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Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest developments, as Monday draws to a close.
- The director general of the World Health Organization has warned that spending time with friends and family at Christmas is “not worth putting them or yourself at risk”. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the body’s director general, said people should consider whether travelling during the festive period is necessary.
- France has seen its death toll rise by 406 to 52,731. Its health ministry said there were 4,005 new cases, fewer than on Sunday. It has also seen a fall in people in intensive care, and in the numbers admitted to hospital due to the virus. The country’s seven-day average of daily new infections stands at 11,118, an almost two-month low.
- Brazil’s health ministry has confirmed 21,138 new cases of Covid-19 and 287 deaths. Earlier on Monday, the WHO urged its government to be “very, very serious” about its rising coronavirus infection numbers, as more than 170,000 have now been killed.
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Opec will hold a second day of talks on Tuesday, as the oil producers’ club hopes to reach an agreement over cuts to production. Demand has been affected by the pandemic, with the current Opec president, Abdelmadjid Attar, saying it had caused “immense challenges”.
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Rating agency Moody’s has said that most countries still face a “significant negative shock” from the pandemic, and vaccine trials have not caused it to change its forecasts.
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Labour will abstain in a vote on England’s new coronavirus tier system on Tuesday over a disagreement on support for the hospitality sector.
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Colombia will keep its land and river borders closed until 16 January in an attempt to stem Covid’s spread.
- Serbia is to start tests of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, as it continues talks with Pfizer about purchasing the jab. Laboratories will get 20 doses this week for testing, according to a statement from the country’s prime minister, Ana Brnabić.
- Mexico is in a “bad shape” as coronavirus cases and deaths surge, according to the WHO. The country’s death rally is now more than 105,500 and confirmed cases have passed 1.1 million. Public health experts believe it is likely to be significantly higher.
Updated
Serbia is to start tests of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, as it continues talks with Pfizer about purchasing the jab.
Laboratories will get 20 doses this week for testing, according to a statement from the country’s prime minister, Ana Brnabić.
Russia has said interim trial results show the vaccine is 92% effective at protecting people from Covid-19. Before Serbia adopts any vaccine, it must be approved by its medicines and medical devices agency. So far, 1,604 people have died amid 175,438 cases in the Balkan country.
Updated
Here’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus addressing a press briefing earlier, where he said the festive period was “no time for complacency” over Covid.
Updated
Mexico is in a “bad shape” as coronavirus cases and deaths surge, according to the head of the World Health Organization.
The country’s death rally is now more than 105,500 and confirmed cases have passed 1.1 million. Public health experts believe it is likely to be significantly higher.
The number of weekly deaths has risen from 2,000 in the week beginning 12 October, to 4,000 by last week. At least seven of Mexico City’s 54 public hospitals are at capacity for Covid-19 beds and respirators.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Geneva: “The number of increase in cases and deaths in Mexico is very worrisome. This shows Mexico is in [a] bad shape.”
Updated
A hairdressers in northern England has been ordered to close by the courts, after repeatedly opening during the latest lockdown.
Sinead Quinn, owner of Quinn Blakey Hairdressing near Bradford, has already been fined £17,000 for trading during November’s restrictions.
When approached by officials from Kirklees Council, she quoted the 13th century Magna Carta, one of Britain’s key constitutional documents, saying the Covid laws didn’t apply to her.
Brazil records 287 new Covid deaths
Brazil’s health ministry has confirmed 21,138 new cases of Covid-19 and 287 deaths.
Covid-19 has killed more than 170,000 people in the country, the world’s second-highest death toll behind only the US. Cases are rising again after a brief hiatus.
Earlier on Monday, the World Health Organization urged its government to be “very, very serious” about its rising coronavirus infection numbers, which director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described as “very, very worrisome”.
Updated
Opec will hold a second day of talks on Tuesday, as the oil producers’ club hopes to reach an agreement over cuts to production.
Demand has been affected by the pandemic, with the current Opec president, Abdelmadjid Attar, saying it had caused “immense challenges”.
The 13 member states are hoping to keep the crude oil market afloat. They agreed to a cut of 7.7m barrels in April, but the reduction is expected to be extended for another six months.
Updated
Eurozone finance ministers have agreed to move ahead with changes to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) fund, amid fears of future economic uncertainty due to Covid-19.
The IMF had already warned that governments and the ECB may need to provide more support than initially expected because of the second wave of Covid-19. The fund was set up to help member states in financial difficulty,
However German finance minister Olaf Scholz said: “The ESM reform strengthens the euro and the entire European banking sector because we are making the eurozone even more robust against attacks by speculators.”
Updated
Fans at the Autumn Nations Cup game between England and France this weekend will go thirsty, as the Rugby Football Union is keeping Twickenham’s bars shut.
The fixture will see 2,000 fans attend, the first time any supporters have been able to attend a match at England’s home ground since March. The RFU has decided alcohol will only be available “in restaurant style facilities and be served to the table with a substantial meal”, in line with government regulations on hospitality venues in England.
Updated
Ratings agency Moody’s has said that most countries still face a “significant negative shock” from the pandemic, and that vaccine trials have not caused it to change its forecasts.
“Most (sovereigns) face a significant economic loss, a marked increase in their debt burden, and some, in particular emerging markets, face a deterioration in debt affordability,” a top sovereign analyst at Moody’s told Reuters.
Moody’s said in October that the global recession caused by the pandemic has been far deeper than expected and has disproportionately affected emerging and frontier market nations.
Updated
Labour will abstain in a vote on England’s new coronavirus tier system on Tuesday over a disagreement on support for the hospitality sector.
The party is understood to believe that government support must go further and will abstain in the vote on the tiers system, which is due to replace lockdown rules from Wednesday. The vote is still expected to pass.
Updated
WHO head urges 'extreme caution' over festive gatherings
Spending time with friends and family at Christmas is “not worth putting them or yourself at risk”, according to the head of the World Health Organization.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the body’s director general, said people should consider whether travelling during the festive period is necessary. Urging “extreme caution”, he said that “gains can easily be lost”.
He said: “We all need to consider whose life we might be gambling with in the decisions we make. [The] Covid-19 pandemic will change the way we celebrate, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t celebrate. We still can celebrate.”
He warned that “this is no time for complacency,” despite last week seeing the first decline in newly reported cases globally since September.
Updated
Colombia will keep its land and river borders closed until 16 January in an attempt to stem Covid’s spread.
The country has seen illegal crossings since it closed its borders in March, with many migrants returning home from Venezuela amid its social and economic crisis.
Its sea borders will reopen on Tuesday, the head of the country’s border agency, Juan Francisco Espinosa, said.
Updated
France's death toll rises by more than 400
France has seen its death toll rise by 406 to 52,731.
Its health ministry said there were 4,005 new cases, fewer than Sunday. It has also seen a fall in people in intensive care, and numbers admitted to hospital due to the virus.
The country’s seven-day average of daily new infections stands at 11,118, an almost two-month low.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Harry Taylor taking over the liveblog for the rest of the evening – please get in touch if you have any story tips or anything you would like to share.
Email: Harry.Taylor@theguardian.com
Twitter: @HarryTaylr
Summary
Here is a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments from the last few hours.
- Moderna Covid vaccine has 94% efficacy, final results confirm. Final results from the trials of Moderna’s vaccine against Covid-19 confirm it has 94% efficacy and nobody who was vaccinated with it developed severe disease, said the company, kickstarting the approval process with regulators around the world.
- FTSE 100 heads for best month on record after Covid vaccine hopes. The FTSE 100 is on course for its best month on record, boosted by growing optimism that an early coronavirus vaccine can trigger a faster than expected economic recovery from the Covid-19 recession.
- WHO’s Tedros says ‘Let’s not politicise probe of virus origins’. The World Health Organization’s director-general urged countries not to politicise the hunt for the origins of Covid-19 as it could create barriers to learning the truth.
- Spain appeals for Covid ‘common sense’ after shopping crowd scenes. The Spanish government has called on people to behave responsibly and use their “common sense” after pictures over the weekend showed the streets of Madrid and other big cities heaving with crowds despite the country’s ongoing struggle with the second wave of the coronavirus.
- Turkey announces weekday curfew and weekend lockdown. Turkey will impose curfews on weekdays and full lockdowns over weekends to combat the spread of the coronavirus, president Tayyip Erdoğan announced, after new cases and deaths hit records highs in recent weeks.
- Vietnam reports first locally transmitted Covid-19 case for 89 days. Vietnam has confirmed its first locally transmitted case of Covid-19 in nearly three months, after the infection of a man related to a flight attendant who tested positive after returning from Japan two weeks ago.
- Italy reports 672 new Covid-related deaths. The country also reported 16,377 new infections, down from 20,648 the day before, with the fall in cases reflecting the usual drop in the number of swabs conducted on Sundays.
- Rita Ora likely to escape fine for breaking lockdown with party. The singer Rita Ora is likely to escape a personal fine after breaching Covid rules to attend her birthday party at a Notting Hill restaurant, but the venue is under investigation and may face a £10,000 penalty.
- Pubs in Wales to close by 6pm under new Covid restrictions. Pubs, bars and restaurants in Wales will be banned from selling alcohol and forced to shut early, as the Welsh first minister said Covid was spreading “incredibly quickly” across the country and that the gains made during its “firebreak” lockdown were being eroded.
- Croatia’s PM Plenković tests positive for Covid-19. Croatia’s prime minister Andrej Plenković has tested positive for Covid-19, the government’s spokesman has said. Plenković has already been at home in isolation because his wife tested positive for Covid-19 over the weekend.
That’s all from me, Jessica Murray, I’m now handing over to my colleague Harry Taylor.
More than a million French cyclists have used a €50 ($60) subsidy to get their old bikes repaired as part of measures to fight the coronavirus and now the government wants more people to start riding them.
Following France’s first lockdown in the spring, the government offered subsidies to get old bikes fixed. That programme will now be extended until the end of March following the relaxation of a second lockdown last weekend.
“After this second lockdown, the government wants to encourage French people to use bicycles to move around,” environment minister Barbara Pompili said during a visit to a training centre for bicycle mechanics in Paris on Monday.
She said about half of the people who got their bikes repaired under the scheme had rarely cycled before.
“This has put 500,000 people back in the saddle,” she said. But only 3% of French people use their bikes every day and the government wants to triple that number.
Pompili also announced a new three-year €30m scheme to encourage employers to improve cycling facilities, with financing for 20,000 secure parking spaces.
French cycling federation chief Olivier Schneider said there are 25m - 40m bicycles in France, but about 15m of those are in a poor state of repair.
“There is huge demand for new bicycles worldwide and new bikes can be hard to find, so the repair subsidy scheme is a great way to get old bikes on the road again,” Schneider said.
Croatia's PM Plenković tests positive for Covid-19
Croatia’s prime minister Andrej Plenković has tested positive for Covid-19, the government’s spokesman has said.
Plenković has already been at home in isolation because his wife tested positive for Covid-19 over the weekend. Plenković’s test over the weekend was negative.
“Prime Minister Plenković will remain at home in isolation for 10 days. He feels well and he will continue with his duties from his home following all the recommendations of doctors and epidemiologists,” the spokesman said. On Monday Plenković was running a government session online.
The World Health Organization’s top emergency expert said the world risked future pandemics if it suffered “amnesia” and did not learn from the current coronavirus crisis.
Mike Ryan said:
I have seen the amnesia that seems to descend upon the world after a traumatic event, and that’s understandable.
But if we do this again like we did after SARS, like we did after H5N1, like we did after H1N1 pandemic, if we continue to ignore the realities of what emerging and dangerous pathogens can do to our civilization, then we are likely to experience the same or worse again within our lifetimes.
Ryan also took a swipe at developed nations, saying that northern countries had been running healthcare systems “like low-cost airlines” and that the world was paying for that now.
“In the north, because of the cost model for health systems, we have designed our health systems to be delivered at 95%, 98%, at 100% efficiency. It’s almost like a low-cost airline model for health service delivery,” he said.
“Well, we’re paying a price for that now, not having that extra-surge capacity built into the system - seeing health as a cost centre in our economy, seeing health as a drain on development, as dragging back the economy, and we need to re-address what that means.”
Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune has left a German hospital where he was flown for treatment more than a month ago, and he will return home “in the coming days,” the presidency said.
Tebboune, 75, who has tested positive for Covid-19, will continue “the rest of the recovery period” in Germany, it said in a statement.
Turkey’s daily Covid-19 death toll hit a record high for an eighth consecutive day on Monday, with 188 fatalities in the last 24 hours.
The number of new coronavirus cases, including asymptomatic ones, over the past 24 hours also reached a record high of 31,219.
For four months, Turkey only reported symptomatic cases, but since Wednesday it has reported all cases. Historical data for the total number of cases is still not available.
The total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic in March stood at 13,746.
The state of Sao Paulo, home to Brazil’s biggest city, has imposed stricter social distancing measures as it wrestles to contain a fresh rise in Covid-19 cases.
Opening hours and capacities for bars, restaurants and shopping malls will be restricted in Brazil’s most populous state which has been the centre of the country’s coronavirus outbreak.
Governor João Doria, speaking at a news conference to announce the measures, said the restrictions would not impact the reopening of schools.
Covid-19 has killed more than 170,000 people in Brazil, the world’s second-highest death toll behind only the US. Cases are rising across the country again after a brief hiatus.
On Monday, the World Health Organization urged Brazil to be “very, very serious” about its rising coronavirus infection numbers, which director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described as “very, very worrisome.”
President Jair Bolsonaro has derided governors and mayors for imposing stay-at-home measures, saying the cost to jobs and the economy is too severe for a disease he dismissed as a “little flu.”
The state restrictions come the day after municipal elections in which Doria’s ally, Bruno Covas, was re-elected as mayor of Sao Paulo. Critics accuse the state government of delaying the unpopular decision to impose new Covid-19 restrictions until after the vote. The government denies it dragged its feet over the move.
Italians are expected to spend almost a fifth less on Christmas gifts this year than in 2019 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has closed shops, restricted social gatherings and hit incomes, business association Confcommercio said.
A survey of 1,438 shoppers it conducted found spending on Christmas presents would fall to €7.3bn ($8.7bn) from €8.9bn a year ago - an 18% decline.
Only 74% of respondents said they would buy gifts to put under the tree, down from 87% in 2019, with almost nine people out of 10 expecting a very subdued Christmas.
Overall spending by consumers on goods and services in December, usually the month in which people spend the most, was expected to fall by about 10% to €73bn from €81bn a year ago, Confcommercio said. That spending figure strips out rent, utilities, medicines and fuel.
A three-tier zoning system introduced by the government three weeks ago to curb a second wave of coronavirus infections has forced many shops to close as Christmas approaches.
Mariano Bella, who coordinated Confcommercio’s study, said two-thirds of the consumers polled blamed movement restrictions as well as the lack of social events and parties for the lower spending, with the rest worried about their shrinking finances.
But he said the expected decline in shopping for the festive season compared favourably to April’s 60% plunge in retail spending, recorded at the height of a more stringent, nationwide lockdown during the pandemic’s first wave.
“We are seeing signs of recovery,” Bella told Reuters, also pointing to data showing savings by Italians had grown by €80bn in the first half of the year.
The euro zone’s third-biggest economy is expected to contract by at least 9% this year due to the impact of the coronavirus.
Restrictions in five Italian regions, including the richest and most populous region Lombardy, around Milan, began to ease again on Sunday after hospitalisations declined, allowing shops selling clothes and shoes as well as department stores to reopen.
Turkey announces weekday curfew and weekend lockdown
Turkey will impose curfews on weekdays and full lockdowns over weekends to combat the spread of the coronavirus, president Tayyip Erdoğan announced, after new cases and deaths hit records highs in recent weeks.
Citizens will not be allowed to leave home between 9pm and 5am on weekdays, and over the whole weekend from 9 pm on Fridays to 5am on Mondays, Erdoğan said.
Some sectors, including supply chain and production, will be exempt from the measures which will begin on Tuesday, he added.
The World Health Organization has urged countries to consider carefully any plans for the coming ski season to manage the risks associated with people converging on small areas where the coronavirus could be spread.
But the global health agency declined to offer a specific recommendation to governments wrestling with the question of whether to allow snow sports this winter.
“We would ask that all countries look at the ski season and other reasons for mass gatherings and look very, very carefully at the associated risks,” said Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergency expert.
WHO's Tedros says 'Let's not politicise probe of virus origins'
The World Health Organization’s director-general has urged countries not to politicise the hunt for the origins of Covid-19 as that would create barriers to learning the truth.
“We need to know the origin of this virus because it can help us to prevent future outbreaks,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“There is nothing to hide. We want to know the origin, and that’s it.”
US president Donald Trump’s administration, which has accused China of hiding the extent of the outbreak and the Geneva-based global health body of being too close to Beijing, has criticised the terms of a WHO-led international investigation into the origin of the pandemic.
Chinese state media has said the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, citing the presence of coronavirus on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers saying it had been circulating in Europe last year.
Updated
Authorities on Spain’s Canary Islands expect a partial recovery of the archipelago’s tourism industry in 2021 as vaccines and testing allow for travel restrictions to be lifted, but the business will still be far below pre-pandemic levels.
The islands’ regional government expects the number of incoming tourists to plummet to 5 million this year, down from 15 million in 2019, before rebounding to 8 million in 2021, regional tourism chief Yaiza Castilla told Reuters.
“We hope in the future we will be able to raise the forecast month after month,” she said.
Ravaged by travel restrictions, the heavily tourism-dependent archipelago has set up rules both to prevent outsiders from bringing contagion and to convince visitors that travel is safe.
Located around 60 miles off Morocco’s Atlantic coast, the chain of seven islands is popular among sun-seeking northern Europeans, especially during the winter, when half its tourism revenues are generated.
Italy reports 672 new Covid-related deaths
Italy reported 672 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, against 541 on Sunday, and 16,377 new infections, down from 20,648 the day before, with the fall in cases reflecting the usual drop in the number of swabs conducted on Sundays.
The first Western country hit by the virus, Italy has seen 55,576 Covid-19 fatalities since its outbreak emerged in February, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain’s. It has also registered 1.6 million cases to date.
There were 130,524 swabs carried out in the past day, down from a previous 176,934.
The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 stood at 33,187 on Monday, up 308 on the day before.
The number in intensive care decreased by nine, the same decline as was seen on Sunday, and now stands at 3,744.
When Italy’s second wave of the epidemic was accelerating fast in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by around 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day.
Updated
Botswana will launch 25 gender violence courts this week following a rise in cases during the coronavirus pandemic – a measure women’s campaigners hope will bring swifter justice to victims of sexual and domestic abuse.
The government of the southern African country moved to establish the courts after women’s rights advocates warned lockdown curbs were exacerbating high rates of gender-based violence by trapping many women at home with abusers.
“(Bringing a case to court) can be a long, tedious process, and this frustrates many victims,” said Kgomotso Kelaotswe, a counsellor supervisor from the Botswana Gender Based Violence Prevention and Support Centre, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Hopefully, with specialised courts, cases will be addressed timeously.”
Nearly 70% of women in Botswana have experienced physical or sexual abuse – more than double the global average, according to the United Nations Population Fund, and police statistics indicate a rise in cases this year.
Police have recorded 2,789 rapes since January compared with 2,265 during all of 2019, said police spokesman Dipheko Motube. Activists think the true lockdown figures are likely far higher, however.
Updated
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has agreed to create 19 storage sites for medical equipment across Germany to avoid the shortages of masks and other protective gear seen at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic has taught us to take more precautions,” health minister Jens Spahn told reporters.
The German government plans to spend €1bn ($1.2bn) next year setting up 19 “national health reserves” dotted across the country to make sure Europe’s top economy is better prepared for the next health crisis, he said.
“We are learning during the crisis, from the crisis,” Spahn said.
The storage sites will contain supplies of personal protective gear including masks as well as medicines and ventilators for patients experiencing respiratory failure.
The goal is for each facility to contain enough supplies for a month for local hospitals, care homes and doctor’s offices.
Initially the sites will be filled with items already available or ordered, including protective gear sourced from China. But from 2022, the government aims to rely more on “made in Germany” medical equipment to reduce reliance on outside supply chains, Spahn said.
Germany coped relatively well with the first wave of the coronavirus in the spring, partly thanks to early and widespread testing and a robust healthcare system.
But like other European nations, it too was caught off guard by the sudden demand for protective gear for health workers and scrambled to compete in the global marketplace for adequate supplies.
Since then, the government has pledged to create more incentives for homegrown firms to manufacture face masks, gowns, gloves and other medical items.
Germany has been hit hard by a second wave of coronavirus cases in recent weeks, pushing the total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections past one million, according to the Robert Koch Institute for disease control.
The number of patients in intensive care has soared more than tenfold since early October. More than 16,000 people have died from Covid-19 so far.
The UK reported 12,330 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday, up from 12,155 a day earlier and taking the cumulative total since the start of the pandemic to 1,629,657 cases.
A total of 205 new deaths from the disease were also reported, down from 215 the previous day. The UK has the highest total death toll in Europe at 58,448.
A 4% drop in greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 and the green effects of the pandemic will help the EU meet two of its three 2020 climate goals, a report published on Monday showed.
Outlined in 2007 and adopted in 2009, the three goals include a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% from 1990 levels, a share of at least 20% for renewables in energy consumption, and a 20% improvement in energy efficiency.
According to the European Environment Agency report, the two first goals will be met in 2020, while the third one, on energy efficiency, is not expected to be reached.
In 2019, emissions in the EU - excluding Britain - decreased by 4% year-on-year.
That was the second-biggest annual decline after 2009 when the region was mired in a financial crisis, according to the EEA, and brought the region’s overall emissions 24% below the 1990 level.
Meanwhile, EEA preliminary figures show that renewables accounted for 19.4% of energy consumed in the EU in 2019, close to the 20% target.
“There are strong indications that the economic downturn in 2020 has sharply reduced overall energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, in particular in the transport sector,” the agency said.
But while “the share of energy consumed from renewable sources likely... increased,” the EEA noted that the effects from the pandemic may “be short-lived.”
And although the renewables target was expected to be met EU-wide, 14 member states had yet to meet their national targets, including France, Germany and Spain.
The sub-target of reaching 10% renewable energy in the transport sector remained “tenuous”. In 2018, the level was only 8.3%, according to the most recent data.
As for the third goal of energy efficiency - measured by comparing energy consumption to gross domestic product - the EEA said efforts to reach the 2020 target “have not been enough” in most countries to reach the overall goal.
Looking beyond 2020, the Commission is aiming for a 55% reduction of European emissions in 2030 from 1990 levels, with the goal of being carbon neutral by 2050.
The EEA said the progress in 2019 showed “more ambitious long-term objectives are reachable”, although the 2030 and 2050 targets would “demand sustained and long-term efforts.”
OPEC members have reached a consensus on the need to extend existing oil production cuts for three months from January and will work on convincing their allies in the wider OPEC+ group to support such a move, Algeria’s minister said.
Algerian energy minister Abdelmadjid Attar, holder of OPEC’s rotating presidency, was speaking shortly before OPEC ministers began talks to discuss a policy that would help producers cope with weak demand in 2021 due to the coronavirus crisis.
“There is consensus at the OPEC level ... on extending the current 7.7m barrels per day (bpd) cuts until ... the end of March,” Attar said, according to Algeria’s state news agency.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and others, a group known as OPEC+, hold their wider talks on Tuesday, after informal discussions of key ministers on Sunday had failed to reach a consensus.
OPEC+ had been due to ease existing production cuts by 2m bpd from January. But, with demand still under pressure, OPEC+ has been considering extending existing cuts of 7.7m bpd, about 8% of global demand, into the first months of 2021, a position backed by Saudi Arabia, sources said.
After Sunday’s consultations failed to reach agreement, sources said the group was also considering increasing output gradually from January, a position Russia backs.
“OPEC will probably agree to extend the current production ceiling for the first quarter of 2021, if the non-OPEC countries agree with it in (Tuesday’s) meeting,” an OPEC source said
British pop star Rita Ora has apologised after she admitted she had attended a party to celebrate her 30th birthday which broke England’s Covid-19 lockdown laws.
Ora said she had gone to a “small gathering with some friends” which the Sun newspaper said was held at a restaurant in west London on Saturday night with 30 people in attendance.
Under the lockdown rules, people in England are not allowed to mix with other households indoors and can meet only one person outside, while restaurants are closed except for takeaways.
“It was a spur of the moment decision made with the misguided view that we were coming out of lockdown and this would be OK,” Ora said in a statement.
I’m deeply sorry for breaking the rules and in turn understand that this puts people at risk. This was a serious and inexcusable error of judgment. Given the restrictions, I realise how irresponsible these actions were and I take full responsibility.
Police said officers had been called to reports of breach of Covid rules but had not found any offence being committed.
“Officers continue to assess the allegations and are liaising with the local authority regarding a potential breach of regulations at the premises,” police said in a statement.
The BBC reported that Ora was voluntarily paying a fine.
The UK budget airline EasyJet says it plans to offer passengers discounted tests to try to encourage more travel, Reuters reports.
Travel rules in England will change from 15 December so that if a traveller receives a negative test result from a self-funded test, they can reduce their quarantine from 14 to 5 days.
Desperate to stimulate the travel market after months of restrictions, airlines and airports are teaming up with testing firms to make it easier and cheaper to get a test.
EasyJet, whose finances have come under severe pressure during the pandemic, said that passengers will receive a reduced rate of £75 per home test with Confirm Testing or with CityDoc, £100 per home test or £150 pounds per in clinic test.
The £75 rate is cheaper than the £85 rate available to Wizz Air passengers. Both are more expensive than Gatwick Airport’s offer of £60 per test for passengers who use its drive-through testing facility.
EasyJet said that the two companies it was working with aimed to provide results within 48 hours.
There is also demand for tests prior to travel as some popular destinations like Spain and Italy require passengers to show a negative test on arrival.
People who refuse a vaccines could find normal life curtailed as restaurants, bars, cinemas and sports venues could block entry to those who don’t have proof they are inoculated, the UK’s new vaccine minister has warned.
In his first interview in his new role, Nadhim Zahawi said the government was looking at the idea of issuing people with “immunity passports”. But he said that he thought it would be service providers, not the government, that ended up asking for these. He said:
We are looking at the technology. And, of course, a way of people being able to inform their GP that they have been vaccinated.
But, also, I think you’ll probably find that restaurants and bars and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will probably also use that system - as they have done with the app.
I think that in many ways the pressure will come from both ways, from service providers who’ll say ‘look, demonstrate to us that you have been vaccinated’.
But, also, we will make the technology as easy and accessible as possible.
Our UK live blog has more:
Jordan has announced 5,123 new cases and 57 more deaths from the virus. The figures show a continued downward trend from record levels of infections and fatalities recorded earlier this month.
موجز إعلامي حول فيروس كورونا المستجد COVID-19 في الأردن
— Prime Ministry JO (@PrimeMinistry) November 30, 2020
صادر عن رئاسة الوزراء ووزارة الصحة#عاجل pic.twitter.com/vAPDOfWtov
The US continued to report more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day over the holiday weekend, as experts warned that widespread Thanksgiving travel could fuel a surge in the coming weeks.
Read the full story here:
The FTSE 100 is on course for its best month on record, boosted by growing optimism that an early coronavirus vaccine can trigger a faster than expected economic recovery from the Covid-19 recession.
The index of leading UK company shares has risen in value by more than £210bn, or 14.5%, in November and was on track on Monday to beat the previous monthly record rise of 14.4%, set in January 1989.
Financial markets around the world have soared since pharmaceutical companies announced promising results from coronavirus vaccine trials, setting the stage for a rapid economic rebound next year should mass immunisation allow business and social life to return closer to normal.
The Spanish government has called on people to behave responsibly and use their “common sense” after pictures over the weekend showed the streets of Madrid and other big cities heaving with crowds despite the country’s struggle with the second wave of the coronavirus.
Spain has been in a state of emergency since the end of October and is subject to an overnight curfew. The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has asked people to drastically curtail their social lives and limit their movements for the common good.
However, a combination of Black Friday, seasonal shopping and the switching on of Christmas lights appears to have brought large numbers of people out on to the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Málaga over the weekend.
On Monday Silvia Calzón, Spain’s secretary of state for health, urged people to act wisely and avoid large crowds.
“We’d like to appeal to people’s sense of prudence and responsibility,” Calzón said in an interview with Canal Sur radio, adding: “If we really like Christmas, let’s try to make sure we’re all here for next Christmas.”
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Pope Francis has cancelled a ceremony that traditionally begins Rome’s Christmas season on 8 December at the Spanish Steps because of coronavirus restrictions.
The pope customarily places a wreath of flowers at the base of a 12-metre column bearing a statue of the Madonna and blesses from a distance another wreath already placed around the statue’s arm by firefighters using a ladder.
The Vatican said Francis would skip the ceremony, which popes have been carrying out on the feast of the Immaculate Conception since 1953, “in order to avoid any risk of contagion caused by gatherings of people”.
Thousands of people usually line the streets near the area to see the pope and pray with him.
The Vatican said the pope would instead hold a private service to entrust the city, its people and the sick around the world to the Madonna.
It has already announced that access to all of the pope’s traditional Christmas activities, including his “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the city and the world”) blessing and message, will be restricted because of the Covid-19 crisis.
Only a limited number of people will be allowed into St Peter’s Basilica for papal Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Masses, which will be broadcast on television and streamed on the internet.
Last month, the pope’s weekly general audiences were moved back indoors with public participation after a period when a limited number of people were allowed to take part.
Recently, more than a dozen Swiss Guards and one person who lives in the residence that houses the pope tested positive for the coronavirus and had to be quarantined.
Hospitality venues in Wales will be barred from serving alcohol and must close early under new coronavirus restrictions to be introduced later this week.
The new regulations, which come into force on Friday, will see Welsh pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes forced to stop selling alcohol and shut by 6pm GMT daily.
Meanwhile indoor entertainment venues such as cinemas and bowling alleys will close their doors for at least two weeks.
However, gyms, hairdressers and other non-essential retail outlets will still be allowed to operate under the new rules.
They come less than a month after the lifting of a two-week “firebreak” lockdown across Wales, and follow another rise in virus cases, particularly among under-25s.
Wales’ first minister Mark Drakeford said the rising rates and concern about a post-Christmas rise meant the further action was needed.
“The facts are stark,” said Drakeford, whose devolved government is responsible for health policy in Wales separate from the rest of the UK.
“Our modelling suggests that unless we act, between 1,000 and 1,700 preventable deaths could take place over the winter period.”
The measures will be reviewed on 17 December, and then every three weeks.
The UK’s four constituent nations - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - agreed last week to ease rules over Christmas, allowing three households to mix over a period of five days.
Almost 2,600 people testing positive for coronavirus have died in Wales, contributing to more than 58,000 deaths for the UK as a whole, the worst death toll in Europe.
England, which is nearing the end of a four-week national lockdown, will return to a regional tiered system of regulations on Wednesday. Almost all the country will be in the top two tiers, though, which severely limits or outlaws socialising between households indoors.
An 18-metre (60ft) “Gundam” robot that can walk and move its arms has been unveiled in Japan, amid hopes it will help invigorate tourism hit by Covid-19.
The robot is modelled after a figure in Mobile Suit Gundam, a Japanese cartoon first launched in the late 1970s about enormous battle robots piloted by humans. The series spawned multiple spin-offs and toys and gained a worldwide following.
It will be the centrepiece of the Gundam Factory Yokohama, a tourist attraction that opens on 19 December in the port city.
“I hope this will lead to stimulating tourism demand and revitalising local areas,” chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato said. “Of course, we now have the coronavirus issue. I want people to tackle endeavours like this while making an effort to prevent the spread of infection.”
EU member states should not undermine Covid-19 restrictions by letting the ski season start early, a spokesman for German chancellor Angela Merkel said.
“It doesn’t make sense to undermine national contact restrictions ... by starting the ski season too early,” Steffen Seibert said at a news conference.
Merkel last week said Germany wants Alpine countries to keep ski resorts closed to help fight the pandemic, but reaching an agreement with neighbouring Austria is proving difficult.
In the first wave of the coronavirus at the start of the year, many Germans were infected at the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl.
Russia has delivered the first known batch of Sputnik V vaccines for civilian use to a hospital just south of Moscow, which said it began vaccinating the local population last week.
Russia, which is rushing to keep up with Western drugmakers in the race for a coronavirus shot, has said interim trial results show its Sputnik V vaccine to be 92% effective at protecting people from Covid-19.
Domodedovo’s Central City Hospital said on its website that residents wanting inoculation had to register on a government website in advance and bring along a negative Covid-19 test result and ID documents on the day.
Coronavirus cases have surged in Russia since September, but authorities have resisted imposing a tough lockdown and have said that targeted measures are enough to cope with the crisis.
Authorities confirmed 26,338 new coronavirus cases on Monday, including 6,511 in Moscow and 3,691 in St Petersburg, taking the national total to 2,295,654 since the pandemic began.
They also reported 368 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 39,895.
The first two Covid-19 vaccines could be administered to Americans before Christmas, the health secretary, Alex Azar, has said, after Moderna became the second vaccine maker likely to receive US emergency authorisation.
The Food and Drug Administration’s outside advisers will meet on 10 December to consider authorising Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. That vaccine could be approved and shipped within days, with Moderna’s following one week behind that, Azar said.
“So we could be seeing both of these vaccines out and getting into people’s arms before Christmas,” Azar said on CBS.
The federal government will ship the vaccines through its normal vaccine distribution system, with state governors determining where they should go first, Azar said.
“They will be determining which groups to be prioritised. I would hope that the science and the evidence will be clear enough that our governors will follow the recommendations that we will make to them,” Azar said.
He said he and vice president Mike Pence will speak to all the nation’s governors later on Monday to discuss the vaccines and which groups of people should be prioritised.
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The US Transportation Security Administration said it screened 1.18 million airline passengers on Sunday, the highest number since mid-March but still about 60% lower than the comparable day last year.
The number of passengers screened on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year was 2.88 million, the highest ever recorded by the agency.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month urged Americans not to travel during this week’s Thanksgiving holiday to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus as cases of Covid-19 rise across the US.
Oman will resume granting tourist visas to people visiting on trips arranged by hotels and travel companies, after they were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, state media said.
The Gulf state resumed international flights on 1 October, but only citizens and people holding valid existing residency and work visas could enter.
The country’s coronavirus council also decided on Monday to restart a number of commercial and industrial activities, without giving further details.
Vietnam reports first locally transmitted Covid-19 case for 89 days
Vietnam has confirmed its first locally transmitted case of the coronavirus in nearly three months, after the infection of a man related to a flight attendant who tested positive after returning from Japan two weeks ago.
The country’s health minister ordered provinces and state agencies to tighten screening and controls and contact tracing efforts were launched after the 32-year-old man was confirmed as the first reported domestic infection in 89 days.
With its strict quarantine and tracking measures, Vietnam has managed to quickly contain its coronavirus outbreaks, allowing it to resume its economic activities earlier than much of Asia.
Vietnam crushed its first wave of coronavirus infections in April and went nearly 100 days without local transmission until the virus remerged and was quickly contained in the central city of Danang in July.
Authorities said the latest case had taught at language-learning centres and been to cafes and karaoke bars since his exposure to the flight attendant. Those places had since been closed.
Vietnam has so far recorded 1,347 coronavirus cases, 655 of which it said were imported. The country has reported an average of five of those cases a day recently.
It has effectively closed its borders to combat the coronavirus but has allowed some business travellers and those with foreign expertise to enter on special flights provided they undergo quarantine.
Monday’s case came days after the health ministry warned of a new outbreak among the community as the cold season has begun.
“The Covid-19 situation remains complicated,” health minister Nguyen Thanh Long said last week.
“The disease has returned in many parts of the world in winter time.”
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Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen has banned wedding parties and gatherings of more than 20 people, as authorities moved quickly after announcing rare cases of community transmission.
Fifteen people have so far tested positive from 3,332 tested since Sunday, the health ministry said, all linked to a 56-year-old woman who had travelled to the country’s two biggest cities since 20 November.
Cambodia is among the countries least impacted by the coronavirus, with just 323 cases so far and no deaths reported. Most of those cases were imported.
It was unclear how the woman, the wife of the country’s prisons chief, had become infected. Her husband and several family members also tested positive.
Hun Sen urged the public not to panic and said the ban on gatherings was a response to recommendations of experts and the World Health Organization.
“Suspend all gatherings of many people for 15 days, starting from today,” Hun Sen said. “And if there is a marriage, please apologise and suspend the marriage for 15 days. If we don’t do this, it will be late for us … so please implement these urgently.”
Hun Sen had earlier closed private schools and shut down parts of the prisons department at the interior ministry, where positive cases have been found.
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Moderna to seek US and EU approval after final results show Covid-19 vaccine has 94% efficacy
Moderna said it will apply for US and European emergency authorisation of its Covid-19 vaccine on Monday based on full results from a late-stage study showing its vaccine was 94.1% effective with no serious safety concerns.
It also reported a 100% success rate in preventing severe cases. The filing sets Moderna’s product up to be the second vaccine likely to receive US emergency use authorisation this year.
“We believe that we have a vaccine that is very highly efficacious. We now have the data to prove it,” Moderna chief medical officer Dr Tal Zaks said. “We expect to be playing a major part in turning around this pandemic.”
Zaks said he was emotional after seeing the 94.1% result over the weekend:
It was the first time I allowed myself to cry. At this level of effectiveness, when you just do the math of what it means for the pandemic that’s raging around us, it’s just overwhelming.
Moderna’s announcement follows news from Pfizer and German partner BioNTech that their vaccine, which also uses a new technology called synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA), was 95% effective.
Pfizer has applied for emergency use authorisation, putting it about a week ahead of Moderna.
In addition to filing its US application, Moderna said it would apply for conditional approval from the European Medicines Agency, which has already begun a rolling review of data, and would continue to talk with other regulators conducting rolling reviews.
Moderna’s latest efficacy result is slightly lower than an interim analysis released on 16 November of 94.5% effectiveness, a difference that Zaks said is not statistically significant.
Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines proved more effective than anticipated and far superior to the 50% benchmark set by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Britain’s AstraZeneca has announced an average efficacy rate of 70% for its vaccine and as much as 90% for a subgroup of trial participants who got a half dose first, followed by a full dose.
But some scientists have expressed doubts about the robustness of the 90% efficacy figure for the smaller group.
Still, the past few weeks of positive vaccine results have ignited hopes for an end to a pandemic that has battered economies and claimed more than 1.45 million lives worldwide. It comes as new infections and Covid-19 hospitalisations are at record levels across the US.
Independent advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration are scheduled to meet on 17 December to review Moderna’s trial data and make a recommendation to the FDA. They will meet on 10 December to review Pfizer’s data.
Shortly after gaining emergency use authorisation, Moderna expects the vaccine to be shipped to designated distribution points throughout the US by the government’s Operation Warp Speed programme and McKesson Corp, a drug distributor contracted by the US government.
Its distribution is expected to be easier than Pfizer’s because while it needs to be stored in a freezer, it does not require the ultra-cold temperature needed by Pfizer’s vaccine.
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Russia plans to begin mass trials of its second coronavirus vaccine, EpiVacCorona, on people aged over 18 on Monday, the RIA news agency reported.
EpiVacCorona, which is being developed by Siberia’s Vector Institute, was authorised this month to carry out trials on 150 volunteers over 60 and 3,000 volunteers over 18, the consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said.
The trials will be conducted in Moscow and several other cities including Kazan and Kaliningrad, the Tass news agency reported.
Coronavirus cases have surged in Russia since September, but authorities have resisted imposing a tough lockdown and have said targeted measures are enough to cope with the crisis.
Russia said earlier this month that its other Sputnik V vaccine had 92% efficacy at protecting people from Covid-19 according to interim results.
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The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has railed against the plans of some regional governments to let hotels open for family visits over Christmas, warning it risked worsening the coronavirus surge sweeping the country, Reuters has reported.
Infection levels rose overnight compared with the same time last week, despite the partial lockdown introduced for November, which has since been extended and tightened in an attempt to control the spread of the virus.
Merkel and state premiers agreed last week that some partial easing of the lockdown would be permitted to allow families some low-key Christmas celebrations.
But in a video conference of her conservative party’s top leadership on Monday, Merkel said she could not understand the plans of some northern and western states, where the epidemic is less severe, to allow hotels to open to allow far-flung families to get together.
Meeting participants told Reuters she saw this as particularly risky in large cities and in regions with high infection numbers.
Despite Merkel’s comments, however, the regional leaders have the final say on what happens in their states under Germany’s federal structure.
Her intervention came shortly before a meeting of the “coronavirus cabinet”, at which ministers are expected to discuss further responses to the crisis.
Though Germany has already mobilised unprecedented government aid to help support the economy through the pandemic, ministers warned on Monday that nothing could fully spare companies from the impact.
“People have to show discipline,” economy minister Peter Altmaier, the architect of the economic response to the pandemic told Deutschlandfunk radio. “We have to do more to reduce social contacts.”
Altmaier added that pandemic aid for companies could not be extended indefinitely.
In an indication of the severity of the pandemic’s economic impact, the percentage of companies using the state-backed furlough scheme rose to 28% in November, up from 24.8% the month before, the Ifo institute said.
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Turkey is expected to tighten its new weekend curfews in the face of a record rise in coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.
The move is expected after a cabinet meeting on Monday, according to sources.
They said that measures adopted on 17 November, including nightly curfews at weekends, had been insufficient.
“It is highly probable that the scope of the weekend curfew restriction will be expanded,” said one of the sources, adding a final decision will be made at the cabinet meeting chaired by president Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Opec oil producers’ club will meet virtually on Monday to mull over an extension to production cuts, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to weigh on global demand.
The 13 members to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries want to avoid a repeat of the collapse in prices seen in April at the beginning of the pandemic.
On Tuesday, they will be joined by their allies, including Russia, who form the Opec+ grouping.
The common goal of the alliance is to keep afloat a crude market devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic and which is slowly recovering from the depths into which prices plunged at the end of April.
According to the current deal, a cut of 7.7m barrels per day (bpd) is meant to be eased to 5.8m in January 2021, but most observers expect this to be extended by between three and six months.
The deal was reached in April but since then producers have had the second wave of the pandemic to take into account.
Key players within the grouping have hinted in recent weeks that an extension is on the table despite encouraging news from trials for vaccines by pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
The effect of vaccines, however, will play out over the longer term, while OPEC and its allies will be focused on supporting prices in the first and possibly the second quarter of 2021.
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Constantinos Herodotou, the governor of Cyprus’s central bank and a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank, has tested positive for Covid-19.
Writing on his Twitter account, Herodotou said he was self-isolating and working from home. He tested positive after contact tracing, he said.
A scheduled appearance before a Cypriot parliament standing committee on Monday was postponed.
There have been no in-person meetings of officials of the European Central Bank in recent months.
Bethlehem is shaping up for a dismal Christmas: most of the inns are closed, the shepherds are likely to be under lockdown and there are few visitors from the east, or anywhere else.
Just 12 months ago, the Palestinian town was celebrating its busiest festive season for two decades, amid a sustained drop in violence and a corresponding surge in the number of pilgrims and tourists.
But hotels that were adding new wings in 2019 are now shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nevertheless, town leaders say the traditional birthplace of Jesus will go ahead with its celebrations, aware the world’s eyes are upon it at this time of year.
“Bethlehem is going to celebrate Christmas. And Christmas will not be cancelled,” said mayor Anton Salman, as workers behind him erected a huge Christmas tree in Manger Square.
“This Christmas from Bethlehem there will be a message of hope to the whole world, that the world will recover from this pandemic.”
Father Francesco Patton, the Custodian of the Holy Land, launched the seasonal celebrations on Saturday, presiding over a service in a near-deserted Church of the Nativity.
“This Christmas will be less festive than usual as there will be restrictions, I suppose like any other part of the world,” said the newly-appointed Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, in an interview with a Catholic news service.
“Maybe the civil law will forbid us to celebrate as we want; the pandemic will impose restrictions, but none will stop us from expressing the true meaning of Christmas which is to make an act of love.”
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next few hours – please get in touch if you have any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
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France’s top health advisory body said today it had recommended Covid-19 vaccinations should target retirement homes residents and their staff first when doses reach the country.
Haute Autorite de la Sante (HAS) suggested rolling out the campaign in stages and on a voluntary basis, like in many other countries.
President Emmanuel Macron said last week that vaccines could start to be administered as soon as the end of the year in France, if approved by regulators, after hopes were raised of a quick rollout following promising results from trials of several candidates.
After those in nursing homes, amounting to about 840,000 people in France, a second phase would target those aged 65 and over, as well as some health workers, the HAS said.
Three other stages would follow, aimed at people with underlying conditions such as diabetes, other exposed professionals and then adults with no known other conditions.
“These recommendations will evolve other time as we get more data. We call for vaccination on a voluntary basis,” the head of HAS Dominique Le Guludec told reporters.
In the UK, the official guidance gives top priority to older adults in care homes and care home workers but there have been reports that NHS staff will get the jab first.
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More than 62.47 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,456,448 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
Hong Kong tightens restrictions by limiting gatherings to two people
Hong Kong has today tightened restrictions aimed at containing a rise in coronavirus cases, limiting gatherings to no more than two people, closing karaoke lounges and games centres and telling most civil servants to work from home.
The measures come in addition to restrictions announced yesterday that will see all schools close for in-person learning for the rest of the year, also from Wednesday.
Games centres, karaoke lounges and swimming pools will close from Wednesday and civil servants, excluding those that provide emergency services, will stay at home, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam told reporters.
The Ocean Park theme park and DisneyLand will also close, said secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan.
“It will be very critical in the coming two weeks,” Lam said. “I hope that Hong Kong people can remain tolerant.”
Gyms and sports centres will remain open but only to a maximum of two people at a time, while massage and beauty salons will stay in operation, the government said.
Restaurant dine-in hours will be shortened to 10pm from midnight, with no more than two people per table. A ban on gatherings will also be capped at two people, down from four.
Bars in Hong Kong are already shut, but some are trying to skirt the rules by placing plates and cutlery with customers under the pretence they are dining.
The global financial centre has so far managed to avoid the widespread outbreak of the disease seen in many major cities across the world, although the stop-start restrictions have caused frustration among some business owners and residents.
Lam said there were 76 new cases today, bringing the total in the city of 7.4 million to more than 6,300 since the epidemic started, with 109 deaths. Forty of the latest tally were related to dance clubs. The overall figure was lower than Sunday’s nearly four-month high of 115.
Lam said fines for breaches of the new rules could be doubled to at least HK$4,000 (£381).
The latest rise in cases has also led to the postponement for at least two weeks of a travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore – which was due to be launched on 22 November.
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Italy’s government says it has approved a new stimulus package to shore up businesses affected by the latest round of anti-coronavirus restrictions in the eurozone’s third-largest economy.
The aid package, the fourth since the pandemic gripped the country in March, is worth €8bn (£7.1bn) and delays tax deadlines for companies in areas subject to harsh lockdown measures.
It also offers a €1,000 lump sum to workers in tourism, the arts, sports and leisure - as well as setting aside funds for the conventions sector and a boosted police presence to ensure anti-coronavirus measures are respected.
Italy was the first European country to be hit hard by the virus. A punishing lockdown of all its 60 million residents brought the first outbreak under control but, as elsewhere, the number of cases has risen sharply in recent months.
Rome has sought to avoid another lockdown after the first crippled the economy, focusing instead on regional restrictions alongside a nationwide night-time curfew.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is due to meet with the heads of the country’s 20 regions later today to work out Italy’s plan for the holidays, with health experts warning too much Christmas cheer would spark a third wave.
“We are a long way off crying victory,” deputy health minister Pierpaolo Sileri said.
He said the number of people meeting to dine together would likely be limited to six.
The health ministry reported some 20,000 new cases yesterday and 541 deaths, bringing the cumulative toll to nearly 55,000.
Here is a video of Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warning about a potential “surge upon surge” of coronavirus cases in the US.
Taiwan will restrict the number of Indonesian workers coming to the island from this week, following a rise in the number of coronavirus infections among migrant workers arriving from the south-east Asian country, the government said today.
Taiwan is home to more than 250,000 migrant workers from Indonesia, which has the highest tally of virus infections and deaths in south-east Asia.
While early and effective prevention measures have helped the island keep the pandemic under control, with no local transmission for more than 200 days, it has grappled with a steady increase in the number of imported cases.
More than 70 Indonesians coming to Taiwan to work, mostly as domestic helpers, have tested positive since the start of this month, government figures show, often while still in mandatory 14-day quarantine.
Taiwan’s central epidemic command centre said it would suspend entry of Indonesian workers from 4 to 17 December, and consider whether to then resume entry but limiting the number to half of what had been expected. Subsequent measures will depend on the situation, it added.
Twenty of the 24 new cases reported today came from Indonesia, Taiwan said. A total of 103 people are either in isolation or being treated in hospital for the disease in Taiwan at present.
From next month, Taiwan will stiffen entry requirements for all arrivals, requiring proof of negative tests from almost all of them, including Taiwanese nationals who previously did not have to furnish such evidence.
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Doctors are studying the impact of Covid-19 on pregnant women and their unborn babies in Singapore, where an infant delivered by an infected mother earlier this month had antibodies against the virus but did not carry the disease.
The ongoing study among the city-state’s public hospitals adds to international efforts to better understand whether the infection or antibodies can be transferred during pregnancy, and if the latter offers an effective shield against the virus.
The World Health Organization says while some pregnant women have an increased risk of developing severe Covid-19, it is not yet known whether an infected pregnant woman can pass the virus to her foetus or baby during pregnancy or delivery.
A Singaporean woman, infected with the coronavirus in March when she was pregnant, told local newspaper the Straits Times that doctors said her infant son had antibodies against the virus but was born without the infection.
“It is still unknown whether the presence of these antibodies in a newborn baby confers a degree of protection against Covid-19 infection, much less the duration of protection,” said Tan Hak Koon, chairman of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology division at KK Women’s and Children’s hospital.
KK is one of the hospitals involved in the study of infected pregnant women in Singapore, details of which surfaced after the case of the baby born with antibodies was made public.
The National University hospital, another hospital involved, said the study looks at the effects of Covid-19 on pregnant women, their foetus and outcomes after delivery.
Doctors in China reported the detection and decline over time of Covid-19 antibodies in babies born to women with the coronavirus disease, according to an article published in October in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
While there is evidence that transmission during pregnancy is rare, a small study in Italy suggested that it is possible, according to research published in the Nature journal in October.
Other studies have shown Covid-19 antibodies can be passed to a child via breastfeeding, while KK’s Tan said there was evidence they could pass during pregnancy through the placenta to the baby.
Paul Tambyah, one of city-state’s leading disease experts, said it was encouraging that antibodies were present in the Singapore baby months after the mother’s infection, adding to broader evidence that they offer some protection from the virus. The president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection said:
Worldwide there have been millions of people infected, including probably thousands of pregnant women, with very few reports of infections in very young babies. This suggests that there might be some protection from maternal antibodies and breast feeding.
Updated
Russia reported 26,338 new coronavirus cases today, including 6,511 in Moscow and 3,691 in St Petersburg, taking the national total to 2,295,654 cases since the pandemic began.
Authorities also reported 368 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 39,895.
Both daily tallies were down on the previous 24 hours when there were 26,683 new cases and 459 deaths.
In England, the environment secretary, George Eustice, said up to 100 MPs have “got concerns” about the new Covid restrictions, which will be subject to a Commons vote tomorrow. The government has a majority of 80 seats.
He told Sky News:
The chief whip, obviously, will be talking to those MPs who have got concerns. I’ve seen suggestions that there could be up to 100 or so people that have got concerns …
I think there is great frustration with the emergency measures that we have had to take to deal with this pandemic.
We haven’t taken them lightly. We have had to take these to get the virus under control.
What we need to show to those MPs and to the country at large is that we have got a clear route towards fixing this problem and turning the corner.
'But will you have to rely on Labour to get the #COVID19 tier restrictions through parliament?' - #KayBurley
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 30, 2020
Environment Secretary George Eustice replies "I don't know", but there could be "up to 100" Tory MPs who have concerns over the tier system.https://t.co/llMe59UCFC pic.twitter.com/FwYzAUoPEY
He also refused to rule out the possibility of a third lockdown in January, saying: “You can’t rule anything out because this is a rapidly developing situation.”
Environmental Secretary George Eustice says the way to avoid a third national lockdown is by "observing the tiered approach" but adds "you can't rule anything out".#KayBurley
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 30, 2020
Get the latest on #COVID19: https://t.co/X1qu2Npc3r pic.twitter.com/RTiqNyURaZ
Updated
Thailand is racing to track down about 200 people in its northern provinces to stop a potential coronavirus outbreak, after three Thai nationals entered the country illegally from Myanmar and tested positive days later.
Three women bypassed immigration checks and entered via natural border crossings last Tuesday and Friday, skipping the mandatory quarantine for new arrivals, Prachon Pratsakul, provincial governor of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand, said.
There were 356 people in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces potentially exposed, among them staff and customers of a hotel, shopping mall, cinema, restaurants and passengers in a van and taxi, Prachon told a news conference.
Thailand has strict measures and border controls to keep the coronavirus at bay having kept its cases to less than 4,000 and deaths at 60, although its tourism-reliant economy has suffered badly.
Most infections in recent months have been imported and found in government quarantine, with only a handful of community-transmitted cases reported, which each saw massive contact-tracing efforts launched.
So far more than 150 people in the northern provinces have been found and tested negative, senior health official Sopon Iamsirithaworn said in a separate news conference.
The first of the three new cases arrived on 24 November in Chiang Rai and travelled to Chiang Mai, where she later showed coronavirus symptoms and went to hospital.
Two others who worked in the same entertainment venue in Myanmar returned on Friday. They stayed at a local hotel and later sought Covid-19 tests, which were positive.
Myanmar is seeing an average 1,447 new coronavirus cases each day, with nearly 88,000 infections and 1,887 deaths overall.
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That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thanks for following along – I’ll be back on the good ship Blog tomorrow – in the meantime, my colleague Haroon Siddique is taking the helm.
Updated
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
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The US top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the country may see “surge upon a surge” of coronavirus cases in the weeks after Thanksgiving, and he does not expect current recommendations around social distancing to be relaxed before Christmas.
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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday reported a total 13,142,997 cases of new coronavirus, an increase of 143,333 from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,210 to 265,166.
- Six inmates were killed and 35 others were injured when guards opened fire to control a riot at a prison on the outskirts of Sri Lanka’s capital, officials said Monday. Two guards were critically injured, they said. Pandemic-related unrest has been growing in Sri Lanka’s overcrowded prisons. Inmates have staged protests in recent weeks at several prisons as the number of coronavirus cases surges in the facilities.
- China’s factory activity expanded at the fastest pace in more than three years in November, while growth in the services sector also hit a multi-year high, as the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus stepped up, Reuters reports.
- Japan’s serious cases reach record levels. In Japan, the number of Covid-19 patients with serious symptoms has reached record levels, as the country battles a third wave of infections. The number of people with severe symptoms rose to 462 on Sunday, the health ministry said - an increase of 22 from the previous day.
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Children in Iraq have started returning to school for the first time since late February, with social distancing measures in place and schools operating six days a week.
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Lebanon will begin to slowly relax coronavirus restrictions imposed two weeks ago from Monday, as it looks to boost its struggling economy ahead of Christmas.
- Turkey’s daily coronavirus death toll hit a record high for a seventh consecutive day on Sunday, with 185 fatalities in the last 24 hours.
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The WHO delivered 15 ventilators to hospitals in Gaza on Sunday as the Palestinian territory suffered a rise in Covid-19 infections.
- New York City’s state schools will start to reopen on 7 December, beginning with primary schools, the mayor, Bill de Blasio, announced on Sunday.
In a normal year in the run-up to Christmas, Glen Duckett, landlord of the award-winning Eagle + Child in Ramsbottom, would be accompanying five or six of his staff on a trip to Angoulême in France, an annual culinary excursion he introduced as part of an apprenticeship scheme. Back at the pub, the team would be gearing up for festive gatherings, designing special menus, preparing turkeys and digging the Christmas decorations out of the cellar.
But this year is anything but normal. The Eagle will still twinkle with fairy lights, but it won’t be open this Christmas. When lockdown in England ends on 2 December, the pub, near Bury in Greater Manchester, will return to tier 3, only this time the restrictions will be more severe.
In total, 38,000 hospitality venues will fall under tier 3 in England from 3 December – representing 20% of trade. All of them will remain closed except for providing pre-ordered takeaways, a move the trade body UKHospitality described as “unfair and arbitrary”:
London has suffered the biggest fall in job opportunities among Europe’s biggest cities, according to a report showing that national capitals across the region have been damaged most by Covid-19.
Britain’s capital is also among five of the biggest cities in western Europe – London, Berlin, Madrid, Paris and Rome – that have recorded a larger drop in new job adverts than elsewhere in their respective countries, according to Indeed.
The world’s largest jobs website said tougher restrictions applied by governments across the continent to contain the second Covid wave had extracted the heaviest price for the jobs markets of these usually dominant cities:
If you were to choose a word that rose above most in 2020, which word would it be?
Ding, ding, ding: Merriam-Webster on Monday announced “pandemic” as its 2020 word of the year.
“That probably isn’t a big shock,” Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, told The Associated Press.
“Often the big news story has a technical word that’s associated with it and in this case, the word pandemic is not just technical but has become general. It’s probably the word by which we’ll refer to this period in the future,” he said.
The word took on urgent specificity in March, when the coronavirus crisis was designated a pandemic, but it started to trend up on Merriam-Webster.com as early January and again in February when the first US deaths and outbreaks on cruise ships occurred.
Pandemic, with roots in Latin and Greek, is a combination of “pan,” for all, and “demos,” for people or population. The latter is the same root of “democracy,” Sokolowski noted. The word pandemic dates to the mid-1600s, used broadly for “universal” and more specifically to disease in a medical text in the 1660s, he said.
That was after the plagues of the Middle Ages, Sokolowski said.
He attributes the lookup traffic for pandemic not entirely to searchers who didn’t know what it meant but also to those on the hunt for more detail, or for inspiration or comfort.
Updated
India’s coronavirus cases rose by 38,772, the health ministry said on Monday, making it the 23rd straight day that daily cases have stayed below the 50,000 mark.
The country now has 9.43 million cases, the second-highest in the world after the United States, but daily cases have been dipping since hitting a peak in September.
Deaths rose by 443 in the last 24 hours, and now total 137,139.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 11,169 to 1,053,869, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Monday.
The reported death toll rose by 125 to 16,248, the tally showed.
China's factory activity expands at fastest pace in over 3 years
China’s factory activity expanded at the fastest pace in more than three years in November, while growth in the services sector also hit a multi-year high, as the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus stepped up, Reuters reports.
Upbeat data released on Monday suggests the world’s second-largest economy is on track to become the first to completely shake off the drag from widespread industry shutdowns, with recent production data showing manufacturing now at pre-pandemic levels.
China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) rose to 52.1 in November from 51.4 in October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. It was the highest PMI reading since September 2017 and remained above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis. It was also higher than the 51.5 median forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts.
Six inmates killed in Sri Lanka prison riot
Six inmates were killed and 35 others were injured when guards opened fire to control a riot at a prison on the outskirts of Sri Lanka’s capital, officials said Monday. Two guards were critically injured, they said.
AP reports: Pandemic-related unrest has been growing in Sri Lanka’s overcrowded prisons. Inmates have staged protests in recent weeks at several prisons as the number of coronavirus cases surges in the facilities.
Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said inmates created “unrest” Sunday at Mahara prison, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) north of Colombo, and officials attempted to control the situation.
The guards opened fire, and the clash left six inmates dead and 35 injured, he said. Two prison officers were critically injured.
An inmate was killed in similar unrest at another prison last week. Another died in March.
More than a thousand inmates in five prisons have tested positive for the coronavirus and at least two have died. About 50 prison guards have also tested positive.
Sri Lankan prisons are highly congested with more than 26,000 inmates crowded into facilities with a capacity of 10,000.
Sri Lanka has experienced an upsurge in coronavirus infections since last month when two clusters — one centered at a garment factory and other at a fish market — emerged in Colombo and its suburbs.
Confirmed cases from the two clusters have reached 19,449. Sri Lanka has reported a total number of 22,988 coronavirus cases, including 109 fatalities.
Japan will be saddled with a bill of almost $2bn to cover the additional cost of postponing the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to the coronavirus.
The Kyodo news agency and the Yomiuri newspaper reported that the Games’ organising committee, the Tokyo metropolitan government and the Japanese government will decide how much each of the parties will contribute.
The extra costs will come from introducing coronavirus countermeasures, such as setting up testing centres, as well as expenses related to venues, equipment and labour, Kyodo said.
The Tokyo Games, which will open a year later than scheduled on 23 July 2021, are already the most expensive summer Olympics in history, according to a study by Oxford University.
The official cost has been put at $12.6bn, but a government audit last year said the real figure was probably double that.
All but $5.6bn is public money, Reuters said, raising the question of how Japanese taxpayers will react to shouldering an even greater financial burden at a time of economic uncertainty.
The Japanese government, organisers and the International Olympic Committee [IOC] insist that the Games will go ahead despite the pandemic, albeit in a more compact form.
The IOC’s president, Thomas Bach, said during a recent visit to Tokyo that the development of Covid-19 vaccines had boosted the event’s prospects, but warned that they were not a “silver bullet”.
Tens of thousands of athletes and officials are expected to be closely monitored and to live in quarantine-like conditions during the Games. They will be encouraged to forego sightseeing trips and to leave Japan as soon as their events have ended.
No decision has been made on overseas fans, however, with some reports suggesting that a limited number from countries that have brought their infection rates under control may be able to attend.
US reports more than 143,000 new cases; 1,200 deaths
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday reported a total 13,142,997 cases of new coronavirus, an increase of 143,333 from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,210 to 265,166.
The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as Covid-19, caused by the new coronavirus, as of 4 p.m. ET on Nov. 28 compared with its previous report a day earlier.
The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.
In Las Cruces, New Mexico, at the Memorial Medical Center, a family, like many across America, watches and waits while a loved one struggles with Covid in an intensive care ward.
Jose Garcia, 67, has been in the ICU there since Nov. 6 and doesn’t appear to be getting better, said his daughter, Carolina Garcia, a nurse for 12 years at the hospital.
She, like her eight brothers and sisters, are praying their father will recover, she said.
“I feel as a nurses, we’re seeing a type of nursing we’ve never seen,” she said.
“Usually they (patients) come in they come in and get better and go home. This is a whole different ballgame. The virus - it’s not getting better.”
In the UK, NHS bosses plan to enlist celebrities and “influencers” with big social media followings in a major campaign to persuade people to have a Covid vaccine amid fears of low take-up.
Ministers and NHS England are drawing up a list of “very sensible” famous faces in the hope that their advice to get immunised would be widely trusted, the Guardian has learned.
Health chiefs are particularly worried about the number of people who are still undecided, and about vaccine scepticism among NHS staff. “There will be a big national campaign [to drive take-up],” said one source with knowledge of the plans. “NHS England are looking for famous faces, people who are known and loved. It could be celebrities who are very sensible and have done sensible stuff during the pandemic.”
No names are thought to have been confirmed. But NHS communications experts suggested privately that the footballer Marcus Rashford, who is widely admired for his child food poverty campaign, which has forced two government U-turns, and members of the royal family would be ideal recruits. Politicians will not be used, it is understood. It comes as:
- The prime minister tried to quell a rebellion over tougher coronavirus tiers ahead of a Commons vote on Tuesday, telling 70 sceptical Tory MPs from the Covid Recovery Group “there is every reason to hope and believe that the worst is nearly behind us” as he called for “unity and resolve”.
- The latest React study from Imperial College London suggested a 30% fall in coronavirus infections in England during the second national lockdown, with cases dropping by more than half in the north-west and north-east, according to tests on 105,000 volunteers.
- The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, warned, however, that there could be a third wave of the pandemic if the right balance is not struck on restrictions and did not rule out a third national lockdown.
Japan's serious cases reach record levels
In Japan, the number of Covid-19 patients with serious symptoms has reached record levels, as the country battles a third wave of infections. The number of people with severe symptoms rose to 462 on Sunday, the health ministry said - an increase of 22 from the previous day.
On Saturday, authorities reported a record 2,684 cases and 14 deaths in Japan, bringing the total to 146,214 cases and 2,123 deaths.
The recent surge in infections prompted Tokyo and the central prefecture of Aichi to ask bars and restaurants to close early to prevent infections from spiraling out of control towards the end of the year.
But the voluntary measure is due to end on 17 December, just as the bonenkai season, when groups of colleagues traditionally eat and drink in large groups to “forget the year”, gets into full swing.
To encourage compliance, the Tokyo metropolitan government will pay places that serve alcohol ¥400,000 yen ($3,800) if they close by 10 pm. The Aichi prefectural government is offering a similar financial incentive to businesses that close by 9 pm.
Media reports said the sharp rise in serious cases is putting additional pressure on hospitals, particularly in the worst-affected cities of Tokyo and Osaka. The Asahi Shimbun said hospital beds for Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms are filling up at such a rate that health workers fear they may soon be unable to treat people with other illnesses that require urgent attention, including those needing emergency surgery.
Just over half of the beds in Osaka reserved for Covid patients are occupied, along with 40% in Tokyo, the newspaper said.
Occupancy rates for beds set aside for coronavirus patients have risen in 40 of Japan’s 47 prefectures over the past week, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Updated
Swings and roundabouts in Australia:
Australians wasted more food during the Covid-19 pandemic, largely thanks to panic buying and food delivery services.
The annual bill for the country’s wasteful food choices skyrocketed to an estimated $10.3bn after the coronavirus reached our shores, according to Rabobank’s 2020 Food Waste Report.
That is an all-time annual high of $1,043 per household.
Before the pandemic, Australians were tracking towards $8.64bn in food waste, costing the average household about $170 less:
Updated
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 3% in the year to June due to the Covid-19 shutdown, the ongoing impact of drought and an influx of cheap solar and wind power, according to government figures.
The government said it meant Australia had beaten its international 2020 target – widely regarded among experts as an unambitious goal.
Experts said much of the fall in emissions over the year were unrelated to federal government action.
The quarterly update on emissions released on Monday showed the pandemic had caused a sharp drop in transport emissions of 6.7% over the year to June as there were fewer cars on roads, and passenger flights dropped to almost nil in the early months of this year.
The Guardian’s Graham Readfearn and Adam Morton report:
The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume said Saturday it would apply for an emergency licence for a coronavirus vaccine within two weeks, and that confusion over the efficacy would not delay its distribution, AFP reports.
Serum Institute of India chief executive Adar Ponnawala also confirmed that the Pune-based giant would be able to produce at least 100 million doses a month from early 2021 of Covishield, which was developed by Astrazeneca and Oxford University.
Poonawalla said the institute was already producing 50-60 million doses a month and after January-February that will be scaled up to 100 million doses per month.
Serum Institute will concentrate first on production for India and the 150-plus countries in the Covax alliance that have agreed to work together on distributing the vaccine.
AstraZeneca and Oxford University have hailed its vaccine as being cheaper than rivals as well as easier to store and distribute because it can be handled at higher temperatures.
Mexico reported 6,388 new confirmed coronavirus infections and 196 additional deaths on Sunday, health ministry data showed.
The latest tally brought the official number of cases to 1,107,071 with a total death toll of 105,655.
Health officials have said the real number of both is likely to be significantly higher due to little testing.
Brazil has registered 51,922 additional coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours and 587 new deaths, the nation’s Health Ministry said on Saturday.
The South American country has now registered 6,290,272 total confirmed coronavirus cases and 172,561 deaths.
The United States passed four million cases of the coronavirus for November on Saturday, more than double the record 1.9 million cases set in October.
Airline and transportation authorities report Americans traveled by the millions over the weekend, and amid Black Friday, retailers experienced large crowds and overnight lines despite government and merchant pleas to primarily shop online.
US surgeon general Jerome Adams acknowledged the surge on Sunday, adding that he expects the rise to continue. Covid-19 has now killed more than 265,000 people in America, with 1,192 new deaths from the virus reported on Saturday.
“I want to be straight with the American people, it’s gonna get worse over the next several weeks,” he told on Fox News Sunday. “The actions that we take in the next several days will determine how bad it is or whether or not we continue to flatten our curve.”
According to Covid-19 tracking data, more than 1.1 million people tested positive for the virus in the past week, an average of 170,000 people a day. On Saturday, public health officials reported a daily record of 91,635 hospitalisations:
China reported 18 new Covid-19 cases on Nov. 29, up from 11 a day earlier, the national health authority said on Monday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement 15 of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. It also reported three local infections in the Inner Mongolia region.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to 17 from 10 a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 86,530, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Coronavirus infections in England have fallen by nearly a third since the country entered its second lockdown, swab tests on 105,000 volunteers have shown.
There was a 30% drop in cases across the country over almost a fortnight this month, with 96 people infected per 10,000 between 13-24 November, down from 132 per 10,000 between 26 October and 2 November.
The R number, which shows the level of transmission, is now 0.88. Any figure above 1 means the virus is growing exponentially.
The findings, from the government-funded React mass surveillance study, have been welcomed as proof that both the England-wide lockdown that began on 5 November, and the system of different tiered restrictions that preceded it, succeeded in reducing transmission of the virus:
Dr Fauci also said the arrival of vaccines offers a “light at the end of the tunnel”, AP reports. This coming week, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss a rollout of the vaccine, he said.
He added that President-elect Joe Biden should focus on distributing vaccines in an “efficient and equitable way.” Fauci also said he planned to push the new administration for a rigorous testing program.
Health care workers will likely be among the first to get the vaccine, with the first vaccinations happening before the end of December, followed by many more in January, February and March, he said.
“So if we can hang together as a country and do these kinds of things to blunt these surges until we get a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated, we can get through this,” Fauci said.
Fauci warns of 'surge upon surge' in US cases after Thanksgiving
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s “This Week” that the level of infection in the US would not “all of a sudden turn around.”
AP: “So clearly in the next few weeks, we’re going to have the same sort of thing. And perhaps even two or three weeks down the line ... we may see a surge upon a surge,” he said.
Fauci also appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he made similar remarks, adding that it’s “not too late” for people traveling home after Thanksgiving to help curb the virus by wearing masks, staying distant from others and avoiding large groups of people.
The number of new Covid-19 cases reported in the United States topped 200,000 for the first time Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Since January, when the first infections were reported in the US, the nation’s total number of cases has surpassed 13 million. More than 265,000 people have died.
Aside from the Thanksgiving holiday itself, anywhere from 800,000 to more than 1 million travellers made their way through US airport checkpoints on any day during the past week, according to Transportation Security Administration statistics.
That’s a far cry from the 2.3 to 2.6 million seen daily last year. But it far surpasses the number of travellers early in the pandemic, when daily totals fell below 100,000 on some spring days.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next few hours.
Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
The US top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the country may see “surge upon a surge” of the coronavirus in the weeks after Thanksgiving, and he does not expect current recommendations around social distancing to be relaxed before Christmas.
Last week, the US, which has the highest number of cases and deaths of any country worldwide, reported more than 200,000 cases in a single day.
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Children in Iraq have started returning to school for the first time since late February, with social distancing measures in place and schools operating six days a week.
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Lebanon will begin to slowly relax coronavirus restrictions imposed two weeks ago from Monday, as it looks to boost its struggling economy ahead of Christmas.
- Turkey’s daily coronavirus death toll hit a record high for a seventh consecutive day on Sunday, with 185 fatalities in the last 24 hours.
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The WHO delivered 15 ventilators to hospitals in Gaza on Sunday as the Palestinian territory suffered a rise in Covid-19 infections.
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New York City’s state schools will start to reopen on 7 December, beginning with primary schools, the mayor, Bill de Blasio, announced on Sunday.
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The top infectious disease expert in the US has warned that the country may record a “surge upon a surge” of the virus in coming weeks.
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Greece announced 1,193 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, a significant decrease compared to recent figures and its lowest number since 2 November.
- Doctors and nurses are protesting in Madrid, Spain against cuts that they say have left them struggling to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.
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France’s highest administrative court has ordered the government to loosen coronavirus rules allowing no more than 30 people at religious services, in the face of angry objections from church leaders.
- There have been a further 12,155 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, according to government data. This compares to 15,871 cases registered on Saturday.
