We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on all of our coverage on our new live blog below
Summary
As Australia wakes up, here are the main developments from the last few hours:
- The number of coronavirus cases recorded around the world passed 22.2 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Deaths from the virus stand at more than 782,000. The US and Brazil still lead the way in coronavirus deaths and cases.
- Brazil’s coronavirus death toll topped 110,000 and close to another 50,000 cases were recorded. In the past 24 hours, a further 49,298 cases of Covid-19 were registered, the health ministry said, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 3,456,652. An additional 1,212 deaths fatalities took the Covid-19 death toll to 111,100, according to the data.
- France’s Covid-19 infections reached a new post-lockdown peak as another 3,776 cases were recorded, bringing the country’s total to 225,043. The French president Emmanuel Macron again ruled out imposing another national lockdown. The health ministry said transmission of the virus was increasing particularly among young adults, and the virus was especially active in and around Paris and Marseille.
- The UK government is set to drop Croatia from its travel corridor list on Thursday. It comes after imported Covid-19 infections from the country were identified. The announcement would give thousands of Britons just 30 hours to return home to avoid having to self-isolate for 14 days.
-
Iran surpassed 20,000 confirmed deaths from the coronavirus, the health ministry said, the highest death toll for any Middle East country. The announcement came as the Islamic Republic went ahead with university entrance exams for over 1 million students. Iran is also preparing for mass Shiite commemorations later this month.
- Spain reported 3,715 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said. According to Reuters it marks a new daily record since the country came out of a strict lockdown in late June. Cumulative cases, which include antibody tests on patients who may have already recovered, rose by 6,671 to 370,867, the ministry said.
- Italy recorded 642 new infections in a day, hitting a new record since May when the country cautiously emerged from one of the longest lockdowns in the world after more than 30,000 Covid-related deaths. Seven more people have died with the virus. The overall tally of cases has now risen to 255,178. The death toll now stands at 35,412.
- South Korea’s health ministry has warned that the country is facing a “desperately dangerous crisis” of spreading coronavirus, after the country reported its highest daily rise in cases since early March. On Wednesday, officials asked people in Seoul, the capital, to stay at home if they could, warning that testing, tracing and isolation measures were insufficient.
An entire class of Glasgow primary children and their teacher have been told to self-isolate after one pupil tested positive for coronavirus, our Scotland correspondent Libby Brooks reports.
It is one of a number of individual cases of coronavirus infection that has emerged at primary and secondary schools since Scotland’s children returned to full-time education last week.
Full story here:
The 25th edition of France’s Colmar Jazz Festival, scheduled for September, has been postponed until next year due to the coronavirus epidemic, the city said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Current progress in the health crisis does not allow us today, realistically, to consider staging concerts in September,” the statement says, adding that this edition of the festival will now take place in 2021.
Guitarists Sylvain Luc and Bireli Lagrene, American singer China Moses, daughter of Dee Dee Bridgewater, and French pianist Sebastian Troendle were to perform at this year’s festival in the city near the Rhine river border with Germany.
Attracting more than 5,000 people last year, the show had been due to run from 10 to 28 September.
Nevertheless, a concert by gypsy jazz guitarist Angelo Debarre will go ahead on 24 September at the nearby town of Selestat.
The Colmar Film Festival, slated for October, has also been cancelled for the same reason with city officials judging it to be “impossible to welcome film and television personalities in the friendly and festive conditions that make the festival famous.”
France has recorded over 225,000 cases of Covid-19 and over 30,000 deaths since the disease emerged at the end of 2019. A recent upsurge has seen new preventive measures reintroduced.
American Indians and Alaska Natives have been hit harder by Covid-19 than the white US population and have been more likely to become infected by coronavirus at a younger age, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showed on Wednesday.
The incidence of laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases among people identified as American Indians or Alaska Natives was 3.5 times that of non-Hispanic whites, making them one of the racial and ethnic minority groups at highest risk, according to the study based on data from 23 US states from 22 January to 3 July.
The data also showed that those testing positive for coronavirus tended to be younger than white non-Hispanic people with Covid-19. The researchers found that 12.9% of infections among American Indians or Alaska Natives were in people under age 18, compared to 4.3% among non-Hispanic whites.
The study added to a growing body of evidence that long-standing health and social inequities have resulted in increased risk for infection and death from Covid-19 among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, the CDC researchers said.
Other factors such as reliance on shared transportation, limited access to running water and household size could increase risk for virus transmission, the researchers added. “American Indian and Alaska Native people have suffered a disproportionate burden of Covid-19 illness during the pandemic,” CDC director Robert Redfield said in a statement.
The CDC said it has provided $200 million in funding to support tribes and tribal organizations in carrying out Covid-19 preparedness and response activities.
Bahrain announced it would end a protocol that required all those arriving in the country to self-isolate at home for 10 days regardless of the outcome of testing, its health ministry said in a statement.
Instead, in the new procedure beginning on Thursday, arrivals will be tested twice, both on arrival and 10 days later, but will be able to end their self-isolation if the first test is negative.
The ministry said this change comes as only 0.2% of those tested 10 days post-arrival had tested positive in the period between 1 July and 16 August.
Bahrain has recorded 3,482 coronavirus cases and 178 deaths.
Updated
France's coronavirus cases again hit new post-lockdown high
France registered 3,776 new Covid-19 infections on Wednesday, marking another post-lockdown peak and bringing the total to 225,043, but president Emmanuel Macron again ruled out imposing another national lockdown.
“All the indicators keep going up and the transmission of the virus is getting stronger among all ages groups affected, young adults in particular”, the health ministry said in a statement.
It said the virus was especially active in and around Paris and Marseille, the country’s two biggest cities.
Some medical experts are worried about the impact of Paris St Germain fans’ wild, mask-less celebrations on the Champs Elysees avenue in central Paris after their soccer club reached the Champions League final on Tuesday.
Paris municipal officials are also concerned about large gatherings of fans expected on Sunday, when Paris St Germain will play the final either against Olympique Lyonnais, another French club, or Germany’s Bayern Munich.
Despite the surge in infections, Macron told Paris Match magazine in an interview that “local strategies” were preferable to another national lockdown, which he said would cause considerable “collateral damage”.
The seven-day moving average of the case tally, which smooths out daily reporting irregularities, is now at 2,621, above the 2,500 threshold for the first time since 19 April, when France was enforcing one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.
The number of people in hospital fell again by 17 to 4,806 and those in intensive care slipped by six to 374, reflecting the preponderance of younger people among the new cases who are more likely to be asymptomatic or not to fall seriously ill.
Both numbers had been on an uninterrupted downward trend since early April, but that trend has slowed in the past two weeks.
The number of deaths increased by 17 to 30,468, following an increase of 22 on Tuesday and of 19 on Monday.
Updated
Croatia faces being removed from the UK’s travel corridor list, with imported Covid-19 infections from the country having been identified, the Guardian understands.
Ministers are likely to remove the country from the list after logging a recent surge in coronavirus cases. If the measures are formally signed off, it would mean people arriving from Croatia will have to quarantine for 14 days in Britain.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, met ministers on Wednesday afternoon to discuss plans.
An announcement could come as early as Thursday. If Croatia is removed the change could affect thousands of British holidaymakers in the country at the moment.
You can read the full story from my colleague Simon Murphy here:
The French health ministry reported 3,776 new confirmed coronavirus infections on Wednesday, bringing the total to 225,043, with the daily tally going beyond the 3,000 threshold for the third time in five days.
The seven-day moving average of the case count, which smoothes out daily reporting irregularities, is now at 2,621, going beyond the 2,500 threshold for the first time since April 19, when France was in the midst of a strict lockdown to contain the virus.
Zambia’s vice president Inonge Mutukwa on Wednesday tested positive for coronavirus, the presidency said in a statement, which also said her condition was stable and she was in self isolation at home.
“The vice president has some mild symptoms that are being managed appropriately ... She is in high spirits and working virtually ...” the statement said.
Summary
- The number of coronavirus cases recorded around the world passed 22.2 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Deaths from the virus stand at more than 782,000. The US and Brazil still lead the way in coronavirus deaths and cases.
-
Iran surpassed 20,000 confirmed deaths from the coronavirus, the health ministry said, the highest death toll for any Middle East country. The announcement came as the Islamic Republic went ahead with university entrance exams for over 1 million students. Iran is also preparing for mass Shiite commemorations later this month.
- Spain reported 3,715 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said. According to Reuters it marks a new daily record since the country came out of a strict lockdown in late June. Cumulative cases, which include antibody tests on patients who may have already recovered, rose by 6,671 to 370,867, the ministry said.
- Italy recorded 642 new infections in a day, hitting a new record since May when the country cautiously emerged from one of the longest lockdowns in the world after more than 30,000 Covid-related deaths. Seven more people have died with the virus. The overall tally of cases has now risen to 255,178. The death toll now stands at 35,412.
- South Korea’s health ministry has warned that the country is facing a “desperately dangerous crisis” of spreading coronavirus, after the country reported its highest daily rise in cases since early March. On Wednesday, officials asked people in Seoul, the capital, to stay at home if they could, warning that testing, tracing and isolation measures were insufficient.
- The Pope has warned that the coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating inequalities between the rich and the poor, as he called for universal vaccine provision. “It would be sad if, for the vaccine for Covid-19, priority were to be given to the richest,” said Francis during his traditional Wednesday audience broadcast live from his private Vatican library.
- Millions of women around the world have lost access to contraceptives and abortion services because of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to warnings of a baby boom. Across 37 countries, nearly 2 million fewer women received services between January and June than in the same period last year, Marie Stopes International says in a new report.
- Global trade in goods suffered an unprecedented fall in the second quarter of 2020, as fear of the coronavirus pandemic shut down large parts of the world economy, according to the World Trade Organization. The WTO said on Wednesday that its goods trade barometer had hit a record low. The barometer reading of 84.5 was down 18.6 points from the same period last year.
- Australia’s prime minister has hurriedly backtracked after announcing he would make a potential Covid-19 vaccine “mandatory”, saying instead it would be “encouraged”. Scott Morrison said the aim was to get 95% of the population to have the jab and that he was expecting that it would be compulsory except on medical grounds. But by the afternoon he had changed his language.
- Strict coronavirus restrictions have imposed on Mykonos, the Greek island. The measures, which also cover the coastal area of Chalkidiki in northern Greece, include a complete ban on live parties and festivities, a limit of nine people in all public and private gatherings and compulsory mask wearing in closed and open spaces. They will come into effect from 21 August.
That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for today. I will be back with you tomorrow.
Spain saw its overall number of cases rise by 6,671 on Wednesday, data from the country’s health ministry showed, boosting a cumulative caseload that already ranks as the highest in western Europe, writes Ashifa Kassam in Madrid.
The number of cases detected in the past 24 hours has climbed to 3,715 cases. This figure, however, has been described by ministry sources as an underestimation given the variances in reporting times between regions and the central government system.
Still, Wednesday’s 24-hour total was the highest announced by the ministry since the country eased out of a strict lockdown in late June.
In what the ministry has signalled as a more reliable indicator of the situation, the country has seen 63,965 new cases diagnosed in the last 14 days – amounting to an average of 4,569 cases a day. Around a third of these cases have been in Madrid, the epicentre of the country’s crisis in March and April.
In the past seven days, 131 people have lost their lives to Covid-19 across Spain.
In recent days, public health experts have warned that Spain is facing a pivotal moment in its ongoing battle against the virus. The country currently leads Europe with a 14-day rate of 131 new cases per 100,000 – compared to a rate of 43 in France and 10 in Italy.
Officials in the hard-hit regions of Madrid and Catalonia have responded to the surge with mass testing in hopes of ferreting out asymptomatic carriers of the virus. Across the country restrictions on nightlife and smoking in public have been rolled out in a bid to curtail transmission.
The government’s emergency health response chief, Fernando Simón, has sought to contrast the current situation with that of March and April, pointing to the fact that the majority of new cases being detected are among people under 65 years old.
The rise in cases can also be partly attributed to increased testing, he said. “We are detecting much of what is out there. I wouldn’t say 100% ... but between 60% and 70%,” he recently told reporters, as compared to March and April when it is believed that less than 10% of cases were detected.
The Pope has warned that the coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating inequalities between the rich and the poor, as he called for universal vaccine provision, according to AFP.
“It would be sad if, for the vaccine for Covid-19, priority were to be given to the richest,” said Francis during his traditional Wednesday audience broadcast live from his private Vatican library.
“It would be sad if this vaccine were to become the property of this nation or another, rather than universal and for all.”
‘It would be sad if the rich are given priority for the COVID-19 vaccine,’ Pope Francis said at his weekly general audience https://t.co/LKkeotZBDp pic.twitter.com/WKhBcx6UcY
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 19, 2020
Pharmaceutical companies are in a race to be the first to launch a vaccine against the disease, which has killed more than 782,000 people worldwide since its emergence at the end of December, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Some governments have struck deals with companies, hoping to secure exclusive supplies of the vaccines when developed.
Francis also said it would be a “scandal” if governments doled out pandemic-related bail-out money to only select industries.
He said the criteria for companies to receive public aid should be if they “contribute to the inclusion of people who are normally excluded (from society), to helping the most needy, to the common good and to caring for the environment”.
“The pandemic is a crisis and one never exits from a crisis returning to the way it was before,” Francis said. “Either we leave better, or we leave worse. We have to leave better in order to tackle social injustices and environmental degradation.”
The pope’s audiences are still being held virtually from his official library inside the Vatican because of the pandemic instead of St. Peter’s Square, previously packed with tens of thousands of people.
Updated
Authorities in Norway have said they will impose a 10-day quarantine on all people arriving from the UK, Austria, Greece and Ireland from 22 August due to rising numbers of coronavirus cases in those countries, Reuters reports.
Similar restrictions will also be imposed on those coming from the Danish capital, Copenhagen, the Norwegian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The cumulative number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in India passed 2.8 million on Wednesday, after the country registered 56,565 cases in 24 hours.
According to official statistics, about 2 million of those who had contracted the virus have survived, while 53,849 have died - including 834 in the past 24 hours.
India is the third-worst affected country in the world by cases, and has the fourth-highest death toll from the coronavirus pandemic.
Bangladesh is ready to hold trials of potential Covid-19 vaccines developed by India and will receive early supplies of any successful candidate, officials have said, according to Reuters.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, sent his foreign secretary to Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Tuesday on a two-day visit to hold meetings with Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister, and officials.
“Bangladesh is ready to collaborate in the development of a Covid vaccine, including its trial, and looks forward to early affordable availability of the vaccine when it is ready,” its foreign ministry said in a statement.
The release followed a meeting of the foreign secretary and his Indian counterpart Harsh Vardhan Shringla, during which Shringla had discussed India’s economies of scale in vaccine manufacturing with Bangladeshi officials, the statement said.
“They (India) positively responded, saying that they are developing vaccines not only for themselves but also for others,” Bangladesh’s foreign secretary, Masud Bin Momen, told reporters after the meeting.
“It will be made available for Bangladesh in the primary stage.”
India is home to the world’s biggest vaccine making company, the Serum Institute of India, and is currently holding trials for three potential Covid-19 vaccines, including one licensed to AstraZeneca by Oxford University.
The state medical research agency of Bangladesh, which has reported 285,091 coronavirus infections and 3,781 deaths, approved a third-phase trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech last month. However, final approval from the government is still pending.
Italy records highest daily rise in infections since lockdown eased
Italy recorded 642 new infections in a day on Wednesday, hitting a new record since May when the country cautiously emerged from one of the longest lockdowns in the world after more than 30,000 Covid-related deaths, writes Lorenzo Tondo.
Seven more people have died with the virus. The overall tally of cases has now risen to 255,178. The death toll now stands at 35,412.
On Sunday the government ordered the closure of discotheques and made masks compulsory outdoors in specific areas at night – the first real restrictions since the lockdown eased.
Walter Ricciardi, a senior adviser to the Italian health ministry on the coronavirus outbreak, told the Guardian:
Italy is at a crossroads right now. If we do not apply containment measures and the numbers continue to rise, localised lockdowns will be required.
Updated
Sweden records highest death tally for 150 years
Sweden recorded its highest tally of deaths in the first half of 2020 for 150 years, the country’s national statistics office said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
In total, 51,405 Swedes died in the January to June period, a higher number than any year since 1869, when 55,431 died, partly as a result of a famine. The population of Sweden was about 4.1 million then, compared to 10.3 million now.
Official statistics show that Covid-19 claimed about 4,500 lives in the period to the end of June – a number that has now risen to 5,800. That was a much higher percentage of the population than in other Nordic nations, though lower than some other European countries such as Britain and Spain.
Deaths were about 10% higher than the average for the period over the past five years, the Sweden’s statistics office said. In April the number of deaths was almost 40% higher than average due to a surge in coronavirus-related fatalities.
Sweden has taken a different approach to most European countries in dealing with the pandemic, relying to a greater extent on voluntary measures focused on social distancing and opting against a strict lockdown. Most schools have remained open and many businesses have been continued to operate to some extent, meaning the economy has fared better than many others.
Updated
Spain reports record-high rise in cases since lockdown end
Spain reported 3,715 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Wednesday. According to Reuters it marks a new daily record since the country came out of a strict lockdown in late June.
Cumulative cases, which include antibody tests on patients who may have already recovered, rose by 6,671 to 370,867, the ministry said.
EU data show Spain has had the highest number of cases in western Europe.
Slovenia is urging its citizens to return from Croatia by the end of the week or face an obligatory two-week quarantine after the number of Covid-19 cases continued to rise there, a government spokesman has said.
“The situation is so bad that we have no choice but to urge citizens to return from the dangerous country as soon as possible,” Jelko Kacin said.
Slovenian holidaymakers already in Croatia will be able to return freely until the end of this week, while those travelling to the neighbouring country from 21 August onwards will have to go into quarantine when they come back, Kacin said.
Croatia escaped the worst of the first wave of the pandemic owing to swift lockdowns and a lack of tourist arrivals at the tail-end of winter, and during the reopening of its economy promoted itself as a safe destination for tourists.
But on Wednesday it registered 219 new coronavirus infections, bringing the total number Covid-19 cases to 7,074.
Slovenia has recorded 2,493 Covid-19 cases, dozens of which have been traced back to people returning from trips to party hotspots in Croatia in the past couple of weeks.
According to Croatia’s tourist board, more than 140,000 Slovenes visited the Adriatic country this month.
Austria also warned against travel to Croatia last week and the UK said it may also remove it from its quarantine-free list this week. Italy has introduced mandatory coronavirus testing for everyone who enters Italy from Croatia.
Bars and nightclubs in Croatia were ordered over the weekend to close after midnight for 10 days, to prevent the virus spreading.
The country this year expected to welcome only about a third of the tourists who visited in previous summer seasons, but numbers in July and August in many places reached 60-70% of 2019 figures.
Updated
Germany and France want to give more money and power to the World Health Organization after the Covid-19 pandemic underscored long-standing financial and legal weaknesses at the UN agency, an internal document seen by Reuters shows.
The proposed reforms could already be discussed at the WHO in mid-September, Reuters reports, in a fast timeline that would confirm the two European powers’ growing concerns about the organisation, which they also see as excessively subject to external influences.
In a joint paper circulated among diplomats involved in the reform talks, Berlin and Paris said the WHO’s mandate, which includes preventing outbreaks across the world and helping governments tackle them, was not backed up by sufficient financial resources and legal powers.
“Not only during the current pandemic, it has become clear that the WHO partly lacks the abilities to fulfil this mandate,” the document seen by Reuters said.
France and Germany are seeking consensus “from Washington to Beijing” around the document, a source close to the talks said.
The move shows the two countries’ keen interest in an overhaul aimed at strengthening the WHO, despite talks on the matter with the US collapsing earlier in August at G7 level over differing views about the reform.
France and Germany, whose health ministers pledged new funds after talks with the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in June, have not hidden their criticism of the WHO.
But their approach is very different from that of the Trump administration, which has cut funding, announced its withdrawal from next July and accused Tedros of being a puppet of China.
The Franco-German reform plan is focused on strengthening the WHO, in part to empower it to be able to be more critical of member states if they do not honour global rules on transparency in reporting health and disease issues.
A German government official, asked to comment on the document, said: “Germany together with others wants a reform, talks are under way on different levels.”
Updated
At the popular Peking roast duck restaurant chain Quanjude in Beijing, staff have been passing on a new message to diners: do not order more than you can eat.
The eatery is the latest business to join a campaign against food waste, which began nationwide last week in earnest after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said such practices were “shameful” while the country battles a pandemic, Reuters reports.
Local governments and catering associations have been urging restaurants to offer smaller portions while some eateries have rolled out penalties for wasting food. One restaurant even started weighing diners to decide how much they can order, but later backtracked after coming under heavy online criticism.
Servers at Quanjude now tell customers to order according to their guest numbers and even urge them to order one less dish than their total head count, he said. They also ask them to pack up any leftovers to take home.
China’s catering industry wastes 17-18m tonnes of food a year, enough to feed a population of 30-50 million, state media has reported.
The anti-food waste campaign, named Clear Your Plate, follows concerns raised by Beijing about ensuring food security due to disruptions caused to the agriculture supply chains from the pandemic.
Livestreaming stars known for their ability to eat large amounts of food were warned last week against encouraging food wastage on platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, which said they could be banned or face penalties if found to do so.
Updated
Corruption probe on South Africa Covid-19 deals worth £220m
Special investigators in South Africa are investigating government departments for graft over irregularities in coronavirus-related tenders worth 5bn rand (£220m).
In a presentation to a parliamentary committee, Andy Mothibi, the head of the Special Investigating Unit, which investigates allegations against public sector figures or institutions, said it was working on 658 cases nationwide.
The provincial health department of the central Gauteng province, an economic hub and home to Johannesburg, alone accounted for just under half of the total, at 2.2bn rand, Reuters quoted Mothibi as saying.
“The allegations reported to the SIU involved the procurement of PPEs (personal protective equipment), hospital and quarantine sites, catering services (food parcels), ventilators, disinfecting equipment and motorised wheelchairs,” he said.
The figure is likely to add to pressure on South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and the ruling African National Congress, who have struggled to deflect criticism from alliance partners and opposition parties as allegations of corruption implicated senior ANC politicians.
Ramaphosa, who replaced his scandal-prone predecessor, Jacob Zuma, in 2018 with promises to eradicate corruption, has battled to root out criminality linked to the fight against Covid-19 in South Africa, which has the world’s fifth-highest number of coronavirus infections at 592,144.
Updated
Toulouse has become the first city in France to impose the mandatory wearing of face masks outdoors, in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Officials in France’s fourth-largest city fear that a mass movement of people towards the end of the summer break will lead to a spike in infections, according to the French state-funded news agency AFP.
New infections across France have been increasing in recent weeks and the numbers of people admitted to hospital and to intensive care have also been rising.
Face masks are already compulsory on public transport in France and indoors in public places. Many French towns and cities, including Paris and Toulouse, have also used discretionary powers to make masks mandatory in certain areas – often busy streets, near tourist hotspots and at outdoor food markets.
Toulouse officials said masks would be compulsory outdoors across the city starting on Friday, from 7am to 3am the next day, for all people aged 12 and over, including those on bikes and kick-scooters.
The coronavirus outbreak has claimed more than 30,400 lives in France so far.
Updated
Germany’s carnival season is expected to be cancelled owing to fears that the revelry and mass gatherings could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus, writes Kate Connolly, the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent.
The health minister, Jens Spahn, is expected to announce the ban in the coming days, and he has indicated that he is braced for a backlash.
For many Germans, carnival season is the most significant cultural tradition of the year. Millions participate in festivals and parties for what is referred to as Karneval or Fasching, predominantly celebrated in Roman Catholic regions but popular throughout the country.
The season begins on 11 November, and the highlights are huge parades held the week before Ash Wednesday, marking the start of lent.
Strict coronavirus restrictions imposed on Mykonos
The party’s over at Mykonos, with officials from Greece’s civil protection agency announcing strict restrictions on the island, a tourist hotspot, to contain the spread of coronavirus infections.
The measures, which also cover the coastal area of Chalkidiki in northern Greece, include a complete ban on live parties and festivities, a limit of nine people in all public and private gatherings and compulsory mask wearing in closed and open spaces, according to Reuters.
They will come into effect from 21 August, for 10 days.
On Tuesday, Greece recorded 269 coronavirus infections, its highest daily tally since its first case was detected on 26 February. In spite of that, the deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, told reporters that Greece continued to be in a “better situation” compared with other European countries.
Greece, he said, ranked 180th in terms of deaths per million inhabitants, noting that 83% of recent infections were due to domestic dispersion of the virus as people did not observe proper social distancing.
Updated
Australia’s prime minister has hurriedly backtracked after announcing he would make a potential Covid-19 vaccine “mandatory”, saying instead it would be “encouraged”, reports Martin Farrer for Guardian Australia.
With governments around the world anticipating resistance to compulsory inoculation from anti-vaxx groups and a sceptical public, Scott Morrison said on Wednesday the aim was to get 95% of the population to have the jab and that he was expecting that it would be compulsory except on medical grounds.
“I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make,” Morrison said in a radio interview. “We’re talking about a pandemic that has destroyed the global economy and taken the lives of hundreds of thousands all around the world, and over 430 Australians. So, you know, we need the most extensive and comprehensive response to this to get Australia back to normal.”
But by the afternoon Morrison had changed his language, telling 2GB radio he did not mean it would be compulsory, but would be “encouraged”.
“We can’t hold someone down and make them take it,” the prime minister said.
Updated
A report has found that websites spreading misinformation about health attracted nearly half a billion views on Facebook in April alone, as the coronavirus pandemic escalated worldwide, write Emma Graham-Harrison and Alex Hern.
Facebook had promised to crack down on conspiracy theories and inaccurate news early in the pandemic. But as its executives promised accountability, its algorithm appears to have fuelled traffic to a network of sites sharing dangerous false news, campaign group Avaaz has found.
False medical information can be deadly; researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine have directly linked a single piece of coronavirus misinformation to 800 deaths.
Pages from the top 10 sites peddling inaccurate information and conspiracy theories about health received almost four times as many views on Facebook as the top 10 reputable sites for health information, Avaaz warned in a report.
Global trade in goods suffered an unprecedented fall in the second quarter of 2020, as fear of the coronavirus pandemic shut down large parts of the world economy, according to the World Trade Organization.
The WTO said on Wednesday that its goods trade barometer had hit a record low, according to Reuters. The global trade monitor said:
Additional indicators point to partial upticks in world trade and output in the third quarter, but the strength of any such recovery remains highly uncertain: an L-shaped, rather than V-shaped, trajectory cannot be ruled out.
The barometer reading of 84.5 was down 18.6 points from the same period last year. In normal times, it anticipates changes in the trajectory of trade by a few months, but volatility triggered by the pandemic has reduced its predictive value.
This reading – the lowest on record in data going back to 2007, and on par with the nadir of the 2008-09 financial crisis – is broadly consistent with WTO statistics issued in June, which estimated an 18.5% decline in merchandise trade in the second quarter of 2020 as compared to the same period last year.
The exact extent of the fall will become clear only when official trade data for April to June becomes available.
Updated
South Korea’s health ministry has warned that the country is facing a “desperately dangerous crisis” of spreading coronavirus, after the country reported its highest daily rise in cases since early March.
On Wednesday, officials asked people in Seoul, the capital, to stay at home if they could, warning that testing, tracing and isolation measures were insufficient to stop the spread of the virus.
The 297 new infections mark the sixth straight day of triple-digit increases in a country that has managed to blunt several previous outbreaks, according to Reuters. The national tally has risen to 16,058 infections with 306 deaths, according to data from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
The vice health minister, Kim Gang-lip, told a briefing:
We’re in a desperately dangerous crisis where infections are spreading in the Seoul metropolitan area and threatening to lead to a massive nationwide transmission.
The government cannot contain the current spread only with tracing and isolation ... please stay home unless you must go out.
Authorities said if the number of infections rose or continued at the current rate of spread, they would likely impose the highest level of social-distancing rules, under which schools would be closed, businesses advised to work from home and gatherings limited to 10 people.
Updated
It took a weekend to take Italy back three months in its struggle against the pandemic, writes Lorenzo Tondo, in Caltanissetta.
Last week’s rapid increase in coronavirus infections risks erasing the progress made by the first European country to be engulfed by Covid-19 and extending the closure of schools in September.
The alarm was sounded last Saturday, when Italy registered 629 new cases in 24 hours, up from 500 on the previous two days. Such numbers recorded in a row had not been seen since May, when Italy cautiously emerged from one of the longest lockdowns in the world after more than 30,000 Covid-related deaths.
On Sunday the government ordered the closure of discotheques and made masks compulsory outdoors in specific areas at night – the first real restrictions since the lockdown eased.
“We cannot nullify the sacrifices made in past months,” said the health minister, Roberto Speranza, as the spectre of a second wave began to spread across the country.
Walter Ricciardi, a senior adviser to the Italian health ministry on the coronavirus outbreak, told the Guardian: “Italy is at a crossroads right now. If we do not apply containment measures and the numbers continue to rise, localised lockdowns will be required.”
The first nine days of coronavirus movement restrictions in New Zealand were unlawful, a court has found.
The ruling comes after a Wellington lawyer, Andrew Borrowdale, challenged the legality of steps taken in the early stages of the five-week lockdown, including calls by the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and other officials between 26 March and 3 April telling New Zealanders to stay at home.
An order imposing stay at home restrictions was not passed until 3 April, so New Zealanders rights and freedoms were unlawfully limited for those first nine days, the court said. According to the judgment:
While there is no question that the requirement was a necessary, reasonable and proportionate response to the Covid-19 crisis at that time, the requirement was not prescribed by law.
All other challenges to the lockdown were dismissed.
The court said few, if any, prosecutions for lockdown breaches would be affected.
Following the ruling, New Zealand’s attorney general, David Parker, said:
The government was trying to educate people about the health risks and transition them quickly to take actions that curtailed normal freedoms like staying at home to stop the spread of the virus. In the end the measures taken by the government worked to eliminate Covid-19, save lives and minimise damage to our economy.
Updated
Hello everybody, this is Damien Gayle taking the reins of the live blog now. I will be bringing you the latest updates on the ongoing coronavirus outbreak from around the world for the next eight hours or so.
If you have any comments, tips or suggestions for coverage, please drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.
Iran's Covid-19 death toll passes 20,000
Iran surpassed 20,000 confirmed deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday, the health ministry said: the highest death toll for any Middle East country so far in the pandemic.
The announcement came as the Islamic Republic, which has been struggling with both the region’s largest outbreak and the highest number of fatalities, went ahead with university entrance exams for over 1 million students. Iran is also preparing for mass Shiite commemorations later this month.
Iran suffered the region’s first major outbreak, with top politicians, health officials and religious leaders in its Shiite theocracy infected with the virus. It has since struggled to contain the spread across the nation of 80 million people, initially beating it back only to see it rise again at the beginning in June.
Still, international experts remain suspicious of Iran’s case counts. Researchers in the Iranian parliament suggested in April that the death toll was likely to be nearly double the officially reported figures, due to undercounting and because not everyone with breathing problems had been tested for the virus.
Updated
Rich countries should not hoard a coronavirus vaccine and should only give pandemic-related bailouts to companies committed to protecting the environment, helping those most in need and the “common good”, Pope Francis said on Wednesday.
“It would be sad if the rich are given priority for the Covid-19 vaccine. It would be sad if the vaccine becomes property of this or that nation if it is not universal and for everyone,” Francis said at his weekly general audience.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that any nation that hoards possible Covid-19 vaccines while excluding others would deepen the pandemic.
The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has warned against “vaccine nationalism”, urged countries to join a global pact by a 31 August deadline to share vaccine hopefuls with developing countries.
Updated
Nepal temporarily banned public and religious gatherings and most transportation in its capital, Kathmandu, and surrounding areas on Wednesday, asking residents to stay home to control the spread of the coronavirus as cases surge.
The curbs will apply to Kathmandu Valley from Wednesday for a week, but could be extended, the government said, one day after the country reported its biggest daily rise in coronavirus cases. Transgressors will be fined $5 but could face up to three months in jail.
Nepal began to partially ease a nationwide lockdown in June, allowing some local transport to resume, but kept a ban on international and domestic travel in place, while the country’s famed peaks have remained closed to climbers.
Updated
Indonesia reported 1,902 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases in the south-east Asian country to 144,945, data from the country’s health ministry showed. The data recorded an additional 69 deaths, taking the total to 6,346.
Updated
The Philippine health ministry on Wednesday confirmed 4,650 new coronavirus infections and 111 additional deaths.
In a bulletin, the ministry said total confirmed cases had risen to 173,774, the highest in south-east Asia, while deaths had increased to 2,795.
The government relaxed a strict lockdown in the capital and nearby provinces on Wednesday, allowing more business establishments to resume operations.
Updated
Finland said on Wednesday it would bring back travel restrictions for several countries that it had for months considered safe destinations, including Germany and its Nordic neighbours, to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Travelling from Iceland, Greece, Malta, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Cyprus, San Marino and Japan to Finland would be limited to essential trips from 24 August, with people returning from those countries required to self-quarantine for two weeks, the interior minister, Maria Ohisalo, said.
Before Wednesday’s announcement, Finland had restricted travelling to and from most other countries around the world.
Updated
I am running the Guardian’s global live feed from London today. Please do get in touch with me to share any comments or news tips.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
A fresh outbreak of infections in Australia’s coronavirus hot zone of Victoria eased further on Wednesday, while the country agreed on a deal to secure a potential Covid-19 vaccine that it plans to roll out cost-free to citizens.
Australia has signed a deal with British drugmaker AstraZeneca to produce and distribute enough doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine for its population of 25 million, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said late on Tuesday.
“Should we be in a position for the trials to be successful, we would hope that this would be made available early next year. If it can be done sooner than that, great,” Morrison said on Wednesday.
All Australians will be offered doses but a medical panel will determine the priority list of vaccine recipients. “Naturally you would be focusing on the most vulnerable, the elderly, health workers, people with disabilities in terms of the speed of roll-out,” health minister Greg Hunt told Sky News.
Health authorities would also have to take into account where the highest risk of transmission is and how the vaccine works in different age groups when deciding who should get it first, Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton said.
“If it does work and it’s 80 to 90% effective, then absolutely it will be a game-changer,” Sutton said, although he cautioned that broad testing was still at a preliminary stage. “So we shouldn’t hang our hats on a single vaccine.”
AstraZeneca last month said good data was coming in so far on its vaccine for COVID-19, already in large-scale human trials and widely seen as the front-runner in the race for a shot against the novel coronavirus.
The vaccine, called AZD1222, was developed by Britain’s University of Oxford and licensed to AstraZeneca. Morrison said Australia was also looking for other vaccine deals, including with the University of Queensland and its partner, Australian firm CSL Ltd.
The British government said on Wednesday it would expand its Covid-19 national testing study, with an aim of reaching 400,000 people to provide weekly data on the spread of the infection and better locate future local outbreaks.
The Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement on Wednesday that it would initially test 150,000 people in England per fortnight by October, up from 28,000 people now, aiming to eventually reach 400,000 across the United Kingdom.
The testing survey, undertaken by the Office for National Statistics, would also be extended to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
More than 600 incidents of violence, harassment or stigmatization against healthcare workers, patients and medical infrastructure in relation to Covid-19 cases have been recorded.
Of the 611 incidents, across more than 40 countries, more than 20% involved physical assaults, 15% were incidents of fear-based discrimination, and 15% were verbal assaults or threats, according to to the International Committee of the Red Cross. This figure reflects only the known incidents, so the actual figure is likely much higher.
The release of this new data – gathered during the first six months of the pandemic – includes doctors at a hospital in Pakistan who were verbally and physically attacked after a patient died of Covid-19.
In Afghanistan, the main COVID-19 isolation centre closed for a half-day due to a physical altercation between relatives of a patient who died and health personnel.
In Bangladesh, bricks were thrown at the house of a doctor after he tested positive for Covid-19 in a bid to force him and his family from the area.
“This crisis has put healthcare workers in harm’s way at a time when they are needed the most. Many have been insulted, harassed and subjected to physical violence. This atmosphere of fear, which is often compounded by a lack of adequate personal protective equipment, is adding significant stress to their physical and mental health and that of their families,” said Maciej Polkowski, the head of ICRC’s Health Care in Danger initiative.
“These attacks have a devastating impact on access to and provision of health care when many health systems are overwhelmed.”
In the UK, the coronavirus pandemic has prompted a rise in a new cohort of rough sleepers, charities warn as data shows reports of homelessness witnessed by members of the public surged during lockdown months.
Alerts by members of the public about rough sleepers increased by 36% year on year between April and June 2020, reaching 16,976. Notifications were also higher than the previous quarter which is unusual as they tend to rise in winter months, charities said.
The head of Germany’s vaccines regulator said some groups of people living in Germany could be vaccinated early next year against the coronavirus that has killed almost 800,000 worldwide and wreaked havoc on the global economy.
More than half a dozen drugmakers around the world are conducting advanced clinical trials, each with tens of thousands of participants, and several expect to know if their Covid-19 vaccines work and are safe by the end of this year.
Klaus Cichutek, head of the Paul Ehrlich Institut, told the Funke group of newspapers that data from Phase I and Phase II trials showed some vaccines triggered an immune response against the coronavirus.
“If data from Phase III trials show the vaccines are effective and safe, the first vaccines could be approved at the beginning of the year, possibly with conditions attached,” he said.
“Based on assurances from manufacturers, the first doses for people in Germany will be available at that time, in accordance with the priorities set by the Standing Committee on Vaccination,” Cichutek said, referring to the group that makes recommendations for the use of licensed vaccines in Germany.
Infections in Germany have risen in recent weeks and data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases on Wednesday showed the number of confirmed coronavirus cases climbing by 1,510 to 226,914.
The RKI said 39% of cases were probably imported, with Kosovo, Turkey and Croatia most often reported as the likely source of infection in recent weeks.
Several companies, including Moderna, AstraZeneca , and Pfizer Inc, say they each expect to make more than 1 billion doses of a vaccine next year.
German biotechnology firm CureVac has not ruled out a speedy approval process for its prospective vaccine and expects to have it on the market by mid-2021. Russia has said its vaccine will be rolled out by the end of this month.
Hello everyone. I am taking over the live feed from London, where it’s 7am (BST) to bring you the latest global updates on coronavirus. Please do get in touch if you want to share any comments or news tips with me. I can be contacted via any of the channels below.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Summary
Here are the main developments of the last few hours.
- The number of coronavirus cases recorded around the world has passed 22 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Deaths from the virus stand at more than 777,000.
- The World Bank is calling for greater debt relief for poorer countries. Its president, David Malpass, said fresh figures due out next month would show an extra 100 million people had been pushed into poverty by the crisis.
- Australia’s prime minister has said he wants to make any potential Covid-19 vaccine mandatory. Scott Morrison as he outlined plans to “return the country to normal life” as infections from a second wave began to subside.
-
South Korea is struggling to contain an outbreak of the virus in the capital, Seoul. The country reported the highest daily rise in coronavirus cases since early March on Wednesday.
- An increasingly common mutation of the coronavirus found in Europe, North America and parts of Asia may be more infectious but less deadly than previous strains, a leading expert in Singapore has said.
- Shares in Asia have hit a seven-month high on Wednesday thanks to the record close for the S&P 500 on Wall Street on Tuesday night. Stock markets have bounced back from a low in March despite widespread global economic disruption.
- Around 500 New Zealand military personnel will be deployed to help secure hotel quarantine sites as the country tries to contain a new outbreak.
- Developing countries could witness a baby boom as millions of women lose access to contraceptives and abortion services. Marie Stopes International expects 900,000 unintended pregnancies worldwid as a result of the pandemic.
Australia will provide vaccines to 'Pacific family'
Ben Doherty, Pacific editor
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has said that Australia will provide Covid-19 vaccines to the country’s “Pacific family, as well as regional partners in Southeast Asia”.
Morrison had announced the Australian government had signed a letter of intent with British pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca to secure 25 million doses of the vaccine being developed by Oxford University if it proves successful in human trials.
While the signing is simply a preliminary step in possibly securing a still-hypothetical vaccine, Morrison said it could potentially be available early next year.
But Morrison said Australia, as well as providing the vaccines to its citizens, would look to help roll-out vaccines across the region, to ensure “early access to the vaccine for countries in our Pacific family, as well as regional partners in Southeast Asia”.
“Australia will also play an important role in supporting our Pacific family,” Morrison said.
“We have a regional role to play here as well as a domestic role to play here and we will be living up to all of those responsibilities as we progress this day.”
Tim Costello, spokesman for the #EndCovidForAll campaign, said the prime minister was “looking over the Australian horizon” to the global battle against the pandemic.
“He is absolutely right, Australia has a role to play to end Covid beyond our borders and to assist those less equipped to tackle this pandemic.
“Securing supply of a COVID-19 vaccine for our neighbours will bring a swifter end to the crisis, lessen the health impacts and allow for a quicker economic recovery in the region.”
Marc Purcell, the chief executive of the Australian Council for International Development, said there was a strong political, as well as moral, case to assist smaller countries secure vaccines in the expected forthcoming rush.
“There will be intense vaccine diplomacy and it is in Australia’s national interest to supply vaccines free to our neighbours in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
“Not only is it the right thing to do, but assisting our neighbours with a vaccine is the way to build regional relationships and become a partner-of-choice. If we don’t, others will.”
The Pacific has been largely spared the worst of the health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, leveraging the region’s geographic isolation through the strict enforcement of border closures to keep infection numbers low.
But there are significant fears if the virus were to gain a significant foothold in the region – it could devastate island communities, which have limited public health infrastructure, and populations with high rates of comorbidities.
Papua New Guinea, Melanesia’s most populous country, is trying to control outbreaks across its islands. The country has jumped from a handful of cases to more than 300 in less a month.
Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, has announced plans to test 150,000 people per fortnight as part of the coronavirus infection survey.
The Office for National Statistics survey ultimately aims to increase to include 400,000 individuals, the Department of Health and Social Care said.
The expansion will see 150,000 people tested per fortnight by October, and the survey extended to cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Press Association reports.
It comes as Heathrow Airport unveiled a new coronavirus testing facility which it hopes will lead to the end of the mandatory 14-day quarantine for those returning from certain countries and “protect the economy”.
Hancock said:
We are developing the capacity to test for coronavirus on an unprecedented scale and undertaking one of the biggest expansions of surveillance testing we have ever seen.
This ONS survey will be a crucial part of this work - improving our understanding of the rate of infection in the population and how many people have antibodies.
This will allow us to further narrow down the areas potentially affected by local outbreaks and continue our fight to curb the spread ahead of winter.
The data and insight gathered will help inform our national, regional and local responses to the pandemic, allowing this nation to get back to the things we love doing.
The Guardian’s global report leads with news Australia’s prime minister has said he wants to make any potential Covid-19 vaccine mandatory, as he outlined plans to “return the country to normal life” after battling a second wave of the virus.
With governments around the world anticipating resistance to compulsory inoculation from anti-vaxx groups and a sceptical public, Scott Morrison said the aim was to get 95% of the population to have the jab and that he was “expecting” that it would be compulsory except on medical grounds.
“I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make it.”
On Wednesday, South Korea recorded its biggest increase in new daily infections since March, while in New Zealand, 500 extra defence force personnel will be deployed to quarantine hotels, as that country battles a second outbreak (after more than 100 days without a case).
Rebecca Ratcliffe, our south-east Asia correspondent, has more on the pandemic-driven contraception crisis facing women in developing countries that we highlighted earlier.
The governor of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, has warned health facilities must prepare for a possible baby boom driven by movement restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic, she writes.
Millions of people in Indonesia have faced difficulties in accessing contraception during the outbreak, either because clinics were shut or running reduced services, or people were afraid to visit health centres. Some experts have also warned about possible supply shortages.
Anies Baswedan, governor of Jakara, told officials at a recent City Hall meeting to use pregnancy data to estimate the number of beds needed and prepare medical staff for a rise in births.
“There’s an increase in pregnancies all over the world [due to the pandemic]. We need to prepare to anticipate [a similar situation],” Anies said, according to the Jakarta Post.
In the Philippines, its expected the pandemic could lead to 214,000 extra babies – meaning the country would record the highest number of births in two decades.
World Bank calls for more relief for poorer countries
The World Bank is calling for greater debt relief for poorer countries in the wake of the pandemic.
In an interview with the Guardian, its president, David Malpass, raised the prospect of the first systematic write-off of debts for 15 years as he said fresh Bank figures due out next month would show an extra 100 million people had been pushed into poverty by the crisis.
Read the full story here:
Tis dispatch from our south-east Asia correspondent Rebecca Ratcliffe about the easing of lockdown in the Philippines:
Stricter lockdown measures that were imposed in Manila earlier this month have been lifted today, after Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte promised a “refreshed” approach to tackling the coronavirus outbreak.
Tighter measures were reimposed on 4 August for two weeks, following pleas from doctor groups, who warned that hospitals were overwhelmed.
Duterte said earlier this week that the economy was “barely surviving” under the restrictions, which saw many businesses shut and public travel restricted.
The Philippines was previously one of Asia’s fastest growing economies, but has entered recession for the first time in almost three decades.
Harry Roque, Duterte’s spokesman, has said the government will intensify testing and continue to conduct house-to-house checks to trace Covid-19 patients with mild or no symptoms so they could be taken to isolation centres.
On Tuesday, the Philippines confirmed 4,836 novel coronavirus infections, and seven additional deaths. The country has so far recorded 169,213 cases, the highest in South-East Asia. Deaths have reached 2,687.
Millions of women around the world have lost access to contraceptives and abortion services because of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to warnings of a baby boom in the months ahead
Across 37 countries, nearly 2 million fewer women received services between January and June than in the same period last year, Marie Stopes International says in a new report.
The organization expects 900,000 unintended pregnancies worldwide as a result, along with 1.5 million unsafe abortions and more than 3,000 maternal deaths. The impact could be especially great in India.
Those numbers will likely be greatly amplified if services falter elsewhere in Latin America, Africa and Asia, Marie Stopes director of global evidence, Kathryn Church, has said.
Back to Air Force One, where a White House official has told reporters that “some Democrats and Republicans” wanted to do reach a deal on a coronavirus relief bill worth around $500bn, a senior Trump administration official said late on Monday.
Remember the planned bill was shelved after the two parties were unable to agree in Congress, leading Trump to make an executive order for some relief measures.
The official said the agreement could include funding for the US Postal Service, an issue that has caused another divide in US politics.
Talking of collateral damage, the virus has wrecked the usual pattern of the school year in many countries across the world, especially by preventing exams taking place.
The impact has been particularly disastrous in England where many students taking A-levels – the exams you need to do before going to university – have seen their results set by an algorithm which turned out to favour children at private schools over those from state-run schools. Cue a humiliating climbdown by the government. You can hear all about it at out our excellent daily podcast here:
The US-China trade deal has been part of the collateral damage of the coronavirus as Donald Trump has tried to use Beijing’s alleged poor handling of the outbreak to excuse his government’s own failures.
Trump said late on Tuesday that he had cancelled trade talks with China. “I canceled talks with China,” Trump said in Yuma, Arizona. “I don’t want to talk to China right now.”
In echoes of the on-off nature of the long negotaitions that secured an initial agreement between the two countries back in December, officials in Washington tried to clarify the situation as the president’s entourage flew back to Washington on Air Force One.
No high-level talks were scheduled, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said, but US trade representative Robert Lighthizer remained in regular contact with his counterparts in China about its commitments under the trade agreement.
Asian shares at seven-month high
Shares in Asia have hit a seven-month high on Wednesday thanks to the record close for the S&P 500 on Wall Street on Tuesday night.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of Japan rose 0.3%, up for a third straight day to 570.80 points, a level not seen since late January, Reuters reports.
Stocks in Australia were up more than 1% helped by a number of companies such as the biotech success story CSL and Domino’s Pizza reporting dividends. The Kospi in South Korea saw a leap of 0.6%.
Earnings season heats up as the ASX200 jumps higher - https://t.co/IlJYRaq6mv pic.twitter.com/xZFxdoZmzH
— Daily Traders Report (@DTR_Markets) August 19, 2020
The S&P 500 passed an all-time peak set in February just before the onset of the pandemic, which sent the benchmark index to lows on 23 March. The index has surged about 55% since then helped by enormous government and central bank stimulus.
It took over 3 years for the S&P 500 to get from 2,200 to just under 3400 in the previous approach. The 2020 version took just 5 months. pic.twitter.com/gjUJjpsTzi
— David Ingles (@DavidInglesTV) August 19, 2020
According to Tapas Strickland, economist at Melbourne-based National Australia Bank, that represents the “fastest-ever” recovery from a bear market at 126 days from trough to peak. In layman’s terms that the period from the most recent low back to the previous top.
Updated
We can at last stop calling Joe Biden the US Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee. The former vice president will officially be the candidate to take on Donald Trump in November when the incumbent’s handling of the pandemic could be the decisive issue.
You can read all about how the nomination went down here:
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,510 to 226,914, data just released by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases shows.
The reported death toll rose by seven to 9,243, the tally showed.
South Korea rocked by new outbreak
South Korea is struggling to contain an outbreak of the virus in the capital, Seoul, after the country reported the highest daily rise in coronavirus cases since early March on Wednesday.
New cases rose by 297, including 283 local infections, raising the total to 16,058, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), the news agency Yonhap reports.
New daily cases have been running in three figures for a week, forcing renewed social distancing measures and the closure nightclubs, bars and cafes.
Some 150 cases were reported from Seoul, and 94 from the surrounding Gyeonggi province.
Cases linked to the Sarang Jeil Church spiked to 457 as of Tuesday, according to the health authorities. People aged over 60 and above accounted for nearly 40%.
The latest outbreak has echoes of the country’s initial outbreak where members of a doomsday sect were particularly affected.
Updated
Virus mutation 'may be more infectious but less deadly' – expert
A leading expert on infectious diseases says that an increasingly common mutation of the coronavirus found in Europe, North America and parts of Asia may be more infectious but less deadly than previous versions.
Paul Tambyah, senior consultant at Singapore’s National University Hospital and president-elect of the International Society of Infectious Diseases, has told Reuters that evidence suggests the proliferation of the so-called D614G mutation in some parts of the world has coincided with a drop in death rates, suggesting it is less lethal.
“Maybe that’s a good thing to have a virus that is more infectious but less deadly,” he says, adding that most viruses tend to become less virulent as they mutate.
“It is in the virus’ interest to infect more people but not to kill them because a virus depends on the host for food and for shelter,” he said.
The mutation was discovered as early as February and it has circulated in Europe and the Americas. Our science team have written this explainer about the significance of mutations of the virus:
Still on New Zealand, you can read more about how the new outbreak is affecting the country’s Pacific islander, or Pasifika, community:
More from our correspondent in New Zealand, Eleanor Ainge Roy:
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, has announced a small health team to assist the government and work across multiple ministries. She is also boosting security at quarantine hotels.
Around 500 extra defence force personnel will be deployed to quarantine hotels, making the total of defence force personnel 1200.
“This boost in staff will be progressively rolled out over six weeks... by scaling up our defence force staff we can stop using private security contractors, and replace them with defence force staff.”
Ardern said it was “unrealistic” to expect the border controls to be “perfect”.
Updated
Six new cases in New Zealand
There are six new cases in New Zealand as the country continues to a slight uptick in infections.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield, director-general of health, told a media conference that one of the cases is an imported case from Qatar via Sydney.
The other five cases are in the community and are linked to the Auckland outbreak.
Five people are receiving hospital care.
Ardern said today’s results were “encouraging” and they were not seeing a surge or additional cases related to the Rydges worker who tested positive on 16 August.
“So far the rollout of our resurgence plan is working as we had intended.”
Argentina confirmed 6,840 new cases of coronavirus and 172 deaths on Tuesday as the country struggles to contain a surge in recent weeks.
The country’s health ministry said it now had a total of 305,966 cases and 6,048 deaths.
Dr Luis Camera, a member of the Argentine government’s health advisory group, said while cases, intensive care admissions and hospital bed occupancy rates were not still climbing, they had settled at an unsustainable level.
He told Reuters TV that Argentina had hit the “altiplano”:
The highest points for the city of Buenos Aires could have been the last days of July and the first days of August. Now the infection curve has stabilized at a plateau, but a high plateau. In South America, you call it the altiplano, as opposed to the lowlands.
Global cases pass 22 million
The number of coronavirus cases recorded around the world has passed 22 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Deaths from the virus stand at more than 777,000.
Updated
Stock markets in Asia Pacific have opened in positive territory on Wednesday after that historic lead from Wall Street.
The ASX200 in Sydney has jumped 0.38% in early trade while the Kospi in South Korea was up 1%. Japan’s Nikkei was off slightly.
#ASX at Open:#ASX200 +0.5% 75up vs 112dn
— Carl Capolingua (@CarlCapolingua) August 19, 2020
Positives: #IronOre rally, $CSL +6% on FY20, $ANZ div
Negatives: can't see many, so why breadth so poor?$SPI 6105 vs 6112hi/6066lo, cranking up...$WTC +18% $CTD +13% $DMP +7% on FY20's#ausbiz #ausstocks #investing #stockmarket pic.twitter.com/xMOcwAlMSp
Kyle Rodda at IG Markets in Melbourne said that despite the S&P500 record close, much of the heavy lifting was done by Amazon and the Google parent Alphabet, rallying 4.1 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively.
[It] speaks of the concern that this record high is built on shaking foundations. Only 61% of stocks are trading above their 200-day moving average – well below the 81 per cent that characterized the last record high.
New cases in Mexico have risen by 5,506 to 531,239, although the government says that the actual number of infections is most likely “significantly higher”.
Death from the disease stand at 57,774, the world’s third-highest total after the US and Brazil.
The US postmaster general has tried to take the heat out of the growing anger about possible disruption to mail-in voting in November’s election by announcing that all proposed operational changes to the postal system will be delayed until after the vote.
House speaker Nacy Pelosi said the promise by Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee whose changes threatened to disenfranchise millions of voters as the pandemic impacts the abulity oif people to vote in person, were “insufficient”.
Follow all the voerage of this and the Democratic convention at our US live blog:
Testing and contact tracing are crucial measures for slowing the spread of Covid-19, but are not enough on their own to contain the disease, according to a new study by researchers at Imperial College, London.
The work published on Wednesday in the The Lancet Infectious Diseases says that test-and-trace can reduce the virus’ reproduction rate, or R number, by 26%, AFP reports.
But lead author Nicholas Grassly, a professor at Imperial College’s School of Public Health, said the test and trace work had to be carried out very quickly in order to be effective. That meant
- immediate testing with the onset of symptoms and results within 24 hours
- the quarantine of contacts, also within 24 hours;
- and the identification of 80% of cases and contacts.
Very few countries – notably South Korea, Taiwan and Germany – have come close to staying within these guidelines, and most are still falling well short.
Updated
Vaccine will be compulsory in Australia – PM
Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, says it will be compulsory for people to have a Covid-19 vaccine once it is available.
Australia had earlier revealed it has agreed a deal with AstraZeneca to supply the potential Oxford University vaccine. People will receive the vaccine for free in Australia, Morrison said, calling the Oxford vaccine “one of the most advanced and promising in the world”.
Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria, the epicentre of the country’s second wave of infections, recorded 216 new cases in the past 24 hours and 12 deaths, officials said on Wednesday morning.
You can follow all the updates from there at our Australia live blog here:
Updated
Wall Street's S&P500 hits record high
The S&P 500 stock index on Wall Street closed at a record high on Tuesday night marking the complete recovery of shares after the shock of the pandemic.
The record confirms that Wall Street’s most closely followed index entered a so-called bull market – or upward curve – after hitting its pandemic low on 23 March. It has surged about 55% since then thanks to massive intervention by the US government and the Federal Reserve central bank. It closed 7.79 points, or 0.23% higher at 3,389.78.
The S&P500 closed at a record high - wiping out all of its coronavirus losses
— Michelle Fleury (@BizFleury) August 18, 2020
S&P today - 3,389.78
March 20 - 2,304.92 (pandemic low)
The resurgence comes despite historic job losses, bankruptcies and shrinking corporate profits pic.twitter.com/Bq5DhCZUUG
That makes the bear market – or downward movement – that started in late February the S&P 500’s shortest in its history. The S&P 500 is a broader index of US companies than the Dow Jones industrial average, which represents only 30 companies.
The story of how share prices have roared back as workers around the world find themselves out of a job or on reduced pay is one of the central issues of the pandemic. Read more about how it has panned out in the US here:
And from a UK perspective here:
Updated
Good morning/afternoon/evening. I’m Martin Farrer and thanks for joining me for live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are the main developments in the past 24 hours:
-
Global coronavirus cases are approaching 22 million and the global death toll has risen to almost 776,000. The biggest drivers of the case counts are the United States and Brazil, according to John Hopkins University. The US has recorded over 5.45 million cases and more than 170,000 lives have been lost.
- Stocks on Wall Street’s S&P500 index hit an all-time high on Tuesday night completing their recovery from the pandemic shock. The world’s most closely watched measure of share prices has increased 55% since its coronavirus low on 23 March after huge government and central bank stimulus.
- Young are not invincible amid the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization warned. The WHO said Covid-19 is now being spread mainly by people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, who may be unaware they are infected, potentially transmitting the disease to more vulnerable groups. “We are seeing young people who are ending up in ICU. Young people are dying from this virus,” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said.
- The Netherlands could go “back to square one” if the country doesn’t control new infections, the Dutch PM, Mark Rutte, warned. Without imposing mandatory restrictions, Rutte gave people urgent advice not to hold parties at home and to limit events like birthday celebrations and other private house gatherings to a maximum of six people.
- A hotel quarantine security guard in Sydney has contracted Covid-19. The guard most likely was infected by a traveller from the US, officials said, rasing questions about whether nurses should replace security personnel.
- Ireland’s nationwide coronavirus restrictions are being “significantly tightened” until at least 13 September as cases surged at the fourth highest rate in Europe. Following the rise in the last three weeks, people have been urged to restrict visitors to their homes, avoid public transport and for older people to limit their contacts. “We’re absolutely not at a stage where we can return to normality. We are at another critical moment,” the taoiseach, Michael Martin, said.
- Germany is expected to extend its pandemic furlough scheme to 24 months. The chancellor Angela Merkel indicated she welcomed the proposal to let the kurzarbeit programme run on until 2021. A final decision is expected on 25 August.
- Lebanese authorities announced a new lockdown and an overnight curfew to rein in a surge in infections. The new measures will come into effect on Friday and last just over two weeks. Areas damaged by the devastating explosion that hit Beirut on 4 August will be exempt from the restrictions, as clean-up efforts continue across multiple neighbourhoods.
- South Africa will launch clinical trials of a US-developed coronavirus vaccine with 2,900 volunteers this week. It’s the second such study in the African country worst hit by the disease. Known as NVX-CoV2373, the vaccine was developed by US biotech company Novavax from the genetic sequence of SARSCoV2. It will be administered to the first volunteer in the randomised, observer-blinded trial on Wednesday.
