” said Vieira da Silva.
At the moment the only area in Portugal under the contingency category is Greater Lisbon, where gatherings are limited to 10 people, compared to 20 for the rest of the country.
The announcement came with the number of coronavirus cases in Portugal increasing, from 145 on Monday this week to nearly 400 on Thursday, with most of the infections reported in and around the capital. “We do not yet know whether yesterday’s and today’s increase means there is a growing trend,” Vieira da Silva said. “It is too early to draw that conclusion.”
The country, which has reported 56,673 cases so far, initially won praise for its quick response to the pandemic, but a wave of localised outbreaks in Lisbon worried authorities and forced them to re-impose some restrictions.
Concerns are now surfacing as the around 2 million students in Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million people, prepare to return to in-person classes from 14 September.
In July, the education minister, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, said face masks would be compulsory for teachers and students, who have been learning from home since March, and physical distancing measures would be adopted inside classrooms.
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Schoolchildren aged six and over must wear face masks to class, the Spanish government announced, unveiling a plan to reopen schools just days before the start of the new academic year.
With Spain registering the highest prevalence of the coronavirus in western Europe and diagnosing thousands of new cases every day, there had been speculation the new term might be postponed in the worst-affected areas.
But the health minister, Salvador Illa, said that while closing down schools could be necessary if multiple cases of the virus were detected across different classrooms, that would be the last resort.
“It would have to be studied on a case by case basis. This is not black and white,” he said at a joint news conference with the ministers for education and regional policy.
Since Spain came out of a strict lockdown at the end of June, transmission of the virus has rebounded fast. The health ministry diagnosed 3,594 new infections on Wednesday and has logged nearly 83,000 in the past two weeks. Almost 29,000 people have died since the onset of the pandemic.
Asked whether concerned parents would have the right to keep their children at home, the education minister Isabel Celaá said schools were safer than other places.
“It is mandatory to go to class. For anyone who is afraid, I must say that we have been working since day one for a safe environment,” she said, acknowledging there was no place with “zero risk.”
Besides mask use, children must keep a distance of 1.5 metres from each other, while primary school students will be assigned to small groups to take all classes and break times.
Prior to the announcement, Spain’s 17 regions had prepared their own back-to-school plans, all featuring variations of mask wearing, hygiene measures and reduced class sizes.
Teachers, students and parents have criticised the central government for waiting until the last minute to announce the nationwide rules.
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Journalists ask questions at the WHO briefing:
A journalist from Reuters said: Yesterday the CDC changed its recommendations for testing and said people who are asymptomatic for Covid-19 may not need to be tested. Is this a wise policy? Is the US out of step?
Maria van Kerkhove, WHO’s Covid19 technical lead and an infectious disease epidemiologist, said: “We have outlined guidance for countries at different stages of their outbreak ... What we have outlined are strategies to actively find cases and recommendations to test suspect cases.”
“So for this specific example of cluster investigative testing may need to be expanded to look for those on the mild end of the spectrum or those who are asymptomatic.”
She said testing and finding those who may be affected were “fundamental to breaking chains of transmission”.
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Coronavirus has had a profound effect on millions of people’s mental health, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at the latest briefing.
He said: “We humans are social beings, and it is natural and normal that we want to come together for all sorts of reasons. There are many ways we can be physically apart but remain socially connected. For many, the lack of social interaction caused by pandemic has had a profound effect on their mental health ... It has impacted the mental health of millions of people in terms of anxiety and fear. It has caused disruption to mental health services.”
He said that WHO will hold a global online advocacy event on mental health later this year.
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UK records highest daily case total since 12 June
The UK recorded 1,522 new cases of Covid-19 in the latest daily government statistics published on Thursday, the highest number since 12 June and up from 1,048 cases a day earlier.
A further 12 people were recorded as having died within 28 days of their first positive test for Covid-19, taking the UK’s cumulative death toll on this measure to 41,477.
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Tourism in Paris, one of the world’s most visited cities, has plunged due to the coronavirus, sparking fears of mass closures for thousands of businesses that rely on eager visitors from home and abroad, its senior regional official said Thursday.
Fourteen million fewer tourists explored the French capital in the first six months of 2020 compared to last year, Île-de-France (Paris region) president Valérie Pécresse said.
“Tourism is an extremely precious economic activity for Île-de-France which represents 500,000 jobs and seven 7 to 8% of regional growth,” Pécresse said at a press conference.
“For the past four years, we had been announcing a record number of visitors. So it is with great sadness that we have seen the pandemic shatter an extremely dynamic and flourishing sector,” Pécresse added.
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In the UK, town and city centres will become permanent “ghost towns” if people do not go back to the office, a senior business leader warned. If the business has been diverted from centres, has it been picked up elsewhere locally? I am interested in writing about it, please get in touch below to share your thoughts or suggest independent owners who have been doing better than expected.
Updated
Hello everyone. I am taking over the live blog while my colleague Lucy Campbell takes a break. Please do send over your thoughts and comments while I work. Thanks in advance.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
London Zoo began an annual weigh-in on Thursday with keepers keen to find out what effect the zoo’s longest closure since the second world war has had on its animals, having noticed some had suffered lockdown blues.
The nearly 200-year-old zoo’s finances have been savaged by the coronavirus that shuttered it till June, but its traditional week-long weigh-in will give staff a chance to see how its 19,000 animals have been faring.
Assistant curator of mammals, Teague Stubbington, said the logging of sizes and weights, and in some cases pregnancies,were always important to the zoo for tracking species’ health, but this time around it comes after a tricky period for some.
He added:
The Pygmy goats were so used to seeing children during the day that [during lockdown] they would miss them.
They were actually lining up at the gate to meet people and then at 10 o’clock [when no one was there] they were disappointed.
He said zoo staff would then try to cheer them up by going to see them during breaks.
Now open to limited numbers only, ZSL, the international conservation charity behind the zoo, is calling on the public to help it stay open by booking a ticket, joining as a member or make donations.
Stubbington said:
The loss of our visitors and the loss of income has made things really difficult. It has been the longest period of closure that we’ve had since the second world war.
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Libya’s Tripoli-based government has announced a 24-hour curfew to halt the spread of coronavirus as it struggles to contain protests over deteriorating living conditions and corruption.
The curfew, which took effect on Wednesday night, was imposed by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) three days after protests in the capital and the nearby town of Zawiya began to escalate.
The decision exempts people who need to go out for essential food or medicine at nearby shops, but it angered protest supporters who posted messages online saying it was designed to prevent further demonstrations.
Some defied the order on Wednesday night and went to central Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square, where they were confronted by armed groups with military vehicles that dispersed them by force, according to a witness and videos posted on social media.
On Thursday the GNA interior ministry said it was ready to protect protesters from armed groups and “mobs”. It earlier said it supported the right to peaceful protest, and blamed violence around demonstrations on Sunday on “infiltrators”.
Global rights group Amnesty International said at least six protesters were abducted on Sunday and several were wounded after armed men fired live ammunition.
The protests pose a new challenge for a weak and divided GNA after Turkish military support allowed it in June to repel a 14-month assault on Tripoli, located in Libya’s far north-west, by rival factions based in the east.
Fighting has died down since then and leaders from both rival camps endorsed a ceasefire last Friday.
Libya has been divided for more than five years between rival factions based in the east and west and engaged in a stop-start conflict with foreign backing. Tripoli is controlled by armed groups that are affiliated with the GNA, but often act with impunity.
Confirmed coronavirus infections have recently surged to more than 12,200, including 219 deaths, compounding misery caused by power and water cuts and an economic crisis partly triggered by a collapse in oil production.
“We have nothing in Libya,” said Moez, a 21-year-old student who carried a banner saying “Corruption can’t build states” as he protested on Sunday.
They speak about oil and gas and we only hear about the revenues but we live like animals – no water, no power, no money ... nothing at all.
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The manager of the France football team, Didier Deschamps, has said that the midfielder Paul Pogba has tested positive for coronavirus.
That means the player will be unavailable for selection for France’s upcoming international fixtures.
Tanguy Ndombele, who plays for Tottenham, has also been diagnosed with the virus and stood down from the French squad.
For more updates from the UK, head over to our UK coronavirus live blog:
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Poland will shorten its quarantine period for those suspected of being infected with coronavirus to 10 days from 14 days, the health minister said on Thursday, amid a surge in new daily cases.
“We will change the rules for quarantine and isolation ... We would like to propose the shortening of quarantine to 10 days,” Adam Niedzielski told a press conference.
Poland has recorded 64,689 confirmed cases and 2,010 deaths.
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The German government has rejected calls for a relaxation of its measures to tackle the coronavirus crisis, and is instead seeking countrywide consensus for stricter regulations, according to media reports.
A draft proposal, dubbed “Merkel’s secret plan” by national media, after the chancellor, Angela Merkel, signalled she wanted a nationwide strategy, would foresee the banning of large gatherings at least until the end of the year, the restriction of private gatherings and the introduction of a countrywide fine for those refusing to wear face coverings.
The draft was leaked to several news outlets on Thursday morning ahead of a much anticipated video conference between Merkel and the leaders of the country’s 16 states at which she will urge them to adopt regulations which would apply nationwide.
So far Germany’s approach to the crisis has been very much state-driven, with a high degree of disagreement over the prevention measures according to how badly an individual state had been hit by the pandemic, resulting in confusion and constant bickering between regions.
Since the daily infection rate has been on the rise for the past month, with winter approaching, and the infection expected to continue to spread, there has been a growing consensus that Germany needs a unified approach, not least for citizens moving from one state to another.
According to the plan, private gatherings will be restricted to 25 people in private homes and gardens, and to 50 participants at private gatherings held elsewhere.
In the paper, the chancellery states:
Unfortunately, the last few weeks have shown that parties among families and groups of friends are especially able to cause the spread of infection.
It urges people to maintain a distance of 1.5 metres and to hold gatherings outside, wherever possible. But it also suggests that if possible, events should be cancelled altogether.
We would request all citizens to critically weigh up in each and every case, whether, how and to what extent private celebrations are necessary and acceptable in the light of the occurrence of infection.
Larger gatherings, from concerts to village fetes, marksmen’s festivals and funfairs are banned initially until the end of the year. Exceptions may be granted if the incidence of new infections is less than 15 per 100,000, and only if it can be proved that visiting participants in these gatherings are from regions where the infection rate also remains under control.
The chancellery also wants to enforce a nationwide fine of at least €50 for those who refuse to wear a face covering.
The availability of tests for those returning from areas considered low-risk, will no longer be free from 15 September, partly to preserve stocks due to fears that resources for testing are running low. But returnees from high-risk areas, including parts of France, Spain, Croatia, Egypt and Turkey, will be legally obliged to quarantine for 14 days. Authorities in each of the states will be responsible for ensuring individuals stick to the quarantine rules.
By lunchtime it was reported that most state leaders agreed to back the fine for non-wearers of masks, but that other proposals were being strenuously argued against.
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Four members of a dwindling tribe in India’s far off Andaman Islands have tested positive for coronavirus, officials said on Thursday as the country reported 75,760 new infections, the highest-single-day rise.
The Great Andamanese are one of the six tribes who have lived in the Andamans in the Bay of Bengal for thousands of years.
Only about 50 members survive, after thousands were killed by British colonisers in the 19th century or died later due to diseases. Indian officials have since tried to protect their way of life while opening up the islands to the fruits of development such as access to healthcare.
Dr Avijit Roy, who is leading the fight against the outbreak of Covid-19 in the islands, said they had run tests on the Great Andamanese living on one of the coral-reef islands in the archipelago and four of the men had turned out to be positive.
“They have been moved to hospital,” he told Reuters. Officials believe the men may have travelled to the main Andaman islands and contracted the virus there.
The London-based Survival International said authorities must work to prevent the virus reaching other remote tribes.
*It is extremely alarming that members of the Great Andamanese tribe tested positive for Covid-19. They will be all too aware of the devastating impact of epidemics that have decimated their people,” said Sophie Grig, senior researcher.
On the Indian mainland, in the eastern state of Odisha, a member of a hill tribe had also tested positive, a state official said.
Cases have been rising steadily across India with the total number of cases standing at 3.2 million behind the United States and Brazil.
The world’s second-most populous country has posted the highest single-day caseload in the world every day since 7 August, a Reuters tally based on official reporting showed.
Updated
Face masks to be mandatory across Paris as R number rises to 1.4 in France
France is to order the mandatory wearing of face masks across Paris to curb surging coronavirus infections, the prime minister Jean Castex said on Thursday, warning that the outbreak could spiral out of control if swift action is not taken.
“The virus is spreading all over the country,” Castex told a news conference, flanked by his health and education ministers.
The spread of the epidemic could become exponential if we do not react quickly.
The reproduction “R” number of infections in France has risen to 1.4, Castex said, meaning that every 10 people with the virus will infect another 14. An R number above 1 can lead to exponential growth.
France made it compulsory to wear a face mask in closed public spaces such as shops and banks on 21 July, and in early August it became compulsory outdoors in crowded parts of the capital, including the Sacre Coeur basilica of Montmartre.
A Paris City Hall spokesman said the decision to extend the order city-wide was taken by the government and that it was not yet clear when it would take effect.
Castex, who oversaw France’s emergence from lockdown before his appointment as premier in July, has said life must go on but that France will not let down its guard as scientific advisers warn of a second wave hitting in the autumn.
State-subsidised furloughs saved jobs and boosted consumer spending during the summer, spurring an economic rebound that could see France’s economy contract less than the forecast 11%, the finance minister Bruno Le Maire said.
France reported 5,429 new daily infections on Wednesday, a new post-lockdown high and a level not seen since the height of the epidemic in early April.
Infections were rocketing among young people, Castex said, as he urged grandparents not to pick up their grandchildren from school when the academic year begins on 1 Sepember.
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Myanmar closed schools nationwide on Thursday as coronavirus infections increased, a decision broadly welcomed by parents worried about a rapid spread of the virus.
Myanmar has reported more than 200 cases since early last week after a month without any reports of domestic transmission.
Most recent infections have been outside the biggest city, Yangon, and authorities believe they were more contagious than previously seen.
Thin Thin, a Yangon parent, told Reuters:
The students have many years ahead for studying. Taking precautions against the virus is much more important for all of us.
Khin Zaw Haling, a government official, said health measures must be followed to keep the threat at bay, after 70 new infections on Tuesday, the country’s biggest daily rise.
Now we have to again take more individual precautions.
With just six deaths and 586 infections since late March, the impact of the coronavirus has been relatively light in Myanmar, compared with Indonesia and the Philippines, which are reporting daily cases in the thousands.
Another parent, Swe Sin Hlaing, said people in Myanmar had been careless and there was no room for complacency.
We all have to be careful. If we don’t take precautions, the situation would be uncontrollable.
The new outbreak is concentrated in the state of Rakhine, about 311 miles from Yangon, with most cases tracked to the state capital of Sittwe, where a lockdown and curfew are in place.
Sittwe is also home to crowded camps where 100,000 Rohingya Muslims have been confined since violence erupted in 2012, with limited access to healthcare.
One new case in Yangon on Thursday was linked to Sittwe.
Not all parents are happy about schools closing again, however, and worry about disruptions.
Aye Aye Htwe, 53, told Reuters:
I’m afraid the students won’t pay attention to their studies if the schools keeps closing.
Germany plans to keep fans out of stadiums until at least the end of the year and get tougher on mask-wearing to combat a worrying rise in coronavirus infections, under a draft seen by AFP.
The chancellor Angela Merkel is holding talks with the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states to officially agree a package of new measures, which will apply nationwide.
The talks are aimed at creating a more coherent approach to the pandemic after daily infection numbers in recent weeks soared to highs not seen since April.
Under the federal system each state has the right to impose its own coronavirus regulations, leading to a patchwork of rules critics say can be confusing. The current penalties on flouting mask rules, for instance, vary wildly, from 40 euros in Hamburg and 250 euros in Bavaria to no fines at all in Brandenburg.
Although Germany has weathered the pandemic relatively well so far, the recent rise in cases “must be taken very seriously”, the draft agreement reads.
The goal of the federal government and the states is to work together to reduce the infection numbers as much as possible.
The new regulations will include a minimum fine of 50 euros for anyone caught without a face mask in places where wearing one is compulsory, such as in shops and on public transport.
Germany also plans to extend a ban on large events from the end of October until 31 December. It will apply to everything from festivals and concerts to large sporting events with spectators.
The decision deals a blow to German football clubs that had been hoping to welcome supporters back into stadiums this autumn.
It also goes against the interior minister Horst Seehofer’s earlier suggestion that it should be possible to hold Bundesliga football games “with just a few spectators keeping a large distance”.
The draft text does, however, allow for exceptions to the ban in regions with low infection rates “and where it can be guaranteed that participants are exclusively from this region or nearby regions” with similarly low case numbers.
When it comes to smaller gatherings, German authorities want to limit parties in private homes to 25 people.
The draft urges citizens “to limit the number of people they come into contact with”, to keep a distance of 1.5 metres (five feet) and to opt for gatherings “in the open air” over indoor ones.
As in other countries, Germany’s surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks has been mainly linked to summer travel and friends and family gatherings.
Earlier this month, Germany introduced free mandatory tests for travellers returning from high-risk areas and free voluntary tests for those coming back from elsewhere.
But following concerns that German labs were becoming overburdened, the draft document says it will scrap the free tests for those returning from non-risk areas from 15 September.
Authorities also plan to step up controls to ensure people adhere to quarantine rules.
Germany on Thursday reported 1,507 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 237,936, according to the Robert Koch disease control institute. The country has so far recorded 9,285 deaths.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen warned top officials to take special care to comply with coronavirus rules after the shock resignation of EU trade boss Phil Hogan.
Her words of caution came just hours after Hogan stepped down after a week of pressure over a breach of coronavirus guidelines in his home country of Ireland.
She said in a statement:
[As] Europeans make sacrifices and accept painful restrictions, I expect the members of the college to be particularly vigilant about compliance with applicable national or regional rules or recommendations.
The commission college is the EU’s de facto executive cabinet, which holds 27 members, one from each member state.
Von der Leyen thanked Hogan “warmly for his valuable contribution” and said she respected his decision.
Tonight Commissioner @PhilHoganEU submitted his resignation. I respect his decision. I am grateful for his work as a Trade Commissioner and a member of my team. https://t.co/xPcdLX3kmy
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) August 26, 2020
Hogan’s demise came as a shock to the EU and top officials heaped praise on the former Irish environment minister who has been at the commission since 2014, initially in charge of agriculture.
“This is a sad day. We will sorely miss you, your stamina, dedication and negotiating talent,” wrote Sabine Weyand, the commission’s top civil servant on trade and a former Brexit negotiator.
Martin Selmayr, who was chief of staff to Von der Leyen’s predecessor, said that without Hogan there would have been no EU-Japan trade agreement, nor a 2018 trade truce between the United States and EU.
“He made a mistake, true. But he served remarkably,” Selmayr tweeted.
Good morning from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next eight hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me throughout the day as I work, your tips are always welcome!
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
New vaccines could be available from the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021, according to the French health minister, Olivier Véran.
Researchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine, with more than 170 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Vaccines normally require years of testing and additional time to produce at scale, but scientists are hoping to develop a vaccine within 12 to 18 months.
Vaccines mimic the virus – or part of the virus – they protect against, stimulating the immune system to develop antibodies. They must follow higher safety standards than other drugs because they are given to millions of healthy people.
Europe sees increase in infections among younger people – WHO regional director
European countries have seen an increased incidence in Covid-19 infections among younger age groups this summer. And, with winter coming, they are likely come into closer contact with elderly people in the populations, which could lead to an increase in hospitalisations and deaths, Kluge has said.
He has warned young people that “no one is invincible” and that this pandemic is a “tornado with a long tail”. It is known what has to be done, he says, calling on nations to put in place effective test-and-trace systems.
But, Kluge says, we are not back in February, when nations were taken by surprise by the speed and ferocity of the virus’s spread. Instead, he says, “vigilance is the key word” and we now know enough to be able to manage the situation. That would include, for example, keeping educational institutions open.
Updated
Here’s a little more on those comments from the French prime minister Jean Castex, who has said the government must move fast to head off a new wave as the virus’s reproduction level jumps.
France’s reproduction “R” number is now 1.4, Castex has said, indicating that the overall epidemic is growing.
The virus is spreading all over the country. The spread of the epidemic can be exponential if we do not react quickly.
Grandparents are being told not to pick up their grandchildren from school as the government is worried about hospitals being overwhelmed.
The government is hoping to avoid a new nationwide lockdown, but the country has been facing a resurgence of new Covid-19 infections since July, with an acceleration from mid-August.
The health ministry on Wednesday reported 5,429 new daily infections, a new post-lockdown high and a level of new infections not seen since the height of the epidemic in early April.
The government is due to unveil details of the post-pandemic rescue plan to haul the €2.3tn (£2.06tn) economy out of its deepest slump since the second world war on 3 September.
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Asked how seriously the organisation will take the recommendations, Dr Hans Henri Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, says Monti has already been invited to a meeting with the 53 member states.
Asked how the commission’s recommendations will be implemented, Monti says it is a question for the WHO, but that he will try to make the recommendations easily understandable for the public and will understand the political difficulties in implementing them.
We will tend to produce understandable recommendations, actionable recommendations. And, also, we will provide ... instructions for the use of the recommendations; namely the map of the difficulties they will meet.
The group will release policy recommendations in September next year, Monti says. Closing his opening comments, Monti invites members of the press to follow and criticise the commission’s work.
The World Health Organization’s pan-European commission on health and sustainable development will not look at tackling the pandemic in the short-term, its chair, Prof Mario Monti, has said.
In a briefing being streamed at the top of this blog (refresh if it does not appear), he has said:
[It] will take a magnifying glass to current economic and social policies using the evidence of how these policies have performed in light of this pandemic to make recommendations on how such policies should be enhanced at the national and international levels to forecast, prevent and respond to future crises.
The remit of “thinkers in different fields” will be broad and will extend beyond the pandemic itself, he has explained. It comprises former heads of state and governments, of social care institutions and of business, as well as social scientists.
Monti has stressed the commission’s independence and the WHO has highlighted that its strength will be its pan-European nature, meaning it will not only look at national-level policy making.
Updated
France hopes to avoid new lockdown as virus circulates among younger people
The French government needs to intervene to contain an outbreak as the virus circulates widely among younger people, the prime minister, Jean Castex, has said.
He also said the health minister, Olivier Véran, will start holding weekly news briefings over the Covid-19 situation in the country. The government is hoping to avoid a new nationwide lockdown but the country has been facing a resurgence of infections since July, with an acceleration from mid-August.
Updated
Doctors employed by Kenya’s Nairobi county government resumed work on Thursday following a six-day strike over delayed salaries and a lack of protective equipment when handling patients who may have Covid-19, a union official has said.
Thuranira Kaugiria, Nairobi county secretary general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists union, said the doctors had returned to work after signing an agreement with county officials on Wednesday.
In the agreement, the government promised to pay doctors on the fifth day of every month, failing to which the doctors were free to stop work without notice. The agreement, seen by Reuters, also provides doctors with two isolation facilities in the event that they contract Covid-19.
The end to a partnership on a vaccine between the Chinese firm CanSino Biologics and Canada is unrelated to diplomatic relations between the countries, Beijing has said.
The Chinese government supports Chinese companies cooperating with other countries according to law, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a daily news briefing.
Canada’s National Research Council said on Wednesday that it had ended its partnership on a vaccine with CanSino, saying the company lacked the authority to ship the vaccine at this time.
The Philippines’ health ministry has reported 3,249 additional infections and 97 more deaths due to the disease.
The ministry said total confirmed cases in the Philippines had reached 205,518, the highest in south-east Asia, while deaths had increased to 3,234, about a quarter of which were recorded in the past 15 days.
Updated
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s cabinet chief has been quarantined until he tests negative, after he attended a private event last Saturday where a participant tested positive, Orbán’s office has said.
The first test of cabinet chief, Gergely Gulyás, was negative, the office said in a statement on state news agency MTI. A state secretary working in Orbán’s office, Balázs Orbán, has also been quarantined since Wednesday.
The office said Gulyás could leave quarantine and attend a government meeting on Friday only if his second Covid test proves negative as well.
The government is expected to discuss new restrictions due to the rising number of infections, flagged by premier Orbán last week.
Hungary recorded 91 new infections on Thursday, the highest figure since April, with total cases at 5,379. Hungary had 614 deaths caused by the disease.
Updated
The ban on events such as concerts, sporting events and festivals is currently set to run out at the end of October.
Germany has managed to keep the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths relatively low compared with some other large European countries, but the number of new daily cases has been rising since early July and has accelerated in recent weeks.
Some state politicians have criticised that rules currently vary from state to state, while others argue that it should be left up to state governments to set rules based on local infection rates.
Germany may extend a ban on large events until the end of the year as part of a package of measures to help contain the spread of the virus, a draft document has show, ahead of a meeting of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, with state leaders.
The proposal includes a limit on private gatherings to 50 people and a minimum fine of €50 (£44.75) for failing to wear a mask where it is mandatory.
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Rwanda has lengthened its evening curfew and prevented movement in and out of the western area of Rusizi after a recent surge in cases, Agence France-Presse reports.
Rwanda was one of the first to impose strict lockdown measures in Africa, on 22 March, when it had only 19 cases, and partially lifted the measures on 1 May, when it had officially recorded 225 cases and zero deaths.
However, the country has hit a record 217 cases in one day and has recorded a third of its 3,625 cases in the past 10 days, with authorities blaming the spike on complacency and fatigue with social distancing measures.
After a cabinet meeting chaired by President Paul Kagame, the government announced that a national curfew would be tightened to 7pm-5am from the current 9pm-5am.
“Because of increasing cases of coronavirus in Kigali City, public transport between Kigali and other districts has also been banned,” read a statement from the government.
All transport is banned in and out of Rusizi, where there has been a significant increase in cases.
“Schools which were expected to be reopened in September will also remain closed.”
Other measures such as the closure of bars, wearing of masks in public, limiting of staff in offices and ban on public gatherings will remain in place.
Rwanda has opened up to tourists arriving on international flights, who must present a negative Covid-19 certificate, however land borders remain closed to foreigners.
Neighbouring Uganda, which also had a strict lockdown from only a handful of cases in March, has also seen a surge in cases recently.
Ethiopia has recorded the highest daily case numbers of the region since the start of the crisis, with almost 10,000 cases in the past week alone.
Cases have dropped in Kenya but the country has maintained its evening curfew.
Tanzania remains an outlier, having not issued official numbers in four months and insisting it has no more cases.
Updated
Russia reported 4,711 new cases on Thursday, bringing its nationwide tally to 975,576, the fourth largest caseload in the world. The country’s taskforce said 121 people had died over the last 24 hours, pushing its official death toll to 16,804.
As many as 30 teenagers who took a holiday to the Greek island of Zante may have contracted coronavirus, UK health officials have said.
At least 11 of a group of 18- and 19-year-olds in Plymouth, in England, have tested positive and some had been for a night out in the Devon city since their return from their holiday.
The local council’s public health director, Ruth Harrell,said her team was working alongside the national systems to contact and trace the young people thought to have been affected.
We know that some of these young people had no symptoms and so carried on as normal, including a night out in Plymouth’s bars and restaurants, until they became aware of the risk. That means more people could be infected.
While young people might have fairly mild symptoms – and sometimes none that you would notice – our big concern is that we know it can be very serious for people who have existing health problems or are older.
While we are still below the point of triggering a lockdown, this incident just goes to show how easily life can change. We all need to remain vigilant, whatever age we are, and take proper precautions.
Updated
Members of the audience told reporters they had not been tested for the infection before attending. Even so, Pence shook hands with one woman.
Medical professionals at the White House and around the country have encouraged Americans to maintain a social distance, wear masks and wash their hands regularly to thwart Covid-19.
Trump and Pence are tested regularly for the coronavirus, as are staff and journalists who interact with them at the White House.
Both men have sought to paint an optimistic picture about the pandemic despite its deadly toll. Trump has criticised Biden for campaigning from his home in Delaware rather than venturing out regularly to in-person events around the country.
Trump, who is trailing the former vice president in opinion polls ahead of the 3 November election, is expected to travel extensively in the coming weeks. Harris has criticised the Republican president for politicising the pandemic.
The idea that Trump would make this a partisan issue is outrageous. It’s unbelievable, right? You wear a mask if you’re a Democrat, you don’t wear a mask if you’re a Republican?
A large crowd is expected to attend Trump’s convention speech from the White House South Lawn on Thursday.
Updated
When the US vice-president Mike Pence and the president Donald Trump greeted supporters for the Republican National Convention, there were few masks in sight – and Pence exchanged at least one handshake, Reuters reports.
The scene provided a stark contrast to last week’s nearly all-virtual Democratic convention, when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris scrapped plans to travel to Wisconsin because of the coronavirus and instead delivered speeches in a mostly empty event centre.
Biden and Harris wore masks and kept a distance from the crowd they joined in watching outdoor fireworks in Delaware at the end of their convention.
While the Democratic candidates have eschewed large crowds and donned masks in public, Trump took months to embrace mask-wearing as an effective way to stop the spread of the virus, which has killed more than 179,000 people in the United States.
On Wednesday, few people who had gathered for Pence’s convention speech at the Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, Maryland, wore masks. Neither did Trump, his wife Melania, or Pence and his wife Karen, when they greeted well-wishers at the event’s conclusion.
Hello, this is Kevin Rawlinson taking over from Alison Rourke for the next few hours. If you have questions or comments or you’d like to draw my attention to something, the most effective way is usually via Twitter, where I’m KevinJRawlinson. I look forward to hearing from you.
Summary
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India has passed 60,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to the country’s health ministry, and reported its highest daily case rise of more than 75,000. There are growing concerns about the spread of the virus to rural areas. The previous highest daily count was 70,488 (22 August), according to The Times of India. On Wednesday, 925,000 tests were carried out, according to the ministry.
- South Korea has recorded its highest daily tally since March, as the country’s central bank cut its growth outlook, predicting the world’s 12th-largest economy would shrink more than 1%. There were 441 new cases reported on Thursday, the highest since 5 March. Of them, 434 were were locally transmitted.
- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,507 to 237,936, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.
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In Australia, numbers of new infections in the southern state of Victoria appeared to be stabilising. On Thursday, 113 cases were reported – the lowest increase since 5 July, when 74 cases were reported. However the state reported 23 deaths associated with Covid-19 on Thursday.
- New Zealand reported seven new cases, including one imported infection. The six other cases were all linked to the Auckland cluster.
- France and Italy reported post-lockdown daily case highs on Wednesday. France’s 5,429 new cases raised concerns ahead of the new school year starting next week. Italy reported 1,367 new coronavirus cases, its highest daily tally since May when the country was still in lockdown.
- Argentina posted a record daily rise of 10,550 confirmed Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, the health ministry said, taking the total caseload to 370,188 as the South American nation struggled to rein in the spread of infections while trying to ease open its crisis-hit economy.
- Gaza will remain in lockdown at least until Sunday, health officials said on Wednesday, after reporting two deaths and 26 cases in the first public outbreak of coronavirus in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
Three million people living in conflict-affected Rakhine state, in northwestern Myanmar, are now under lockdown, after the country reported a rise in new infections.
Myanmar had gone months with few cases, but this week a cluster emerged in Rakhine, one of the poorest areas of the country, where health facilities are extremely limited.
More than 100 infections have emerged over recent days, bringing the country’s total number of cases to 580 cases.
Under the new lockdown measures, only one member of each household can go outside for essential shopping, with exceptions for civil servants and factory workers.
Health experts have warned about the dangers of Covid-19 spreading rapidly in crowded camps across the state, where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge to escape fighting between the army and ethnic minority insurgents.
In addition, about 100,000 Rohingya Muslims remain confined to camps, living in what Amnesty International has described as “apartheid” conditions, where they have been stuck since 2012. They face strict curbs on their movement and have extremely limited access to healthcare.
Internet services have also been cut in some areas of the state, in an attempt to tackle insurgents. Fighting has continued regardless, however, and humanitarian workers warn the cuts are undermining efforts to share information about the virus.
India has passed 60,000 coronavirus deaths and recorded its highest daily tally of 76,014 cases, the Times of India reports. It’s the third highest daily tally of cases anywhere in the world, after the US recorded 78,427 (25 July) and 76,930 (17 July). The previous highest daily count in India was 70,488 (22 August). The Times says the surge came on the back of increased testing, with just under 925,000 samples tested on Wednesday.
Germany records more than 1,500 new cases
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,507 to 237,936, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday. The reported death toll rose by five to 9,285, the tally showed.
South Korea cuts economic growth outlook
Those post-March record new case highs in South Korea seem to be having an economic impact, with the country’s central bank cutting its growth outlook. It predicts the world’s 12th-largest economy will shrink more than 1%.
For anyone following South Korea’s coronavirus fight, you will know that the country had been largely returning to normal after mostly bringing its outbreak under control, but multiple cluster infections in recent days have raised fresh fears over a nationwide pandemic. Today’s figure of 441 is the biggest since early March.
The economy is now expected to shrink 1.3%in 2020, the Bank of Korea said, its second downward revision in four months having lowered its outlook in May to a 0.2% contraction, from an earlier forecast of 2.1% growth.
“The recovery of domestic economic growth is likely to be slower than previously forecast, largely due to the domestic resurgence of Covid-19,” the bank said in a statement.
“Uncertainties around the future path of GDP growth are also judged to be very high,” it added.
The latest figure would represent the worst performance since 1998, when the economy shrank 5.1% in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
Updated
Just a few more details out of New Zealand.
The public health director, Caroline McElnay, gave some details of the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship Church group, eight of whom have tested positive for Covid-19.
Here is some more detail from a ministry of health statement:
All eight cases have epidemiological links to each other as they attended common events. Three have been linked to the Auckland community cluster, but the epidemiological link to the main cluster remains under investigation.
The statement also gives more details on a second student who has tested positive at Mount Albert Grammar in Auckland.
A second student at Mt Albert Grammar has been confirmed as having Covid-19 – they were infectious more than two weeks ago.
All staff and students should be tested for Covid-19, if they have not been tested since August 17, as a precautionary measure to ensure there are not any undiagnosed cases in the school community.
The school has sent a letter to staff and students with more details.
The school has taken all reasonable steps to follow health advice and minimise risk, and it will be open on August 31.
China reports 8 new cases, all imported
China reported eight new Covid-19 cases, down from 15 a day earlier, the country’s health authority said on Thursday.
All of the new cases were imported infections, marking the 11th consecutive day of no locally transmitted infections reported. China also reported 19 new asymptomatic infections, compared with 14 a day earlier.
South Korea reports most cases since March
South Korea has reported 441 new coronavirus cases, the most daily infections since early March when the country had the first large outbreak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. of the cases, 434 were were locally transmitted, bringing the total tally to 18,706 infections, with 313 deaths.
Yonhap news agency writes:
Thursday’s daily tally marks the first time that the country’s daily virus cases surpassed the 400 threshold since March 7 when the country reported 483 cases following the massive outbreak in Daegu and its neighbouring North Gyeongsang Province tied to followers of the minor religious sect Shincheonji.
Updated
The NZ health minister Chris Hipkins is laying out the details of new face coverings rules. From Monday face coverings should be worn on public transport, he says, but will not need to be worn on school buses. He says passengers in taxis or Ubers, will not need to wear face coverings, but drivers will be required to wear them. Children under 12 will be exempt.
Updated
New Zealand announces 7 new cases, 6 linked to Auckland cluster
So Hipkins and McElnay have arrived for the New Zealand news conference.
Public health director, Caroline McElnay reports seven new cases, including one imported case who is a woman in her 20s. The other six cases are all in the community and have all been linked to the Auckland cluster. One of the new cases is at Mount Albert grammar but has not been at school since 12 August.
She says there are now 159 linked to community cluster in managed isolation, including 85 positive tests and their household contacts.
Updated
We are about to cross to New Zealand for the country’s daily coronavirus briefing. Today’ it’s being held by the health minister, Chris Hipkins and the director of public health, Caroline McElnay.
The city of Auckland, where the recent cluster was detected, will move from level 3 to level 2 restrictions at midnight this Sunday, but gatherings will be limited to 10 people. The rest of the country will stay on the level 2 restrictions, which will limit them to 100-person gatherings.
On Wednesday, there were five new cases of Covid, three in the community and two in managed isolation.
Gaza lockdown extended
Gaza will remain in lockdown at least until Sunday, health officials said on after reporting two deaths and 26 cases in the first public outbreak of the coronavirus in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
As of two days ago, when the first four cases were discovered in a refugee camp, and a 48-hour lockdown was imposed, there had been no infections outside border quarantine facilities for new arrivals.
But by late on Wednesday, health officials said 26 people in several locations had tested positive for Covid-19 and two patients had died – a sign the world pandemic had penetrated Gaza’s forced isolation.
The new infections added to concerns among local and international health organisations about Gaza’s potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely populated refugee camps and limited hospital capacity.
Mosques, schools and most businesses have been ordered closed. Authorities have instructed Gazans to stay at home and wear masks if they need to shop for essentials.
In Australia, numbers of new infections in the southern state of Victoria, which has been battling the country’s biggest outbreak, appear to be stabilising at a lower figure. On Thursday, 113 cases were reported – the lowest increase since 5 July, when 74 cases were reported. However the state reported 23 deaths associated with Covid-19 on Thursday.
#COVID19VicData for 27 August, 2020. 113 new cases detected in Victoria yesterday. We are sad to also report an additional 23 lives lost. More information will be available later today. pic.twitter.com/bmyArndpsb
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) August 26, 2020
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said this week that people exposed to Covid-19 but not symptomatic may not need to be tested, shocking doctors and politicians and prompting accusations the guidance was politically motivated, Reuters reports.
The advice marks a reversal of the agency’s previous position recommending testing for all close contacts of people diagnosed with Covid-19.
Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said the goal was “appropriate testing”, not more testing for its own sake, and that there was no political pressure from the administration behind the decision.
CNN and The New York Times reported on Wednesday that US public health officials were ordered by high-level members of the Trump administration to push forward with the changes
“This was a product produced by the scientific and medical people that was discussed extensively at the task force,” said Giroir. The task force is led by Vice President Mike Pence.
The president of the American Medical Association, the largest US association of physicians, said the advice could accelerate the spread of the virus.
“Suggesting that people without symptoms, who have known exposure to Covid-positive individuals, do not need testing is a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus,” AMA President Susan Bailey said in a statement.
Anthony Fauci, the top US government infectious disease expert, told CNN he was having surgery during discussion of the change.
“I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is,” he said.
Updated
Global cases of coronavirus have passed 24m, with 812,000 deaths. From the Johns Hopkins University tracker below, you can see that the US has by far the most cases (5.8m), followed by Brazil (3.6m) and India (3.2m). The US also leads the death toll (nearly 180,000), followed by Brazil (116,000), and Mexico (61,000).
Global cases of coronavirus pass 24 million. pic.twitter.com/CkJBv4HWZm
— Alison Rourke (@AlisonRourke) August 27, 2020
Updated
Italy reports 1,300 new cases of virus
Italy reported 1,367 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, its highest daily tally since May when the country was still in lockdown, bringing the total number to 262,540.
Authorities have also registered the highest number of tests: 93,529, almost 20,000 more than Tuesday and a record since the beginning of the pandemic.
Thirteen more people have died with the virus in the last 24 hours, and the death toll now stands at 35,458.
Despite the surge in infections, the government insists there are no plans for a new lockdown.
Health authorities are particularly concerned about a cluster that emerged in the Sardinian ‘Billionaire’ nightclub, owned by former Formula 1 team boss and Italian businessman, Flavio Briatore, who has been hospitalised in Milan after contracting coronavirus.
More than 60 people tested positive for Covid-19 at Billionaire’s, as authorities are struggling to find and test thousands of customers who have been at the Briatore’s nightclub in the last weeks.
Updated
Argentine posts daily record rise of Covid-19
Argentina posted a record daily rise of 10,550 confirmed Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, the health ministry said, taking the total caseload to 370,188 as the South American nation struggles to rein in the spread of infections while trying to ease open its crisis-hit economy.
The country, which imposed a strict lockdown in March that initially helped slow the spread of the virus, is now fast catching up with other hard-hit countries in the region, including neighbour Chile where new infections have slowed.
The nightly report showed there had been 276 new Covid-19 fatalities in Argentina in the 24-hour period since the previous evening’s count, taking the total to 7,839.
The government of center-left President Alberto Fernandez extended lockdown restrictions in and around capital city Buenos Aires until the end of August. The area has the highest number of infections.
France records 5,429 new cases
France’s new post-lockdown record on Wednesday of Public 5,429 new cases has raised concerns ahead of the new school year, starting next week.
The French public must act in “a spirit of responsibility” to limit the surge in new cases, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on France Inter radio Wednesday.
“The state has its share of responsibility ... but everyone has to feel like it’s their job to fight the pandemic,” Castex added.
On Monday, German health authorities labelled the Ile-de-France region including capital Paris and the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region around Mediterranean port city Marseille “risk zones” for the virus.
Anyone travelling to Germany from the two regions must submit to a Covid-19 test and quarantine themselves while awaiting the result.
Public Health France was unable to provide the numbers of people hospitalised or in intensive care or who had died with the virus in the 24 hours to Wednesday, due to IT problems, the body said.
On Tuesday, the figures were 4,600 hospital patients and 410 in intensive care. So far at least 30,544 people have died from the virus in France.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Alison Rourke.
France and Italy have recorded new post-lockdown record infections. Public Health France said it there had been 5,429 new infections, after 3,304 on Tuesday. The daily figure has topped 4,000 several times in recent days, ahead of the 1 September return to school for millions of pupils.
Italy also recorded its highest daily tally in coronavirus infections since May when the country was still in lockdown. A further 1,367 cases brought the total to 262,540. Despite the surge in infections, the government insists there are no plans for a new lockdown.
In other coronavirus developments:
- Gaza will remain in lockdown at least until Sunday, health officials said after reporting two deaths and 26 Covid-19 cases in the first public outbreak of the coronavirus in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
- EU trade chief Hogan quits over Ireland Covid-19 “golfgate” controversy. Phil Hogan has quit as the EU’s trade commissioner after days of pressure over allegations he breached Covid-19 guidelines during a trip to his native Ireland, saying it had become clear the controversy was a distraction from his work.
- The US is nearing 6m coronavirus cases and 180,000 deaths. It comes as The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention narrowed its guidance for who should get tested for Covid-19 this week, saying people who were exposed but are not symptomatic may not need to be tested.
- Croatia reported its highest number of daily cases amid the summer tourism season. New cases have risen since Croatia opened its borders to tourists for the summer, hitting more than 200 daily in late August and a record 358 on Wednesday. The government said it still hopes to tackle the crisis without curfews if people would “obey the rules and act responsibly”.
- Russia is preparing to approve a second vaccine against Covid-19. Early-stage clinical trials on the vaccine, developed by the Vector virology institute in Siberia, would be completed by the end of September. Western experts have been sceptical about Russia’s approval of Sputnik V, warning against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory steps have been taken.
- Lebanon could “lose control” of its coronavirus outbreak, the caretaker prime minister warned. Hassan Diab said that if cases continued to rise greatly, as they have in the wake of the Beirut explosion, “we will lose control of this epidemic”.
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Qatar has announced it will reopen mosques for daily and Friday prayers from 1 September. The statement from the supreme committee for crisis management said this would be part of the fourth and final phase of a plan that started on June 15, aimed at gradually lifting coronavirus restrictions.
