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Updated
Brazil registered 17,078 additional cases of Covid-19 over the last 24 hours and 565 deaths, the nation’s health ministry said on Monday.
The country has now recorded 115,309 coronavirus deaths and 3,622,861 confirmed cases.
Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now.
I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus news from around the world for the next few hours. Get in touch:
Twitter: @helenrsullivan
Email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com
Summary
If you’re just joining us, here are the latest coronavirus developments from the last few hours:
- Gaza reports first Covid-19 cases outside quarantine areas and declares lockdown. The first cases of coronavirus have been detected outside of quarantine facilities within the Gaza Strip, a potentially disastrous development given the enclave’s fragile health system.
- Hong Kong man re-infected by Covid-19 after four-and-a-half months leading to immunity concerns. A Hong Kong man who recovered from Covid-19 was infected again four-and-a-half months later in the first documented instance of human re-infection, researchers at the University of Hong Kong said on Monday.
- Sweden not expecting big second wave: chief epidemiologist. Sweden is likely to see local outbreaks but no big second wave of Covid-19 cases in the autumn, such as inundated hospitals a few months ago, Sweden’s top epidemiologist and architect of its unorthodox pandemic strategy said.
- Usain Bolt in quarantine after taking Covid-19 test following birthday party. The world’s fastest man Usain Bolt is in quarantine after taking a Covid-19 test just days after a party for his 34th birthday, which was attended by England footballer Raheem Sterling and several other sports stars.
- Brazil’s Bolsonaro says journalist ‘wimps’ more likely to die of Covid-19. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro continued his attack on journalists during a public event on Monday, describing reporters as “wimps” and saying they have a heightened chance of dying of Covid-19 because they are not athletic.
- KFC drops Finger Lickin’ Good slogan as ‘doesn’t quite fit’ in age of Covid-19. KFC has admitted its famous Finger Lickin’ Good slogan is not quite right for the era of face masks and official hand-washing advice, as it launches a new advertising campaign with a change of focus.
- Zoom apologises after partial global outage. Zoom, the video-conferencing app that has proved popular with people working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, suffered a partial failure that left thousands of people in the US, UK and across the world unable to connect to work meetings or classes.
That’s it from me today, I’m now handing over to my colleague Helen Sullivan.
Americans who regularly cross the border from Mexico reported long wait times to re-enter the US on Monday after US officials imposed new Covid-19-related restrictions on cross-border travel by US citizens and permanent residents.
The US government closed lanes at select ports of entry on the border and began conducting more secondary checks to limit non-essential travel and slow the spread of the coronavirus, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Friday.
According to CBP data, wait times at some border crossings have since doubled or tripled. Many crossing points now have only one or two lanes of traffic open. On Monday, border-crossers reported up to 5-6 hour wait times.
Jess Herr, 30, a US citizen who lives in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and works at a restaurant in San Diego in southern California, said she usually wakes up at 4 am and crosses by car in about an hour to make her shift.
When she saw the long line of cars on Monday, she decided to cross by foot, although she still had to wait five hours to cross the border.
At the Cordoba bridge joining the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez with El Paso in Texas, only two lanes were open to motorists. Border-crossers who usually waited about 45 minutes told Reuters they had waited more than three hours to cross, and some were late for work.
Melissa Reyes, general manager for a nonprofit organisation, said she had waited 4 and a half hours to cross the border back into the United States over the weekend after going to Puerto Palomas in Mexico to do some shopping. Normally the wait time would be 15-20 minutes.
The new restrictions announced last week would prove challenging for people who live lives that span both sides of the border, she said. “It’s gonna be pretty devastating,” she added.
The US-Mexican border is the world’s busiest land border.
Before coronavirus restrictions at the border began in March, over 950,000 people entered the US from Mexico on foot or in cars on a typical day.
US president Donald Trump has implemented a series of sweeping policies to curb legal and illegal immigration in recent months, saying the moves are necessary to limit the spread of the coronavirus or preserve jobs for American workers.
In March, the US, Mexico and Canada agreed to bar non-essential travel across their shared borders, but the restrictions still allowed US citizens and permanent residents to return to the United States.
Delta Air Lines is set to furlough 1,941 pilots in October, the carrier said in a memo seen by Reuters that noted the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and plunging air travel demand.
In a memo to pilots, Delta’s head of flight operations John Laughter said there were roughly 11,200 active pilots still on Delta’s roster after a voluntary early departure program.
“We are simply overstaffed, and we are faced with an incredibly difficult decision,” Laughter said.
Based on network projections, Laughter said Delta would need some 9,450 active pilots for the summer 2021 schedule, which the carrier expects would be the peak flying for the next 12-18 months.
Delta had sent warnings of potential furloughs to 2,258 pilots, according to its pilot union.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro continued his attack on journalists during a public event on Monday, describing reporters as “wimps” and saying they have a heightened chance of dying of Covid-19 because they are not athletic.
The right-wing former army captain has long had a fractious relationship with the media, frequently singling out specific newspapers and journalists for his ire. His followers have also attacked journalists at rallies and other public events.
On Sunday, Bolsonaro told a reporter, “I want to punch you in the face,” after the reporter asked about thousands of dollars that were transferred into a bank account of the president’s wife by a former aide who is now the target of a corruption probe.
During the Monday event, titled Defeating Covid-19, Bolsonaro described his own experience battling the virus in July, crediting his use of unproven drug hydroxychloroquine and his self-described history as an athlete for his mild symptoms. He has previously said he believed his athletic past made him immune to the worst of the coronavirus.
“That history of an athlete, the press feasted on it, but when (Covid-19) gets one of you wimps, your chance of surviving is quite a bit lower,” Bolsonaro told reporters, using the Portuguese colloquial word bundao. He added:
You only know how to do evil, to use a pen largely for evil. Your chance of surviving is quite a bit lower.
Earlier this month, local media reported that the aide, Fabricio Queiroz, deposited 72,000 reais ($12,900) in checks into Michelle Bolsonaro’s account between 2011 and 2018.
Queiroz was an aide to now Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the president’s eldest son, when he was a Rio de Janeiro state legislator. The former aide has been arrested in an investigation into bank deposits made at the time, amounting to 1.2m reais.
Gaza reports first Covid-19 cases outside quarantine areas and declares lockdown
The first cases of coronavirus have been detected outside of quarantine facilities within the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials have announced, a potentially disastrous development given the enclave’s fragile health system.
Four people from the same family have so far tested positive for coronavirus, Gaza’s interior ministry said as authorities imposed a 48-hour lockdown.
“As soon as the virus cases were detected, the leadership of the interior ministry and the crisis unit held intensive meetings. It is currently in session and closely following all the details,” said interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bazam.
Hamas authorities urged Gazans to abide by the immediate shutdown, which includes the closure of workplaces, schools and mosques.
Gaza has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007 and access to the enclave was further restricted following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Those granted permission to enter the strip have been held in special quarantine centres for three weeks.
There have been 109 coronavirus infections registered among those quarantined, with one death, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization.
The arrival of coronavirus among the broader population in Gaza, a densely-populated area home to two million Palestinians, has been feared for months.
Suhair Zakkout, a spokeswoman for the ICRC in Gaza, said a coronavirus outbreak would be “catastrophic”.
“The health system is already weakened by the restriction of movement, lack of financial resources, and the Palestinian internal differences,” she told the Guardian.
Gaza is currently facing severe power shortages after Israel cut off fuel supplies in response to incendiary balloons being flown across the frontier, which have set farmland ablaze.
Rockets have also been fired from the enclave this month and the Israeli army has repeatedly struck Hamas targets, sparking concerns of a military escalation.
Updated
Uganda has recalled its ambassador to Denmark and her deputy, after the pair were recorded apparently plotting in a Zoom meeting to steal funds meant to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.
During the meeting, a video of which circulated on social media, the ambassador Nimisha Madhvani, her deputy and other staff members are heard devising a plot to share out money which was meant to aid stranded citizens.
They appear to suggest that instead of registering the money for Covid-19 use, it should be apportioned as an allowance over eight days for the diplomats.
“Give yourselves $4,000...” deputy ambassador Elly Kamahungye is heard to say, admitting there would be “jumbled accounts” while recalling how diplomats were able to bribe auditors to shelve a previous probe into embassy accounts.
Nimisha herself suggests that staff members “find a way” to use the money.
Uganda’s foreign ministry’s permanent secretary Patrick Mugoya pledged a full investigation in a statement on Monday, saying “the ministry wishes to express grave concern about the allegations ... and takes this matter seriously”.
“In the meantime, the officers implicated have been recalled to the ministry headquarters to pave way for the investigations.”
A Florida judge temporarily blocked governor Ron DeSantis and top education officials from forcing public schools to reopen brick-and-mortar classrooms amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, ruling that the states order arbitrarily disregards safety.
In his ruling, Leon County judge Charles Dodson said the mandate to reopen schools usurped local control from school districts in deciding for themselves whether it was safe for students, teachers and staffers to return.
The Florida Education Association had sued the state after education commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an order earlier this summer mandating that schools reopen classrooms by 31 August or risk losing funding.
The districts have no meaningful alternative, the judge wrote in his opinion.
If an individual school district chooses safety, that is, delaying the start of schools until it individually determines it is safe to do so for its county, it risks losing state funding, even though every student is being taught, he ruled.
As the outbreak began spreading across the state last spring, officials shuttered schools and teachers began providing instruction virtually to the states 2.9 million public school students.
The Florida Education Association, which includes unions representing teachers and other school employees, expressed concerns about the ability of schools to keep children and teachers healthy.
The ruling came as Florida’s coronavirus spread appeared to be waning, although it still outpaces the ability of contact tracers to contain outbreaks.
With several key metrics on the decline, the governor says Dolphins and Hurricanes fans can attend football games again, under careful conditions.
State-provided statistics showed 4,655 people being treated for Covid-19 in Florida hospitals on Monday, less than half of the peaks above 9,500 a month ago.
A total of 72 new deaths were reported, bringing the seven day average down to 123, the lowest rate in a month. Average daily increases in cases over the past week have declined to a level not seen since late June.
Updated
Apple plans to start reopening US retail stores that have been closed over the past several weeks due a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, Bloomberg News has reported.
The company will open a small number of stores as soon as the end of August with most stores operating on an appointment-only basis for the immediate future, the report said.
An Amman summit between Jordan, Iraq and Egypt will go ahead on Tuesday with extra precautions, officials said, after Iraq’s telecommunications minister tested positive for Covid-19.
Minister Arkan al-Shaybani and fellow Iraqi officials were tested upon landing in Amman on Friday and the entire delegation was placed in confinement after the minister tested positive, according to a statement by Jordan’s information minister Amjad al-Adayla.
“This required implementing medical procedures put in place to protect the health of our guest while he is in the kingdom,” Adayla said in comments reported by Jordan’s official Petra news agency.
Shaybani was travelling to Amman for a tripartite summit on Tuesday between the leaders of Iraq, Jordan and Egypt to discuss trade, telecommunications and oil.
The one-day meeting will bring King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi together with Iraqi prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi for the first time.
The gathering comes just days after Kadhemi’s return from Washington, which has long urged its allies in the region to band together against Iranian influence.
Jordan, Egypt and Iraq have held similar meetings in the past two years, mostly focused on infrastructure and coordinating the fight against jihadists.
“The summit will still take place on Tuesday but the size of the delegations and the meeting times will be limited as a precautionary measure,” Kadhemi’s spokesman, Ahmad Mullal Talal, told AFP.
Iraq’s coronavirus caseload neared 208,000, with deaths at nearly 6,500 - making it one of the hardest-hit countries in the Middle East.
On Monday, the deputy speaker of Iraq’s parliament Hassan al-Kaabi also announced he had tested positive. Between lawmakers and their staff, there are more than 60 cases in parliament.
The virus claimed the life of one Iraqi parliamentarian last month and a presidential adviser last week.
The World Health Organization has warned that Iraq’s cases are “exponentially rising to an alarming and worrying level, suggesting a major health crisis soon”.
Brussels is one of the European regions recording the fastest-growing surge of new coronavirus cases in recent weeks, state virologist Marc Van Ranst has said.
Brussels registered 997 new infections from 7-14 August, one of the fastest weekly spikes across Europe, according to data shared by Van Ranst on Twitter.
“Brussels, together with large parts of Spain and Moldova, is in the top 10 regions with the largest Covid19 increase this week,” Van Ranst said. “The politicians of the Brussels-Capital Region should consider how they can either better enforce or tighten up the corona measures.”
Brussel zit samen met grote delen van Spanje en Moldavië bij de top-10 regio's met de grootste Covid19-stijging deze week.
— Marc Van Ranst (@vanranstmarc) August 24, 2020
De politici van het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest zouden best nadenken hoe ze de corona-maatregelen ofwel beter kunnen handhaven ofwel kunnen verstrengen. pic.twitter.com/V8FNzbkyXN
Authorities have been focusing on clusters in Antwerp, The Brussels Times reports, but Van Ranst suggested that measures adopted by local authorities have helped slow down the spread there.
The latest protective measures in Brussels mean it is now mandatory to wear a face mask in public, but officials have stopped short of stricter measures.
Germany issues travel warning for Paris and Cote d'Azur regions
Germany has issued a travel warning for Paris and the French Cote d’Azur region due to rising coronavirus infections there, the foreign ministry in Berlin has said.
The foreign ministry said it was warning against unnecessary tourist trips to the Île-de-France region, which includes the French capital, and the southern region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, which includes Marseille and Nice, due to the high number of infections.
UEFA has ruled that Slovan Bratislava and FC Pristina have forfeited European qualifying matches called off after coronavirus outbreaks at the clubs.
Both were judged to have lost 3-0 and their opponents awarded places in the next round.
The Slovaks were scheduled to play Klaksvikar Itrottarfelag (KI) in the Faroe Islands, originally on 19 August and then on 21 August, in the first qualifying round, but the entire Bratislava team was quarantined by local authorities after two consecutive positive tests in two days for one of Slovan’s players.
Pristina, from Kosovo, were due to face Lincoln Red Imps in Gibraltar on 18 August in a Europa League preliminary round.
Their players tested negative before leaving Kosovo but were tested again when they arrived in Gibraltar and several members of the delegation showed positive and the entire team was quarantined.
The match was postponed from on 18 August until 22 August and the club was allowed to bring in additional players. Unfortunately, eight players among the reinforcements tested positive and the match cancelled.
In the next qualifying round, KI will face Swiss team Young Boys and Red Imps will play Union Titus Petange from Luxembourg.
Zoom, the video conferencing app that has proved very popular with people working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, has suffered a partial failure that left thousands of people in the US, UK and across the world unable to connect to work meetings or classes.
The California-based company behind the app apologised to customers and said it was working hard to fix the problem that had left users “unable to start and join Zoom meetings and webinars”.
“We are in the process of deploying a fix across our cloud. Service has been restored already for some users. We are continuing to roll this out to complete the fix for any users still impacted,” Zoom Video Communications said on its website on Monday.
The heightened use of the company’s video meeting software during the pandemichas sent its shares up more than 300% so far this year. More than 300 million people used the service in April at the height of global lockdowns.
The number of new, confirmed cases of Covid-19 in France has risen by 1,955 compared to the previous day, although the increase in new cases was less than in previous days.
The French health ministry said the number of deaths from Covid-19 had risen by 15 from the previous day to stand at 30,528 casualties, while the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases stands at 244,854.
France has the seventh-highest Covid-19 death toll in the world, and the government is monitoring the figures closely to see if any new restrictions or lockdowns are needed to curb the spread of the virus.
“The circulation of the virus is progressing markedly, and is at its most intense among young adults,” the ministry said in a statement.
The number of new cases was less than the 4,897 new cases registered on 23 August, although 22 new clusters had been discovered in the last 24 hours, added the ministry.
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next few hours.
Please do get in touch with any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share:
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Summary
That’s all from me today. Jessica Murray will keep the blog warm throughout the evening. Here is a summary of what has been a fairly quiet day on the blog:
- A Hong Kong man has caught Covid again four months after he recovered from his first bout, in what medics says is the first confirmed case of human re-infection.
- Usain Bolt may or may not have Covid — but he is definitely self-isolating.
- There is “very low evidence” that using blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors to treat other patients works, the World Health Organisation has warned.
- Nevertheless, blood plasma treatment has been given green light in the US for patients who have recovered from Covid-19 as a treatment for the disease, a day after President Donald Trump blamed the agency for impeding the rollout of coronavirus vaccines for political reasons.
- French health authorities have reported a “very worrying” outbreak of Covid-19 at a naturist resort. Around 100 holidaymakers at the camp at Cap d’Agde on the Mediterranean coast near Béziers, have tested positive for coronavirus so far.
- Sweden’s chief epidemiologist says he is not expecting a severe second wave of Covid this winter.
Sean Ingle has more on Usain Bolt, who may or may not have Covid-19 but is certainly self isolating.
Paraguayans have reacted with indignation over a society wedding where scores of guests from the country’s political elite flouted social distancing rules and failed to wear obligatory facemasks, despite a surge of Covid-19 deaths in the country.
The lax official response to the wedding of the daughter of Horacio Cartes – a former president and one of the country’s wealthiest people – contrasts strongly with the police’s strict enforcement of lockdown rules, which has included the use of physical punishment and tasers.
Read the full report by my colleague William Costa here:
The sprinter’s video came after a Jamaican news outlet claimed he had tested positive for Covid-19.
Nationwide Network News reported that the retired star tested positive yesterday. Bolt does not confirm if that is true, but says took a test on Saturday and is isolating while he waits for the “protocol” on quarantining from the Ministry of Health.
On Friday Bolt attended his surprise birthday, along with celebrities including Manchester City footballer Raheem Sterling and Bayern Leverkusen winger, Leon Bailey.
In his Twitter video, Bolt said he would be contacting all his friends and telling them to quarantine “just to be safe”.
I’ve watched it several times now and am still not 100% sure if he is saying he has Covid or not. To be fair, he did say he had just woken up, so maybe he needs a coffee.
Here is the main quote — make of it what you will:
I am trying to be responsible so I am going to stay in and stay here for my friends. And also, having no symptoms, I am going to quarantine myself and wait on the confirmation to see what is the protocol and how I should go about quarantining myself, from the Ministry of Health. So until then I will talk to all my friends and tell them that if they have come into contact with me they should quarantine by themselves and just take it easy and just to let people know, be safe out there.
Updated
Usain Bolt has responded to media claims that he has tested positive for Covid-19.
He said he has no symptoms but is self isolating and did a test on Saturday, the day after his 34th birthday.
Watch this video for yourself and decide what he is saying. It’s not entirely clear whether he has Covid or not.
Stay Safe my ppl 🙏🏿 pic.twitter.com/ebwJFF5Ka9
— Usain St. Leo Bolt (@usainbolt) August 24, 2020
Updated
Hong Kong man re-infected by Covid-19 after four-and-a-half months leading to immunity concerns
A Hong Kong man who recovered from Covid-19 was infected again four-and-a-half months later in the first documented instance of human re-infection, researchers at the University of Hong Kong said on Monday.
The findings indicate the disease, which has killed more than 800,000 people worldwide, will continue to spread amongst the global population despite herd immunity, they said.
The 33-year-old male was cleared of Covid-19 and discharged from a hospital in April, but tested positive again after returning from Spain via Britain on 15 August.
The patient had appeared to be previously healthy, researchers said in the paper, which was accepted by the international medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
He was found to have contracted a different coronavirus strain from the one he had previously contracted and remained asymptomatic for the second infection.
“The finding does not mean taking vaccines will be useless,” Dr Kai-Wang To, one of the leading authors of the paper, told Reuters. “Immunity induced by vaccination can be different from those induced by natural infection,” To said. “[We] will need to wait for the results of the vaccine trials to see if how effective vaccines are.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said on Monday there was no need to jump to any conclusions in response to the Hong Kong case.
Instances of people discharged from hospitals and testing positive again for Covid-19 infection have been reported in mainland China.
However, in those cases it was not clear whether they had contracted the virus again after full recovery – as happened to the Hong Kong patient – or still had the virus in their body from the initial infection.
The preliminary number of patients in China who tested positive again once being discharged from hospital was 5-15%, Wang Guiqiang, an infectious disease specialist in China’s expert group for Covid-19 treatment, said during a press briefing in May.
One explanation was that the virus still existed in the lungs of patients but was not detected in samples taken from upper parts of the respiratory tract, he said. Other possible causes were low sensitivity of tests and weak immunity that could lead to persistent positive results, he added.
Updated
In Greece, teachers and students will be required to wear masks in class and indoor spaces when schools reopen in September, Reuters reports.
The rise in coronavirus cases in recent weeks has forced Greek authorities to gradually reimpose restrictions to curb the spread of Coronavirus.
Education minister Niki Kerameus said schools are expected to reopen on 7 September but an extension may be deemed necessary.
Mask-wearing will be mandatory in all indoor spaces of schools across the country, she said, adding that authorities will offer fabric masks for free to students and teachers.
The number of pupils in each class will be limited to 17.
On Sunday, Greece reported 284 new cases, a new daily record since its first case surfaced in February. In total, the country has registered 8,664 Covid-19 infections and 242 deaths.
Updated
Italy has started human testing of a Covid-19 vaccine, developed by scientists at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome.
The first volunteer, a 50 year old woman, told Italian news agency ANSA she was “proud and hoped to be useful to our country”.
The vaccine has been produced by the Italian biotechnology firm, ReiThera, of Castel Romano, near Rome, and doctors say they hope to produce it by next spring. Testing is currently limited to 90 volunteers, selected from over 5,000 applicants.
The scientific chief of Spallanzani, Giuseppe Ippolito, has said “Italy will not be the slave of other countries” in the vaccine field.
Health Minister, Roberto Speranza, said “Italian research has met the challenge.”
The Polish government has insisted schools will reopen next week for the first time since mid-March despite reaching a record high number of daily registered coronavirus infections late last week.
Poland was at first successful in containing the outbreak, but cases have started rising in recent weeks and on Friday authorities reported 903 new infections, the highest daily increase to date.
The rise in infections has caused concern among some parents contemplating sending their children back to class.
“Every child, teenager, goes out on the street or to the store and can get infected there. I don’t see the need to postpone the beginning of the (school) year,” Education Minister Dariusz Piontkowski told a news conference, reiterating the government’s position.
Children will not be required to wear face masks in classrooms, but individual principals may decide to impose this obligation in school halls and locker rooms. No temperature checks are to be introduced.
The ruling nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) imposed strict restrictions in March to curb the spread of the virus and started easing them in May, which critics said was to encourage Poles to vote in the presidential election.
In July, prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki downplayed infection risks, saying Poles, including elderly citizens, should not be afraid to vote because the novel coronavirus had become a disease “like any other”.
The country of 38 million has reported 62,310 cases in all, and 1,960 deaths.
Updated
Here’s a little more detail on those comments from the World Health Organisation’s director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has warned against “vaccine nationalism” and said global competition to create one could lead to prices spiking “exponentially”, which would only prolong the crisis.
Instead, as we reported earlier, Tedros has urged countries to support the Covax vaccines facility.
We’re working with vaccine manufacturers to provide all countries that join the effort timely and equitable access to all vaccines, licensed and approved.
This doesn’t just pool risk, it also means that prices will be kept as low as possible. New research outlines that global competition for vaccine doses could lead to prices spiking exponentially in comparison to collaborative efforts, such as the Covax facility.
It would also lead to a prolonged pandemic as only a small number of countries would get most of the supply. Vaccine nationalism only helps the virus.
Covax aims to ensure that low, middle and high-income countries all receive the vaccine in a “timely way” as soon as there is enough supply, Tedros said.
However, he warned that the scheme’s success hinged not only on countries signing up to it, but also “filling key funding gaps” for research and development work, and to support the lower-income economies involved.
An Italian hospital has said it has inoculated a first volunteer with a vaccine as part of human trials expected to last six months, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported.
The woman, in her 50s, received the first dose developed by the Rome-based biotech company ReiThera at the capital’s Spallanzani Institute for infectious diseases.
The trials, developed between ReiThera and Spallanzani researchers, will be carried out on 90 volunteers divided into groups by age to test the efficacy of different dosages of the vaccine, developed since March.
If the first results of phase 1 of the human trials prove positive, researchers say they will be able to proceed to phases 2 and 3 by the end of the year, on a larger number of volunteers including outside of Italy.
The vaccine has already passed pre-clinical tests on animal models. Giuseppe Ippolito, the institute’s scientific director, said:
It will take at least 24 weeks to complete phase 1 of human trials of the vaccine.
Countries are racing to develop their own vaccines against the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 800,000 people around the world.
“Having an Italian vaccine means not being slaves and servants of other countries that will say ‘me first’,” said Ippolito, who said he hoped the vaccine would be ready for use by spring 2021.
Updated
Financial markets around the world have rallied strongly after the US government approved a new coronavirus treatment using the plasma of recovered patients, and as hopes rise for the development of a vaccine.
Against a backdrop of rising optimism that medical advances could help to sustain a stronger economic recovery from the pandemic, stocks in Europe climbed higher on Monday after gains in Asia overnight.
The FTSE 100 index of leading UK company shares rose by more than 100 points, about 1.9%, to trade above 6,100 after Donald Trump announced on Sunday that his administration would allow the use of convalescent plasma, a method that has been used to treat flu and measles, for Covid-19 patients.
Shares rallied across Europe after gains across the board in Asia, where Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped 1.4%, Korea’s Kospi 200 gained 1% and China’s CSI 300 gained 0.8%.
The company manufacturing the Oxford University coronavirus vaccine has denied it is in talks with the Trump administration about fast-tracking its vaccine for emergency use ahead of November’s presidential elections, Peter Beaumont and Sarah Boseley write.
With both Russia and China pressing ahead with inoculations involving experimental vaccines yet to pass final efficacy and safety trials, the Trump administration has become increasingly frustrated with the Food and Drug Administration, which the president has tried to suggest is slowing approval of a vaccine for “political reasons”.
In a statement released following a report in the Financial Times, the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca insisted it had “not discussed emergency use authorisation with the US government and it would be premature to speculate on that possibility”.
It added that “late stage phase 2/3 trials for [the vaccine] are ongoing in the UK and other markets globally, and we do not anticipate efficacy results until later this year”. The team at Oxford University developing the vaccine directed queries to AstraZeneca.
Updated
The number of new Covid infections continues to rise in Italy, our southern Italy correspondent reports.
A further 1,210 people tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, the sharpest daily rise since May, when the country was in lockdown.
About half of the 1,210 new cases are holidaymakers returning from Croatia, Greece, Spain and Malta – but also from Sardinia.
The Italian island has been recording an increase in Covid positive tourists in recent days.
With many domestic tourists taking ferries to and from Sardinia, the mainland region of Lazio set up a testing facility at the dock at Civitavecchia, so those driving vehicles off the ferries could line up for immediate testing on their return home.
The latest cases have pushed up the overall national tally since the start of the emergency to 259,345. The death toll is 35,437.
Italy’s first wave of the pandemic was brutal, with more than 250,000 infections, peaking at about 6,000 cases a day in March. Despite the surge in coronavirus cases, the government has said there are no plans for a new lockdown.
Updated
Sweden not expecting big second wave: chief epidemiologist
Reuters news agency reports the latest remarks from Sweden’s top epidemiologist and architect of its unorthodox pandemic strategy.
Sweden is likely to see local outbreaks but no big second wave of Covid-19 cases in the autumn, such as inundated hospitals a few months ago, Anders Tegnell said on Monday.
Sweden has been an outlier in Europe’s fight against the novel coronavirus, keeping businesses, restaurants and most schools open throughout the pandemic, while not recommending the use of face masks, which remain a rare sight on city streets.
Per capita, Sweden has suffered many times more Covid-19 deaths than its Nordic neighbours, though not quite as many as Europe’s worst-hit countries such as Belgium, Spain and Britain.
New cases, hospitalisations and mortality have fallen sharply over the past couple of months. With most Swedes having returned from summer vacations and schools reopening last week for the new semester, there are concerns the country could see a second wave of infections.
In an interview with broadcaster TV4, Tegnell said:
“We don’t believe we’ll have a classic second wave, such as those seen in influenza pandemics where you get widespread contagion in the community again.
This disease appears to work in a different way. The spread is more patchy, so the likelihood is greater that we will see – as one is currently seeing around Europe – outbreaks in certain places, at workplaces and similar environments, during the autumn.
With the Swedish death toll nearing 6,000 people, including many nursing home residents who succumbed during March, April and May, Tegnell and the pandemic strategy he champions has divided opinion both at home and abroad.
A group of scientists that has long been critical of the country’s response, sometimes engaging in fierce argument with Tegnell, this month warned of a renewed spread of the virus as schools reopened, calling on authorities to step up safeguards.
“I think one should always be worried about this disease because it is constantly causing new mischief and is very unpredictable,” Tegnell said. “But that we would return to the situation we had during the spring – we don’t see that.”
Updated
The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is investigating the circumstances surrounding Irish commissioner Phil Hogan’s attendance at a golf event that may have breached Covid guidelines.
Brussels said Hogan, the EU’s trade commissioner, had given an account of his actions to the president, but she had requested further clarification from him.
European commission spokesman Dana Spinant told reporters there were “moral aspects” involved in the need to follow coronavirus rules, as well as legal ones:
“We feel for the people of Ireland who, like many other people and communities in the European Union over the past months, had to go through difficult times to comply with strict regulations in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus,” she said.
“Many have lost loved ones, many others have been ill and others have suffered from the restrictions. So this is why it is important that rules are respected. This is a matter not just of respecting the rules, but this is also a matter of public health. There are legal aspects involved and there are moral aspects involved as well.”
Hogan was asked on Saturday by Ireland’s prime minister and deputy prime minister to consider his position after his attendance at a golf dinner caused public outrage and led to other political resignations.
Hogan offered his initial apology on Friday only after the prime minister, Micheál Martin, demanded one.
Updated
A quick diversion from the WHO press briefing to bring you the latest news from Spain, from our correspondent Stephen Burgen.
The Catalan government has called on citizens to rigorously follow existing measures designed to contain the virus after the region registered 1,766 new cases over the past 24 hours, the fifth consecutive day of more than 1,000 new infections. No deaths were reported in the same 24-hour period.
“Come what may, we have to go back to work and we have to go back to school,” the regional president, Quim Torra, told a news conference. He said the next three weeks before school starts are vital and called for everyone to limit social activity. Meetings of more than 10 people, private and public, are prohibited.
Torra announced that between 15 September and 15 November, 500,000 tests would be carried out in primary and secondary schools. Alba Vergés, the Catalan health minister, said 70% of infections arose from social and family gatherings.
Over the past 14 days Spain has had Europe’s highest rate of infection, 152.7 per 100,000 inhabitants (compared with 9.89 in mid-June) and continues to have the highest overall number of cases in western Europe, ahead of the UK where the 14-day infection rate is 22.3 per 100,000. In Madrid and Aragón, 15% of PCR tests are positive, three times the WHO’s recommended maximum of 5%.
The Madrid government has asked people to avoid what it calls unnecessary gatherings such as family reunions but at the same time insists they should go to work. The outbreaks have led Apple to close its stores in the capital. In a bid to limit new infections, all bars, restaurants and parks have been closed in the Madrid municipality of Tielmes, while a 14-day lockdown has been imposed on the towns of Cantalejo and Carrascal in Castilla y León.
Despite the many restrictions and widespread compliance, including wearing masks indoors and outdoors, the situation in Spain continues to deteriorate. One explanation put forward by Jonay Ojeda, a specialist in preventive medicine in Madrid, is that after the lockdown ended, responsibility for managing the pandemic passed to the 17 autonomous governments, making a coordinated response all but impossible. Ojeda says the national health ministry took its eye off the ball and accuses it of a lack of leadership.
Updated
'Very low evidence' for plasma therapy authorised by Trump — WHO
Donald Trump on Sunday announced the emergency authorisation of convalescent plasma, a method involving taking plasma from people who have recovered from Covid-19, for coronavirus patients.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the WHO, stressed that it was still unproven and that there was “very low evidence” it was safe and effective.
“There are a number of clinical trials going on around the world looking at convalescent plasma … but only a few of them have reported on results. The results are not conclusive. The trials have been relatively small and the results in some cases point to some benefit but have not been conclusive. We have been tracking this and do ongoing … reviews to see where the evidence is shifting or pointing at and the moment it is still very low evidence,” she said.
Dr Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the director general of the WHO, warned that the side-effects of convalescent plasma ranged from mild chills and fevers to more severe lung problems and circulatory overload.”
Updated
Asked about schools reopening, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at the WHO, said that while most children had mild or asymptomatic infections, “there are young children that can develop severe disease and there are children who have died from severe infection”.
She says many studies are under way to establish the risks to children and their families. “What we see from some of the preliminary results is that there is some difference in the transmission rate among the younger children and teenagers. So we do need to differentiate between different age groups,” she said.
The focus should be on getting transmission down in the community, she stressed, saying “everyone has agreed how important it is that schools can reopen safely”.
Updated
A question from a journalist in Bosnia, who asks whether Balkan countries should put in orders for the Russian vaccine.
Dr Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the director general of the WHO, said it would not recommend any vaccines that had not passed through its pre-qualification emergency use licensing programme.
None have yet passed that milestone.
Updated
There is a question at the WHO press conference about the Russian vaccine programme.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist at the WHO, said the organisation had asked the Russians to share data on efficacy. “Safety needs to be assessed short term but also long term as some side-effects are only picked up later on,” she said.
There are 30 trials at various stages of development across the world, she added.
Earlier this month, Russia became the first country in the world to license a coronavirus vaccine when the president, Vladimir Putin, announced its approval ahead of conventional phase 3 testing.
At the time of the announcement the vaccine had not passed the advanced trials normally required to prove it works before being licensed, a major breach of scientific protocol. Russian officials claimed the vaccine would provide lasting immunity to Covid-19 but offered no proof.
Updated
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for Covid-19 at the World Health Organization, has been asked by an Australian reporter about a case of someone being reinfected with Covid after recovering.
She says that while people do develop an immune response, it is not clear how long that response lasts. A lot of work is going on to establish how long this immunity lasts. Many studies are underway.
She said there have been more than 24m cases recorded across the globe to date and it is important to put the reinfection case into context.
“I don’t want people to be afraid. We need people to understand that if they are infected, even if it is only a mild case, they do develop an immune response,” she says.
Updated
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, has appealed to countries across the world to contribute more to Covax, a global effort to develop a vaccine against Covid-19.
Some 172 countries are involved in the programme, he said.
At a press conference (which we are carrying live on this blog), he said more money is “urgently needed to move the portfolio forward”. The goal is to deliver at least 2bn safe, effective vaccines by the end of 2021.
Ghebreyesus insists it is not all doom and gloom. “There is light at the end of the tunnel. As I said last week, we can do it,” he said.
Updated
Thanks for following everyone. I am now handing over the blog to my colleague Helen Pidd. Below is a summary of the latest developments:
- French authorities will in the coming days reciprocate Britain’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on all arrivals from France, the junior minister for European affairs said on Monday.
- The Chinese government has been administering a coronavirus vaccine candidate to selected groups of key workers since July, a senior health official has said. Zheng Zhongwei, the head of the national health commission’s science and technology centre, told state media organisation CCTV on Sunday the government had authorised “emergency use” of a Sars-Cov-2 vaccine for workers including health workers and border officials.
- Boris Johnson has issued a plea to parents to send their children back to the classroom when schools reopen in September. The UK prime minister said the risk of contracting coronavirus in schools is “very small”, and that pupils face greater harm by continuing to stay away from the classroom.
- The number of daily coronavirus cases recorded in Italy has nearly doubled in the past five days, rising to more than 1,200 on Sunday. Italy recorded 1,210 cases in the past 24 hours, compared with 642 on Wednesday, latest official figures showed.
- French regional health authorities on Sunday said there had been a “very worrying” outbreak of coronavirus at a naturist holiday resort on France’s Mediterranean coast, with 100 holidaymakers so far testing positive. The Cap d’Agde resort in the Herault region, hugely popular among naturists, reported 38 positive tests on Monday and a further 57 on Wednesday, the regional health authority said.
Updated
The Irish prime minister, , called on European trade commissioner Phil Hogan to give the public absolute assurances he did not break Covid-19 when he travelled to a golf dinner that has caused outrage in his native Ireland.
Marin said Hogan was adamant he did not breach a local lockdown while he was staying in County Kildare but given there was a discrepancy between the commissioner’s public statements on the issue, he needed to provide a full public account.
“I need absolute … the public needs absolute assurances that the restrictions that were imposed in Kildare were not breached. That to me would be very, very serious indeed,” Martin, who called for Hogan to consider his position on Saturday, told national broadcaster RTE.
Updated
Hello everyone. I am running the Guardian’s global live feed from London. Please do keep in touch with me and share any thoughts, comments or news tips via any of the channels below. Thanks in advance.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
French health authorities have reported a “very worrying” outbreak of Covid-19 at a naturist resort in the south of France.
Around 100 holidaymakers at the camp at Cap d’Agde on the Mediterranean coast near Béziers, have tested positive for coronavirus and the results of further 310 tests are awaited.
A further 50 naturists who had been at the resort and returned home also tested positive, according to the authorities. The number of positive tests at the holiday resort was four times higher than that in the village where it is situated.
The regional health authority said the situation was “very worrying”.
“More than 800 tests were carried out last week.The results of those tests showed almost 30% were positive among the people who had been to the naturist village at Cap d’Agde,” said the regional health authority in a statement.
“The results of these biological analyses relate to 278 tests carried out on Wednesday 19 August … 58 were positive. We are awaiting the results of 310 tests carried out on Friday.” It called for a strict respecting of the prevention and protection rules at the resort.
More Covid-19 tests were due to be carried out at the naturist resort on Monday.
In its latest figures released on Sunday evening, France reported 4,897 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours. The country is carrying out more than 700,000 Covid-19 tests a week, the health minister, Olivier Véran, said, but experts say the increase in new cases cannot be explained by the increase in testing.
The rate of infection number is now 1.34, meaning every 10 people infected are passing the virus on to more than 13 others. The figure has been rising since the end of June.
There are 333 clusters under investigation in France, 32 more than the previous 24 hours. There were 29 new patients admitted to hospital with the virus, and six new patients taken into intensive care during the same period.
There was one death recorded in French hospitals, bringing the official total number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 in France to 30,513.
Out of France’s 101 departments, 38 are listed as being of moderate or substantial risk with Covid-19.
The incidence of coronavirus in France reached a peak on 3 April before gradually declining to a low in June. It began rising again around mid-July. However, the number of patients requiring intensive care has remained stable for several weeks, suggesting the virus is spreading but is less serious.
Updated
France says it is planning reciprocal quarantine arrangements for the UK
French authorities will in the coming days reciprocate Britain’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on all arrivals from France, the junior minister for European affairs said on Monday.
Britain said on Friday travellers from the UK to France would be required to self-certify that they are not suffering from coronavirus symptoms or have been in contact with a confirmed case within 14 days preceding travel.
Since 15 August British authorities have also required travellers returning from France to self-isolate upon their return due to high Covid-19 infection rates in France.
“We will have a measure called reciprocity so that our British friends do not close the border in one single way,” the French junior European affairs minister Clément Beaune told France 2 television.
“For travellers returning from the United Kingdom, there will probably be restrictive measures decided in the next few days by the prime minister and by the defence council.”
Updated
Residents in China’s north-western Xinjiang region have complained on social media about the harsh coronavirus lockdown measures in the sensitive region after a local outbreak.
China - where the disease first emerged - had largely brought domestic transmission under control through lockdowns, travel restrictions and testing, but sporadic regional outbreaks have emerged.
A new cluster in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi in mid-July prompted fresh restrictions. A total of 902 cases have been officially reported in the outbreak.
Officials said earlier this month that they had “effectively contained” the spread of the Urumqi cluster, and there have been no new cases reported in the last eight days.
But hundreds of local residents flooded local social media forums in recent days to complain about harsh conditions, including many being forced to stay home.
After some of these comments were removed – China’s internet is heavily censored – users tried to flood local forums on the Twitter-like Weibo platform in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Social media users shared photos of front doors sealed with steel crowbars, and locks installed by community workers.
“Why can’t prefectures with no cases remove the lockdown? Why do you need to lock down the whole of Xinjiang?” read one comment on Weibo, which received thousands of likes.
Updated
South Korea’s capital on Monday ordered masks to be worn in both indoor and outdoor public places for the first time, as it battles a surge in coronavirus cases centred in the densely populated metropolitan area.
In May, the city government ordered that masks be worn on public transport and in taxis, but a recent spike in cases has health officials worried that the country may need to impose its highest level of social distancing, known as phase 3.
“If we can’t stop it at this stage, we have no choice but to upgrade to the third phase of social distancing,” President Moon Jae-in told his top aides. “The raise to phase 3 is by no means an easy option.”
Under phase 3, schools and business will be urged to close, inflicting more damage on Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 266 new cases as of midnight on Sunday, down from 397 a day earlier but another in more than a week of triple-digit daily increases.
Overall, South Korea has reported 17,665 coronavirus cases and 309 deaths.
Updated
Russia reported 4,744 new coronavirus cases on Monday, pushing its confirmed infection tally to 961,493, the fourth largest in the world. Authorities said 65 people had died over the past 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 16,448.
The FTSE 100 jumped on Monday, tracking Asian markets as US regulators authorised a Covid-19 treatment over the weekend, while AstraZeneca rose on a report the US government was considering fast-tracking its experimental vaccine.
The drugmaker gained 1.5% and was the top boost to the FTSE 100 as the report said one option being explored would involve the US health regulator awarding “emergency use authorisation” in October to the potential vaccine.
The export-laden FTSE 100 was up 1.2% after ending Friday with its first weekly loss in three as fresh Brexit concerns compounded fears over the UK’s post-pandemic economic recovery.
The blue-chip index has gained about 23% from its March lows, but lagged the US benchmark S&P 500, which is scaling record highs on historic fiscal and monetary stimulus and hopes that the worst of the pandemic’s economic damage was over.
On Sunday, the US Food & Drug administration said it authorised the use of blood plasma from patients who had recovered from Covid-19 as a treatment for the disease.
The UK’s mid-cap FTSE 250 rose 0.5%, led by financial, industrial and consumer discretionary stocks.
Updated
Russian authorities may this week announce the resumption of international flights to France, Hungary, Malta, Cyprus, Jordan, Egypt and China’s Shanghai, the Izvestia newspaper cited unnamed airport and airline sources as saying on Monday.
Russia grounded international commercial flights during the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year and has so far only resumed flights to London, Turkey, Tanzania and Switzerland.
Russia has confirmed the world’s fourth largest tally of coronavirus cases. It has recorded close to 5,000 new cases of the virus on a daily basis for the last several weeks.
Updated
Hello everyone. I am taking over the Guardian’s global live feed this morning from London. Please do keep in touch with me and share any thoughts, comments or news tips via any of the channels below. Thanks in advance.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thanks for following along.
For those readers who are just tuning in, you can find a summary of the key developments from the last few hours here.
My colleague Sarah Marsh will be bringing you the latest for the next while.
The commute completely transformed Britain. Is it over for ever?
It is 7.45 on a Monday morning and I am heading for the office. It is my first visit to the Guardian for more than four months, but the prime minister wants us back at work. Commuters are reliable, law-abiding creatures of habit, cogs in a greater machine; I am doing what I am told.
Before Covid-19, in the rush-hour, you would often have to ruck and maul just to get on to a train. Today, there are only three people, masked and well-distanced, in the carriage. It does not get much busier as the journey continues. A couple more at Willesden Green, once a rural area with a few grand houses – until about 1870, when the builders moved in and began turning it into a working-class suburb for a new breed of commuter:
Updated
A lighter story now from Reuters:
For Zeng Sheng, the manager at Shanghai Maiyi Arts, this autumn should have been a boon for business: with the US presidential election, demand for the centre’s wax replicas of Donald Trump should have been off the charts.
Instead, the spread of the coronavirus has halted new orders and stalled overseas travel, including to and from the US. He is now holding off on producing a replica of Joe Biden.
Located in the outskirts of Shanghai, about an hour’s drive from the city centre, its exhibition hall also doubles as makeshift museum, where guests can pose next to replicas of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, martial arts star Jackie Chan, and others.
Zeng says that by 2019, the company was shipping up to 700 figures annually to customers, with about one-third going overseas.
The virus, however, hit orders twice: first in China, when factories and tourist sites closed, and then overseas. Business remains about two-thirds its normal size, Zeng says.
Updated
China has been giving potential coronavirus vaccine to key workers since July
The full story now in China administering a coronavirus vaccine candidate to selected groups of key workers – since July.
Zheng Zhongei, the head of the National Health Commission’s science and technology centre, told state media organisation CCTV on Sunday the government had authorised “emergency use” of a Sars-Cov-2 vaccine for workers including health workers and border officials.
The country has gone seven days without reporting a locally transmitted case, and border workers are considered to be in a high-risk category, said Zheng, who leads the vaccination development taskforce.
It appears to be the first confirmation of vaccine use by China outside clinical trials:
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has returned from hospital, making brief remarks following a second hospital visit that has stoked concern about his health.
Abe said he wants to do everything to maintain his health and do his utmost at his job. Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister has been the target of deepening speculation that he may resign due to his health issues. On Monday he visited a Tokyo hospital for the second time within days.
He was speaking to reporters after returning to his official residence from the hospital.
Streaming services such as Netflix are taking advantage of the global shortage of new television programmes to outbid British channels for new shows, forcing traditional broadcasters to find new ways to fill schedules in the coming years.
Although television audiences rose sharply during the coronavirus lockdown, the near-global production shutdown has created a looming shortage of new material to show to viewers in the coming months. At the same time Britain’s commercial television channels are dealing with the collapse in the advertising market caused by the recession, leaving subscription streaming services able to swoop in and spend big on new commissions to maintain their growth:
Japan is running out of credit card numbers amid a surge in online shopping during the coronavirus pandemic.
The country’s credit card companies are struggling to come up with original 16-digit numbers as consumers eschew regular shop visits and opt for plastic over hard cash, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported.
While credit card usage in Japan rises by about 2% a year, it received a further boost in the first half of this year after people were encouraged to stay at home in an attempt to contain the Covid-19 outbreak.
Credit card use is expected to continue rising as Japan attempts to end its addiction to cash, with many consumers, especially older people, happy to carry around large quantities of notes:
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Blood plasma treatment given green light in the US. The US Food & Drug Administration said it has authorised the use of blood plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 as a treatment for the disease, a day after President Donald Trump blamed the agency for impeding the rollout of coronavirus vaccines for political reasons.
- Boris Johnson has issued a plea to parents to send their children back to the classroom when schools reopen in September. The UK prime minister said the risk of contracting coronavirus in schools is “very small”, and that pupils face greater harm by continuing to stay away from the classroom.
- The Chinese government has been administering a vaccine candidate to selected groups of key workers since July, a senior health official told state media yesterday. Zheng Zhongei, head of the national health commission’s science and technology centre, told CCTV the government had authorised “emergency use” and it was in line with the law, the South China Morning Post has reported.
- China sees no locally transmitted cases for eighth day in a row. China reported 16 new Covid-19 cases in the mainland for 23 August, all of which were imported infections involving travellers from overseas, the country’s health authority said on Monday. This compared with 12 new Covid-19 cases reported a day earlier, all imported too, and marked the eighth consecutive day of no locally transmitted cases.
- South Korea counted its 11th straight day of triple-digit daily jumps in coronavirus cases as officials tighten social distancing restrictions nationwide to combat what they describe as the biggest crisis since the emergence of Covid-19.
- Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, visited a Tokyo hospital on Monday for a second time within days, stoking concern about his ability to stay on as leader due to health issues and fatigue from tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
-
Australian state of Victoria sees lowest one-day case rise in seven weeks. The Australian state of Victoria reported its lowest daily rise in new coronavirus infections in seven weeks on Monday, fuelling optimism that a deadly second wave there is subsiding. Victoria on Monday reported 116 cases and 15 deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours, down from a peak of more than 700 cases early this month.
- New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, will continue with its Level 3 restrictions for an additional four days. Auckland was set to lift the restrictions - requiring residents to ‘stay at home and stay local’ - on Wednesday, but those have now been extended to 11:59pm on Sunday. The Auckland cluster is now 101 confirmed cases, the largest in the country.
- France reported almost 4,900 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, its highest figure since May. French regional health authorities also said there had been a very worrying outbreak of coronavirus at a naturist holiday resort on the Mediterranean coast, with more than 100 holidaymakers so far testing positive.
- The number of daily coronavirus cases recorded in Italy has nearly doubled in the past five days, rising to more than 1,200 on Sunday. Italy recorded 1,210 cases in the past 24 hours, compared with 642 on Wednesday, latest official figures showed.
- The UK recorded 1,041 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, down from 1,288 on Saturday, government figures showed. It is the fourth day in a row that new infections have been more than 1,000 in 24 hours.
- Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in a serious condition with a fever, Reuters reports. Tymoshenko, who twice served as leader before her defeat in the 2010 presidential election, became the first high-profile Ukrainian politician known to have contracted Covid-19.
- The Greek island of Lesbos was added to a list of areas under heightened Covid-19 vigilance, officials said. The move came as health authorities announced a new daily infection high of 284 cases nationwide in the last 24 hours.
Coronavirus cases are approaching 25m, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with 23,358,598 infections currently confirmed.
The global death toll is nearing 810,000. Currently it stands at 807,830.
Here are the ten worst-affected countries in terms of number of cases:
- US: 5,701,938
- Brazil: 3,605,783
- India: 3,044,940
- Russia: 954,328
- South Africa: 609,773
- Peru: 585,236
- Mexico: 560,164
- Colombia: 541,139
- Chile: 397,665
- Spain: 386,054
Updated
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, visited a Tokyo hospital on Monday for a second time within days, stoking concern about his ability to stay on as leader due to health issues and fatigue from tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Abe was at the hospital for the follow-up of a medical check a week ago when his examination lasted 7-1/2 hours, fuelling worries about his health.
But major broadcaster Nippon TV said Abe was being treated for a chronic illness rather than a check-up, citing multiple unidentified government and ruling party sources. It added that Abe was scheduled to go to his office in the afternoon.
“I was informed that he’s getting an additional exam after last week’s exam,” Suga, who is also the chief cabinet secretary and is seen as one of the main contenders for Abe’s job, told a regular news conference.
“The premier himself said the other day that he wanted to return to work.”
A return to the old ways...
In Papua New Guinea, the Covid-19 lockdowns have led to a shortage of food in stores, and a lack of cash. In response, many of the archipelago nation’s old ways are returning. In East New Britain, people are going back to trading in shell money, to bartering, home gardens, and fishing.
From Kalolaine Fainu in The Observer:
Germany has announced 711 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s total to 233,575, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.
Germany’s death toll rose by three to 9,272, the tally showed.
Updated
Auckland, New Zealand to continue Level 3 restrictions for four more days
New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, will continue with its Level 3 restrictions for an additional four days, the prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.
Auckland was set to lift the restrictions - requiring residents to ‘stay at home and stay local’ - on Wednesday, but those have now been extended to 11:59pm on Sunday. The Auckland cluster is now 101 confirmed cases, the largest in the country.
“These extra 4 days are believed necessary to allow us to move down a level in Auckland, and stay down. We want both confidence, and certainty for everyone,” Ardern said.
Ardern spoke frankly with New Zealanders, urging them to stay strong amidst the pandemic: “2020 has frankly been terrible” she said.
If it feels hard, that’s because it has been. But let’s also remember, in a world where 2020 has frankly been terrible, we are strong, we have been kind, and we are doing really well.
Ardern warned the recent outbreak of infections had “shown us how tricky this virus is”.
They have happened on a bus journey between absolute strangers; we have seen a case we believe occurred through a retail shopping experience; many, many cases through churches. If it weren’t for Level 3, this cluster would be exponential, of that I have no doubt.
This is a contained cluster. But it is our biggest one. And that means the tail will be long, and the cases will keep coming for a while to come.
The prime minister also announced that mask-wearing on public transport would be mandatory nationwide from Monday. The use of masks has already been strongly encouraged, but now the government is drafting orders to make it compulsory within 4 days. Some people would be exempt from the order, such as those with significant breathing difficulties.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 711 to 233,575, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Monday.
The reported death toll rose by three to 9,272, the tally showed.
In Australia, the Victorian state government wants to extend the state’s state of emergency by another 12 months to combat the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
But parliament must approve the change, AAP reports, because under current legislation the state of emergency cannot extend beyond six months.
The original state of emergency was declared in March as Victoria’s first outbreak struck and has been extended six times. It is due to end on 13 September.
Victoria had mixed news about the ongoing second outbreak on Monday, with 15 deaths but a sharp drop in new cases.
They plummeted to 116 from Sunday’s figure of 208 - the lowest number for Victorian daily cases since July 5. The July 5 figure of 74 was also the last time it was below 100. The state death toll is now 430 and the national figure is up to 517.
Melbourne is scheduled to come out of its stage-four lockdown on September 13, while the stage-three provisions for regional Victoria are also due to end on that date.
Premier Daniel Andrews is hopeful the change to legislation will pass through parliament.
“It’s very logical. It makes sense,” he said.
He says the state of emergency will remain necessary until a vaccine is available. The state of emergency means Victoria Police can enforce measures such as people who test positive having to isolate.
It is separate to the state of disaster, which was declared on 2 August when Melbourne went into its stage-four lockdown and means police can enforce the city’s 8pm-5am curfew.
Updated
Australian theatres are reopening – nervously and with mandatory masks and temperature checks – Elissa Blake reports for the Guardian.
Sydney Theatre Company has announced it is ready to open the doors of the Roslyn Packer theatre and present its first show since March.
Wonnangatta, a new drama written by the award-winning Melbourne playwright Angus Cerini and featuring the actors Hugo Weaving and Wayne Blair, will play from 21 September to 31 October in a socially distanced production for audiences numbering no more than 147 (the Roslyn Packer can usually seat 880 patrons).
Patrons will have to pass temperature checks before they can take their seats, and masks will be mandatory:
China says it has been vaccinating key workers since July
The Chinese government has been administering a vaccine candidate to selected groups of key workers since July, a senior health official told state media yesterday.
Zheng Zhongei, head of the national health commission’s science and technology centre, told CCTV the government had authorised “emergency use” and it was in line with the law, the South China Morning Post has reported.
There were no details on which particular vaccine candidate was used or how many people received it, but Zheng said it had been administered to workers including health workers and border officials, who are considered high risk as China’s cases are predominantly imported now. The country has gone seven days without reporting a locally transmitted case.
China is producing several of the vaccine candidates currently in phase three testing around the world. Chinese developers are conducting or approved to conduct tests in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Peru, Morocco, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and Russia, with tens of thousands of people involved, according to one of the companies.
The Chinese government has previously called for employees of state-owned companies who travel frequently to volunteer for vaccine testing.
Last week a plane load of Chinese mine workers were refused entry to Papua New Guinea, over government concerns of an apparent vaccination trial.
The mine owner, Ramu NiCo, run by Chinese state owned Matallurgical Corporation of China, had reportedly issued an official statement to PNG stating that 48 of its staff had been given a Sars-Cov-2 vaccine in early August.
However they were refused entry to the country over a “lack of information of what these trials are and what possible risks of threats” they may pose to the people of PNG, the PNG pandemic controller, David Manning said.
South Korea tightens restrictions
South Korea South Korea counted its 11th straight day of triple-digit daily jumps in coronavirus cases as officials tighten social distancing restrictions nationwide to combat what they describe as the biggest crisis since the emergence of Covid-19, AP reports.
The 266 cases reported by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Monday came after three consecutive days of over-300 increases, although infection numbers tend to be lower at the start of the week due to the lesser number of tests in weekends.
The KCDC said 202 of the new cases came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, home to half of the country’s 51 million population, where health workers have struggled to track transmissions linked to various sources, including churches, restaurants, schools and workers.
Infections were also reported in major cities throughout the country, including Busan, Daejeon and Sejong.
KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong said it’s likely the country will continue to report huge infection numbers in coming days as health workers scramble to trace and test contacts of virus carriers.
The country since Sunday has banned larger gatherings, shut down nightspots and churches and removed fans from professional sports nationwide.
India coronavirus cases top 3 million
India’s coronavirus caseload topped 3 million on Sunday, with the country leading the world in new infections as the disease marched through impoverished rural areas in the north and the wealthier but older populations of the south, AP reports.
Health authorities reported 69,239 new cases and 912 deaths, bringing the total to 3,044,940.
Cases have levelled off in India’s two largest cities, with serological surveys showing widespread prevalence among the residents of the capital, New Delhi, and financial centre Mumbai.
New hot spots continue to feed surges in cases in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states in India’s north, and in the southern states of Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
India has the third-highest caseload after the United States and Brazil, and its 56,706 fatalities are the fourth-highest in the world.
Mexico’s health ministry on Sunday reported 3,948 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 226 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 560,164 cases and 60,480 deaths.
The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
China sees no locally transmitted cases for eighth day in a row
China reported 16 new Covid-19 cases in the mainland for 23 August, all of which were imported infections involving travellers from overseas, the country’s health authority said on Monday, Reuters reports.
This compared with 12 new Covid-19 cases reported a day earlier, all imported too, and marked the eighth consecutive day of no locally transmitted cases.
The total number of confirmed cases now stands at 84,967, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.
The National Health Commission said in a statement that 27 new asymptomatic Covid-19 cases - patients who are infected with the coronavirus but not exhibiting any symptoms - compared with 15 such cases reported a day earlier.
Victoria sees lowest one-day case rise in seven weeks
The state of Victoria’s one-day case rise is the lowest in seven weeks, Reuters reports.
The Australian state of Victoria reported its lowest daily rise in new coronavirus infections in seven weeks on Monday, fuelling optimism that a deadly second wave there is subsiding.
Victoria on Monday reported 116 cases and 15 deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours, down from a peak of more than 700 cases early this month.
Australia saw a surge in infections in the past month in Melbourne, Victoria’s capital and the country’s second-largest city, but cases have been trending downward in recent days helped by a total lockdown.
Updated
Blood pressure medicine improves survival rates from Covid-19 in people with hypertension, according to research that contradicts earlier fears the pills could make the disease worse.
The risk of critical illness or death from Covid for people with high blood pressure was found to be significantly lower if they were taking angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB).
Researchers from the Norwich medical school at the University of East Anglia (UEA) looked at the effect of taking the common medications on coronavirus patients with a range of conditions.
Those with high blood pressure – a group known to be at greater risk from the illness – who were taking the drugs were 0.67 times less likely to have a critical or fatal outcome than those who were not, the study concluded:
In Australia, the state of Victoria has recorded 116 new coronavirus cases and 15 deaths.
The cases mark a continuing downward trend following the state’s lockdown, which is set to end on 13 September.
#Covid19VicData for August 24, 2020.
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) August 23, 2020
There have been 116 new cases of #coronavirus (#COVID19) detected in Victoria in the last 24 hours, and sadly 15 deaths.
Our thoughts are with everyone during this difficult time.
More information will be available later today. pic.twitter.com/mLWLHArduY
Helen Sullivan here. I’ll be bringing you the latest news from around the world for the next while.
As always, we welcome your questions, comments and news tips.
You can send me these things on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
French regional health authorities on Sunday said there had been a “very worrying” outbreak of coronavirus at a naturist holiday resort on France’s Mediterranean coast, with some 100 holidaymakers so far testing positive, AFP reports.
The Cap d’Agde resort in the Herault region, hugely popular among naturists, saw 38 positive tests on Monday and another 57 on Wednesday, the regional health authority said.
The rate of infection was four times higher among naturists in the resort than in the village itself, it added. Another 50 holidaymakers had also tested positive after returning home and results of more tests were expected next week.
The figures are “very worrying” it said, adding an alert had been issued over the resort.
The outbreak comes as France on Sunday reported almost 4,900 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, its highest figure since May, as the health minister acknowledged there were “risks” in the surging infection levels nationwide.
The amount paid out by big companies to their investors plummeted between April and June as firms cancelled or cut their dividends to conserve cash during the coronavirus pandemic crisis.
Total shareholder payouts made globally slumped by $108.1bn (£82.6bn) to $382.2bn, a fall of 22%.
A quarter (27%) of companies expected to pay a dividend in the second quarter slashed their payments, while half of that group cancelled the payout altogether:
France sees highest cases since May
After France reported almost 4,900 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, its highest figure since May, the country’s health minister acknowledged there were risks in the surging infection levels.
“We are in a situation where there are risks,” Olivier Veran said in an interview with the Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper as the French prepare to return to work from the summer holidays.
He emphasised however that the situation was “not the same as it was in February” when the virus began spreading in France, with Covid-19 now circulating four times as much among the under 40s as the over 65s.
Testing had now been ramped up so France can undertake 700,000 tests a week, he added but acknowledged the risk was that young people could pass on the virus to the elderly.
Veran lamented that most infections were happening in “festive situations” attended by young people where social distancing was not respected.
However, he insisted a new nationwide lockdown was “not on the agenda” and unlike in the spring “we have more knowledge and means at our disposal” with targeted local measures the best action to take.
Veran said he was aware of speculation that the virus was now less deadly because it had mutated but said the argument “alas” had no scientific basis.
“The Covid that is spreading is the same that has killed 30,000 French. Only the profile of the patients has changed, they are younger and have fewer symptoms,” he said.
Boris Johnson moves to seize control of schools agenda after exams chaos
Boris Johnson attempted to reassert his grip over education after days of chaos by making a personal plea to parents to send their children back to the classroom in England in September.
The prime minister, who was criticised for going on holiday to Scotland during the A-level debacle, has spoken out to say the risk of contracting coronavirus in school is low and that it is damaging for children to be out of education for any longer.
His decision to personally front the return-to-school drive rather than Gavin Williamson, the beleaguered education secretary who has faced calls to quit over the fiasco, is part of a deliberate attempt to switch the “messenger” and win back the public, a senior Tory suggested.
Johnson’s intervention comes after the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said children could be at greater harm by staying at home than attending school.
Regarding the expected return on 1 September, Johnson said: “I have previously spoken about the moral duty to reopen schools to all pupils safely, and I would like to thank the school staff who have spent the summer months making classrooms Covid-secure in preparation for a full return in September.
“We have always been guided by our scientific and medical experts, and we now know far more about coronavirus than we did earlier this year. As the chief medical officer has said, the risk of contracting Covid-19 in school is very small and it is far more damaging for a child’s development and their health and wellbeing to be away from school any longer.
“This is why it’s vitally important that we get our children back into the classroom to learn and to be with their friends. Nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school.”
Trump authorizes plasma treatment for coronavirus amid attacks on FDA
After expressing frustration at the slow pace of approval for coronavirus treatments, and causing controversy by publicly linking the Food and Drug Administration to the “deep state” conspiracy theory, Donald Trump on Sunday announced the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma, a method which has been used to treat flu and measles, for Covid-19 patients.
Covid-19 has killed more than 175,000, cratered the economy and upended the president’s hopes of re-election. The White House has sunk vast resources into an expedited process to develop a vaccine, known as Operation Warp Speed, which aides hope will produce an “October surprise” before the presidential election on 3 November.
Making the announcement at a press conference, and with FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn standing with him, Trump added to days of White House officials suggesting politically motivated delays in approving a vaccine and therapeutics.
“This is what I’ve been looking to do for a long time,” Trump told reporters on Sunday at the White House. “I’m pleased to make a truly historic announcement in our battle against the China virus that will save countless lives.”
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Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news from around the world for the next while.
As always, we welcome your questions, comments, news tips and thoughtful gifts.
You can send me these things on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged parents to send their children back to the classroom when schools reopen next month.
The UK prime minister said the risk of contracting coronavirus in schools is “very small”, and that pupils face greater harm by continuing to stay away from the classroom.
Many pupils in England have not been to class since March when schools were closed except to look after vulnerable children and those of key workers.
In response to Johnson’s plea, Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Layla Moran said: “The government must rapidly upscale Test and Trace and ensure schools have the mental health support, financial resources and the use of community spaces they need ahead of opening fully.
France meanwhile reported almost 4,900 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, its highest figure since May.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Blood plasma treatment given green light in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration said it has authorised the use of blood plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 as a treatment for the disease, a day after President Donald Trump blamed the agency for impeding the rollout of coronavirus vaccines for political reasons.
- Boris Johnson has issued a plea to parents to send their children back to the classroom when schools reopen in September. The UK prime minister said the risk of contracting coronavirus in schools is “very small”, and that pupils face greater harm by continuing to stay away from the classroom.
- France reported almost 4,900 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, its highest figure since May. French regional health authorities also said there had been a very worrying outbreak of coronavirus at a naturist holiday resort on the Mediterranean coast, with more than 100 holidaymakers so far testing positive.
- The number of daily coronavirus cases recorded in Italy has nearly doubled in the past five days, rising to more than 1,200 on Sunday. Italy recorded 1,210 cases in the past 24 hours, compared with 642 on Wednesday, latest official figures showed.
- The UK recorded 1,041 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, down from 1,288 on Saturday, government figures showed. It is the fourth day in a row that new infections have been more than 1,000 in 24 hours.
- Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in a serious condition with a fever, Reuters reports. Tymoshenko, who twice served as leader before her defeat in the 2010 presidential election, became the first high-profile Ukrainian politician known to have contracted Covid-19.
- The Greek island of Lesbos was added to a list of areas under heightened Covid-19 vigilance, officials said. The move came as health authorities announced a new daily infection high of 284 cases nationwide in the last 24 hours.
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