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Updated
Summary
- The UK government’s flagship policy for tackling the coronavirus in England descended into chaos after mayors and MPs from the north-west of the country emphatically rejected being moved into the highest lockdown level and accused ministers of treating the region with contempt.
- Spain’s cumulative tally of coronavirus infections rose by over 13,300 to 921,374 in a slight acceleration from the previous few days, as Catalonia prepared to shut down bars and restaurants in a bid to slow the spread of the virus.
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France’s new infections set a 24-hour record, rising above 30,000 for the first time since the start of the epidemic. There were a total of 30,621 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, up on Wednesday’s 22,591, taking the cumulative number of cases to 809,684. On Wednesday, the French president Emmanuel Macron ordered a nightly curfew in Paris and eight other big cities where the coronavirus is actively spreading.
- Germany’s foreign ministry has warned against non-essential travel to France, the Netherlands, Malta and Slovakia from Saturday due to high coronavirus infection rates.
- Europe has recorded its highest ever weekly number of new Covid-19 cases, the World Health Organization has said, warning that without effective countermeasures daily death rates could reach four or five times their April peak within months.
- More than half of countries in the EU, plus the UK, were on Thursday labelled red in a new map issued by the bloc’s disease control agency aimed at guiding decisions on travel restrictions. The map was issued after EU member states decided on Tuesday to coordinate their approach to travel restrictions on other countries in response to Covid-19 outbreaks.
- As Switzerland sees record high Covid-19 infection numbers on a daily basis, the health minister warned Thursday that the situation is “deteriorating” at an alarming rate.
- US president Donald Trump on Thursday said he is willing to raise his offer of $1.8 trillion for a Covid-19 relief package to get a deal with House of Representatives Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a move likely to raise concern among his fellow Republicans in the Senate.
- Italy’s coronavirus infections reached 8,804 on Thursday, up by almost 1,500 in a day, while deaths almost doubled to 83. Daily records were registered in Lombardy, where there were over 2,000 new cases, Campania and Piedmont. Cases in the southern Campania region, which was relatively unscathed by the first wave of the pandemic, eclipsed 1,000 in a day for the first time.
- The Czech Republic will start building capacity for Covid-19 patients outside of hospitals, officials said on Thursday, as the country faces the fastest rate of infections in Europe.
- The president of the European Commission says she is going into self-isolation with immediate effect after a colleague tested positive for Covid-19.
Brazil has registered another 713 coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours and 28,523 new positive cases, the health ministry said on Thursday evening.
The country has now registered 152,460 total coronavirus deaths and 5,169,386 total confirmed cases.
All House of Commons bars and restaurants will be banned from selling alcohol as of Saturday, the Speaker has confirmed.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle said:
Following the [UK] government’s decision to move London into the Tier 2 Covid-alert category, I have asked the parliamentary authorities to introduce measures to bring the House of Commons into line with the national picture.
As MPs represent different constituencies in different tiers - with the very highest level ordering the closure of pubs - I have decided to stop the sale of alcohol across the House of Commons-end of the estate from this Saturday.
This means it will not be possible to buy an alcoholic drink from any of our catering outlets for the foreseeable future - whether food is served or not.
The House of Commons Commission will be meeting on Monday to consider other measures needed to protect MPs, their staff and House staff, while maintaining our Covid-secure status.”
The UK government’s flagship policy for tackling the coronavirus in England has descended into chaos after mayors and MPs from the north-west of the country emphatically rejected being moved into the highest lockdown level and accused ministers of treating the region with contempt.
Talks to reach an agreement ended with bitter and angry exchanges, deepening a north-south rift that has left the government’s strategy of tiered restrictions in turmoil.
While ministers could still unilaterally impose a lockdown, they believe local leaders’ cooperation is crucial in communicating and enforcing the restrictions.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he would not accept his area being treated “as canaries in the coalmine for an experimental regional lockdown strategy”, one he said even the government’s own medical advisers did not think would work.
Burnham was backed by exasperated MPs from Greater Manchester, and from Lancashire, the other area set to join the Liverpool city region in the “very high-risk” tier 3 category, which entails the closure of pubs and bars.
This included a number of Conservatives. One said of negotiating with the government: “You might as well talk to a wall.”
Another Labour MP described the talks as a “shitshow”.
The full story is here:
Spain’s cumulative tally of coronavirus infections rose by over 13,300 to 921,374 in a slight acceleration from the previous few days, as Catalonia prepared to shut down bars and restaurants in a bid to slow the spread of the virus.
Data from the health ministry, which includes new cases and deaths in the past 24 hours and adds to the total retroactively, also showed the death toll rising by 140 to 33,553.
Still, the number of daily infections in the pandemic’s hotspot in western Europe has come down somewhat from a peak of over 16,000 on 18 September, according to health ministry charts.
The health emergency coordinator Fernando Simon told a briefing:
Spain is stabilising, but the territorial differences are important. We cannot let our guard down. In none of the regions we have the incidence indicators we’d like to have.
Catalonia, which includes Spain’s second-largest city of Barcelona, has ordered bars and restaurants to close for 15 days to try to curb a surge in coronavirus cases and the region’s top court on Thursday gave its go-ahead to the new restrictions from 1 a.m. on Friday.
Hospitality sector workers have called a protest rally for Friday.
The capital Madrid and nearby suburbs were put into partial lockdown last week, and residents feared any further drastic measures would kill off the economy.
“The economy will go backwards,” health worker Victoria Maria told Reuters, expressing her fear of more restrictive measures.
They have to evaluate it and find solutions for all of us because if not we will be ruined, not only health-wise but also economically.
France's new infections set 24-hour record, above 30,000
French health authorities on Thursday reported the number of new daily coronavirus infections rose above 30,000 for the first time since the start of the epidemic.
There were a total of 30,621 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, up on Wednesday’s 22,591, while hospitalisations and deaths linked to the disease also rose.
The number of people in France who have died from Covid-19 infections rose by 88 to 33,125, versus 104 on Wednesday. The cumulative number of cases now totals 809,684. Patients in ICU now total 1,750, an increase of 77 in 24 hours.
The French president Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday ordered a nightly curfew in Paris and eight other big cities where the coronavirus is actively spreading.
Updated
Germany’s foreign ministry has warned against non-essential travel to France, the Netherlands, Malta and Slovakia from Saturday due to high coronavirus infection rates.
Summary of the latest updates
I will shortly be handing over the live blog to my colleague who will take over. Below is a summary of the latest developments:
- Europe has recorded its highest ever weekly number of new Covid-19 cases, the World Health Organization has said, warning that without effective countermeasures daily death rates could reach four or five times their April peak within months.
- More than half of countries in the EU, plus the UK, were on Thursday labelled red in a new map issued by the bloc’s disease control agency aimed at guiding decisions on travel restrictions. The map was issued after EU member states decided on Tuesday to coordinate their approach to travel restrictions on other countries in response to Covid-19 outbreaks.
- As Switzerland sees record high Covid-19 infection numbers on a daily basis, the health minister warned Thursday that the situation is “deteriorating” at an alarming rate.
- US president Donald Trump on Thursday said he is willing to raise his offer of $1.8 trillion for a Covid-19 relief package to get a deal with House of Representatives Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a move likely to raise concern among his fellow Republicans in the Senate.
- Italy’s coronavirus infections reached 8,804 on Thursday, up by almost 1,500 in a day, while deaths almost doubled to 83. Daily records were registered in Lombardy, where there were over 2,000 new cases, Campania and Piedmont. Cases in the southern Campania region, which was relatively unscathed by the first wave of the pandemic, eclipsed 1,000 in a day for the first time.
- The Czech Republic will start building capacity for Covid-19 patients outside of hospitals, officials said on Thursday, as the country faces the fastest rate of infections in Europe.
- The president of the European Commission says she is going into self-isolation with immediate effect after a colleague tested positive for Covid-19.
Wisconsin and other states in the US Midwest are battling a surge in Covid-19 cases, with new infections and hospitalizations rising to record levels in an ominous sign of a nationwide resurgence as temperatures get colder.
More than 22,000 new cases were reported on Wednesday across the Midwest, eclipsing the previous record of more than 20,000 on 9 October. Hospitalizations in those states reached a record high for a 10th consecutive day, as some hospitals began feeling the strain.
More than 86% of the beds in Wisconsin’s intensive care units were in use as of Wednesday.
A field hospital opened in a Milwaukee suburb in case medical facilities become overwhelmed. Neat rows of makeshift cubicles enclosing beds and medical supplies occupied the fairgrounds in West Allis, which has been the home of the Wisconsin State Fair since the late 1800s.
Dr Paul Casey, the medical director of the emergency department at Bellin Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said entire wards full of Covid-19 patients were stretching resources “to the limit.”
“It’s going to get worse,” he told CNN on Thursday. “We predict it will peak mid-Novemeber.”
More than 1,000 people were hospitalized for Covid-19 in Wisconsin on Wednesday, the state’s health department said. Health authorities recorded a near 25% spike in coronavirus hospitalizations in the past seven days compared to the previous week.
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Updated
More than half of countries in the EU, plus the UK, were on Thursday labelled red in a new map issued by the bloc’s disease control agency aimed at guiding decisions on travel restrictions.
The map was issued after EU member states decided on Tuesday to coordinate their approach to travel restrictions on other countries in response to Covid-19 outbreaks.
Seventeen of 31 countries covered by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) were labelled red or mostly red, meaning average daily cases over the previous 14-day period were 50 or higher per 100,000 inhabitants coupled with a test positivity rate of over 4%.
The red rating is if the 14-day notification rate is 150 cases or higher per 100,000.
In addition to the 27 EU countries, the ECDC covers the UK, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
A green rating means the 14-day notification rate is lower than 25 cases per 100,000 and the test positivity rate below 4%, and orange are those that fall between red and green.
Member states agreed not to impose travel restrictions on travellers from regions rated “green”, but none achieved that level nationwide.
For countries that are red and orange, members states are free to decide what measures, if any, they wish to impose but could, for instance, require travellers coming from those countries to undergo quarantine or a Covid-19 test.
Five countries - Austria, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland - did not receive a rating, with the agency citing a lack of information.
As Switzerland sees record high Covid-19 infection numbers on a daily basis, the health minister warned Thursday that the situation is “deteriorating” at an alarming rate.
“We have in recent days faced a new dynamic, which is very negative and very strong,” Alain Berset told reporters.
For the past week, he said: “The situation in Switzerland is deteriorating faster than elsewhere.”
At first glance, the Swiss figures may not seem that impressive compared with the soaring infection numbers in neighbouring countries.
The wealthy Alpine nation of 8.5 million people registered 2,600 new cases Thursday - the highest daily number since the start of the pandemic.
Since the beginning, 71,140 cases have been reported in Switzerland and 1,817 deaths, amounting to 832 cases and 21 deaths per 100,000 people.
The proportion of positive tests in the country has meanwhile jumped from 5.4 to 10.2% in the past week.
Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga warned Thursday that a full-blown second wave was looming.
Eleven million girls face being unable to return to school even after coronavirus restrictions are lifted around the world, UNESCO head Audrey Azoulay said Thursday during a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“We worry that in many countries the closure of schools has unfortunately led to losses,” Azoulay said as she visited a high school in the capital Kinshasa, three days after the country’s 2020-21 school year began.
“We estimate that 11 million girls will be unable to go back to school around the world.”
Accordingly, “we have launched an awareness campaign on the need for schools to go back to school,” the former French culture minister said.
Education “unfortunately remains very unequal” for girls, Azoulay said, noting that their access to schooling is a priority for the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Congolese Education Minister Willy Bakonga, accompanying Azoulay, urged her to support the country’s programme of free public primary education launched by President Felix Tshisekedi in September last year.
He said the programme had allowed more than four million children to join or rejoin the education system in the poor but mineral-rich Central African country.
Hailing the reform as “very ambitious”, Azoulay recognised the “enormous challenges” at hand in terms of infrastructure, teacher training and budgeting.
In Bulgaria, Roma communities were sprayed with disinfectant from crop dusters this spring as coronavirus cases surged in the country. In Slovakia, their villages were the only ones where the army conducted testing. And across Central and Eastern Europe, reports of police using excessive force against Roma spiked as officers were deployed to enforce lockdowns in their towns.
Human rights activists and experts say local officials in several countries with significant Roma populations have used the pandemic to unlawfully target the minority group, which is Europe’s largest and has faced centuries of severe discrimination. With Covid-19 cases now resurging across the continent, some experts fear the repression will return, too.
To make matters worse, activists say such discrimination often draws little opposition from other Europeans and the Roma are reluctant to speak about it, fearing repercussions.
US president Donald Trump on Thursday said he is willing to raise his offer of $1.8 trillion for a Covid-19 relief package to get a deal with House of Representatives Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a move likely to raise concern among his fellow Republicans in the Senate.
The White House proposed the $1.8 trillion in stimulus last week in negotiations with Pelosi, who rejected the offer and continues to demand a $2.2 trillion deal. The talks appear unlikely to produce an agreement before the Nov. 3 election.
Trump, who is running for reelection in the vote next month, told Fox Business Network he has already directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to put a bigger stimulus offer on the table, saying additional money would go to help U.S. workers. Pelosi and Mnuchin were expected to speak again on Thursday.
“We like stimulus, we want stimulus and we think we should have stimulus,” Trump said.
The president ruled out accepting Pelosi’s proposal outright “because she’s asking for all sorts of goodies. She wants to bail out badly-run Democrat states and cities. She wants money for things ... that just your pride couldn’t let it happen.”
Three Jewish congregations on Thursday filed a lawsuit claiming that New York’s coronavirus restrictions on public gatherings violate their First Amendment religious rights under the US Constitution.
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Manhattan by Congregations Oholei Shem D’nitra, Netzach Yisroel and Yesheos Yakov asks the state’s measures, which restrict religious gatherings to as few as 10 people, be overturned.
Italy’s coronavirus infections reached 8,804 on Thursday, up by almost 1,500 in a day, while deaths almost doubled to 83.
Daily records were registered in Lombardy, where there were over 2,000 new cases, Campania and Piedmont. Cases in the southern Campania region, which was relatively unscathed by the first wave of the pandemic, eclipsed 1,000 in a day for the first time.
The Italian government has so far excluded the prospect of new national lockdown, saying any further restrictions would be targeted. However, prime minister Giuseppe Conte appeared to backtrack slightly on Thursday, saying that much would depend on the behaviour of Italians.
“If the number of infections and people in hospital increases, and in particular in intensive care, we will be in difficulty again,” he said.
The number of people hospitalised for Covid-19 increased by over 300 to 5,796 within the last 24 hours, with 586 people in intensive care.
The Czech Republic will start building capacity for Covid-19 patients outside of hospitals, officials said on Thursday, as the country faces the fastest rate of infections in Europe.
Coronavirus cases have nearly doubled in October alone to a total of 139,290. The Health Ministry reported 9,544 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, its highest one-day tally.
The central European country has the continent’s fastest per capita rise in infections and deaths from the disease, forcing hospitals to scramble to free up space.
The Foreign Ministry said it had working agreements with the German states of Bavaria and Saxony in case hospitals get overloaded.
“We hope it will not be necessary but we want to be prepared for everything,” Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek told news site idnes.cz.
The number of patients needing care has more than doubled since Oct. 4 to 2,678, of whom a fifth need intensive care. Covid-related deaths have climbed to 1,172, up 75% this month.
The head of the Czech Medical Chamber urged doctors who have left to work abroad to return home as the number of infections among healthcare workers rises.
Hello everyone!
Thanks for following the Guardian’s global live feed, updating you on all the latest developments on Covid-19 from around the world.
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President of European commission self-isolating
The president of the European commission says she is going into self-isolation with immediate effect after a colleague tested positive for Covid-19.
I have just been informed that a member of my front office has tested positive to COVID-19 this morning. I myself have tested negative.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 15, 2020
However as a precaution I am immediately leaving the European Council to go into self-isolation.
Updated
In the US, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has said that the vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, is to suspend in-person events until Monday after two people associated with the campaign tested positive for coronavirus, AP reports.
The campaign said Biden had no exposure, though he and Harris spent several hours campaigning together in Arizona on 8 October.
Harris was scheduled to travel to North Carolina today for events encouraging voters to cast early ballots.
The campaign told reporters this morning that Harris’s communications director and a traveling staff member for her travel to Arizona tested positive after that 8 October trip.
Harris and Biden spent several hours together that day, through multiple campaign stops, private meetings and a joint appearance in front of reporters at an airport. They were masked at all times in public and aides said they were masked in private as well. Biden and Harris have each had multiple negative tests since then.
You can read the Guardian’s US politics blog here.
Updated
Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of Mexico’s wealthiest men and an adviser to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has tested positive for coronavirus.
Salinas, the founder and president of Grupo Salinas, which includes TV Azteca and Banco Azteca among other companies, has been outspoken in his criticism of quarantine as a measure to try to slow the pandemic’s spread.
Salinas, 64, announced his test result on Wednesday night via Twitter. “Take care of yourself and don’t be afraid, like I always said,” he wrote. He said he was at home but didn’t say if he had Covid-19 symptoms.
Mexico has reported more than 825,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and nearly 85,000 deaths.
Updated
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Dutch authorities on Thursday investigated a rowdy dance party held outside a bar in the centre of The Hague as a partial coronavirus lockdown was about to take effect.
Footage of revellers packed close together without face masks late on Wednesday sparked outrage in the Netherlands, which has one of Europe’s highest infection rates.
Police eventually cleared out the party, which took place in Plein Square opposite parliament while the body was in session.
“This is utterly irresponsible,” The Hague mayor, Jan van Zanen, said in a statement.
“Of course people want to party again, but this kind of selfish behaviour only prolongs the duration of the measures”, which are due to last at least four weeks, he added.
Updated
The European Union needs to establish common rules on quarantines and Covid-19 testing to end a confusing patchwork of rules across the bloc, the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Thursday.
The situation in Europe was becoming “more worrisome”, but EU countries had at least agreed a common “traffic light” system to guide them on whether non-essential travellers such as tourists were coming from safe or risky regions, she said.
“I think it is also necessary that there will be an agreement on the time of quarantine or the necessity of testing. Here I call on the stakeholders that we also find an agreement. This is important,” Von der Leyen told reporters before the start of a two-day meeting of EU leaders.
Updated
The coronavirus has killed at least 1,093,624 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Thursday.
At least 38,571,770 cases have been registered. Of these, at least 26,662,700 are now considered recovered.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.
On Wednesday, 5,948 new deaths and 365,249 new infections were recorded worldwide. Based on the latest reports, the countries with the newest deaths were the US, with 794 new deaths, followed by Brazil, with 749, and India, with 680.
The US is the worst-affected country with 216,904 deaths from 7,917,189 cases. At least 3,155,794 people have been declared recovered.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil, with 151,747 deaths from 5,140,863 cases, India, with 111,266 deaths from 7,307,097 cases, Mexico, with 84,898 deaths from 829,396 cases, and the UK, with 43,155 deaths from 654,644 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru, with 102 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Belgium, with 89, Bolivia 72 and Spain 71.
China – excluding Hong Kong and Macau – has to date declared 85,622 cases, including 4,634 deaths and 80,748 recoveries.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 373,930 deaths from 10,258,546 cases, Europe 245,948 deaths from 6,882,373 infections and the US and Canada 226,566 deaths from 8,106,148 cases.
Updated
As rural northwestern Kansas communities endured some of the state’s biggest spikes in Covid-19 cases last week, a county sheriff who was among those testing positive found himself struggling to breathe and landed in a hospital room more than an hour from home.
The pandemic arrived late, but it’s now stressing Gove County, which has had to send patients including Sheriff Allan Weber to hospitals in other towns. The county’s 22-bed medical centre only has a handful of beds dedicated to coronavirus patients and not enough staff to monitor the most serious cases around the clock.
The local nursing home had most of its 30-plus residents test positive, and six have died since late September. Besides the sheriff, the county’s emergency management director, the hospital chief executive and more than 50 medical staff have tested positive.
Even so, some leaders are reluctant to stir up ill will by talking about how often friends and neighbours wear masks or questioning how officials responded.
“The hospital has a sales tax initiative that’s on the ballot, and we just don’t want to upset anybody,” said David Caudill, chief executive officer of the Gove County Medical Center, who tested positive for the virus. The medical centre includes both the community hospital and nursing home.
Advocates of allowing the coronavirus to circulate among populations in the hope of achieving herd immunity are promoting a “dangerous fallacy” devoid of scientific proof, dozens of health experts said on Thursday.
In an open letter published in the Lancet medical journal, more than 80 specialists from universities across the world said that the only effective way of limiting excess deaths during the pandemic was to control the disease’s spread.
The letter comes after numerous US media reports this week that senior Trump administration officials had voiced support for an online declaration advocating herd immunity that gathered more than 9,000 signatures worldwide.
As a second Covid-19 wave batters Europe, several countries have reintroduced controls on movement and implemented regionalised lockdowns.
The authors of Thursday’s letter said that the social and economic impacts of confinement had led to “widespread demoralisation and diminishing trust” in government measures to get a handle on the virus.
The second wave has also led to a renewed interest in so-called herd immunity, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak among people considered to be at low risk of death or serious illness from the virus.
The health experts listed numerous flaws in the concept.
Firstly, “uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity and mortality across the whole population,” the letter said.
This would have a catastrophic human and financial cost, besides overwhelming healthcare systems.
The authors also noted that it is possible to become reinfected with Covid-19.
Updated
Europe records highest ever weekly cases
Europe has recorded its highest ever weekly number of new Covid-19 cases, the World Health Organization has said, warning that without effective countermeasures daily death rates could reach four or five times their April peak within months.
Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said on Thursday the virus was spreading rapidly across the continent, with exponential increases being reported in daily cases and matching percentage rises in daily death rates.
“The evolving epidemiological situation in Europe raises great concern: daily cases are up, hospital admissions are up, and Covid is now the fifth leading cause of deaths” in the region, Kluge said, killing more than 1,000 people a day.
He said confirmed cases in the organisation’s 53 European member states had moved from 6m to more than 7m in just 10 days, with records being set on 9 and 10 October, when daily totals exceeded 120,000 cases for the first time.
However, there was cause for optimism, he said, because the situation was not the same as during the first wave of the pandemic.
Updated
The head of the World Health Organization’s Europe office has said the exponential surge of coronavirus cases across the continent warrants the restrictive measures being taken across the continent, calling them “absolutely necessary” to stop the pandemic.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Dr Hans Kluge warned that even more drastic steps might be needed in such “unprecedented times”. He called for countries and their citizens to be “uncompromising” in their attempts to control the virus and said most of the Covid-19 spread is happening in homes, indoor spaces and in communities not complying with protection measures.
“These measures are meant to keep us all ahead of the curve and to flatten its course,” a masked Kluge said. “It is therefore up to us to accept them while they are still relatively easy to follow instead of following the path of severity.”
Updated
The Frankfurt book fair, the world’s largest, is going ahead this week even after a rise in coronavirus infections turned the German city into a high-risk area.
With authors signing books behind plexiglass, audiences wearing masks and industry events moved online, this year’s edition is unlike any other.
The rapidly worsening outbreak, in a country that has so far coped relatively well with the pandemic, forced organisers to rewrite their plans several times.
Just 48 hours before Wednesday’s kickoff, the fair director, Juergen Boos, and his team decided to ban audiences from attending readings and interviews in a concert hall that had been due to host 450 people at a time.
“We had to react right away,” Boos told AFP, after Frankfurt was coloured red on the coronavirus map.
It was a huge blow to a fair that last year drew 300,000 visitors and has already been drastically scaled back.
The on-stage author talks at the now eerily empty Festhalle arena are still taking place, however, and are being live-streamed.
Also empty is the adjacent conference centre, normally a hive of activity where book-lovers could rub shoulders with top publishing executives and writers such as Dan Brown and Cecelia Ahern.
Updated
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Hong Kong and Singapore on Thursday said they had agreed “in principle” to set up a bubble allowing residents to travel freely between the two financial hubs as long as they test negative for the coronavirus.
The announcement is a rare moment of good news for a tourism industry battered by the pandemic and offers a glimpse into how places with less severe outbreaks might be able to safely restart some travel.
The two cities released joint statements announcing the deal which they said would be implemented within weeks.
“This milestone arrangement will help revive cross-border air travel between the two aviation hubs, in a safe and progressive way,” Hong Kong’s government said.
“I think it’s a significant step, a small step but a significant one because both Hong Kong and Singapore - we are regional aviation hubs, even global aviation hubs,” Singapore transport minister Ong Ye Kung said.
Ong said he hoped the travel bubble could be “a model and a template for us to forge more such relationships and partnerships”.
Shares in Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific which, like all airlines, has been hammered by the coronavirus closed more than 6% up on Thursday. Singapore Airlines was trading up a more muted 0.5%.
Police raided the homes and offices of France’s former prime minister, the health minister and a number of prominent officials on Thursday as part of an investigation into the authorities’ response to the coronavirus pandemic, BFM TV reported.
The health minister, Olivier Véran, his predecessor, Agnes Buzyn, the former prime minister Edouard Philippe, former government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye and the current public health director, Jerome Salomon, were also targeted by the raids, BFM added.
Véran’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters was not immediately able to contact for comment the other officials caught up in the raids.
There was no immediate confirmation of the raids by the Paris police or the Interior Ministry.
In July, a judicial investigation was launched into the official handling of the pandemic, following dozens of complaints by doctors, local authorities and nursing homes.
News of the raids broke just hours after French president, Emmanuel Macron, ordered a nightly curfew affecting one-third of the French population in an attempt to curb the surging second wave of the deadly virus.
Daily new infections are increasing at a record rate, putting a renewed strain on the hospital system. The virus has killed more than 33,000 people to date in France, the ninth-highest tally in the world.
Updated
The World Health Organization’s European office said on Thursday that the soaring number of Covid-19 cases in Europe was of “great concern”, but that the situation was still better than the peaks in April.
“Daily numbers of cases are up, hospital admissions are up,” the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, told a press conference.
“Covid is now the fifth leading cause of deaths and the bar of a 1,000 deaths per day has now been reached.”
But he said that “we are not” in the situation experienced in March and April.
“Although we record two to three times more cases per day compared to the April peak, we still observe five times less deaths, and the doubling time in hospital admissions is still two to three times longer,” Kluge said.
He said part of the increase could be traced to a higher level of testing among younger people, and the lower mortality could be explained by the virus spreading in younger, less vulnerable groups.
Updated
The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, says he expects the government to move the city of 9 million people to a higher level of coronavirus restrictions later on Thursday as infection rates rise throughout the capital.
Khan told the London Assembly that talks were continuing but he expected authorities to move London into the second of three risk categories based on “expert public health and scientific advice” about what is needed to save lives.
Khan has written to the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, seeking details about what assistance would be provided to businesses and individuals affected by such a move.
“Nobody wants to see more restrictions,’’ Khan said. “But this is deemed to be necessary in order to protect Londoners’ lives by myself, London council leaders and by ministers.”
The move comes as millions of people in northern England are waiting to find out whether they will be placed under the government’s tightest Covid-19 restrictions
Updated
Hello all, I am taking over the global live feed today and will be running it from London. Please do get in touch with me while I work if you want to share any news tips from where you are. You can reach me through any of the channels below. Thanks in advance.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments:
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EU governments not yet prepared for new Covid-19 surge, says commission. The European commission has warned that EU governments are unprepared for the new surge of Covid-19 infections and recommended common measures to roll out vaccines should they become available.
- UK to impose tougher restrictions on London. The UK government will impose tougher Covid-19 restrictions on London from midnight on Friday. Household mixing indoors will be banned and public transport use discouraged, but businesses will remain open.
- French health minister’s home searched in Covid inquiry. French police searched the home of the health minister, Olivier Véran, on Thursday as part of an inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
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Czech Republic to build field hospitals after record daily cases. The Czech Republic will start building capacity for Covid-19 patients outside of hospitals, as the daily rise in new coronavirus cases hits fresh records.
- Third of newborns with Covid infected before or during birth – study. Nearly one-third of coronavirus infections in newborn babies are picked up in the womb or from the mother during labour, a review of reported cases has found.
That’s all from me, Jessica Murray, I’m now handing over to my colleague Sarah Marsh.
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The Israeli government is lifting an unpopular ban on citizens flying out of the country, in an easing of a nationwide coronavirus lockdown.
“As of Friday 16 October 2020, the emergency ordinance restricting entry to the airport for those who have not met the defined criteria will be cancelled,” a government statement said.
The flight ban was part of a slew of restrictions added on 25 September to reinforce a lockdown that came a week earlier.
The government has since allowed access to flights only to those who had bought their tickets prior to 25 September.
Israelis and foreigners with a residency visa are allowed to fly into the country, but those landing from “red countries” – those with high coronavirus rates – must observe a 14-day quarantine.
The nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, the Jewish state’s second since March, limited public prayer and placed strict curbs on demonstrations.
A cabinet meeting was expected on Thursday to discuss a possible further easing of coronavirus measures.
Israel has recorded close to 300,000 coronavirus infections and over 2,000 deaths, out of a population of nine million.
The rate of new infections, however, is easing, with 2,000 new cases reported on Wednesday, compared to more than 7,500 the day before the flight ban was introduced.
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French police searched the home of the health minister, Olivier Véran, on Thursday as part of an inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Véran is one of several current or former ministers being investigated over their response to the pandemic after complaints by victims that they were slow to act to check its spread.
Véran’s office was also searched as part of the investigation by a court that hears cases of alleged wrongdoing by ministers in the course of their duties.
Officers also searched the home of the director of the national health agency, Jérôme Salomon.
The prime minister, Jean Castex, is also under investigation over the pandemic, as is his predecessor, Édouard Philippe, and Véran’s predecessor in the health ministry, Agnès Buzyn.
Critics accuse the government of being too slow to roll out large-scale Covid-19 testing and playing down the importance of wearing masks at the outset of the pandemic, when face coverings were in short supply and being reserved for health workers.
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Slovakia recorded 1,929 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, the country’s biggest one-day tally since the pandemic started.
The country reported relatively few cases in the first wave of the pandemic compared to western neighbours, but has seen a rise in new infections the past month, similar to much of the rest of Europe.
Nearly one-third of coronavirus infections in newborn babies are picked up in the womb or from the mother during labour, a review of reported cases has found.
While Covid-19 is rare in newborns, doctors have been keen to understand the potential risks that babies face, should tests reveal they have the infection soon after birth.
Doctors in France examined 176 published cases of neonatal coronavirus infections in which the infants tested positive at least once or were found to have antibodies against the virus.
Most of the babies, about 70%, were infected in hospital where the mother, medical staff, other patients, family members and visitors all posed a potential infection risk. The rest of the infections were passed on directly from the mother before or during birth.
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Hong Kong and Singapore will set up a travel bubble, the two cities have announced, as they moved to re-establish overseas travel links and lift the hurdle of quarantine for visiting foreigners.
Hong Kong’s commerce secretary, Edward Yau, and Singapore’s transport minister, Ong Ye Kung, said travellers under the scheme would need to get negative Covid-19 test results and travel on dedicated flights.
Further details, including the launch date, will be fleshed out in coming weeks, they said.
“It is a safe, careful but significant step forward to revive air travel, and provide a model for future collaboration with other parts of the world,” Ong said.
For Hong Kong, which has banned non-residents since March, the deal with Singapore is its first resumption of travel ties with another city. Travellers from mainland China and neighbouring Macau still face 14 days in quarantine.
Singapore has already announced pacts on essential business and official travel from China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and opened unilaterally to general visitors from Brunei, New Zealand, Vietnam and most of Australia.
This week, Singapore eased quarantine to just seven days for travellers from Hong Kong, from 14 earlier. It has put the city on its list of low-risk places.
International travel in Asia has collapsed during the pandemic because of border closures, with passenger numbers down 97% in August, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines says.
Following the news, shares in the Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific surged more than 7% in afternoon trade.
Hong Kong’s daily coronavirus infections have dropped mostly into single digits since August and it has eased some social distancing curbs. Singapore has similarly had its daily cases fall below 10.
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Ireland will at midnight tonight impose a nationwide ban on visits to home or gardens to try to curb surging Covid-19 infection rates.
Visits for essential purposes, such as providing care to children or vulnerable people, are still permitted. In outdoor settings away from homes or gardens, up to six people from no more than two households can meet while keeping social distance.
The government also moved Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan from level three to level four in an escalating five-step alert system.
The counties have Ireland’s highest infection rates and border Northern Ireland, a virus hotspot which on Wednesday announced a four-week partial lockdown.
On Wednesday, Ireland recorded five Covid-related deaths and 1,095 infections, one of the highest daily totals. “We are on a journey with this virus and we have come to a difficult point in that journey,” said the taoiseach, Micheál Martin.
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The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said he expects the government will announce later on Thursday that London will shortly move to stricter lockdown restrictions.
“It is my expectation that the government will today announce that London will shortly be moving into tier 2 or the high-alert level of restrictions,” Khan said.
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EU governments not yet prepared for new Covid-19 surge - Commission
The European Commission has warned that EU governments are unprepared for the new surge of Covid-19 infections and recommended common measures to roll out vaccines should they become available.
“While the evolution of the pandemic is getting back to March levels, our state of preparedness is not,” the EU executive’s vice-president Margaritis Schinas said.
He urged EU states to adopt a common strategy for the new phase of the pandemic and avoid the “cacophony” of different national measures that characterised the first months of the pandemic on the continent.
With new cases hitting about 100,000 daily, Europe has by a wide margin overtaken the US, where more than 51,000 Covid-19 infections are reported on average every day.
As trials of Covid-19 vaccines advance, with the first shots potentially available by the end of the year according to the World Health Organization, Brussels is urging EU governments to prepare vaccination plans.
Health policy is a national prerogative in the 27-country bloc and the EU commission can only make recommendations for common measures.
Hospitals and vaccination services should be properly staffed with skilled workers equipped with necessary protective gear, the commission said, urging governments to avoid the shortages that dogged the bloc when the epidemic flared up in March.
Vaccines should be made available first to the most vulnerable groups, which include healthcare and long-term care facility workers, people over 60, people with chronic diseases, essential workers, and more disadvantaged socio-economic groups.
According to a conservative estimate made by the commission in July, people belonging to “priority groups” could be more than 200 million of the EU population of 450 million.
The commission also called on EU governments to prepare for the possible distribution of vaccines that may need to be stored at extremely low temperatures.
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The announcement of a curfew in Paris and eight other French cities has overshadowed the earth-shattering news that France’s annual rural-fest, the Salon de l’Agriculture, which takes place every February, has been cancelled next year.
While UK and US politicians may kiss babies in order to win votes, French presidents are judged on their enthusiasm for interacting with farm animals to demonstrate they are in touch with “le terroir” - a philosophical concept encompassing French land, soil, countryside and much more that defies translation – and, most importantly, the country dwellers of La France Profonde far from Paris.
The Salon de l’Agriculture, which has attracted up to 703,000 visitors in recent years, has been a major political rite of passage since it began in 1964, and a symbol of the influence of France’s farming lobby.
As a result, it has become a national sport measuring how long presidents spend chatting to farmers, admiring their flocks and herds and consuming regional produce.
Nicolas Sarkozy spent just four hours at the salon during his term in office, while his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, spent five hours. Sarkozy’s successor, François Hollande, who liked to present an image as an ordinary “man of the people”, ramped up the challenge with 10 hours at the Salon in 2013.
But the current record goes to Emmanuel Macron, who spent a total of 14 hours 30 minutes at the Salon de l’Agriculture in 2019.
Afterwards the Elysée insisted the president wasn’t “trying to break records”, but it is one that will now stand for at least another year.
The 2020 Salon was cut short because of the introduction of France’s strict two-month coronavirus lockdown in March.
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Scientists from Britain’s University of Oxford have developed a rapid Covid-19 test able to identify the coronavirus in less than five minutes, researchers said, adding it could be used in mass testing at airports and businesses.
The university said it hoped to start product development of the testing device in early 2021 and have an approved device available six months afterwards.
UK to impose tougher restrictions on London
The UK government will impose tougher Covid-19 restrictions on London from midnight on Friday.
The British capital is currently at the “medium” alert level and will be moved to “high”, meaning household mixing indoors will be banned and public transport use discouraged, but businesses will remain open.
BREAKING - No household mixing indoors anywhere in London from midnight on Friday. People are discouraged from using public transport. Schools, universities and places of worship remain open. All businesses and venues can continue to operate. https://t.co/YT5jQ78WK7
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) October 15, 2020
Croatia has reported 793 new cases of Covid-19, a daily record, as neighbouring Slovenia introduced new measures to fight its rising number of infections.
Since the pandemic began Croatia, with a population of about 4 million people, has recorded 22,534 cases with 344 deaths. Currently there are 3,562 active cases.
From this week, face masks are obligatory indoors in public places, bars and restaurants have restrictions on the number of customers permitted and public gatherings of more than 50 people must seek approval.
In Slovenia, which has also reported record numbers in the last few days, schools will from Monday operate online for older elementary pupils and all high school students. For seven Slovenian regions, gatherings of more than 10 people are forbidden and masks are obligatory outdoors.
On Thursday, Slovenia, a country of about 2 million people, reported 707 daily infections.
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Ryanair will slash more flights this winter and temporarily shut bases in Cork and Shannon in Ireland, and Toulouse in France, due to coronavirus travel restrictions.
The Irish no-frills airline said it will reduce its November-March capacity from 60% to 40% of the prior year, having already announced in September that it was cutting October flights to the same level.
The carrier’s remaining routes will have fewer flights than normal over winter.
Global air travel demand, which has been decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic, is now reeling once again from rebounding virus infections and renewed global moves to try and stop the spread of the deadly disease. Ryanair said:
Due to increased flight restrictions imposed by EU governments, air travel to/from much of central Europe, the UK, Ireland, Austria, Belgium and Portugal has been heavily curtailed.
This has caused forward bookings to weaken slightly in October, but materially in November and December.
Ryanair expects to maintain up to 65% of its winter route network, but with reduced frequencies. In addition to the winter closure of bases in Cork, Shannon, and Toulouse, Ryanair has announced significant base aircraft cuts in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Vienna.
The Dublin-based carrier also cut its annual forecast for passenger traffic to 38 million for the group’s fiscal year to March. That compared with its prior guidance of 50 million.
Its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, criticised government travel restrictions, adding that the group was focused on minimising job losses.
While we deeply regret these winter schedule cuts, they have been forced upon us by government mismanagement of EU air travel.
Our focus continues to be on maintaining as large a schedule as we can sensibly operate to keep our aircraft, our pilots and our cabin crew current and employed while minimising job losses.
It is inevitable, given the scale of these cutbacks, that we will be implementing more unpaid leave and job-sharing this winter in those bases where we have agreed reduced working time and pay, but this is a better short-term outcome than mass job losses.
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The Philippine health ministry has recorded 2,261 new coronavirus infections and 50 additional deaths.
The ministry said total confirmed cases have increased to 348,698 while deaths reached 6,497, next only to Indonesia for the most Covid-19 casualties in the south-east Asia region.
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Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for a short while.
As always, get in touch via:
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
And that’s all from me. Handing you over now to Jessica Murray. Have a safe day.
A UN human rights official has called on the international community to urgently consider lifting sanctions on North Korea that may be worsening problems from its coronavirus lockdown, according to a draft report released on Thursday.
North Korea, which has not reported any confirmed infections, has been subjected to UN sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, with ever-tighter measures imposed in recent years.
Reuters is reporting that it imposed strict border controls this year among tough measures against the virus, just when it was reeling from sanctions, as well as “systemic economic problems and unusually bad weather conditions,” according to Tomas Ojea Quintana.
While the North’s strictures aim to protect its people’s rights to life and health, the severe lockdowns have had a “devastating” effect on trade, added Quintana, who is the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea.
The fallout on trade, in turn, threatens food supplies and access to humanitarian aid, he said in the report, which is to be submitted next week to the UN General Assembly.
“Under the unprecedented situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the special Rapporteur believes that the international responsibility for re-evaluating the sanctions regime is more urgent than ever,” he concluded.
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Hong Kong and Singapore will set up a travel bubble, the two cities announced on Thursday, as they moved to re-establish overseas travel links and lift the hurdle of quarantine for visiting foreigners.
Travellers under the scheme will need to get negative Covid-19 test results and travel on dedicated flights. Further details, including the launch date, will be fleshed out in coming weeks.
“It is a safe, careful but significant step forward to revive air travel, and provide a model for future collaboration with other parts of the world,” said Singapore’s transport minister, Ong Ye Kung.
For Hong Kong, which has banned non-residents since March, the deal with Singapore is its first resumption of travel ties with another city. Travellers from mainland China and neighbouring Macau still face 14 days in quarantine.
Singapore has already announced pacts on essential business and official travel from China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and opened unilaterally to general visitors from Brunei, New Zealand, Vietnam and most of Australia.
This week, Singapore eased quarantine to just seven days for travellers from Hong Kong, from 14 earlier. It has put the city on its list of low-risk places.
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The Italian luxury designer Brunello Cucinelli makes men’s suits that sell for up to €7,000 ($8,200). But even he – like most people across the globe – hasn’t worn a suit for months, let alone bought one.
“We’ve all been locked away at home, so this is the first jacket I have put on since March,” Cucinelli told Reuters in Milan as he presented his latest collection last month, wearing a light grey blazer.
Most people in white-collar jobs are working from home, with a newfound love of sweatpants, a trend that some experts expect to outlive the pandemic. And few weddings or parties are taking place.
This seismic shift in behaviour is having profound repercussions across the supply chain for suits and formal wear, upending a sartorial sector spanning every continent.
In Australia, the world’s biggest producer of merino wool, prices have been in freefall, hitting decade lows. Many sheep farmers are in dire straits, storing wool in every available shed in the hope of a rebound.
In northern Italy, the wool mills that buy from the farmers and weave the fabric for high-end suits have had their own orders from retailers nosedive.
In the United States and Europe, several retail chains specialising in business attire such as Men’s Wearhouse, Brooks Brothers and TM Lewin have closed stores or filed for bankruptcy over the past few months, and more could follow.
Players at all levels told Reuters they were being forced to adapt to survive, from farmers turning to other forms of agriculture to mills making stretchier fabrics for a new breed of suits that don’t crease easily and are more resistant to stains.
“People want to be more comfortable and are less inclined to wear a formal suit,” said Silvio Botto Poala, the managing director of Lanificio Botto Giuseppe, a wool mill in Italy’s textile hub of Biella, which counts Armani, Max Mara, Ralph Lauren and Hermes among its customers.
“With Zoom conferences and smart working, you’ll see men wearing a shirt, perhaps even a tie, but not many suits.”
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One of Belgium’s main universities is moving to online education whenever possible and another is getting ready to follow suit because the coronavirus is continuing to soar across the nation that hosts the European Union headquarters.
AP is reporting that Ghent University will begin a predominant programme of remote learning on October 26th. The Dutch-speaking Free University of Brussels said it has already prepared its staff and facilities to do likewise if necessary.
One of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, so far, the virus has killed 10,278 people in Belgium.
Belgium has said keeping its schools open was a key goal. So far, schools for students up to age 18 have escaped closure.
Over the week ending October 11th, new virus cases increased by 101% compared to the previous week and stood at 5,421. Belgium’s confirmed cases stood at 181,511 in the nation of 11.5 million people. The cases per 100,000 residents stood at 494, one of the highest in Europe.
Belgium last week introduced a series of restrictive measures aimed at slowing the pace of new infections that include local curfews, closing Brussels bars for at least a month and limiting indoor sports activities.
In Bulgaria, Roma communities were sprayed with disinfectant from crop dusters this spring as coronavirus cases surged in the country. In Slovakia, their villages were the only ones where the army conducted testing. And across Central and Eastern Europe, reports of police using excessive force against Roma spiked as officers were deployed to enforce lockdowns in their towns.
Human rights activists and experts say local officials in several countries with significant Roma populations have used the pandemic to unlawfully target the minority group, which is Europe’s largest and has faced centuries of severe discrimination. With Covid-19 cases now resurging across the continent, some experts fear the repression will return, too, say the AP news agency.
To make matters worse, activists say such discrimination often draws little opposition from other Europeans and the Roma are reluctant to speak about it, fearing repercussions.
The stringent measures used against Roma communities come even though no big outbreak was ever reported among them - and echo the way some governments have used the pandemic as cover for repressive tactics.
Many European countries do not track coronavirus cases among the Roma, but Slovak officials reported at the end of the summer that there had been 179 cases in Roma districts, out of a population of more than 500,000.
In May, two UN human rights advocates issued an open letter calling on the Bulgarian government to suspend its pandemic-related police operations in Roma neighbourhoods and to “stop hate speech” against the group after one nationalist party leader described the communities as “nests of infection.”
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More on Poland, where Michal Dworczyk, the prime minister’s chief of staff, has gone on to say that while health authorities currently have enough hospital beds and respirators, they cannot rule out localised shortages.
“We are still at a moment when we must expect that the number of infections will rise for some time and that this increase will be significant,” he told the private broadcaster TVN 24.
Poland hit a daily record of 6,526 cases on Wednesday. Dworczyk said there would be more new infections on Thursday.
Poland’s government has repeatedly said it wants to avoid another economically damaging national lockdown but government spokesman Piotr Muller told public radio station PR1 that Poland would probably introduce new restrictions on Thursday to slow the spread of the virus.
“These are different restrictions concerning limits in specific places in the country,” he said. “They will not go as far as in spring. Limits on numbers of people come into play...”
Muller said that if the same level of growth in infection rates seen on Wednesday was repeated on Thursday, the government would decide on further preventative measures.
Deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska told public radio station PR24 that most large Polish cities would become “red” zones, areas with the highest level of coronavirus restrictions, on Thursday.
Poland must expect a significant rise in coronavirus infections, the prime minister’s chief of staff said on Thursday, Reuters is reporting.
“We are still at a moment when we must expect that the number of infections will rise for some time and that this increase will be significant,” Michal Dworczyk told private broadcaster TVN 24.
He said there would be more cases on Thursday than on Wednesday, when the country hit a daily record of 6,526.
US diplomats and security officials privately warned the state of Nevada not to use Chinese-made coronavirus test kits donated by the United Arab Emirates over concerns about patient privacy, test accuracy and Chinese government involvement, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
The documents illustrate how the US government actively — if quietly — tried to keep the state out of a project involving the Chinese firm BGI Group, which is the world’s largest genetic sequencing company and which has expanded its reach during the coronavirus pandemic.
AP report that US intelligence agencies have warned that foreign powers like China could exploit samples to discover the medical history, illnesses or genetic traits of test takers, though they have not offered any public evidence. Internal emails and documents obtained by AP from the Nevada governor’s office through a public records request show US authorities expressing such concerns specifically about BGI.
Geopolitics could play a role in the US warning. President Donald Trump and his administration have been locked in a trade war with China and also have actively lobbied its allies not to use telecommunication equipment from Chinese firm Huawei, for instance, citing security concerns.
Reuters is reporting that, already on track to overtake the United States with the world’s most novel coronavirus infections, India is bracing for a surge of cases in coming weeks as it heads into its main holiday season with an economy freed of virus restrictions.
The recent experience of the southern state of Kerala, which was praised for its initial handling of the pandemic, indicates how rapidly the situation can worsen, the news agency explains.
Reported infections there have jumped by five times since it celebrated the 10-day harvest festival of Onam in late August, far outpacing the two-fold increase in cases nationally over that time.
But cash-short state governments are still reluctant to stop people from venturing out during the money-spinning Hindu festivals of Durga Puja, next week, and Diwali in mid-November.
The holidays are celebrated with family gatherings, bumper buying and the giving of gifts, from sweets and snacks to clothes and cars, generating vital income for many people.
“We will probably have more deaths out of starvation if the rural migratory population who flock to cities during the pujas and earn some money during the festivity are deprived of the opportunity,” said Subrata Mukherjee, a cabinet minister in the fourth-most populous state of West Bengal, which has one of India’s highest coronavirus caseloads.
And it’s good morning from me, Amelia Hill, bringing you into the UK daylight hours with the news that enlightens.
Updated
Here's a summary of the top news today so far
- Germany has recorded its highest daily coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic. It added 6,638 new infections on Thursday, eclipsing the 28 March figure of 6,294. It follows Chancellor Angela Merkel and the premiers of the country’s 16 federal states agreeing to a new rule whereby cities or regions where infection rates are rising rapidly will have to impose an 11pm curfew for bars and restaurants.
- The Czech Republic has also set a new record for daily Covid cases, recording 9,544 new infections, the highest since the pandemic started, Health Ministry data showed.
- The WHO’s chief scientist has said young, healthy people may have to wait until 2022 to be vaccinated for coronavirus, because health workers and vulnerable groups will likely be prioritised. Soumya Swaminathan indicated that, despite the many vaccine trials being undertaken, speedy, mass shots were unlikely, and organising who would given access first in the event of a safe vaccine being discovered was still being worked on.
- Paris and eight other French cities will be subject to a curfew from Saturday. “We have to act. We need to put a brake on the spread of the virus,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a TV appearance, announcing the 9pm-6am curfew that will remain in force for at least four weeks, except for essential reasons. The curfew will also apply in Rouen, Lille, St Etienne, Lyon, Grenoble, Montpellier, Marseille and Toulouse.
- Spain will close bars and restaurants across Catalonia for the next 15 days following a surge in cases, as the country tackles one of the highest rates of infection in Europe, with nearly 900,000 cases and more than 33,000 deaths. All bars and restaurants in the region will be limited to a takeaway and delivery service for two weeks from Thursday night. Shops and markets will operate at 30% capacity, gyms, cinemas and theatres at 50%, and children’s play areas will close at 8pm.The strict measure comes after the weekly total cases in Catalonia rose from 7,000 to 11,000 over the course of a few days.
- Measures also came into force across the Netherlands, including restrictions on alcohol sales and new mask requirements.
- Tough measures are to be introduced in Portugal from Thursday as the country reported a new record in cases. Gatherings will be limited to five people. Weddings and baptisms can be attended by a maximum of 50, but university parties will be banned. Fines for businesses which do not comply with the rules will be doubled from an upper limit of 5,000 to 10,000 euros. The prime minister, Antonio Costa, will also submit a proposal to parliament to make face masks compulsory in crowded outdoor spaces, and use of the government’s tracing app StayAway Covid compulsory for some workforces.
- President Trump has again claimed he is “immune” from Covid and he thinks said his son Barron, 14, didn’t even know he had coronavirus. Speaking at a rally in Iowa he said: “He (Barron) had it for such a short period of time. I don’t think he even knew he had it ... because they’re young and their immune systems are strong and they fight it off ... 99.9%.” Meanwhile Trump’s former defence secretary, General James Mattis, criticised the US’s handling of the virus, saying: “The bottom line is we have seen a response to disease politicised in an unfortunate way and the cost is real.”
- India’s tally of coronavirus infections stood at 7.31 million on Thursday, having risen by 67,708 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed.
- In China, a hospital president and the director of the health commission in the northern city of Qingdao have been fired after China’s latest coronavirus outbreak, authorities said on Thursday. A brief notice on the Qingdao city government’s official microblog Thursday said Health Commission Director Sui Zhenhua and Deng Kai, president of Qingdao’s thoracic hospital to which the cases have been linked, were placed under further investigation.
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Czech Republic to build field hospitals after record daily cases
The Czech Republic will start building capacity for Covid-19 patients outside of hospitals, as the daily rise in new coronavirus cases hits fresh records.
Interior minister Jan Hamáček told CTK news agency the army would start building an area for 500 hospital beds at a fairground in Prague from Saturday.
The country of 10.7 million has Europe’s fastest rate of infections as cases have nearly doubled in October alone, to 139,290.
The health ministry reported 9,544 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, its highest one-day tally so far.
Prime minister Andrej Babiš told reporters it was necessary to start building extra capacity.
“We don’t have time, the outlook is not good. These numbers are catastrophic,” Babis said.
The number of hospitalisations has risen 161% in October to 2,678, with 518 patients in intensive care. Deaths have climbed to 1,172, up 75% this month.
The fast rise in cases has put strain on hospitals, which are converting general wards into Covid-19 units and cancelling non-urgent procedures to cope.
The number hospitalised is six times the peak seen during the first wave of the virus.
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Long Covid may be four different syndromes
At the start of the pandemic we were told that Covid-19 was a respiratory illness from which most people would recover within two or three weeks, but it’s increasingly clear that there may be tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands, who have been left experiencing symptoms months after becoming infected, in what’s been dubbed “long Covid”.
Now, the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has released a report which suggests that it may not be a single syndrome, but up to four different ones, which some patients might be experiencing simultaneously. Here’s what we now know:
Variety of symptoms
Subtypes of lasting Covid identified by the NIHR included patients experiencing the after-effects of intensive care; those with post-viral fatigue; people with lasting organ damage; and those with fluctuating symptoms that move around the body.
“We believe that the term long Covid is being used as a catch-all for more than one syndrome, possibly up to four, and that the lack of distinction between these syndromes may explain the challenges people are having in being believed and accessing services,” said Dr Elaine Maxwell, the lead author of the report, which drew upon the experiences of patients and the latest published research. However, Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, cautioned that narrowing long Covid down to just four syndromes might be too simplistic.
Recovering from ICU
Hospital discharge is often only the start of a lengthy recovery process. Many Covid-19 patients who have survived a period in intensive care are too weak to sit unaided or lift their arms off the bed, and some may even struggle to speak or swallow. They may also be affected by depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. However, severe lasting symptoms were not restricted to this group.
Post-viral fatigue
Many Covid “long-haulers” report fatigue, aching muscles and difficulty concentrating. The extent to which this overlaps with chronic fatigue syndrome is being investigated. CFS has previously been linked to infection with Epstein-Barr virus and Q fever. Studies of people who were infected during the 2003 Sars outbreak have also indicated that around a third of them had a reduced tolerance of exercise for many months, despite their lungs appearing healthy.
Lasting organ damage
Ongoing breathlessness, coughs, or a racing pulse could be symptoms of lasting damage to the lungs or heart, although this isn’t necessarily permanent. Lung damage seems particularly prevalent among patients who required hospital treatment for Covid-19. A recent study found that six weeks after leaving hospital, around half of patients were still experiencing breathlessness, dropping to 39% at 12 weeks. Meanwhile, approximately a third of hospitalised patients sustain heart damage, but those with seemingly mild infections can also be affected.
A separate study of 100 patients, many of whom had relatively mild symptoms when they were infected in March, revealed that 78 of them showed abnormal structural changes to their hearts on an MRI scan. These changes didn’t necessarily cause symptoms, and may dissipate with time, however. Ongoing problems with the liver and skin have also been reported.
Symptoms that fluctuate and move around body
Perhaps the weirdest group of Covid long-haulers are those with fluctuating symptoms. A common theme is that symptoms arise in one physiological system then abate, only for symptoms to arise in a different system, the NIHR report said. This fits with the results of a survey of long Covid support group members which found that 70% experienced fluctuations in the type of symptoms, and 89% in the intensity of their symptoms. Although the underlying mechanism remains unproven, such symptoms might fit with a disrupted immune system, Altmann said.
All ages affected
Estimates have suggested that 10% of Covid patients experience symptoms lasting longer than three weeks, and around one in 50 will still be ill at three months. The NIHR report said lasting symptoms had been observed in all age groups, including children, but unpublished results from the Covid Symptom Study suggest that women and older people may be at greater risk. “Above the age of 18, the risk of symptoms lasting for longer than a month seems to generally increase with age,” said Prof Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London who runs the study.
A particularly under-studied group are elderly care home residents. “What we’ve been hearing from frontline staff is that there’s a group of patients who maybe looked like they were recovering, and then had a relapse,” said Prof Karen Spilsbury, chair in nursing research at the University of Leeds, who has been studying the impact of Covid-19 on care home residents. Their strength and stamina seemed to suffer, while Covid may have accelerated the rate of cognitive decline in those with dementia.
Updated
Still in the UK and management consultants are being paid as much as £6,250 a day to work on the British government’s struggling coronavirus testing system, sources have confirmed to the Guardian.
Senior executives from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) are being paid fees equivalent to £1.5m a year to help speed up and reorganise the £12bn network that Boris Johnson said in May would be “world-beating”.
The figures, first disclosed by Sky News, come amid growing concern about the cost of the UK’s Covid-19 testing system, which has been criticised for being slow, disorganised and unable to cope with rising demand.
BCG, one of the largest and most prestigious consultancies in the world, charged £10m for 40 people to work on the virus test-and-trace programme over the course of four months, a source with knowledge of the contract said.
In the UK, more than half of people fear they will not be able to see family and friends over the festive period – and a quarter are worried they will spend it alone, research suggests.
Press Association writes that some 59% of adults fear they will not be able to see family and friends at Christmas or other religious festivals, according to research by the Campaign to End Loneliness.
And 54% fear they will not be able to see older relatives for fear of putting them at risk, increasing their risk of loneliness.
More than a quarter (27%) of respondents are worried about celebrating alone, the Survation poll of 2,017 UK adults between October 2-7 found.
At least 80% of those surveyed said they are concerned about the loneliness of older people who have a long-term health condition, are bereaved or who live in care homes.
Agence France Press reports that India’s cinemas have begun reopening after a nearly seven-month closure.
INOX Leisure Ltd, India’s second-largest multiplex operator, says the chain will only be screening old films when it reopens Thursday.
“Right now, what we are working on is getting the confidence of people back by letting them know that the cinemas are safe and secure,” said Lalit Ojha, a regional director for the company.
A trip to the cinema remains an affordable pursuit in India, with as little as 75 rupees ($1) buying entry. At high-end cinema chains like INOX, patrons can get biryani or hot fudge sundaes delivered to their recliners.
But with temperature checks at the door, half the seats left empty for social distancing, and only a limited selection of food, the experience now is a far cry from the luxuries previously on offer.
Nervous producers have so far refrained from lining up any big-ticket releases, with many pushing their films directly to streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar following the pandemic closures.
“We are hoping to have a blockbuster release at Diwali,” Ojha said, referring to next month’s Hindu festival that usually spells a bonanza for theatres and retail businesses.
As I mentioned earlier in the blog, World Health Organization’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, has indicated that young, healthy people may have to wait until 2022 to get a vaccine and, that a despite the many vaccine trials being undertaken, speedy, mass shots were unlikely.
“Most people agree, it’s starting with healthcare workers, and frontline workers, but even there, you need to define which of them are at highest risk, and then the elderly, and so on,” Swaminathan said.
“There will be a lot of guidance coming out, but I think an average person, a healthy young person might have to wait until 2022 to get a vaccine,” she said.
You can catch up on this and all of the day’s other top stories in our global report (below).
A hospital president and the director of the health commission in the northern Chinese city of Qingdao have been fired after China’s latest coronavirus outbreak, authorities said on Thursday.
A brief notice on the Qingdao city government’s official microblog Thursday said Health Commission Director Sui Zhenhua and Deng Kai, president of Qingdao’s thoracic hospital to which the cases have been linked, were placed under further investigation.
No other details were given.
Authorities ordered testing of all 9 million people in the city after a total of 12 cases, including those not displaying symptoms, were discovered over the weekend, accounting for China’s first local transmissions in about two months.
Similar mass testing campaigns have taken place after previous outbreaks. Testing began with “close contacts, close contacts of those close contacts and more casual contacts,” gradually expanding to all districts of the city, Qingdao’s health department said.
Qingdao is a major commercial harbour and industrial centre known for electronics and the country’s most famous brewery, as well as the home of the Chinese navy’s northern fleet.
China, where coronavirus was first detected late last year, has largely eradicated the virus domestically but remains on guard against imported cases and a second wave of domestic transmission.
Updated
India’s tally of coronavirus infections stood at 7.31 million on Thursday, having risen by 67,708 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed.
Deaths from Covid-19 infections rose by 680 to 111,266, the ministry said.
India crossed the 7 million mark on Sunday, adding a million cases in just 13 days. It has the world’s second-highest tally after the United States, where the figure is nearing 8 million.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday that Covid-19 vaccines may not be initially recommended for children, when they become available, Reuters reports.
Children, who rarely have severe symptoms, have not yet been tested for any experimental coronavirus vaccine. The CDC said so far early clinical trials have only included non-pregnant adults, noting the recommended groups could change in the future as clinical trials expand to recruit more people.
Pfizer has said it will enrol children, who are capable of passing on the virus to high-risk groups, as young as 12 in its large, late-stage Covid-19 vaccine trial, while AstraZeneca has said a sub-group of patients in a large trial will test children between five to 12.
The CDC also said on Wednesday that any coronavirus vaccine would, at least at first, be used under the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorisation, and that there could be a limited supply of vaccines before the end of 2020.
In case of limited supply, some groups may be recommended to get a vaccine first, the CDC said.
Coronavirus vaccines should be rolled out in four phases, with initial supply going to front-line health workers and first responders, an independent expert panel tapped by top US health officials recommended earlier this month.
Facebook has removed the page for the political fringe party Advance New Zealand for “repeatedly” spreading misinformation about Covid-19, according to the NZ outlet, The Spinoff. It said the party’s page disappeared at about 3pm local time, cutting off a live appearance by its co-leader Billy Te Kahika.
A statement by Facebook to The Spinoff said:
We don’t allow anyone to share misinformation on our platforms about Covid-19 that could lead to imminent physical harm.
We have clear policies against this type of content and will enforce on these policies regardless of anyone’s political position or party affiliation. We removed Advance New Zealand / New Zealand Public Party’s Facebook Page for repeated violations of this policy.
Te Kahika has called tech giant’s move “nothing short of election interference”.
Spinoff reports that the page’s removal comes a day after Advance NZ was ordered to pull advertising that falsely claimed vaccines were mandatory under the law.
A recent study led by Victoria University in Wellington found 31% of Advance NZ’s posts on the social media site were “half-truths” – content that’s not completely false but still contains information that’s not fully accurate - while 6% were fake news.
The Advance NZ party currently has no seats in parliament. New Zealand’s national election is being held on Saturday.
Updated
Germany posts highest daily case numbers of pandemic
Germany has posted a record daily increase in confirmed coronavirus infections, adding 6,638 cases and bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 341,223.
Germany’s previous record daily increase was 6,294 on March 28, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute.
Thursday’s tally showed the reported death toll rose by 33 to 9,710.
By European standards, Germany has experienced relatively low infection and death rates so far during the pandemic, but new daily cases have jumped in recent weeks and Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned there could be 19,200 infections per day if current trends continue.
On Wednesday she announced new restrictions.
“I am convinced that what we do now will be decisive for how we come through this pandemic,” Merkel said. “We must therefore prevent an uncontrolled or exponential increase.”
If an area records more than 35 new infections per 100,000 people over seven days, masks will become mandatory in all places where people have close contact for an extended period.
The number of people allowed to gather will also be limited to 25 in public and 15 in private spaces.
Updated
The United States has “paid a bloody awful price” for not handling the Covid-19 pandemic well, according to Donald Trump’s former defence secretary, General James Mattis.
Joining a webinar event hosted by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, Mattis was asked to weigh in on America’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. He began by noting America’s response involved numerous levels of government across the country
“We have not handled the Covid situation well. That is no ground for an excuse.
“The bottom line is we have seen a response to disease politicised in an unfortunate way and the cost is real.”
Mattis described Covid-19 as “a nasty little bugger” that “caught us flat-footed”.
He said he believed China mishandled the early stages of the outbreak, and Australia had been right to call for an independent international investigation. He said some countries that had faced challenges responding to Sars had been better prepared for Covid-19.
“We’ve paid a bloody awful price for it, is the bottom line - there’s no dressing it up.”
During the Lowy Institute webinar, Mattis did not specify who he would vote for in next month’s presidential election, but named competence, compassion and empathy as some of his key criteria.
China reports 11 new Covid cases
China has reported 11 new Covid cases, down from 20 a day earlier, the country’s health authority said on Thursday.
The National Health Commission said 10 of the cases were imported infections originating from overseas, compared with 14 a day earlier.
One new local infection was reported in Qingdao, where the city government is seeking to test every person this week due to recent cases linked to a hospital treating imported infections.
The commission also reported 23 new asymptomatic cases, up from 18 a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed cases in mainland China now stands at 85,622, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a division of the Chinese state-run Sinopharm Group Co Ltd that is developing two COVID-19 vaccines is offering them for free to Chinese students going abroad for higher studies.
The announcement of the company distributing vaccines to students appeared on a website where people could sign up to receive it, the newspaper reported.
The website said on Monday that 481,613 people had taken the vaccine while an additional 93,653 had applied to be inoculated, according to the report.
The World Health Organization’s special envoy on Covid-19, Dr David Nabarro, was interviewed by Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC. He was asked to comment on Donald Trump’s triumphant return to the campaign trail post-Covid recovery, in which he claims he is immune from the virus.
It’s quite hard to encourage everybody to behave in a way that enables them to keep free of the virus if there are public figures who are suggesting that they can behave differently.
He said it was easy to underestimate Covid-19 but that it should not be underestimated:
Please take it seriously. The future of everybody in our world depends on us all taking it seriously and we will need to so until, for example, there is a vaccine available that everybody can take that works. Then we can start to behave differently. But for now we have got to behave in every single situation as if there is a risk of this virus.
Updated
A quick look at what’s happening in Australia, and the state of Victoria, (which has had a major outbreak and is still in lockdown), has recorded just six new coronavirus cases and no deaths, which is very good news indeed.
The 14-day rolling average in metropolitan Melbourne is now 8.9 – down from yesterday – and the number of cases with an unknown source in the past fortnight stands at 15 – up one from yesterday.
Residents in the state are eagerly awaiting an announcement this weekend on what/if/how restrictions will be lifted. The capital city, Melbourne, has been under some form of stay-at-home orders for 98 days, including 74 days under the highest stage-4 restrictions.
Neighbouring New South Wales has recorded 11 new cases of Covid, with five in hotel quarantine and six locally acquired.
Earlier Trump had repeated that he thought he was immune from the virus.
“I’m immune and I can’t give it to you,” he said.
"Come here, come on ... I am immune and I can't give it to you, so that's good." -- Trump to Dan Gable as he gets on stage pic.twitter.com/lzOwX7dv8K
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 15, 2020
He also said his son Barron Trump had had “Corona-19”.
“He had it for such a short period of time. I don’t think he even knew he had it ... because they’re young and their immune systems are strong and they fight it off ... 99.9%,” Trump said.
Trump says that Barron Trump has "corona-19" pic.twitter.com/1wKRBVnXVk
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 15, 2020
Updated
He’s working through his usual rally points (“I built the greatest economy”, “African American income grew more than nine times under Obama”, the recovery will be V-shaped etc).
Trump looks energetic but his voice still sounds a little hoarse to me.
He says since the “China virus” the US has created 11.4m jobs .... no mention of how many jobs have been lost.
Trump touts recent job gains without mentioning that more than 20 million jobs were lost at the beginning of the pandemic, meaning the US is still down about 10 million jobs this year there are fewer jobs in the country now than when he took office pic.twitter.com/I4h6vNDJWo
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 15, 2020
He’s bombarding the audience with figures comparing his administration’s economy to Obama/Biden’s economy.
Updated
Donald Trump is speaking at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. I’ll bring you any of the salient points on coronavirus.
The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh has been watching the rally so far and writes ...
Per usual, he has unleashed a slew of lies, promoting the New York Post article about (Joe Biden’s son) Hunter Biden, insisting that polls that show him lagging are a lie, saying he won Iowa by a greater percentage in 2016 than he actually did, and claiming that network cameras’ recording lights turn off when he talks about polling.
Per usual, supporters are not socially distanced and many are not wearing masks to slow the spread of coronavirus.
He took off his tie – which was flapping in the wind – and tossed it away dramatically, which is a new twist.
Updated
Elsewhere in Europe....
In Spain, bars and restaurants will close across the northeastern region of Catalonia for the next 15 days as the country became the first in Europe to exceed 900,000 infections.
The Netherlands has restricted sales on alcohol and introduced new mask requirements.
Ireland will introduce new measures around its border with Northern Ireland on Thursday at midnight, with non-essential retail outlets are to close alongside gyms, pools and leisure centres. This will affect the border counties of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan – home to around 300,000. Everyone apart from those deemed essential workers must work from home.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced tougher measures on gatherings and mask-wearing.
“I am convinced that what we do now will be decisive for how we come through this pandemic,” Merkel said. “We must therefore prevent an uncontrolled or exponential increase.”
New infections in Germany continued to rise on Wednesday, pushing past 5,000 cases in 24 hours – a level not seen since a lockdown imposed on Europe’s biggest economy in the spring.
If an area records more than 35 new infections per 100,000 people over seven days, masks will become mandatory in all places where people have close contact for an extended period.
The number of people allowed to gather will also be limited to 25 in public and 15 in private spaces.
“We have decided on this prophylactic number of 35 because we have seen some examples of how fast the increase happens from 35 to 50,” Merkel said.
Once a threshold of 50 new infections per 100,000 is exceeded, even tougher restrictions will apply.
These include limiting private gatherings to 10 people or two households, and the closure of restaurants after 11pm.
The fraught talks lasting eight hours were intended to establish a more unified approach amid concerns that Germany’s federal system is leading to a confusing patchwork of regulations.
Merkel urged young people to do their part to halt the spread of the coronavirus after private parties were repeatedly blamed for localised outbreaks in German cities.
“We must call especially on young people to do without a few parties now in order to have a good life tomorrow or the day after,” Merkel said.
Young people may not get vaccine until 2022
The WHO’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, has indicated that, despite the global push for a vaccine, speedy, mass shots are unlikely.
“Most people agree, it’s starting with health care workers, and front-line workers, but even there, you need to define which of them are at highest risk, and then the elderly, and so on,” Swaminathan said.
“A healthy young person might have to wait until 2022,” she said.
Two vaccine candidates, from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca’s US trial, have been paused on safety concerns, while manufacturing billions of doses of an eventual successful vaccine will be a colossal challenge demanding hard decisions about who gets inoculated first.
Swaminathan also warned against any complacency with regards to the coronavirus death rate, saying with the increasing number of cases (up to 100,000 a day in Europe), mortality would also rise.
While deaths globally have fallen to around 5,000 per day from April’s peak exceeding 7,500, he said caseloads were rising in intensive care units.
“Mortality increases always lag behind increasing cases by a couple of weeks,” Swaminathan said during a WHO social media event. “We shouldn’t be complacent that death rates are coming down.”
More than 38 million people have been reported infected globally and 1.1 million have died.
Updated
Fauci says Trump no longer capable of spreading Covid
Still in the US and Anthony Fauci, the US’s top epidemiologist, has said Donald Trump is no longer capable of spreading the coronavirus and can attend a town hall on Thursday without putting others at risk. In an interview with CBS news, Fauci said that he and his colleague Clifford Lane at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) came to that conclusion after reviewing all the Covid-19 tests taken by the president as well as an additional test conducted at an NIH laboratory.
The town hall with NBC News is less than three weeks before the 3 November election in which Trump is trailing behind Biden in opinion polls.
Fauci also said in the interview that the US was unlikely to have 100m doses of a vaccine deemed by regulators as “safe and effective” available by the end of the year, contrary to a claim Trump made in September.
Enough vaccines to inoculate the general population might be possible by April 2021 if all of the experimental vaccines in late stage clinical trials prove effective, Fauci said. A couple of the vaccine candidates could potentially receive regulatory clearance in November or December but only “a few million” doses may be available to the public by year-end.
He added that the experimental antibody drug made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc that was used to treat the President, and which Trump said he wants to make free to all Americans, is not yet available in sufficient supply to provide to all COVID-19 patients. It is still awaiting US regulatory clearance.
Barron Trump recovers from Covid
Donald Trump’s 14-year-old son now tested negative to coronavirus after being infected alongside his parents. In a statement released by Melania Trump, she said: “To our great relief he [at first] tested negative, but again, as so many parents have thought over the past several months, I couldn’t help but think, ‘What about tomorrow or the next day?’”
“My fear came true when he was tested again and it came up positive. Luckily he is a strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms.”
She said she and Barron had since tested negative for the virus.
She said her own experience of Covid was like “a rollercoaster of symptoms in the days after” she was diagnosed.
“I experienced body aches, a cough and headaches, and felt extremely tired most of the time,” she said.
“I chose to go a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting more for vitamins and healthy food,” the US first lady said, adding: “In one way I was glad the three of us went through this at the same time so we could take care of one another and spend time together.”
You can read our full story below:
Paris curfew from 9pm-6am
France has imposed a curfew in Paris and eight other cities from Saturday.
“We have to act. We need to put a brake on the spread of the virus,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a TV appearance, announcing the 9pm-6am curfew that will remain in force for at least four weeks, except for essential reasons.
“We are going to have to deal with this virus until at least the summer of 2021,” Macron said, saying “all scientists” were in agreement on that point.
Other major French cities such as Lyon, Mediterranean port Marseille and southwestern Toulouse will similarly impose curfews, with around 20 million people affected in all, out of a total population of some 67 million.
Macron said new daily coronavirus cases must be brought down to “3,000 or 5,000”, from current levels, which have reached up to almost 27,000.
“We won’t be leaving the restaurant after 9pm,” Macron said. “We won’t be partying with friends because we know that that’s where the contamination risk is greatest.”
Just minutes before Macron’s announcement, his government had said it would prolong a state of health emergency, giving officials greater powers to impose new measures to contain the spread of the pandemic.
He urged people to limit gatherings in their homes to six people, and to wear protective masks on such occasions.
Anyone found to be outdoors during the curfew without special authorisation would face a fine of 135 euros ($159), and more than 10 times that sum for repeat offenders, Macron said.
Macron said 32% of France’s 5,000 intensive care places were currently occupied by coronavirus patients, a proportion that needed to be brought down to “10 to 15% at most”.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Alison Rourke.
France has imposed curfews while other European nations are closing schools, cancelling surgeries and enlisting student medics as overwhelmed authorities face a Covid-19 resurgence at the onset of winter. With new cases hitting about 100,000 daily, Europe has by a wide margin overtaken the United States in new daily infections.
Here are the main developments so far today:
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France became the latest European country to toughen its coronavirus measures, declaring a public health state of emergency and imposing a curfew on Paris and eight other cities. The French president Emmanuel Macron announced night restrictions for some 20 million people across Paris, Rouen, Lille, St Etienne, Lyon, Grenoble, Montpellier, Marseille and Toulouse. The curfew will be in place between 9pm and 6am from Saturday and will remain in force for at least four weeks. Anyone violating the curfew will be fined 135 euros. Here is the moment Macron announced the measures.
- Donald Trump’s son, Barron, 14, tested positive for Covid but exhibited no symptoms, after both of his parents contracted the virus, the first lady Melania Trump said on Wednesday. “Luckily he is a strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms,” she said in a statement, adding that she and Barron had since tested negative for the virus.
- The German chancellor Angela Merkel announced tougher measures on gatherings and the wearing of face masks. She urged young people to do their part to halt the spread of the coronavirus after private parties were repeatedly blamed for localised outbreaks in German cities.
- The WHO’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, has warned that despite the push for a vaccine, speedy, mass shots were unlikely. He said health workers and were likely to be vaccinated first with and a “healthy young person might have to wait until 2022”.
- Spain will close bars and restaurants across Catalonia for the next 15 days following a surge in cases, as the country tackles one of the highest rates of infection in Europe, with nearly 900,000 cases and more than 33,000 deaths. All bars and restaurants in the region will be limited to a takeaway and delivery service for two weeks from Thursday night. Shops and markets will operate at 30% capacity, gyms, cinemas and theatres at 50%, and children’s play areas will close at 8pm.The strict measure comes after the weekly total cases in Catalonia rose from 7,000 to 11,000 over the course of a few days.
- Measures also came into force across the Netherlands, including restrictions on alcohol sales and new mask requirements.
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Tough measures are to be introduced in Portugal from Thursday as the country reported a new record in cases. Gatherings will be limited to five people. Weddings and baptisms can be attended by a maximum of 50, but university parties will be banned. Fines for businesses which do not comply with the rules will be doubled from an upper limit of 5,000 to 10,000 euros. The prime minister, Antonio Costa, will also submit a proposal to parliament to make face masks compulsory in crowded outdoor spaces, and use of the government’s tracing app StayAway Covid compulsory for some workforces.
- Northern Ireland announced a four-week closure of pubs and restaurants. The devolved government announced plans to tighten restrictions on social gatherings and extend the mid-term school break to counter soaring case numbers there. Infection rates “must be turned down now or we will be in a very difficult place very soon indeed,” the first minister Arlene Foster said.
- Ireland’s prime minister Micheal Martin announced a raft of new curbs along the border with Northern Ireland, including the closure of non-essential retail outlets, gyms, pools and leisure centres. Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan moved to Level 4 of its five-step framework of Covid-19 constraints and banned almost all visits to homes across the country.
- Iran announced new travel restrictions affecting Tehran and four other major cities, as well as new single-day records in both Covid-19 deaths and new infections.
- Iraq’s death toll since the start of the pandemic passed 10,000 people.
- Brazil has registered 749 additional coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours and 27,235 new cases, the nation’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday. That takes the country’s total deaths to 151,747 total deaths and confirmed cases to 5,140,863.
Updated
