Seoul to shut down most establishments at 9 p.m. to contain coronavirus
South Korea’s capital Seoul will require most establishments to close at 9 p.m. each day, acting Seoul mayor Seo Jeong-hyup told a briefing on Friday, to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The measure take effect Saturday and comes after Seoul alone reported 295 new coronavirus infections as of midnight Thursday.
Millions of people in low-income countries have been forced to go without healthcare or have had to pay for it during the coronavirus pandemic, despite billions of pounds in emergency World Bank funding, research has found.
The World Bank’s $6bn (£4.45bn) emergency health fund to 71 countries in response to Covid-19 failed to strengthen health systems or remove financial barriers to using them, according to an Oxfam report published on Friday.
Oxfam reviewed the World Bank’s project documents to assess its support for water, sanitation and hygiene services and public health promotion; action to remove financial barriers to healthcare; and work on increasing the supply of healthcare workers and the role of the private sector in the public health response:
India records under 40,000 new cases for fifth day in a row
India’s daily coronavirus cases rose by less than 40,000 for the fifth straight day, health ministry data showed on Friday, with 36,595 new infections reported in the last 24 hours.
India’s daily rate has fallen since the south Asian nation reported the world’s highest such tallies through most of August and September, despite a busy festival season last month that experts had warned could trigger a spike in infections.
Its tally is now at 9.57 million and remains the world’s second-highest after the United States, where there have been nearly 14 million infections.
Deaths in India rose by 540, the ministry said, with the total now at 139,188.
In Corvid news:
In a break from coronavirus news, the first commercially printed Christmas card is up for sale – a merry Victorian-era scene that scandalised some when it first appeared in 1843.
The card, which is being sold online through a consortium run by Marvin Getman, a Boston-based dealer in rare books and manuscripts, depicts an English family toasting the recipient with glasses of red wine:
South Korean authorities are concerned that university entrance exams - which nearly half a million students sat on Thursday - and admissions tests over the next two weeks could prove to be another source of contagion, Reuters reports.
At least 207,000 students will move around the country for university admissions tests this weekend and 192,000 the next, Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae told a briefing.
“It is no exaggeration to say that the safety of South Korea depends on the test-takers,” Yoo said.
Karaoke bars and internet cafes are popular with high school students and have been the source of several coronavirus clusters in the past.
Under current Phase 2 restrictions, karaoke bars and internet cafes can operate with limited seating and need to close 9 pm. There are nearly 30,000 karaoke bars and over 9,500 internet cafes and game rooms nationwide.
Under the next level of restrictions currently under consideration, karaoke bars would close, social gatherings would be limited to 50 people, fans would be barred from attending sport events, and religious gatherings would be capped a 20 people.
Tighter restrictions would be a blow to Asia’s fourth-largest economy, which reported a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 4.2% in October, the highest since July.
“Small business owners and self-employed businesses are the most affected by social-distancing measures. We are very sorry for that,” health ministry official Yoon said.
“We think the best way is to reduce the number of confirmed cases as soon as possible and relieve their anxiety. The government continues to discuss economic support for the businesses.”
Updated
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, US president-elect Joe Biden says that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president. Biden and vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, also committed to receiving coronavirus vaccinations as soon as possible, when approved by US regulators:
Mainland China reported 17 new Covid-19 cases on 3 December, up from 16 cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Friday.
The National Health Commission, in a statement, said 15 of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. There were also two locally transmitted infections in the Inner Mongolia region, the commission said.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to 12 from five cases a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Mainland China now stands at 86,584, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 23,449 to 1,130,238, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Friday.
The reported death toll rose by 432 to 18,034, the tally showed.
In a break from coronavirus news, a 15-year-old scientist and inventor has been named as Time magazine’s first “kid of the year”.
Gitanjali Rao, from Denver, Colorado, has invented new technologies across a range of fields, including a device that can identify lead in drinking water, and an app and Chrome extension that uses artificial intelligence to detect cyberbullying.
She said she hoped she could inspire others to dream up ideas to “solve the world’s problems”.
Gitanjali was chosen from a field of 5,000 US-based nominees, which was whittled down to five finalists by a committee of young people alongside comedian and TV presenter Trevor Noah.
She and the other four finalists will be honoured in a TV special next Friday:
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday decried countries - without naming any - who rejected facts about the coronavirus pandemic and ignored guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), Reuters reports.
Guterres addressed a special session of the 193-member UN General Assembly on Covid-19, which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and spread globally, so far infecting nearly 65 million people and killing nearly 1.5 million.
Dozens of world leaders have submitted pre-recorded video statements for the two-day meeting.
“From the start, the World Health Organization provided factual information and scientific guidance that should have been the basis for a coordinated global response,” Guterres said.
“Unfortunately, many of these recommendations were not followed. And in some situations, there was a rejection of facts and an ignoring of the guidance. And when countries go in their own direction, the virus goes in every direction,” he said.
US President Donald Trump cut funding to the WHO earlier this year and announced plans to quit the Geneva-based body over accusations it was a puppet of China, which the WHO denied. The U.S. withdrawal would have taken effect in July next year, but US President-elect Joe Biden has said he will rescind the move.
“The pandemic underscores the importance of the World Health Organization, an institution that needs to be strengthened,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Long-simmering tensions between the United States and China hit boiling point over the pandemic at the United Nations, where months of bickering between the superpowers has spotlighted Beijing’s bid for greater multilateral influence in a challenge to Washington’s traditional global influence.
Updated
An Alabama man who spent World War II repairing bomb-damaged trains in France recovered from a fight with Covid-19 in time to mark his 104th birthday on Thursday.
Major Wooten was physically drained and a little fuzzy mentally after battling the new coronavirus but appears to be on the mend, said granddaughter Holley Wooten McDonald.
AP reports: “I’m just thankful that they were able to treat him so quickly and we were able to get him tested,” said McDonald, adding: “It’s amazing that a 104 year old survived Covid.”
Madison Hospital shared video of Wooten wearing a face mask and waving while workers sang “Happy birthday dear Pop Pop” as he was discharged in a wheelchair decorated with balloons on Tuesday, two days before his actual birthday.
McDonald said her grandfather, who served as a private first class in the Army before going on to a postwar career with US Steel in Birmingham, tested positive for Covid-19 on 23 November after her mother — his daughter — got the illness.
He received an infusion of the newly approved monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab but was physically drained the next day and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance the day before Thanksgiving, she said.
“He was on cloud nine after that,” she said. For Wooten’s birthday, a company erected a yard display that included the Alabama athletics logo, a cake, candles and a patriotic hat.
Updated
Families across the UK are being allowed to gather over Christmas, even as tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases are recorded each day. Is it possible to have a safe holiday? On Today on Focus, the Guardian’s science correspondent Nicola Davis offers some guidance on how to have a Covid-safe Christmas:
Costa Rica signs Covid-19 vaccine deal with Pfizer and BioNTech
Costa Rica has signed an agreement with pharmaceutical companies Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE for the manufacture and delivery of 3 million Covid-19 vaccines next year, the office of President Carlos Alvarado said on Thursday.
Deliveries will be made throughout the four quarters of 2021, as established in an initial agreement announced on 1 October, the president’s office said in a statement.
The deal will allow Costa Rica to provide two doses to 1.5 million people and follows accords with AstraZeneca and the Covax mechanism backed by the World Health Organization. In total, the agreements should cover about 3 million people, or almost 60% of the Costa Rican population.
The central American country has so far registered some 142,505 cases of coronavirus and 1,757 related deaths.
Updated
California has announced sweeping plans for a new, regional stay-at-home order that is likely to affect nearly all of the state within days.
The order is pegged to hospital capacity – regions where where ICU capacity falls below 15% will come under the new restrictions.
The orders are the strictest to be imposed since the statewide stay-at-home order in March. “This is the most challenging moment since the start of the pandemic,” said the governor, Gavin Newsom, announcing the order on Thursday.
So what does it mean, and will it work?
The Guardian’s Vivian Ho explains:
South Korea considering tighter restrictions amid case surge
South Korea said it is considering tightening its social distancing rules as it reported 629 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the most since the first wave of infections in the country peaked in late February, Reuters reports.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said the situation was critical as infections continued to rise at an alarming rate despite the reimposition of social-distancing rules late last month.
The government would decide on Sunday whether to upgrade restrictions, he said.
“It’s been 10 days since we upgraded the social distancing rules to phase 2 in the Seoul metropolitan area, but the transmission still seems to be uncontainable,” Chung told a government meeting according to Yonhap news agency.
Of the new cases, 295 were from capital Seoul, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported. South Korea has now reported a total of 36,332 infections, with 536 deaths.
Authorities are concerned that university entrance exams which nearly half a million students sat on Thursday could prove to be another source of infections.
Chung urged students to refrain from visiting high-risk areas such as karaoke bars and internet cafes as they celebrate the end of the exam period.
Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, is set to hold a news conference to provide an update on the country’s pandemic response on Friday, local media reported, his first since coronavirus case numbers surged in November.
Suga is expected to explain his backing of a widely criticised travel subsidy campaign meant to help revive the economy amid infection controls.
In recent weeks, a third wave of the coronavirus has arrived in parts of the country, and some medical groups and experts blame it on a government campaign to encourage domestic tourism.
His news conference is scheduled for late Friday, Jiji Press said, but the Prime Minister’s Office has yet to confirm it.
Suga’s approval ratings have dipped, with many unhappy with his handling of the pandemic, polls showed. That could deal a blow to his plan to prop up local economies and may threaten the chances of his premiership beyond next autumn.
South Korea reports highest cases in nine months
South Korea reported 629 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the highest number in nine months.
Of the new cases, 295 were from capital Seoul alone, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported.
New Zealand’s Covid-19 minister has called for patience in the country’s vaccine roll-out programme, saying he was unlikely to follow the UK in using emergency provisions to fast-track approval.
Covid-19 minister Chris Hipkins said: “We are in a slightly different position to other countries who are using emergency provisions to approve the vaccine, and in many cases those countries are doing that because they are suffering hugely from Covid, with thousands of people dying every day.”
New Zealand faced a different situation, he said, but added: “We are getting ready, getting geared up so that when vaccines arrive in New Zealand they are pre-approved.”
New Zealand experts agree the country, like Australia, can sustain a longer wait and should take a strategic approach to its vaccination program:
Mexico’s health ministry on Thursday reported 11,030 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 608 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 1,144,643 cases and 108,173 deaths.
The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Experts in the UK have called for an end to the use of rapid coronavirus tests in universities and care homes, after government figures from the mass testing programme in Liverpool revealed the tests missed 30% of those with a high viral load.
The figures showed that the rapid tests identified just five out of 10 positive cases which had been detected by standard coronavirus tests, and seven out of 10 of those with high quantities of the virus.
The rapid tests, also known as lateral flow tests, provide much quicker results than standard tests. This speed has led to their use in care homes to allow family members to visit, and in universities to allow students to return home for Christmas:
Here is the full story on the global death toll passing 1.5m:
NHS staff will no longer get the coronavirus vaccine first after a drastic rethink about who should be given priority, it emerged last night.
The new immunisation strategy is likely to disappoint and worry thousands of frontline staff – and comes amid urgent warnings from NHS chiefs that hospitals could be “overwhelmed” in January by a third wave of Covid-19 caused by mingling over Christmas.
Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “If we get a prolonged cold snap in January the NHS risks being overwhelmed. The Covid-19 restrictions should remain appropriately tough.
“Trust leaders are worried about the impact of looser regulations over Christmas.”
Frontline personnel were due to have the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine when the NHS starts its rollout, which is expected to be next Tuesday after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved it on Wednesday:
Biden joins ex-presidents in pledge to take vaccine
President-elect Joe Biden told CNN during an interview Thursday that he would be happy to get his vaccine publicly to encourage people to follow suit, following Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton’s pledges to do the same.
“People have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work,” Biden said. “Already the numbers are really staggeringly low, and it matters what the president and vice president do.”
That follows Biden’s warning on Wednesday that the spread of the coronavirus pandemic over the next two months could kill as many as 250,000 more people, though he didn’t offer details to back up such a bleak assessment.
“You cannot be traveling during these holidays,” Biden told the public “as much as you want to.”
Britons are drinking rosé all year round and firing up their barbecues in the depths of winter, according to a report on how food and drink trends have been “fundamentally reshaped” by the pandemic.
Cooking at home has even become the new commute, providing a clear separation between work time and home time, the study claims, while more than half of households have been more carefully planning recipes and meals and intend to carry on:
Anthony Fauci apologises for implied criticism of speedy UK vaccine approval
America’s leading infectious diseases scientist, Anthony Fauci, has apologised for implying that he thought Britain’s drug regulator had rushed through its coronavirus vaccine approval.
His comments came a day after Britain became the first country to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for general use, prompting some scepticism among European neighbours and suggestions of politicisation.
Fauci, who leads the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the BBC: “I have a great deal of confidence in what the UK does both scientifically and from a regulator standpoint:
Moderna to supply up to 125m Covid-19 vaccine doses globally in first quarter
Moderna Inc said on Thursday it expects to have between 100 million and 125 million doses of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine available globally in the first quarter of 2021.
The company said 85 million to 100 million of those doses would be available in the United States, with 15 million to 25 million available outside the country.
The first-quarter doses are within the 500 million to up to 1 billion doses the company expects to manufacture globally in 2021, Moderna said.
Results from an early-stage trial showed that the vaccine, mRNA-1273, produced high levels of binding and neutralising antibodies that declined slightly over time, but remained elevated in all participants three months after the booster vaccination, the company said.
The drugmaker’s shares were down about 2% at $154.4 after the bell.
Updated
Biden will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office
The US president-elect Joe Biden has told CNN that it was his “inclination” that, on his inauguration, he would ask the public to wear masks for the first 100 days of his administration to help drive down the spread of the virus.
Biden said he would issue an order for masks to be worn inside federal buildings and in transportation facilities.
The president-elect has also asked top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci to continue in his job and serve as chief medical adviser to the new administration’s Covid-19 team after he takes office on 20 January, Biden told CNN on Thursday.
In the interview, Biden said he will get the Covid-19 vaccine when Fauci says it is safe and will take it publicly.
How is everyone’s December going?
I enjoy walking my dog, listening to Phoebe Bridgers sing about Christmas, and weeping in public
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) December 3, 2020
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
I’ll be bringing you the latest news from around the world for the next few hours. You can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan if you have something to say about that.
More than 1.5 million people have lost their lives due to Covid-19 with one death reported every nine seconds on a weekly average, as vaccinations are set to begin in December in a handful of developed nations.
The US president-elect Joe Biden has told CNN that it was his “inclination” that, on his inauguration, he would ask the public to wear masks for the first 100 days of his administration to help drive down the spread of the virus.
- A partial lockdown will begin this weekend in the Gaza Strip after Covid-19 infections surged in the densely populated territory, Gaza’s interior ministry declared on Thursday.
- Facebook bans false claims about Covid-19 vaccines. Facebook is to begin removing false claims about Covid vaccines, the company has announced, as the UK prepares to roll out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It is the strongest move yet by Facebook to prevent its platform from being used to promote anti-vaccination rhetoric.
-
WHO looks at possible ‘e-vaccination certificates’ for travel. The World Health Organization does not recommend countries issuing “immunity passports” for those who have recovered from Covid-19, but is looking at the prospects of deploying e-vaccination certificates.
- Italy reports record number of deaths. Italy registered 993 more coronavirus fatalities on Thursday - the highest daily toll since the beginning of the pandemic.
- UK government’s coronavirus death toll exceeds 60,000. The UK government’s official Covid death toll has exceeded 60,000 deaths, just three weeks after it reached 50,000.The official death toll now stands at 60,113, a figure which counts known deaths among those who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.
-
Obama, Clinton and Bush pledge to take Covid vaccine on TV to show its safety. The former US presidents said they would get vaccinated for coronavirus on television to promote the safety of the vaccine, as the Food and Drug Administration prepares to meet next week to decide whether to authorise a Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech.
-
Conditions at Madrid and Catalan elderly care homes ‘alarming’. Conditions at elderly care homes in the Spanish regions of Madrid and Catalonia, where thousands died when the pandemic began, remain “alarming” despite improvements, Amnesty International has warned.
- Swedes’ support for anti-lockdown stance slips amid rising Covid deaths. As the national health agency announced 6,485 new infections and 33 more deaths on Thursday, a six-monthly poll by Statistics Sweden this week showed support for Löfven’s centre-left Social Democrats had dropped nearly five percentage points to 29.4% since May, amid signs Swedes are increasingly unconvinced by the country’s strategy.
- Couple face charges for boarding plane to Hawaii after positive Covid test. The couple in Hawaii are facing reckless endangerment charges after they boarded a flight with their four-year-old son even though they had tested positive for Covid-19.
- Switzerland won’t bow to foreign pressure on ski resorts, says minister. Switzerland will not bow to foreign pressure to close ski resorts over year-end holidays as some neighbours have done, health minister Alain Berset said, while warning infection rates in the nation remained “very worrying”.
- Greece extends lockdown to 14 December. Greece will extend its coronavirus lockdown by a week to 14 December, citing persistently high infection rates. An exception will be made for shops selling Christmas decorations, which can open from 7 December.
Updated
