Summary
We are closing this blog now, but you can keep reading here.
Here is a summary of the main developments.
- England is expected to go into national lockdown from early next week, with the prime minister, Boris Johnson, set to bow to pressure from his scientific advisers to impose tighter restrictions. On Friday the UK has reported 274 more deaths and 24,405 new cases.
- The US has passed 9m coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker. The figure stands at 9,007,298, the highest in the world, followed by India with 8,088,851 and Brazil with 5,494,376.
- France has reported 49,215 new confirmed coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, compared with 47,637 on Thursday. The total number of infections rose to 1,331,984 while the death tally went up by 256 over 24 hours to 36,565.
- Coronavirus infections in Italy rose by 31,084 on Friday, a jump of over 4,000 in a day, while 199 more fatalities were recorded. Hospital admissions increased by over 1,000 in a day, bringing the total across the country to 16,994, of which 1,746 are in intensive care.
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Canada needs to adopt a stronger response now to tackle a second wave of the coronavirus that has already killed more than 10,000 people and is growing worse, health authorities have said according to Reuters.
- Australia’s political fight over border restrictions is continuing, with the state of Queensland under pressure for continuing to bar entry to people from greater Sydney. The state of Victoria has recorded one new case, as Melbourne residents enjoy their first weekend since the end of one of the world’s longest lockdowns.
- Belgium will impose tighter lockdown rules from Monday, closing non-essential businesses and restricting household visits. Households will only be allowed to receive one visitor, half-term holidays for schools will be extended to 15 November and those who can adapt their jobs to work from home will be asked to do so.
Updated
The chief health officer of the Australian state of Victoria says the one case recorded in the past 24 hours was a “low positive”.
Brett Sutton made the statement on Twitter.
Today’s single case is a low positive and in isolation. Result will go through expert panel review today. https://t.co/zRraKLwBjD
— Chief Health 🍩fficer, Victoria (@VictorianCHO) October 30, 2020
Updated
National lockdown expected in England
The United Kingdom government is expected to announce a national lockdown across England next week.
The Guardian has been told the prime minister, Boris Johnson, has bowed to pressure from his scientific advisers for new national lockdown restrictions.
They are expected to be announced early next week.
Sir Patrick Vallance and Prof Chris Whitty, who head the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), are understood to have warned the prime minister that the time has come for national action across England.
Sage scientists presented Johnson with evidence at a meeting in Downing Street, where they explained that Covid-19 is spreading significantly faster than their worst-case scenarios.
Read the full story here.
NSW records four cases, only one locally transmitted
The Australian state of New South Wales has reported one locally transmitted case of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours.
A further three cases were recorded among overseas travellers in hotel quarantine, NSW Health said in a statement.
The locally acquired case is linked to a new cluster at Hoxton Park, which has now reached five infections.
NSW Health said the person attended the Flip Out Prestons Indoor Trampoline Park at the same time as a known case.
The case attends Cabramatta High School, which will be closed over the weekend for cleaning.
Contact tracing is underway.
Authorities are calling on people south west Sydney to come forward for testing, citing a number of recent cases in the area.
Australia has pledged new foreign aid funding to help eradicate Covid-19 across south-east Asia and the Pacific.
NGOs have welcomed the $500 million commitment, which will fund immunisation programs throughout the region over the next three years.
“We have been asking for Australia to dig deeper, just as it did after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami,” said World Vision Australia acting chief executive Graham Strong.
“John Howard said at the time it was ‘a human tragedy on a scale that none of us in our lifetime have seen, and it does require a response above the ordinary’. Covid-19 marks a new era in human tragedy – once again ‘a response above the ordinary’ is urgently needed.
“This announcement, building on Australia’s previous commitment to the region is demonstrating the type of leadership and friendship our region has come to know and expect from Australia.”
Updated
Residents in the Australian city of Melbourne are easing in to their first weekend since the end of one of the world’s longest lockdowns.
Eased restrictions for the city of five million mean locals can now dine at cafes and restaurants, or grab a drink at bars and pubs.
However, strict patron limits remain in place and venues have been encouraged to seat customers outside.
Retailers are also open once again, and residents may now invite two adults from the same household into their homes.
The restrictions were eased on Wednesday, with some venues opening their doors to customers from just past the stroke of midnight.
Brazil reports 508 new deaths, 22,000 cases
Brazil has reported a further 508 deaths and 22,282 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the country’s health authorities have said.
It takes the country’s death toll to 159,477, while more than 5.5m cases have now been recorded since the start of the pandemic.
Cristiano Ronaldo has recovered from Covid-19 after 19 days, and will be able to leave home quarantine.
The Juventus striker has missed four matches since he tested positive.
The club said in a statement:
Cristiano Ronaldo carried out a check with a diagnostic test (swab) for Covid-19.
The exam provided a negative result. The player has, therefore, recovered after 19 days and is no longer subjected to home isolation.
Australia’s Penrith Panthers rugby league club has copped a $10,000 fine after its fans breached Covid-19 restrictions during last weekend’s NRL grand final.
Footage showed excited patrons mingling, hugging and drinking while standing during the team’s 20-26 loss to the Melbourne Storm, reports AAP.
The ANZ Stadium was also fined $5,000 for allowing patrons to congregate in bar areas to watch the match.
Two other venues at Sydney Olympic Park - The Brewery at the Novotel and the Locker Room - were also issued $5,000 fines.
Brazil’s government will “of course” buy a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine that is being tested in the country, the vice-president, Hamilton Mourão, said on Friday, in the latest example of him contradicting the president Jair Bolsonaro.
Last week, Bolsonaro, a long-standing China critic, said the federal government would not buy a Covid-19 vaccine from China’s Sinovac, one day after the health minister said that it would be included in the nation’s immunisation program.
Reuters reports that his comments thrust into the open a simmering debate over vaccine policy between the president and key governors, who have been exploring alternatives to the AstraZeneca vaccine the federal government has prioritied.
However, in an interview in the magazine Veja that hit the stands on Friday, Mourão said Bolsonaro’s stance was without substance, putting it down to a war of words with political rivals, like Sao Paulo state Governor João Doria.
“The government will buy the vaccine, of course it will. We have already put the resources in Butantan to produce this vaccine. The government will not run away from that,” Mourão was quoted as saying.
Sao Paulo state biomedical research centre the Butantan Institute is testing the Sinovac vaccine. Doria hopes to have regulatory approval by the end of the year and start vaccinating people in January.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa said it had authorised the import of Sinovac’s raw materials to produce the vaccine.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Luke Henriques-Gomes in Melbourne taking over from Nadeem Badshah.
I’ll be with you for the next few hours.
Updated
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce says Queensland border decision 'ridiculous'
Australia’s political fight over Covid-19 border closures is continuing despite moves from some states to ease their restrictions.
Facing pressure from other states and industry, the premiers of Western Australia and Queensland have now both announced they would relax tough border rules preventing residents of other states entering in the coming days.
But business and political leaders have hit out at Queensland’s decision to continue a hard border with the Greater Sydney area, despite minimal community transmission in the city.
Alan Joyce, the chief executive of Qantas, labelled the decision “ridiculous”.
“Keeping the doors bolted to places you can’t reasonably call hotspots makes no sense from a health perspective and it’s doing a lot of social and economic damage as well,” he said.
All states continue to keep their borders closed to Victoria, where authorities have just confirmed one new case was recorded in the past 24 hours.
The 14-day rolling average in Melbourne, which just came out of one of the world’s longest lockdowns, is now 2.4. There are only two cases that haven’t been linked to a known outbreak over the past two weeks.
In New South Wales, education authorities will close Sydney’s Cabramatta High School after a student returned a positive test.
Queensland will reopen to regional NSW from Tuesday, while Western Australia has confirmed it will ease hard border restrictions for all states on 14 November.
Four tourists were arrested in Brazil for allegedly falsifying Covid-19 tests in an attempt to visit a beach.
The two men and two women were arrested on Thursday after landing in Fernando de Noronha, a group of islands off northern Brazil, according to a statement on the archipelago’s official website.
The Brazilians, who took a private jet and arrived Wednesday night, were accused of falsifying documents, using falsified documents and criminal association.
TripAdvisor users rated Fernando de Noronha’s Sancho Bay as the world’s top beach in 2020.
Fernando de Noronha reopened to tourists on 10 October, requiring Covid-19 tests that show negative results and administered no earlier than one day before departure. The visitors presented test results that were dated three days prior to their arrival.
Officials said they could not accept their tests and asked for samples to retest them. The defendants refused, and soon presented new results with a different date, according to the statement.
Officials became suspicious and called the laboratory, which confirmed the documentation had been altered in an attempt to meet the island’s requirements.
The tourists, who are from Brazil’s Tocantins state, were jailed and were tested for Covid-19 on Friday.
Updated
Australian state of Victoria records one new coronavirus case
In the past 24 hours, there has been 1 new case reported and no lives lost. The 14 day average is down to 2.4, and there are 2 cases with unknown source. More info: https://t.co/2vKbgKHFvv #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/4EdvsXsyfE
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) October 30, 2020
A summary of today's developments
- The US has passed 9m coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker. The figure stands at 9,007,298, the highest in the world, followed by India with 8,088,851 and Brazil with 5,494,376.
- Belgium will impose tighter lockdown rules from Monday, closing non-essential businesses and restricting household visits. Households will only be allowed to receive one visitor, half-term holidays for schools will be extended to 15 November and those who can adapt their jobs to work from home will be asked to do so.
- France has reported 49,215 new confirmed coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, compared with 47,637 on Thursday. The total number of infections rose to 1,331,984 while the death tally went up by 256 over 24 hours to 36,565.
- Mexico City’s mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the capital could next week impose tougher restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus if the number of people being treated in hospital for Covid-19 rises further in the coming days.
- The number of coronavirus infections in Spain rose by 25,595 on Friday, the highest daily increase since the start of the pandemic and the second consecutive record after Thursday’s 23,580, health ministry data showed.
- Coronavirus infections in Italy rose by 31,084 on Friday, a jump of over 4,000 in a day, while 199 more fatalities were recorded. Hospital admissions increased by over 1,000 in a day, bringing the total across the country to 16,994, of which 1,746 are in intensive care.
- The UK has reported 274 more deaths and 24,405 new cases.
- Canada needs to adopt a stronger response now to tackle a second wave of the coronavirus that has already killed more than 10,000 people and is growing worse, health authorities have said according to Reuters.
- The Czech parliament’s lower house has approved extending a state of emergency for three more weeks, as the country struggles with surge of coronavirus cases, Reuters reports. The state of emergency does not automatically bring any new measures but creates the legal framework for the government to slap restrictions on people’s movement or operation of businesses.
Updated
Updated
Canada has recorded 10,074 deaths and 228,542 cases so far and continues to break daily records for the number of new cases.
Some of the 10 provinces are reintroducing bans on indoor dining and limiting the size of gatherings.
Manitoba, which has the highest rate of active cases per capita among provinces, said it would tighten restrictions starting on Monday.
In Winnipeg, where most cases are located, all restaurants and bars will close to in-person dining.
Ontario premier Doug Ford said his government would introduce legislation in the coming days to extend the moratorium on commercial evictions in Canada’s most populous province.
Updated
France reports a further 49,000 Covid-19 cases
France has reported 49,215 new confirmed coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, compared with 47,637 on Thursday.
The total number of infections rose to 1,331,984. The death tally went up by 256 over 24 hours to 36,565.
Stricter lockdown rules come into effect at midnight. People will only be able to leave their own homes for certain essential purposes, as the country tries to put the brakes on a Covid-19 outbreak that the president, Emmanuel Macron, said risked accelerating out of control. More details here.
Updated
US surpasses 9 million cases
The US has passed 9 million coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker.
The figure stands at 9,007,298, the highest in the world, followed by India with 8,088,851 and Brazil with 5,494,376.
The US also has the highest death toll globally with more than 229,000.
The US just reported 9 million coronavirus cases:
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) October 30, 2020
0 to 1 million: 98 days
1 to 2 million: 44 days
2 to 3 million: 27 days
3 to 4 million: 15 days
4 to 5 million: 17 days
5 to 6 million: 22 days
6 to 7 million: 25 days
7 to 8 million: 21 days
8 to 9 million: 14 days
Updated
US President Donald Trump, during his campaign rally in Michigan, has bizarrely criticised doctors who have been treating coronavirus patients on the frontline of this pandemic.
He said: “Our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid.
“You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people,” Trump said, griping about those with comorbidities being counted as coronavirus victims.
Updated
Belgium announces tougher lockdown rules
Belgium will impose tighter lockdown rules from Monday, closing non-essential businesses and restricting household visits.
“These are last-chance measures if we want to get the figures down,” said Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, warning that the new rules would stay in place for at least a month and a half.
Households will only be allowed to receive one visitor, half-term holidays for schools will be extended to 15 November and those who can adapt their jobs to work from home will be asked to do so.
“It’s a lockdown, but a lockdown that allows factories to operate, that will allow schools to open cautiously, and that will not plunge people into isolation,” said health minister Frank Vandenbroucke.
Belgium, with 11.5 million inhabitants, has the most Covid-19 cases per capita in the world and has as many hospital cases now as at the peak of the pandemic’s first wave in April.
There were 6,187 patients in hospital on Friday, 1,057 of them in intensive care. Over the last week Belgium has recorded more than 100,000 new infections – more than 15,000 per day on average.
Updated
Mexico City’s mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the capital could next week impose tougher restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus if the number of people being treated in hospital for Covid-19 rises further in the coming days.
Sheinbaum, who tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week, said: “If the number of hospitalisations continues to increase next week, we could be announcing next Friday measures to restrict hours.”
The new measures could include limiting business hours and reducing the guest capacity at bars and restaurants, she said during a regular news conference.
Mexico has the world’s fourth highest official death toll from Covid-19, with over 90,000 fatalities, and is grappling in several states with an upsurge in infections.
Sheinbaum first put the city on alert for possible new health measures two weeks ago, and has called for residents to avoid events with more than 10 people.
Officials would ramp up monitoring of weddings, parties and baptisms to discourage large gatherings, while keeping an eye on hospitalisations, which increased about 1% this week, she said.
Hospital beds for coronavirus patients are now just over 40% full.
Sheinbaum also reiterated that Mexico City’s 120 cemeteries would be closed for Day of the Dead on 1 and 2 November, when families traditionally visit the graves of deceased relatives and ancestors.
Updated
Protesters who oppose Spain’s state of emergency restrictions clashed with police in Barcelona on Friday.
Demonstrators threw bricks at police in the centre of Spain’s second largest city, police said.
Britain said on Friday it will restrict the export of flu vaccines being used in the country this winter, adding that there are sufficient supplies as it undertakes a programme to administer the vaccine.
“This action will protect our supply of flu vaccinations, as part of our plans to give 30 million of the flu vaccine ahead of this unprecedented winter,” health secretary Matt Hancock said in a statement. There has been an increase in global demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Updated
Summary of the latest updates
Below is an update on what’s happened in the last few hours
- The number of coronavirus infections in Spain rose by 25,595 on Friday, the highest daily increase since the start of the pandemic and the second consecutive record after Thursday’s 23,580, health ministry data showed.
- Coronavirus infections in Italy rose by 31,084 on Friday, a jump of over 4,000 in a day, while 199 more fatalities were recorded. Hospital admissions increased by over 1,000 in a day, bringing the total across the country to 16,994, of which 1,746 are in intensive care.
- The UK has reported 274 more deaths and 24,405 new cases.
- Canada needs to adopt a stronger response now to tackle a second wave of the coronavirus that has already killed more than 10,000 people and is growing worse, health authorities have said according to Reuters.
- The Czech parliament’s lower house has approved extending a state of emergency for three more weeks, as the country struggles with surge of coronavirus cases, Reuters reports. The state of emergency does not automatically bring any new measures but creates the legal framework for the government to slap restrictions on people’s movement or operation of businesses.
Spain records highest daily case number of pandemic yet with 25,595 new infections
The number of coronavirus infections in Spain rose by 25,595 on Friday, the highest daily increase since the start of the pandemic and the second consecutive record after Thursday’s 23,580, health ministry data showed.
The death toll went up by 239, bringing the total number of fatalities to 35,878 in Spain, which approved a six-month state of emergency this week to try to curb the second wave of coronavirus contagion. That was below Tuesday’s figure of 267, which was the sharpest one-day rise of the second wave, and still a far cry from nearly 900 at the peak of the first wave in late March.
Like other European countries, Spain has resorted to increasingly drastic measures to curb infections, although less stringent than in Germany or France. The state of emergency grants regional authorities the power to limit freedom of movement through lockdowns and curfews.
Austria’s daily coronavirus infections jumped by more than a quarter to a new record on Friday, nearing the level at which the government says hospitals will be stretched beyond capacity, as it works on new restrictions to stem the surge.
Friday’s official tally of 5,627 was a jump from Thursday’s 4,453, itself a record high, suggesting the conservative-led government is running out of time to bring the numbers under control. The peak of the first wave in March was 1,050.
The chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, who has said hospitals would be stretched beyond capacity at about 6,000 daily infections, will announce new restrictions on Saturday afternoon. He has said an economically damaging second lockdown would be a last resort, but Austrian media reported tough measures in the works.
“The dramatically rising infection numbers in Austria and many European countries will require restrictions on public life and also affect the domestic economy,” the finance ministry said in a statement, adding that it was working on additional economic aid to save jobs and keep companies afloat.
Austria’s current anti-coronavirus measures are relatively loose – bars, restaurants and theatres remain open.
Several Austrian media reported on Friday evening that a curfew from 8pm to 6am was planned, albeit with exceptions allowed for those going to work or exercising outdoors.
Restaurants would only be allowed to offer takeaways, theatres and cinemas would close and hotels could only accept new guests travelling for work or training.
The measures were due to expire at the end of November, reports said, but it was not clear when exactly they would come into force.
Influential tabloid Kronen Zeitung said ski lifts would only be open to top athletes and in exceptional cases such as rescues.
Shops and schools would, however, remain open, several media reported, with shops having to limit the number of customers allowed in at one time to one person per 10 square metres of floorspace.
Updated
Updated
Italy reports more than 31,000 new cases in a day
Coronavirus infections in Italy rose by 31,084 on Friday, a jump of over 4,000 in a day, while 199 more fatalities were recorded.
Hospital admissions increased by over 1,000 in a day, bringing the total across the country to 16,994, of which 1,746 are in intensive care.
Lombardy registered the highest number of cases (8,960), followed by Campania and Veneto.
Italy’s higher health institute said on Friday that the country is heading towards a ‘type 4 scenario’ amid the rapidly rising infections, which could mean another lockdown.
“Today there is no good news, yesterday there were 26,831 cases, today we have amply gone past 31,000,” said Gianni Rezza, the health ministry’s prevention chief.
Italy’s foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, said on Friday he left a message at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. “I prayed to God that he would save people from this pandemic,” Di Maio wrote on Facebook. “One way or another we must rise again from this crisis.”
Updated
Covid-19 tests should be more widely used in international travel than quarantines, the chair of the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee, Didier Houssin, said on Friday.
Top emergency expert Mike Ryan earlier said that travelling was now “relatively safe” with a “relatively low” risk. He also said it was difficult to do scientific work on the origin of the virus, first identified in China last December, in a “politically toxic” environment.
Hi everyone. I am running the Guardian’s live feed. Please do follow for updates on coronavirus from around the globe.
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Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
South Africa will reopen its borders to most countries next month, the president said on Wednesday, part of a wider easing of anti-coronavirus measures announced as figures continue to improve.
The continent’s most industrialised economy shuttered its borders at the start of a strict nationwide lockdown on 27 March to limit the spread of the virus.
Restrictions on movement and business have been gradually eased since June, but borders stayed sealed to avoid importing the virus from abroad.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday said most remaining rules will be rolled back from 20 September, and that international travel would “gradually and cautiously” resume on 1 October.
“We have withstood the coronavirus storm,” Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation.
“It is time to move to what will become our new normal for as long as the coronavirus is with us.”
Under the new measures, most gatherings will be permitted at 50% of a venue’s capacity, with a cap of 250 people for indoor events.
A 10pm curfew will be moved to midnight and a 50-person limit at recreational facilities will be lifted.
Updated
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The head of the Serbian Orthodox church in Montenegro has died in hospital after contracting the coronavirus.
The condition of Bishop Amfilohije deteriorated on Thursday after he developed difficulty breathing and chest pains, doctors said. He had been taken to a hospital in the capital, Podgorica, earlier in October after testing positive for the virus.
The church said the 82-year-old had died on Friday from pneumonia caused by Covid-19.
Before a parliamentary election in August, followers of the Serbian church led by Amfilohije staged months of protests against a property law adopted by the parliament in December.
The pro-Russian church argued that the law allowed the Montenegrin state to confiscate its property as a prelude to setting up a separate Montenegrin church. The government denied that claim.
The protests, some held in defiance of a ban on public gatherings during the Covid-19 pandemic, managed to galvanise the opposition, which narrowly won the vote.
Amfilohije, known for his staunch anti-western and pro-Russian political views, played a key role in leading the anti-government protests and putting together an opposition coalition that is currently trying to form the country’s new government.
Montenegro’s prime minister-designate, Zdravko Krivokapić, called on authorities to declare a day of mourning for Amfilohije.
Updated
The World Health Organization is giving its regular Friday press conference on the virus from Geneva.
You can follow it here:
WHO is also providing Twitter updates:
"It is imperative that governments recognise the long-term effects of #COVID19 and also ensure access to health services to all of these patients.
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) October 30, 2020
This includes #primaryhealthcare and when needed specialty care and rehabilitation"-@DrTedros
Updated
The UK has reported 274 more deaths and 24,405 new cases.
United Kingdom Daily Coronavirus (COVID-19) Report · Friday 30th October.
— UK COVID-19 (@UKCovid19Stats) October 30, 2020
24,405 new cases (people positive) reported, giving a total of 989,745.
274 new deaths reported, giving a total of 46,229. pic.twitter.com/Vpl6NSYoaa
Follow our UK coronavirus blog for more details soon:
Updated
Canada needs to adopt a stronger response now to tackle a second wave of the coronavirus that has already killed more than 10,000 people and is growing worse, health authorities have said according to Reuters.
They also released modelling updates showing the cumulative death toll could increase to a range between 10,285 and 10,400 by 8 November. Its current death toll stands at 10,132, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
Cumulative cases could increase to between 251,800 and 262,200 by 8 November. The current total of cases is 231,535.
Updated
The Czech parliament’s lower house has approved extending a state of emergency for three more weeks, as the country struggles with surge of coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.
The state of emergency does not automatically bring any new measures, but creates the legal framework for the government to slap restrictions on people’s movement or operation of businesses.
On Monday the Czech government imposed an overnight curfew as the country continued to record some of the worst coronavirus figures across the European Union.
On Thursday the government announced 13,051 cases, down from the record 15,633 new cases announced on Tuesday.
AFP quoted the health minister Jan Blatný as saying: “What is happening now is probably the beginning of a slowdown. But we’re definitely not past the worst.”
Ladislav Dušek, head of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics, said the next two weeks would show whether the country was really on the mend.
“We can see the growth is slowing down, but it’s not a victory yet,” as the number of new infections reported daily is still considerable, he said.
Dušek added that the figure of how many people a sick person will infect had dropped from 1.53 in early October to 1.13.
Schools, restaurants and most shops have been closed, as well as public gatherings restricted and an overnight curfew put into place to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
Updated
Slovakia’s government has involved the military in a three-week programme to test every citizen over the age of 10 for coronavirus.
A three-day pilot was run last week in four regions in the north of the country, and further mass testing will take place this weekend and next with the aim of reaching 4 million adults and isolating those who have the disease.
The army will assist 20,000 medical staff working across thousands of testing sites. Results will be given within roughly half an hour of a sample being taken.
People who test positive will have the option of quarantining for 10 days at home or moving into a facility provided by the government. Those not willing take the antigen test will have to self-isolate for 10 days or face a €1,650 (£1,485) fine.
Everyone tested will receive a certificate, and police will conduct spot checks to find anyone seeking to avoid the process.
Read more here:
The government of Jordan has announced another 32 deaths Covid deaths – the fourth time this month that the daily tally has been above 30.
It takes Jordan’s death toll to 772. The total number of cases rose to 69,306 including 1,346 Covid patients currently being treated in hospital.
موجز إعلامي حول فيروس كورونا المستجد COVID-19 في الأردن
— Prime Ministry JO (@PrimeMinistry) October 30, 2020
صادر عن رئاسة الوزراء ووزارة الصحة#عاجل pic.twitter.com/JCRfsC09OD
Updated
Iceland further tightened its restrictions to curb a spike in coronavirus infections on Friday, lowering its limit on public gatherings to 10 people from 20 and suspending sporting activities and stage performances.
The new restrictions will take effect on Saturday and remain in force until 17 November. Iceland has an infection incidence of 213 per 100,000 on a two-week average, down from a spike in mid-October to 291.5. Only 12 people have died with the virus in Iceland.
European countries are calling for the World Health Organization to be given greater powers to independently investigate outbreaks and compel countries to provide more data.
After a meeting between EU ministers to discuss how the UN health agency should be strengthened, the German health minister, Jens Spahn, said on Friday the WHO should receive more political support and financial backing for its international efforts to manage acute health crises.
“The WHO can’t be on its own and carry the weight of this pandemic alone,” he said. Stella Kyriakides, the EU health commissioner, noted that EU institutions provided $100m to the WHO last year.
Updated
When Angela Merkel warned at the end of September that Germany could see 19,200 daily coronavirus cases “by Christmas”, she was criticised in the national press for being too alarmist.
Forward a month, and Germany looks likely to surpass her “alarmist” scenario over the weekend, almost two months earlier than Merkel predicted. On Friday, the country’s disease control agency recorded 18,681 new confirmed cases of Covid-19.
The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care is also rising, up by 143 in the last 24 hours to 1,839.
While the German infection rate is still below those of other European neighbours, there’s a sense that the country is losing the best-in-class status it gained during the first wave.
A bout of national soul searching is leading some to look more closely at Asia and Scandinavia’s handling of the pandemic. In an op-ed for Die Zeit, the influential economist Marcel Fratzscher suggested Germany had its national ego inflated by focusing too much on the wrong countries: “Why don’t we measure ourselves against Denmark, Norway or South Korea, who have handled this crisis much better than Germany in terms of health and the economy?”
In an article for the same paper from August, the reporter Wolfgang Bauer had prophetically suggested that Germany would need to slay one of its most sacred cows to avoid a spike in the winter: unless the country learned to become more pragmatic in its attitude to data privacy, contact-tracing would eventually reach its limit.
“Data protection can save lives,” Bauer wrote. “But not in times of this pandemic. In this crisis it is threatening lives.”
Updated
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said on Friday that an independent data monitoring panel had recommended placing enrolment on hold for its trial of a Covid-19 antibody treatment in hospitalised patients requiring high-flow oxygen or mechanical ventilation.
The committee, however, backed the enrolment in non-hospitalised patients, as well as hospitalised patients requiring either no or low-flow oxygen.
Updated
Shortages of medical staff are threatening a widely watched scheme to test nearly all of Slovakia’s 5.5 million population for Covid-19 this weekend, the prime minister said on Friday.
The premier, Igor Matovič, called for the last push to make it work. The president, Zuzana Čaputová, who had voiced reservations about the plan, called on authorities to step back and ease pressure on people to participate.
The nationwide programme – which has drawn attention from countries trying to find ways to fight a resurgence of infections across Europe – is voluntary. But anyone without evidence of a negative result will have to go into lockdown next week.
Matovic has said it will identify a large proportion of infected people, slow the spread of the epidemic and help avoid wider restrictions. But he said on Friday more than a third of testing teams did not have enough personnel.
“Let’s show … that in this decisive moment we can pull together and make this,” he said in a post on Facebook. “Otherwise the only thing that remains in our hands is a total lockdown.”
Updated
The eurozone economy rebounded much more than expected in the third quarter from its coronavirus-induced slump, but the recovery is likely to be cut short as countries reintroduce restrictions to stem a second wave of the pandemic.
Gross domestic product in the 19 countries sharing the euro surged 12.7% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter after contracting 11.8% in the second, the European Union’s statistics office, Eurostat, said. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 9.4% quarterly rise.
“A whopping 12.7% rebound in GDP in the third quarter is a bittersweet result with new lockdowns just being announced. That makes a double-dip unavoidable,” said the ING economist Bert Colijn.
Updated
Up to 1,000 Americans a day dying of Covid as daily US cases exceed 91,000
A record surge of coronavirus cases in the United States is pushing hospitals to the brink of capacity and killing up to 1,000 people a day, the latest figures show, with much of the country’s attention focused on Tuesday’s presidential election.
The United States broke its single-day record for new coronavirus infections on Thursday, reporting at least 91,248 new cases, as 21 states reported their highest daily number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients since the pandemic started, according to a Reuters tally of publicly reported data.
More than 1,000 people died of the virus on Thursday, marking the third time in October that milestone has been passed in a single day. The number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients has risen over 50% in October to 46,000, the highest since mid-August.
Updated
Covid-19 infections are rocketing across the western Balkans with hospitals close to being overwhelmed by incoming patients, prompting a race to build additional clinics with case numbers likely to peak in coming weeks.
Croatians queued up in hundreds of cars before the Zagreb Fair gate in the capital on Friday waiting to get a Covid-19 test, with new daily cases in the small European Union member country approaching 3,000.
Authorities reported 2,776 infections and 20 deaths in Croatia, a nation of 4 million people, over the past 24 hours, but epidemiologists warned numbers could rise to up to 4,000 a day in the coming weeks.
“We expect to see a peak in infections in two to three weeks,” said Kresimir Lujetic, head of Croatia’s Medical Chamber. He added that Zagreb hospital wards treating coronavirus patients had reached full capacity and that a sports hall would be turned into a makeshift hospital to take in more.
Updated
The climate activist Greta Thunberg said on Friday she would stop her regular protest outside Sweden’s parliament because of the surge in Covid-19 infections, and return to only campaigning online.
Sweden reported 2,820 new coronavirus cases on 28 October, the highest since the pandemic began.
“The situation is worsening, so therefore it’s back to #ClimateStrikeOnline for me,” Thunberg told her roughly 4 million followers on Twitter.
Thunberg has been skipping school on Fridays since August 2018 to stand outside parliament in Stockholm to demand her government take action on climate change.
What started as a lone protest with a hand-painted sign quickly developed into a global phenomenon, mostly due to the attention it gained on social media.
She urged activists to protest online in March as the pandemic started building, but she returned to her place outside parliament in September.
Updated
Coronavirus infections rose by 9,207 and hospitalisations by 279, data from Swiss health authorities showed on Friday, as the country’s health care and contract tracing systems struggled to manage the second wave of Covid-19 cases.
The total confirmed cases in Switzerland and tiny neighbouring principality Liechtenstein increased to 154,251 and the death toll rose by 52 to 2,037.
Hi everyone. My name is Sarah Marsh and I am taking over the live blog feed today. Please do email or message me on any of the channels below to share your thoughts, comments and news tips while I work. Thanks very much.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Updated
Malaysia’s health authorities reported 799 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the total to 30,889, Reuters reports.
The south-east Asian country recorded three new deaths, increasing the total number to 249.
Updated
Iran’s confirmed Covid-19 cases crossed the 600,000 threshold on Friday with 8,011 infections identified in the past 24 hours, a health ministry spokeswoman told state TV, as the country’s death toll rose to 34,478, Reuters reports.
Sima Sadat Lari said 365 people had died in the past 24 hours and the total number of cases had reached 604,952.
Updated
Nottinghamshire police in England said 40 young people were facing fines after a party was broken up at a student hall of residence.
PA reports:
Officers attended a flat in Trinity Square shortly before 11.15pm on Wednesday after details of the party were shared on social media, the force said.
Police said they took the details of the attendees who each face a fixed penalty notice of £200.
The organisers of the party face a fine of £10,000 for organising an inside gathering of more than 30 people.
The force said a bag of cocaine and a PA system were seized from the property.
Updated
Moscow authorities ready vaccination network
Moscow residents who want to be vaccinated against Covid-19 may be able to do so as early as next month if large volumes of doses are supplied by then, city authorities said on Friday, Reuters reports.
The deputy mayor Anastasia Rakova said the capital was creating a large network of specialised vaccination rooms with 2,500 high-risk people – primarily doctors and teachers – already vaccinated, Russian news agencies reported.
Russia’s vaccine has been met with a chorus of concern from researchers across the world because of its opaque development and lack of mass testing.
Russia’s daily tally of cases rose past 18,000 to a record high.
Updated
Nearly a fifth of England will soon be under the toughest coronavirus restrictions as the number of patients in hospital continues to rise.
PA reports:
Nottinghamshire entered tier 3 on Friday morning, while West Yorkshire will move up to the highest alert level from Monday.
It will take the total number of people in the highest level of restrictions to just over 11 million – 19.6% of the population.
And with the Tees Valley and the West Midlands expecting to be moved up to tier 3, millions more people could soon be under the strictest level of Covid-19 restrictions.
Updated
Indonesia reported 2,897 new coronavirus infections on Friday, taking the total number to 406,945, data from the country’s Covid-19 taskforce showed, Reuters reports.
The data also showed 81 additional deaths, bringing the total number to 13,782.
Indonesia has recorded the most cases and deaths from Covid-19 in south-east Asia, Reuters notes.
Updated
The UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab did not deny that ministers were considering introducing an even stricter tier of coronavirus restriction in England – a higher tier 4 - to contain the virus.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We’re always ready for further measures that we can take. But I think the most important thing about further measures is that we continue on the track we’re on of targeting the virus.
Updated
Russia’s daily tally of coronavirus cases surged to a record high of 18,283 on Friday, including 5,268 in Moscow, Reuters reports.
The latest figures take the national total to 1,599,976 since the pandemic began.
Authorities reported 355 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 27,656.
Morning, my name is Aamna Mohdin and I’ll be taking over the liveblog for the next few hours. If you want to get in touch, you can email me (aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com)
Updated
On that note:
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Happy almost Halloween. With everything going on it pretty much couldn’t be scarier, could it?
Anyway, here’s a song for Devil’s Night about The Gremlins:
I know there's a lot going on but I needed to get this off my chest pic.twitter.com/enaKUYOY0l
— Nick Lutsko (@NickLutsko) October 7, 2020
Updated
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- US nears 9m cases. The United States, the worst-affected country worldwide in terms of the number of coronavirus cases and national death doll, is on the brink of the terrible milestone of 9m cases. In recent days the US has twice reported daily infection totals of over 80,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. It currently has a total of 8,944,632, with the next daily infection figure expected to take that number over 9m.
- Record 17m guns bought this year in the US. Americans have bought nearly 17m guns so far in 2020, more than in any other single year, according to estimates from a firearms analytics company. Gun sales across the United States first jumped in the spring, driven by fears about the coronavirus pandemic, and spiked even higher in the summer, during massive racial justice protests across the country, prompted by police killings of black Americans.
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Australian active cases lowest in four months. Australian officials said on Friday there just under 200 active cases of Covid-19 in the country, the lowest number in more than four months and well down from a peak of just over 8,000 in mid-August. Officials reported just 11 new infections in the past 24 hours, the bulk of which were people already in hotel quarantine after arriving from overseas. Australian states and territories have begun further relaxing domestic travel bans, although some restrictions remain.
- Mainland China reported 25 new Covid-19 cases on 29 October, down from 47 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Friday. Of the new cases, 24 were imported infections originating from overseas. The National Health Commission said in a statement that one local infection was reported in the eastern province of Shandong.
- Japan passes 100,000 cases. The total number of Covid-19 cases in Japan has topped 100,000, as experts warned that Tokyo – the most-affected part of the country – should prepare for another wave of infections this winter. Japan had recorded 100,516 cases and 1,761 deaths as of Thursday, according to a tally by the public broadcaster NHK.
- New Zealand government orders Air New Zealand to freeze bookings to the country. New Zealand’s government has ordered Air New Zealand to freeze all international bookings to the country as quarantine facilities near capacity, as more citizens try to return home ahead of the Christmas holidays. From Tuesday, they will need to have a voucher in order to board a flight home.
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EU to fund transfer of Covid-19 patients across borders to prevent hospital collapse. The EU will finance the transfer of patients across borders within the bloc to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed as Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations rise across the continent. “The spread of the virus will overwhelm our healthcare systems if we do not act urgently,” said Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU commission.
- Spain hit a new record in daily cases, recording another 23,580 infections. It brought the nation’s tally to 1,136,503, health ministry data showed. The government voted in favour of a six-month extension of the state of emergency, which allows Spain’s 17 regional governments to limit mobility, impose curfews and shut their borders with other regions.
- France will restrict outdoor movement and make working from home mandatory under new lockdown rules, coming into effect at midnight. People will only be able to leave their own homes for certain essential purposes, as the country tries to put the brakes on a Covid-19 outbreak that the president, Emmanuel Macron, said risked accelerating out of control. More details here.
- West Yorkshire in England will move into tier 3 restrictions from 12.01 on Monday. The “very high” restrictions – the strictest level in England – will see indoor social mixing banned and the closure of pubs and bars unless they can operate as a restaurant. More details here.
- Greece will impose regional lockdowns on its second-largest city of Thessaloniki and two other regions from Friday after a rise in cases of Covid-19, the government said.
- Italy registered a record of 26,831 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, its highest daily increase in coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Under new restrictions bars and restaurants must stop serving customers at 6pm while cinemas, theatres, swimming pools and gyms must close completely.
- Sweden registered 2,820 new coronavirus cases, the highest since the start of the pandemic and the third record number in a matter of days. Hospitals are feeling the strain, with the number of patients with Covid-19 in need of care in the region having risen about 60% over the past week after a near 80% surge in recorded infections.
Updated
The British government will close the furlough scheme this weekend, with redundancies rising at the fastest rate on record and the second wave of Covid-19 pushing Britain’s economy to the brink of a double-dip recession, according to a Guardian analysis.
As the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, prepares to end the multibillion-pound coronavirus job retention scheme and launch a less generous replacement programme, early warning indicators show business activity faltering as local lockdowns take effect. The number of people losing their jobs is rising much faster than during the 2008 financial crisis, while the economic fightback from the March lockdown is gradually fading:
Record 17m guns bought this year in the US
Americans have bought nearly 17m guns so far in 2020, more than in any other single year, according to estimates from a firearms analytics company.
Gun sales across the United States first jumped in the spring, driven by fears about the coronavirus pandemic, and spiked even higher in the summer, during massive racial justice protests across the country, prompted by police killings of black Americans.
A record 17 million guns bought this year in the US
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) October 30, 2020
15,000 Americans have been killed by other people
20,000 have killed themselves
https://t.co/7rbSUpEKDj pic.twitter.com/iFCbD2FsVT
“By August, we had exceeded last year’s total. By September, we exceeded the highest total ever,” said Jurgen Brauer, the chief economist of Small Arms Analytics, which produces widely-cited estimates of US gun sales.
The estimated number of guns sold in the US through the end of September 2020 is “not only more than last year, it’s more than any full year in the last 20 years we have records for”, Brauer said:
First US vaccine doses could be available to some Americans in late December – Dr Fauci
The first doses of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine will likely become available to some high-risk Americans in late December or early January, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, said on Thursday.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he based this on current projections from vaccine front-runners Moderna Inc and Pfizer.
Even with an effective vaccine to protect against the virus, Fauci said it will take time to get back to something approaching normal as vaccine-induced immunity builds both nationally and globally. He said life will likely not get back to normal “until the end of 2021 at least.”
Oil and gas companies worldwide are taking an axe to their employment rolls, shedding workers to survive what is expected to be a prolonged stretch of weak demand.
Reuters: Exxon Mobil Corp said it will cut its workforce by 15%, or about 14,000 people, along with oil majors Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
All told, more than 400,000 oil and gas sector jobs have been cut this year, according to Rystad Energy, with about half of those in the United States, where several big exploration companies and most large oil service companies are headquartered.
Coronavirus has devastated swathes of the global economy, with energy, travel and hospitality among the industries hit hardest. Energy companies were already struggling with weak returns, particularly those operating in U.S. shale regions, but have had to double down on cost cuts as investors pressure companies to improve margins.
More US election news: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has slammed Trump’s campaign rallies, saying they are spreading more than just Covid-19 – they are dividing the nation politically.
Biden also criticised the Trump camp’s approach to managing the spread of Covid, with the president playing down its impact despite rising case numbers across the country:
Australian active cases lowest in four months
Australian officials said on Friday there just under 200 active cases of Covid-19 in the country, the lowest number in more than four months and well down from a peak of just over 8,000 in mid-August, Reuters reports.
Officials reported just 11 new infections in the past 24 hours, the bulk of which were people already in hotel quarantine after arriving from overseas.
Australian states and territories have begun further relaxing domestic travel bans, although some restrictions remain.
In Victoria state, which accounts for more than 90% of the country’s 905 Covid-19 deaths, a weeks-long stringent lockdown in the city of Melbourne was eased earlier this week.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Friday said her state would reopen to visitors from neighbouring New South Wales, with the exception of Sydney residents.
Australia has recorded just over 27,500 novel coronavirus infections, far fewer than many other developed countries.
Podcast: Are the signs really pointing to a Biden win?
With less than a week to go, Jonathan Freedland is joined by the national affairs correspondent for Guardian US Tom McCarthy. They look at the many variables influencing next week’s US presidential election:
A dash by Parisians to either escape the new national lockdown or scramble back to the French capital to prepare for the restrictions caused record traffic jams on Thursday night.
The movement in and out of the city created a record 706km of traffic on roads in the region by 6pm, according to France’s traffic department.
France’s new four-week lockdown comes into effect at midnight on Thursday, prompting those who can afford it, or who don’t have children, to leave Paris to spend “réconfinement” in the country – and those already on holiday to return en masse:
Johns Hopkins University has revised some of its global daily case figures since we reported on them this morning – taking the most recent toll to lower than the toll reported two days earlier.
We reported based on earlier figures that October 28 saw a record daily case total. Based on Johns Hopkins most recent figures, the last record was on 26 October, with 537,851 infections reported in 24 hours.
The total for 28 October is now listed as slightly lower, at 517,010 cases. Either way, three days in the last week have seen totals of over 500,000: on 23 October, there were 506,713 new coronavirus cases reported worldwide.
US nears 9m cases
The United States, the worst-affected country worldwide in terms of the number of coronavirus cases and national death doll, is on the brink of the terrible milestine of 9m cases.
In recent days the US has twice reported daily infection totals of over 80,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
It currently has a total of 8,944,632, with the next daily infection figure expected to take that number over 9m.
At roughly the current rate, the US will have 10m cases around two weeks after the US presidential election on 3 November.
Updated
Japan reached the 100,000 mark as the new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, was reportedly considering extending the Go To Travelcampaign to help boost consumption in the world’s third-biggest economy. Critics have said the recent addition of Tokyo to the heavily subsidised programme, which was introduced amid confusion in late July, may have contributed to the rise in infections.
But the deputy chief cabinet secretary, Naoki Okda, told reporters the government believed it was possible “to continue social and economic activity by taking effective measures to keep the number of serious cases and deaths to a minimum”.
Authorities in Tokyo are preparing for the anticipated rise in Covid-19 infections during the forthcoming flu season by dramatically ramping up its testing capacity, NHK said. The metropolitan government can currently conduct up to 10,200 tests a day, but that will rise to around 60,000 a day by the end of the year, NHK added, citing unnamed officials.
Japan passes 100,000 cases
The total number of Covid-19 cases in Japan has topped 100,000, as experts warned that Tokyo - the most-affected part of the country - should prepare for another wave of infections this winter.
Japan had recorded 100,516 cases and 1,761 deaths as of Thursday, according to a tallyby public broadcaster NHK. The number of new infections nationwide totaled 809, the first time it had exceeded 800 since the end of August. Experts have attributed the uptick to domestic travel - encouraged by government subsidies - and a rise in economic activity.
While daily case numbers have slowed since their August peak, experts advising the health ministry have warned of a recent upward trend in Tokyo and Hokkaido, the country’s northernmost main island and one of the first regions to be affected by the coronavirus outbreakat the start of the year.
The health ministry said Japan had 3.21 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people during the week from 20 October, up from 2.84 in the week from 6 October, the Kyodo news agency reported.
Japan has fared far better than other parts of the world, however, and ranks a lowly 49th in cumulative cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. Mask-wearing has been commonplace since the start of the pandemic, and Japanese health authorities were quicker than those in other countries to warn of the risks of aerosol transmission.
Google searches for “loss of taste and smell” correlate with increases in coronavirus cases, the Washington Post reports.
The trend was first spotted by author Dan Sinker on Thursday, prompting the Post’s numbers expert Philip Bump to investigate whether there was something to it.
I just did a Google Trends search for "loss of taste" and I gasped at the chart shape. pic.twitter.com/K9RpRaVBeu
— 💀 damned sinker 💀 (@dansinker) October 27, 2020
Bump writes, “Sinker’s tweet [...] made me curious about whether there was a consistent relationship between searches for those terms and case totals nationally or in states. Using Google’s online Trends tool and The Washington Post’s coronavirus data set, I compared the two.
“Sometimes data analysis yields a truly stunning result. This was such a time.”
First spotted by @dansinker, this is just a remarkable correlation.
— Philip Bump (@pbump) October 30, 2020
Google searches for "loss of taste" and "loss of smell" versus population-adjusted new coronavirus cases. https://t.co/I38fXZsyb8 pic.twitter.com/e9tptqt8bn
“In larger states and nationally, though, the correlation is striking. We’ve repeatedly seen increases in searches for information about losing one’s sense of taste or smell shortly before states saw surges in new coronavirus cases,” writes Bump.
“It’s not necessarily causation, but it’s hard to believe that it isn’t.”
Causation is where two things that correlate (or “line up neatly,” in Bump’s words) are actually linked.
Updated
New Zealand government orders Air New Zealand to freeze bookings to the country
New Zealand’s government has ordered Air New Zealand to freeze all international bookings to the country as quarantine facilities near capacity, Stuff.NZ reports, as more citizens try to return home ahead of the Christmas holidays.
From Tuesday, they will need to have a voucher in order to board a flight home:
New Zealand has 32 managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities across the country with capacity for about 7200 people. Since March 26 there have been 66,441 people pass through the facilities.
An Air New Zealand spokeswoman told Stuff it was instructed by the Government on Wednesday evening to put a hold on new bookings on international services until Tuesday to help ensure there was space available in quarantine accommodation for inbound passengers for the required 14-day period.
...
From Tuesday, it will be compulsory for anyone planning to come to New Zealand to have a confirmed booking at a facility using a new voucher system, dubbed the Managed Isolation Allocation System (MIAS).
Airlines will not allow travellers to board a New Zealand-bound flight unless they have a voucher.
Updated
The United States still has the highest death toll and infection count in the world, and, like Europe, it is battling a fresh spike with tens of thousands of new daily cases as fears grow that hospitals could be overwhelmed, AFP reports.
But there were positive signs on the economic front, with the US posting its strongest recovery on record with a 33.1 percent annualised growth rate in the third quarter, plus a drop in applications for jobless benefits.
The much-loved holiday of Halloween, however, is unlikely to be the same this year even if mask-wearing has long been a tradition on October 31.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned the holiday could present a high risk, while several states have discouraged children from trick-or-treating.
In US college football news, Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence has tested positive for Covid-19, putting into doubt whether the face of college football will be available to play the top-ranked Tigers’ biggest game of the season.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said in a statement released by the school Thursday night that Lawrence is in isolation with mild symptoms.
Swinney said Lawrence would miss Clemson’s game Saturday against Boston College. The Tigers are scheduled to play No. 4 Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, on 7 November:
The European Central Bank pledged to bolster its pandemic stimulus in December, AFP reports.
The economic recovery is “losing momentum more rapidly than expected” after the partial rebound seen in the summer, ECB president Christine Lagarde said after a virtual meeting of the 25-member governing council.
In other tech news: Apple will temporarily close 17 of its 20 stores in France from Oct. 30, as the country goes into a fresh one-month lockdown due to a resurgence of coronavirus cases, the company’s website showed.
Reuters: Apple’s Opéra, Les Quatre Temps, and Rosny 2 stores in Paris will remain open, the company’s website showed. Those three stores are using Apple’s new “Express” format, according to the site.
Apple is expanding the “Express” format this month in hopes of still being able to serve customers in areas with high numbers of coronavirus cases, while meeting its own health and safety standards for employees and customers, the company’s retail chief told Reuters earlier this month.
The new format has a wall in front of the main store, with sales counters protected by plexiglass and a few shelves of accessories. Customers make an appointment to pick up orders placed online.
The company’s 15 stores in Germany will remain open, according to Apple’s website. Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Facebook on Thursday warned of a tougher 2021 despite beating analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue as businesses adjusting to the global coronavirus pandemic continued to rely on the company’s digital ad tools, Reuters reports.
Facebook’s total revenue, which primarily consists of ad sales, rose 22% to $21.47 billion from $17.65 billion in the third quarter ended 30 September, beating analysts’ estimates of a 12% rise, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Facebook revenue up 22% to $21.47 billion year over year. This quarter included the big July advertiser boycott — which apparently didn’t make much of a financial impact
— Kaya Yurieff (@kyurieff) October 29, 2020
The world’s biggest social media company said in its outlook that it faced “a significant amount of uncertainty,” citing impending privacy changes by Apple and a possible reversal in the pandemic-prompted shift to online commerce.
But Facebook’s financial results and those of Google and Amazon demonstrate how resilient tech giants have been even as the pandemic devastated other parts of the economy.
Mexico’s health ministry reported on Thursday 5,948 additional cases of the novel coronavirus and 464 more deaths in the country, bringing the official number of cases to 912,811 and the death toll to 90,773.
Health officials have said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases. On Sunday, the ministry said the true death toll from Covid-19 may be around 50,000 higher.
China reports 25 new cases, down from 47 a day earlier
Mainland China reported 25 new Covid-19 cases on 29 October, down from 47 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Friday.
Of the new cases, 24 were imported infections originating from overseas. The National Health Commission said in a statement that one local infection was reported in the eastern province of Shandong.
The commission also reported 53 new asymptomatic cases, up from 16 a day earlier. China does not count symptomless patients as confirmed Covid-19 cases.
Total confirmed Covid-19 cases to date in mainland China now stand at 85,940. The death toll remains at 4,634.
Updated
The World Health Organization in Europe on Thursday said nationwide lockdowns should be treated as a “last-resort option” even as it noted that the continent was back at the pandemic’s “epicentre”, AFP reports.
While widespread shutdowns of society would “cut community transmission and give the health system much needed space to recoup and scale up”, they also came at a huge cost, the WHO’s regional director for Europe Hans Kluge said in a statement delivered to an emergency meeting of European health ministers.
As more and more European countries are adopting drastic measures to curb the spread, Kluge also said that a strong response did not have to mean the strict lockdowns seen in the spring.
Downsides to national lockdowns included poor mental health, increases in domestic violence and damage to the economy, he warned.
“Given these realities, we consider national lockdowns a last-resort option because they bypass the still-existing possibility to engage everyone in basic and effective measures.”
With cases spiralling upwards, the regional director also concluded that testing could no longer be ramped up “at scale”.
“We need to assess where to focus our resources. Adapting testing and tracing so that they are used in a targeted way for maximum impact.”
“Europe is at the epicentre of this pandemic once again,” Kluge said, pointing out that mortality rates and hospitalisations were also rising.
As defined by WHO, Europe includes 53 countries, including Russia and countries in Central Asia. The organisation said the region had passed the “10-million-case milestone” on Thursday.
A quarter of nurseries and childminders in deprived areas of England say they will not get by beyond Christmas without additional income, according to a survey.
The poll by the Early Years Alliance (EYA) found that low demand for places and inadequate government support during the Covid pandemic could result in mass closures of childcare facilities.
Overall about one in six providers said they could close by Christmas, and just over half said they would require emergency funding to stay open over the next six months. Nearly two-thirds said the government had not provided adequate support during the coronavirus crisis, and only a quarter expected to make any profit between now and March:
Global daily case records tumble as over 500,000 cases reported for third time in a week
23 October was the first time over the course of the pandemic that the world added half a million coronavirus cases in a single day, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. That total, a record at the time, was 506,713.
In the week since then, we have globally reported more than 500,000 cases in 24 hours two more times, with 525,164 on 26 october and the latest case data again breaking the record, with over 530,581 in a single day.
The staggering infections totals come as the US adds close to 80,000 cases each day (the latest case total is expected to be a record-breaking 80,000 – we will have confirmation of this shortly) and Europe passes 10m cases overall – just under a quarter of the global total.
The United States is set to pass 9m cases alone in the next 24 hours.
It’s always lovely to hear from you on Twitter – let me know what life is like amid the pandemic at the moment where you live.
In much of Australia, where I am based, things are close to “Covid normal”, which is of course particularly jarring this week as much of Europe returns to or considers lockdowns, and the US breaks its daily case records from earlier in the year.
Perhaps you’re stuck in traffic out of Paris – find me @helenrsullivan:
L’exode de Paris pic.twitter.com/9Ue2QzovMJ
— Peter Yeung (@ptr_yeung) October 29, 2020
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be with you for the next few hours.
The world has again seen a record global case rise, with more than 530,000 infections reported in a single day.
Meanwhile rhe EU’s healthcare systems are at risk of being overwhelmed by the number of coronavirus cases unless authorities act quickly, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said.
“The spread of the virus will overwhelm our healthcare systems if we do not act urgently,” she said after a video conference of EU leaders to coordinate the EU’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said the Commission made available €220m to finance the transfer of Covid-19 patients across EU countries to avoid healthcare systems in the most affected countries not being able to cope.
At the meeting leaders agreed to better coordinate efforts to battle the virus as infections in Europe exceeded 10 million, making the continent again the centre of the pandemic.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
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EU to fund transfer of Covid-19 patients across borders to prevent hospital collapse. The EU will finance the transfer of patients across borders within the bloc to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed as Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations rise across the continent. “The spread of the virus will overwhelm our healthcare systems if we do not act urgently,” said Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU Commission.
- Spain hit a new record in daily cases, recording another 23,580 infections. It brought the nation’s tally to 1,136,503, health ministry data showed. The government voted in favour of a six-month extension of the state of emergency, which allows Spain’s 17 regional governments to limit mobility, impose curfews and shut their borders with other regions.
- France will restrict outdoor movement and make working from home mandatory under new lockdown rules, coming into effect at midnight. People will only be able to leave their own homes for certain essential purposes, as the country tries to put the brakes on a Covid-19 outbreak that the president Emmanuel Macron said risked accelerating out of control. More details here.
- West Yorkshire in England will move into tier 3 restrictions from 12.01 on Monday. The ‘very high’ restrictions - the strictest level in England - will see indoor social mixing banned and the closure of pubs and bars unless they can operate as a restaurant. More details here.
- Greece will impose regional lockdowns on its second-largest city of Thessaloniki and two other regions from Friday after a rise in cases of Covid-19, the government said.
- Italy registered a record of 26,831 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, its highest daily increase in coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Under new restrictions bars and restaurants must stop serving customers at 6pm while cinemas, theatres, swimming pools and gyms must close completely.
- Sweden registered 2,820 new coronavirus cases, the highest since the start of the pandemic and the third record number in a matter of days. Hospitals are feeling the strain, with the number of patients with Covid-19 in need of care in the region having risen about 60% over the past week after a near 80% surge in recorded infections.
