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Brazil has recorded more than 4 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 43,773 new cases and 834 deaths from the disease caused by the virus reported in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Thursday.
Brazil has registered 4,041,638 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll from COVID-19 has risen to 124,614, according to ministry data, in the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak outside the United States.
Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now.
In the White House press conference late on Thursday, a video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi going to a San Francisco hairdresser was played on loop for the duration of the event:
.@PressSec Kayleigh McEnany: "We found Nancy Pelosi going into her hair salon. We will be playing the video on loop for all of you to see during the duration of this introduction...Apparently the rules do not apply to Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 3, 2020
Full video: https://t.co/6bTwrMa5OG pic.twitter.com/rfDCWOCPpV
When the video footage first emerged earlier this week, Pelosi said that she had been “set up”.
Trump has since tweeted:
Crazy Nancy Pelosi said she was “set up” by the beauty parlor owner when she improperly had the salon opened (and didn’t wear a MASK!). Does anyone want a Speaker of the House who can be so easily SET UP?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2020
Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments across the globe from the last few hours:
- Robert Pattinson tests positive for Covid-19, halting Batman production. The actor Robert Pattinson has tested positive for Covid-19, pausing production in the UK of Warner Bros movie The Batman, US media reports.
- France counts more than 7,000 new infections for second day. France registered more than 7,000 new coronavirus infections over 24 hours for the second time in two days, the health ministry said on Thursday, while hospitalisations for the virus also rose again.
- US public health officials prepare for October vaccine rollout. Federal public health officials in the US have asked their state counterparts to prepare to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine to high-risk individuals as early as late October.
- Tracing apps may stem Covid-19 spread even when only a few use them - study. Contact tracing apps can sharply reduce the spread of Covid-19 even when only a few people use them, a study published on Thursday by researchers at Google and Oxford University showed. An app used by 15% of the population together with a well-staffed contact-tracing workforce can lead to a 15% drop in infection rates and an 11% drop in Covid-19 deaths, according to statistical modelling.
- Mexico leads the world in healthcare worker deaths from Covid-19. Mexico leads the world in coronavirus deaths among its healthcare workers, Amnesty International has said in a new report. The report said Mexico has reported 1,320 confirmed deaths among health workers from Covid-19 so far, surpassing the United States at 1,077, the United Kingdom at 649, and Brazil at 634.
- Thailand reports first locally transmitted case in 100 days. Thailand has reported its first locally transmitted coronavirus case in 100 days, after a prison inmate was confirmed to have Covid-19. Dozens of contacts are now being tested, including his family members, people he met in court and other inmates. He had been arrested for drug offences on 26 August.
- Greece and Portugal stay on England’s list of quarantine-free travel. English tourists in Greece and Portugal have been spared the cost and chaos of rushing back to the UK after the British government defied expectations and maintained quarantine-free travel from both countries for the time being.
That’s all from me Jessica Murray today, I’m now handing over to my colleagues in Australia.
Virgin Atlantic is preparing to cut more than 1,000 jobs after seeing a slower-than-expected recovery in international demand for air travel, Sky News has reported.
The report comes as the company’s £1.2bn ($1.59bn) rescue deal is set for completion this week after a London judge gave the go-ahead to the airline’s restructuring plan in a court hearing on Wednesday.
The airline will announce the layoffs as soon as Friday, the report said, adding that the latest round of cuts, if confirmed, would mean that Virgin Atlantic’s workforce has almost halved from about 10,000 people before the coronavirus pandemic.
Virgin Atlantic declined to comment on the Sky News report.
The company, which is 51% owned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and 49% by US’s Delta Air Lines, has had to close its Gatwick base and cut more than 3,500 jobs to contend with the fallout from the pandemic, which has grounded planes and hammered demand for air travel.
Brazil’s vice president Hamilton Mourão has said in a radio interview that immunisation against Covid-19 will necessarily require mass vaccination, and “everyone in the government knows that”.
He appeared to be clarifying the government’s position after president Jair Bolsonaro, who has consistently downplayed the severity of the coronavirus outbreak, said on Monday that nobody would be forced to take the vaccine once it is available.
Hungary has refused to grant final approval of the EU’s planned €750bn ($889bn) borrowing to spur economic recovery in the bloc from the coronavirus pandemic without guarantees on a linked mechanism on the rule of law, diplomatic sources said.
Prime minister Viktor Orbán has long been at loggerheads with the EU over democratic checks and balances, and stands accused of undermining the independence of the judiciary, media, academics and advocacy groups in Hungary.
Under a historic deal, the EU agreed last July that its executive would borrow €750bn on the market to top up a trillion euros worth of spending under the bloc’s joint budget in 2021-27 to help the continent recover from the Covid-19 slump.
The agreement between the 27 member states still requires approval by the European parliament, as well as many national parliaments across the EU.
The package would also link access to EU funds to respecting democratic principles, which Orbán now wants to ensure would not hurt him in order to grant Hungary’s final approval, according to the sources.
“Hungary has said that, to pass that decision, they want to sort out the rule of law,” one senior EU diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Hungary’s justice ministry on Thursday said that the July deal was an overall package and that “none of its components can be decoupled or removed from the package and decided or amended separately from other components.”
“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” it added.
While the European parliament wants to toughen the rule of law conditions on obtaining EU funds, countries like Spain and Italy that have been hit hardest by the pandemic demand smooth ratification to ensure the money starts flowing swiftly.
Mexico said it plans to take part in stage 3 trials of the Russian coronavirus vaccine in October, part of the nation’s efforts to secure supplies of possible future Covid-19 vaccines.
Foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard said that if the Mexican regulator permits it, the Russian vaccine can be brought to Mexico and several thousand volunteers will “test that vaccine in our country as close as next month”.
Ebrard has previously said that 2,000 Mexican volunteers would take part in clinical trials of Russia’s “Sputnik V” vaccine.
The race to produce a vaccine has become a contest for influence and prestige among major powers, while developing economies are trying to ensure a fair distribution of the medicines.
Mexico has engaged in a diplomatic push to forge Covid-19 vaccine alliances across a wide ideological spectrum of countries from France to Cuba as a World Health Organization vaccine initiative is expected to fall short of its needs.
Domestic violence in the UK has risen sharply since March, and many victims feel alone. Spreading the word about resources is vital, writes Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Six months ago, our country went into lockdown. Almost immediately, we saw both the best and the worst of human behaviour. For many, charity truly began at home, with family members caring for shielding relatives, and neighbours pulling together in new and different ways.
But for some, it was abuse, rather than charity, that began at home. Deeply troubling statistics have shown the sharp rise in domestic violence since March. It is thought that, globally, cases have escalated by 20%. In the UK, more than a third of specialist services have reported an increase in requests for their support.
Yet nearly two-thirds of victims have felt unable to seek help, for fear of repercussions from their partner, or because of the restrictions of Covid-19. SafeLives, the UK-wide domestic abuse charity of which I am patron, has been undertaking an online survey of people living in abusive relationships over the past few months. The responses have been heartbreaking.
Tracing apps may stem Covid-19 spread even when only a few use them - study
Contact tracing apps can sharply reduce the spread of Covid-19 even when only a few people use them, a study published on Thursday by researchers at Google and Oxford University showed.
An app used by 15% of the population together with a well-staffed contact-tracing workforce can lead to a 15% drop in infection rates and an 11% drop in Covid-19 deaths, according to statistical modelling by the Alphabet unit and Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine.
With a 15% uptake of contact tracing apps alone, the researchers calculated an 8% reduction in infections and 6% reduction in deaths.
The findings were based on data from a digital tracing system similar to one jointly developed by Google and Apple.
The app made by the two tech giants tracks interactions through Bluetooth signals and anonymously notifies a person if someone they met contracts Covid-19.
Six US states and about two dozen countries have launched exposure notification apps based on the Apple-Google technology in recent weeks without major hitches.
The researchers simulated the spread of Covid-19 based on interactions at homes, offices, schools and social gatherings in Washington State’s King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.
“We see that all levels of exposure notification uptake levels in the UK and the US have the potential to meaningfully reduce the number of coronavirus cases, hospitalisations and deaths across the population,” Christophe Fraser, the study’s co-lead author and group leader in Pathogen Dynamics at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine, said.
The researchers noted that a contact tracing app is not a stand-alone intervention. They also said their model still represents a “dramatic simplification of the real world”, and does not take into account cross-county movement of people contributing to disease spread.
The research has not been peer-reviewed.
Fiercely opposing restrictions imposed by Rome after the coronavirus pandemic hit Italy, some of the country’s super-rich including ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi have now fallen prey to the Covid-19 “curse of the Emerald Coast”.
Berlusconi and two of his children tested positive for the virus on Wednesday, the latest among Italy’s jet-set to be hit after holidaying along Sardinia’s exclusive coastline, often called the country’s “most glamorous vacation resort”.
Speaking to an election rally in Genoa on Thursday, Berlusconi reassured activists of his centre-right Forza Italia party that he had “no fever, no pain”.
“I want to reassure you: I’m doing pretty well,” he added, saying he had been moved by all the messages of support he had received.
Taking its name from the beautiful waters that surround the Mediterranean’s second-largest island, the Emerald Coast has recently built a reputation as a place where the super-rich often flouted Rome’s strict face-mask policies, local papers said Thursday.
Italy was one of the first countries in Europe to be hit hard by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and Rome insists on people wearing face-masks when entering enclosed spaces such as restaurants.
“The curse of the Emerald summer doesn’t forgive,” wrote Milanese daily Corriere della Sera, while La Repubblica called it “the August curse of the Emerald lifestyle”.
The coastal region is dotted with luxury homes, exclusive restaurants and discotheques, and Italian news reports often abound with stories about parties there with glamorous models, top class champagne and expensive caviar.
One of the best-known hangouts for the rich and famous is the “Le Billionaire” nightclub which belongs to Italian businessman and former managing director of the Benetton Formula One racing team Flavio Briatore.
The nightclub was closed down in August after Briatore and employees tested positive for the coronavirus.
Ten days before, Briatore met Berlusconi at his home along the same coastline, according to local news reports.
Several other celebrities spotted at the nightclub also tested positive for Covid-19, including Bologna football club manager Sinisa Mihajlovic - who underwent treatment for leukaemia last year - reports said.
Local television personalities, some 10 footballers, a boxer and one politician were also infected, the Corriere della Sera reported.
Hugging and kissing grandchildren after they come back from school may not be the “most sensible thing to do”, a leading expert has warned.
Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of Sage, has urged caution against the scale of physical contact between older adults and children who are back at school.
His comments came as thousands of pupils in England and Wales have begun returning to classrooms this week, with the remainder due to open their doors next week.
Addressing a Royal Society of Medicine webinar, Professor Viner said:
I think if there are highly vulnerable clinically shielding grandparents and others, that actually full-on hugging and kissing your grandchildren after they come back from school may not be the most sensible way to behave.
We don’t believe in cutting off all physical contact between children and grandparents, but actually a lot of kissing and that kind of thing might not be the most sensible thing to do.
Keeping children seeing grandparents is important, making sure they wash their hands etc when they come out of school. Being sensible, being relatively secure, I think is the way forward.
When asked about the risks of children returning from school and then seeing their grandparents, Professor Viner said: “I very much understand the anxiety and particularly from families where grandparents or parents are clinically vulnerable and they have been shielding.
“This is also a particular issue I know for lots of multi-generational families from the BAME heritage.”
Professor Viner added: “Clearly children can be asymptomatic, children can be infectious, clearly they can carry risk for adults, there is no pretence that they do not. The truth is that appears to be one of the least common ways that adults get infected.”
Speaking at the same event, Amanda Spielman, chief inspector of Ofsted, called on schools to prioritise exercise for children as it can boost young people’s mental health. She said:
People seem to be paying far more attention to mental health than to physical which I find quite odd, given the importance of physical activity for children’s well-being.
I have noticed very little talk about recovering children’s physical health compared to the amount I have seen about recovering their mental health.
I’d like to do what I can from where I sit to keep reminding people that the physical is important.
I am hoping that lots of schools will feel positively enthusiastic about getting children outside to exercise as much as possible.
Robert Pattinson tests positive for Covid-19, halting Batman production
The actor Robert Pattinson has tested positive for Covid-19, pausing production in the UK of Warner Bros movie The Batman, US media reports.
Warner Bros, the Hollywood studio behind the movie, said in a statement that “a member of The Batman production” had tested positive for the coronavirus, but did not give a name.
“Filming is temporarily paused,” the statement added.
Vanity Fair and the Hollywood Reporter cited unnamed sources as saying the person who tested positive was Pattinson, the film’s star.
Updated
Scotland will require travellers returning from Portugal and French Polynesia from 3am on Saturday to quarantine for 14 days, Scotland’s justice minister Humza Yousaf said.
If arriving into Scotland from Portugal or French Polynesia from 4am Sat (5th Sept) you'll have to self-isolate for 14 days. Gibraltar high up our watch list of countries we are monitoring closely.
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) September 3, 2020
This week's data shows increase in test positivity & cases per 100k in Portugal.
Wales earlier on Thursday also added Portugal to its quarantine list, but England did not do so, despite the number of cases in the country rising above the threshold at which the measure is considered.
Johnson & Johnson said its experimental coronavirus vaccine prevented hamsters from getting severely ill, as the drugmaker seeks to begin large, late-stage studies in humans later this month.
In the pre-clinical study, vaccinated animals lost less weight and had less virus in their lungs and other organs than unvaccinated animals.
The company began early-stage human trials in the US and Belgium in July, after details of a study in monkeys showed its best-performing vaccine candidate offered strong protection in a single dose.
Depending on data from the early-stage trial, J&J plans to begin phase 3 testing in the second half of September.
In the pre-clinical study reported on Thursday, Syrian golden hamsters, which are more susceptible to diseases than monkeys, were first vaccinated and then exposed to the coronavirus after four weeks.
The researchers found low levels of antibodies that can neutralise the virus were tied to high levels of weight loss and viral replication in the lungs.
Israel will impose a partial national lockdown next week to battle a coronavirus infection surge, the head of its pandemic task force has said, showing his exasperation in an emotional television address.
The health official, Ronni Gamzu, said Israel was facing a “pivotal moment” in trying to contain the spread of Covid-19, with some 3,000 new cases now reported daily in a population of nine million.
He put much of the blame on what he called apathy among the Arab minority to social distancing rules and high infection rates in close-knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.
Other health experts have said political in-fighting among members of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government has led to a slow response to a second wave of cases after a national lockdown flattened the infection curve in May.
“Please, no weddings now, no mass gatherings ... anywhere,” Gamzu, his voice rising to a shout, implored on TV. “There are cities in Israel that will be put under curfew and closure in the coming week and face economic, social and personal hardship.”
He spoke after Netanyahu’s “coronavirus cabinet” approved a lockdown of so-called “red towns” with high infection rates. About 30 communities, mainly with Arab or ultra-Orthodox populations, have already been put in that category.
In the Arab town of Nazareth - identified by health authorities as “red” - residents have bypassed restrictions by having wedding parties and receptions at home, packing hundreds of people into driveways or gardens for events usually held in now-closed event halls.
Nazareth’s municipality said after Gamzu spoke that it was being unfairly targeted.
Gamzu said infection rates were also high in Jewish seminaries in ultra-Orthodox areas, and he appealed to religious leaders to ensure social distancing rules were followed.
There have been 122,799 confirmed coronavirus cases in Israel and 976 deaths.
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be running the live blog for the next few hours.
As always, feel free to get in touch with any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Summary
Headlines from today’s coronavirus world news so far include:
-
Global deaths passed 860,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with the current total at 864,415. The highest toll is in the US, where 186,185 people have died. There were 26,112,402 cases worldwide.
- Asia’s total Covid-19 death toll passed 100,000. As of At 9am GMT on Thursday, a total of 100,667 deaths had been attributed to the coronavirus in the region, out of 5,420,803 officially declared cases, with 4,255,760 people considered to have recovered.
- India reported a staggering daily jump of 83,883 coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking its tally to 3.85 million, just 100,000 behind Brazil, the world’s second most affected nation, health ministry data showed. According to Johns Hopkins, this is the second-highest one day total ever reported, with India breaking the world record on 26 August with more than 85,000 cases.
- US public health departments being told to prepare November vaccine distribution. Health officials across the US have reportedly been notified that they should expect a coronavirus vaccine available to health workers and high-risk groups by November, amid concerns the accelerated vaccine development process has become politicised.
- France plans to spend €100bn ($118 bn) to pull its economy out of a deep coronavirus-induced slump. The stimulus equates to 4% of gross domestic product, meaning France is ploughing more public cash into its economy than any other big European country as a percentage of GDP.
- Thailand reported its first locally transmitted coronavirus case in 100 days, after a prison inmate was confirmed to have Covid-19. The 37-year-old tested positive at a prison health centre on Wednesday. Dozens of contacts are now being tested, including his family, people he met in court and other inmates.
-
The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is to start human trials of a potential coronavirus vaccine that it has been developing in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline, after what it said were promising preliminary tests. A protein-based vaccine owned by Sanofi and used to treat influenza was paired with a GSK-developed add-on, known as an adjuvant, that boosts the recipient’s immune response.
- Mexico leads the world in coronavirus deaths among its healthcare workers, Amnesty International has said in a new report. The report said Mexico has 1,320 confirmed deaths among health workers from Covid-19 so far, surpassing the United States at 1,077, the United Kingdom at 649, and Brazil at 634.
-
France registered more than 7,000 new coronavirus infections over 24 hours for the second time in two days, the health ministry said on Thursday, while hospitalisations for the virus also rose again. The number of people in intensive care with the disease also rose again for the fifth consecutive day, up by 18 to 464.
That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for today.
Healthcare workers in South Africa have staged protests against poor working conditions and alleging corruption in the purchase of personal protective equipment, according to the Associated Press.
The protesters, who gathered on Thursday in Pretoria and Cape Town, accused the government of endangering the lives of healthcare workers by leaving clinics and hospitals with inadequate supplies of surgical masks and other protective gear.
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union has threatened that its 200,000 public workers will go on strike on 10 September if their grievances are not addressed.
The pandemic has so far claimed more than 14,300 lives in South Africa, according to official figures. The country has recorded 630,595 positive cases of COVID-19, the highest in Africa, and the sixth-highest in the world. More than 27,300 health workers have tested positive and 230 have died from the disease, according to official figures from last month.
In Pretoria, the capital, protesters marched in front of the offices of the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, at the Union Buildings. They held up placards with messages including “thank you frontline workers” and “remove corrupt officials”.
South Africa has been rocked by allegations of corruption related to the procurement of personal protective equipment.
Among the workers’ demands are that workers who test positive for coronavirus must not be forced to work until they have fully recovered. There are allegations that some managers have forced workers back to work before they have even finished the mandatory quarantine or isolation time.
They have also demanded to be informed of the numbers of new infections at health facilities, as well as danger pay for workers who are on the frontline in the battle against the pandemic.
“When our workers ask for information about infections, they are charged by their managers, yet the minister releases statistics every day, alleged union leader Zola Saphetha.
Filming in the UK of the latest instalment of the Batman film franchise has been suspended after a member of the production team tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Associated Press.
A spokesperson for Warner Bros said on Thursday that the individual is currently self-isolating in accordance with established protocols.
Robert Pattinson is starring as the caped crusader in the new film, named The Batman, which had resumed filming just a few days ago after an almost six-month hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Batman, from director Matt Reeves, was originally supposed to hit cinemas in June 2021 but was pushed back to October because of the delays.
Ireland’s department of health has published its latest coronavirus statistics in a Twitter thread.
Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) September 3, 2020
There have been no new deaths reported to @hpscireland today.
There has been a total of 1,777 #COVID19 related deaths in Ireland.
As of midnight Wednesday 2 September, @hpscireland has been notified of 95 confirmed cases of #COVID19. There is now a total of 29,206* confirmed cases of #COVID19 in Ireland.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) September 3, 2020
Validation of data led to the denotification of 3 cases. The figure of 29,206 reflects this.
Of the #COVID19 cases notified today:
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) September 3, 2020
•52 are men / 43 are women
•67% are under 45 years of age
•47% are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case
•16 cases have been identified as community transmission
•51 in Dublin, 6 in Kildare, 6 in Meath, the remaining 32 cases are Carlow, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Offaly, Tipperary, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) September 3, 2020
For more visit the #COVID19 Data Dashboard: https://t.co/RjyC3RrpgD
France counts more than 7,000 new infections for second day
France registered more than 7,000 new coronavirus infections over 24 hours for the second time in two days, the health ministry said on Thursday, while hospitalisations for the virus also rose again, according to Reuters.
The health ministry reported that the cumulative total of confirmed cases rose to 300,181, up by 7,157 - just shy of a 7,578 record set on March 31. It had reported an increase of 7,017 cases on Wednesday.
The number of people in intensive care with the disease also rose again for the fifth consecutive day, up by 18 to 464.
The independent panel appointed by the World Health Organization to review its response to the coronavirus pandemic has said it will have full access to any documents, materials and emails from the UN health agency.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response will meet on 17 September and every six weeks until next April, before presenting its final report next year.
The panel’s co-chairs, the former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, announced the 11 other members on Thursday. They include Dr. Joanne Liu, who was an outspoken WHO critic while leading Medecins Sans Frontieres during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, according to the Associated Press.
Also on the panel are D. Zhong Nanshan, a renowned Chinese doctor who was the first to publicly confirm human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus; Mark Dybul, who led the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary who is CEO of the International Rescue Committee.
Clark said she and Johnson Sirleaf chose the panel members independently and WHO did not attempt to influence their choices.
“We must honour the more than 25.6 million people known to have contracted the disease and the 850,000 and counting who have died from COVID-19,” Johnson Sirleaf said.
US public health officials prepare for October vaccine rollout
Federal public health officials in the US have asked their state counterparts to prepare to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine to high-risk individuals as early as late October, according to Reuters.
Documents put online by the New York Times showed the Centers for Disease Control, the federal public health agency, is preparing for one or two vaccines for Covid-19 to be available in limited quantities by then.
The timing has taken on political importance as the president, Donald Trump, seeks re-election on 3 November, after committing billions of federal dollars to develop vaccines for the virus, which has so far killed more than 185,000 people in the country.
The CDC “provided states with certain planning assumptions as they work on state specific plans for vaccine distribution, including possibly having limited quantities of vaccines in October and November,” an agency spokeswoman told Reuters.
The vaccines would be made available free of cost first to high-risk groups including healthcare workers, national security personnel, and nursing home residents and staff, the agency said in the documents.
However, preliminary results of a survey conducted over the last three months in 19 countries showed that only about 70% of British and U.S. respondents would take a Covid-19 vaccine if available, Scott Ratzan, co-leader of a group called Business Partners to Convince, told Reuters in August.
Updated
Few industries have been hit as hard by the coronavirus pandemic as the nightclub industry. A live panel is currently taking place on YouTube with leading club owners and promoters from across the world.
Leading club owners and promoters from across the world are discussing the future of clubbing right now
— Mixmag (@Mixmag) September 3, 2020
Watch the panel courtesy of @unsound https://t.co/qy71RukbcH
India reported a record daily rise of 83,883 coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking its total to 3.85 million cases, just as the country pushed ahead with attempting a return to normality and kickstarting its economy, writes Hannah Ellis-Petersen, the Guardian’s south Asia correspondent.
India now has the fastest growing Covid-19 infection rate in the world, and is only 100,000 cases behind Brazil, the second worst-affected country in the world. Experts are predicting that the south Asian nation will soon overtake Brazil (4 million) and then the US (6.1 million) to hold the dubious title of having the highest number of cases globally.
Shahid Jameel, a virologist and CEO of the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance, said that the situation in India did “not look pretty”, adding: “Of the three top countries only India is showing a rising curve. This is a matter of grave concern and there is an urgent need to reverse the trend.”
Jameel placed much of the blame for the rampant spread of the virus on public apathy, which he said arose from “the constant narrative from central and state governments of rising recovery rates and low mortality”. He said this was a false depiction of the situation on the ground.
“People are not using the only scientifically proven methods to limit transmission: wearing masks properly in public and maintaining safe distancing,” he said.
A man has been expelled from Norway and handed a €1,900 fine, and also banned from returning to the country for two years, according to AFP.
The man was caught breaking quarantine regulations in the western county of More og Romsdal, about a week after arriving from Germany having flown via the Netherlands.
Norway requires travellers arriving from most European countries, including both Germany and the Netherlands, to quarantine themselves for 10 days to curb the spread of Covid-19.
France has put jobs at the heart of its economic rescue plan
The French government has said employment would be paramount as it unleashed a colossal spending plan for its virus-hit economy that has been haemorrhaging jobs.
The prime minister, Jean Castex, promised 160,000 new jobs next year as part of a recovery plan worth €100bn ($120bn), launched at a time when daily virus numbers in France are again on the rise.
“The ambition and size of this plan are historic,” Castex told reporters after a cabinet meeting backing the stimulus package, which he said would help return the French economy to its pre-pandemic level by 2022.
The economy has experienced its worst downward spiral since 1945, with gross domestic product (GDP) plunging by 13.8% in the second quarter, after a drop of more than 5% in the first.
Updated
Norway will impose a 10-day quarantine on all people arriving from Italy and Slovenia from 5 September due to rising numbers of coronavirus cases in those countries.
Restrictions will also apply to the Vatican and San Marino, but will be eased for those coming from Cyprus and six regions of Sweden and one in Denmark, the Norwegian foreign ministry said in a statement.
To try to prevent a domestic resurgence of the coronavirus, Norway quarantines all travellers from countries with more than 20 confirmed new coronavirus cases per 100,000 population during the past two weeks.
It also advises Norwegians against travelling to those nations.
With its latest additions to the list, Norway will be restricting travel from most countries, only allowing quarantine-free travel from EU countries Hungary, Slovakia, Finland, Cyprus and the Baltic states and parts of Denmark and Sweden.
Hi, I’ve taken over the blog for a short while whilst Damien has a well deserved break. Please email me with any tips and stories: nazia.parveen@theguardian.com or follow me on Twitter to send me a DM: https://twitter.com/NParveenG
Nepali police fired tear gas and water cannons to halt a chariot festival that drew hundreds of Hindus and Buddhists onto the streets in defiance of coronavirus restrictions.
The police said at least four of its personnel were injured and a water cannon truck damaged in the clash. Festival participants were also hurt but their number was not known.
People come from across the Kathmandu Valley each year to see the 15 meter-high (49ft) wooden chariot carrying the rain deity Macchindra Nath pulled through the streets of Lalitpur, near the capital.
Updated
Mexico leads the world in healthcare worker deaths from Covid-19
Mexico leads the world in coronavirus deaths among its healthcare workers, Amnesty International has said in a new report, according to Associated Press.
The report said Mexico has reported 1,320 confirmed deaths among health workers from Covid-19 so far, surpassing the United States at 1,077, the United Kingdom at 649, and Brazil at 634. Amnesty’s research found that at least 7,000 health workers have died around the world after catching the coronavirus.
It is likely to revive debate about Mexico’s extremely low coronavirus testing rate, with fewer than one in 100 Mexicans tested. While Mexican officials have said all healthcare workers have received one test, that appears insufficient for people who face daily exposure over months.
Health professionals in Mexico have also held many protests over a lack of adequate personal protective equipment.
Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of economic and social justice, said:
For over seven thousand people to die while trying to save others is a crisis on a staggering scale. Every health worker has the right to be safe at work, and it is a scandal that so many are paying the ultimate price.
Many months into the pandemic, health workers are still dying at horrific rates in countries such as Mexico, Brazil and the USA, while the rapid spread of infections in South Africa and India show the need for all states to take action.
There must be global cooperation to ensure all health workers are provided with adequate protective equipment, so they can continue their vital work without risking their own lives.
Updated
Billed by the economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, as a “big green recovery plan”, one-third of France’s major €100bn (£90bn) post-Covid economic stimulus package will be spent, in the government’s words, on “ecological transition” and “greening the economy”, writes Jon Henley, the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, in Paris.
Environmental groups said the plan, presented on Thursday by the prime minister, Jean Castex, and other cabinet members, marked a welcome first step – but criticised a missed opportunity to break decisively with a growth-driven, high-carbon economy.
“After multiple announcements of a plan meant to ‘reconcile economy and ecology’, the government has presented a recovery plan from a bygone era,” said Jean-François Julliard, the head of Greenpeace France. “It’s a lot less green than it looks.”
The overall package, aimed at pulling France out of a deep Covid-induced slump, equates to 4% of GDP – more than any other big EU country – and has three key objectives: increasing competitiveness, boosting jobs, and greening the economy.
The main environmental measures focus on transport, energy production and energy-efficient renovation programmes for public buildings, offices and homes. A further €1.5bn is to be spent on greening the food sector, for example by developing shorter supply chains, and the fishing industry.
Really, you have to pity these gym goers in New York who are forced to work out while wearing face masks. Similar rules do not apply in UK gyms.
New York gyms reopen with new safety rules pic.twitter.com/RJGB3Rj2bW
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 3, 2020
So it turns out that even rocks can get coronavirus.
Pro-wrestler turned Hollywood actor Dwayne Johnson, known as The Rock, said in a video message posted on social media on Wednesday that he, his wife and their two young children tested positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks and he had “a rough go”.
They have all recovered and are healthy, he said, while urging the public to wear face masks to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Johnson, 48, said in the Instagram post that he and his wife, Lauren, 35, and their daughters Jasmine, four, and Tiana, two, caught the virus less than three weeks ago from “very close family friends” whom he said had no idea how they had become infected.
“I can tell you this has been one of the most challenging and difficult things we have ever had to endure as a family, and for me personally,” he said in the video.
Updated
The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is to start human trials of a potential coronavirus vaccine that it has been developing in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline, after what it said were promising preliminary tests.
The launch of phase one and two trials represent an “important stage and another step towards the development of a potential vaccine to help us beat Covid-19,” Thomas Triomphe, Sanofi Pasteur’s executive vice-president, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The vaccine combines leading technology from both Sanofi and GSK.
A protein-based vaccine owned by Sanofi and used to treat influenza was paired with a GSK-developed add-on, known as an adjuvant, that boosts the recipient’s immune response.
“The pre-clinical trials show a promising security profile and immunogenity,”, that is, the ability to bring about an immune response, a Sanofi statement said.
The companies’ labs are to recruit 440 healthy participants to carry out tests where neither those tested nor observers know who has received a vaccine and who has been given a placebo. The tests are designed to evaluate the vaccine’s safety, tolerability and immune response.
“Positive data will enable a prompt start of the pivotal phase 3 trial by the end of this year,” Roger Connor, the president of GSK Vaccines, said in reference to the final step before a vaccine is brought to market.
In May, GSK said that the “science has moved on” since concerns were raised about links between narcolepsy and its H1N1 vaccine, called Pandemrix, which was developed during the flu pandemic 10 years ago.
Previous studies in several countries, including Britain, Finland, Sweden and Ireland, where GSK’s Pandemrix vaccine was used in the 2009/2010 flu pandemic, had suggested its use was linked to a significant rise in cases of narcolepsy in children.
Pandemrix’s ingredients included a booster, or adjuvant, known as AS03, which GSK said on Thursday it planned to produce in large volume for possible use in Covid-19 vaccines currently being developed to fight the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
AS03 could potentially be an ingredient in at least seven experimental Covid-19 vaccines, including one being developed by Sanofi, with whom GSK signed a collaboration deal in April.
Updated
As few as 1,500 cases of coronavirus could push the health system in Gaza to breaking point, an NGO has warned as community transmission of the virus spreads in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Sahar Atrache, senior advocate for the Middle East for Refugees International, said that with fewer than 100 intensive care beds, the healthcare system in the Gaza strip could soon be overrun by coronavirus cases.
Gaza, which is subject to a blockade by both Egypt and Israel, had managed to avoid community transmission of coronavirus until about 10 days ago. Since then 258 confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been detected.
From 6 August until Monday, Israeli forces had bombed Gaza almost daily in response to balloon-mounted incendiary devices and, less frequently, rockets launched across the border.
Atrache said:
For the first six months of the pandemic, the Gaza Strip managed to avoid the worst of the virus. Now that is changing. Over the last 10 days, the enclave has suffered its first outbreak of community transmission and the number of confirmed cases now stands at 258. As few as 1,500 cases could push Gaza’s fragile healthcare system to a breaking point. Gaza has fewer than 100 functioning ICU beds and even fewer ventilators. Without immediate action, the outbreak of Covid-19 will be impossible to contain.
Donor governments and the WHO should provide extra ventilators, PPE, and testing kits to help Gaza cope, and Israel should immediately remove restrictions that prevent entry into Gaza of goods and building materials intended for the humanitarian and health sectors.
Updated
Several people have been injured in Nepal after police fired teargas and water cannon at thousands of protesters who had defied the country’s coronavirus lockdown to take part in a religious festival on Thursday.
Thousands had gathered in the city of Lalitpur where a five-storey chariot holding a statue of the deity Rato Machindranath was built but parked for months because of a government ban on the annual festival. The statue is normally pulled around the city for a month.
Police officers in riot gear blocked the protesters when they moved the chariot, dousing them with water cannons and firing teargar to disperse the protesters, who in return threw stones at the police, according to the Associated Press.
The clash continued for hours and spread to the small cobble stone alleys in the city, which is south of the capital, Kathmandu.
Outdoor festivals and religious gatherings have been banned since March, when a nationwide lockdown was first imposed to stop the spread of coronavirus. The lockdown was lifted in July, but Kathmandu and surrounding districts have been on a lockdown since last month that prohibits people from leaving their homes.
Despite the strict measures, the number of virus cases has continued to climb, prompting the government to impose prohibition orders in districts with the most cases.
Travel is still restricted and the airport is allowing only a limited number of international flights since this week. Borders are officially closed and tourists are not allowed to enter Nepal.
Nepal recorded 1,228 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday, and six more deaths. Since the pandemic began in the Himalayan country, there have been a total 42,877 confirmed cases, of whom 257 have died.
Updated
Thailand reports first locally transmitted case in 100 days
Thailand has reported its first locally transmitted coronavirus case in 100 days, after a prison inmate was confirmed to have Covid-19, writes Rebecca Ratcliffe, the Guardian’s south-east Asia correspondent.
The 37-year-old man, who works as a DJ, tested positive at a prison health centre on Wednesday. Dozens of contacts are now being tested, including his family members, people he met in court and other inmates. He had been arrested for drug offences on 26 August.
Thailand had gone months without registering any new cases, and it’s not clear how the man became infected. The last local case was on 24 May.
The country has managed to avoid a major outbreak, despite its capital, Bangkok, being one of the world’s most visited cities. Since January, when Thailand became the first country outside of China to record a case of Covid-19, officials have confirmed 58 deaths.
Lockdown measures that were introduced in March – including a curfew and alcohol ban – have since been eased and businesses have reopened. Strict border measures, however, remain in place. Thai people returning must spend 14 days in designated quarantine facilities, while tourists are not allowed to enter the country. The absence of foreign travellers has dealt a huge blow to the economy, leaving hotels and bars empty.
Confirmation of the case comes ahead of a four-day long weekend, when large numbers of people are expected to travel. The holiday is being held to make up for the loss of Songkran, a water festival celebrating the traditional Thai New Year, which is usually held in April but was postponed due to Covid-19.
Updated
The former UK foreign secretary, David Miliband, and a former Mexican president, Ernesto Zedillo, have been named as members of an independent panel examining how the World Health Organization and member states handled the Covid-19 pandemic.
The co-chairs of the panel, the former New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, and former Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, issued the list of the other 11 members on Thursday.
“We intend to learn all that we can about [the pandemic’s] early emergence, global spread, health, economic and social impacts, and how it has been controlled and mitigated,” Clark said in a statement, seen by Reuters.
Clark and Johnson Sirleaf were announced as co-chairs of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness & Response (IPPR) on 9 July. In November the panel will present an interim report at the resumption of the World Health Assembly.
Updated
The reproduction number of coronavirus in Scotland is likely above one, and could be as high as 1.4, the country’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said.
In her latest coronavirus briefing on Thursday afternoon, Sturgeon said another 101 people had tested positive for coronavirus. Of those, 53 were in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde areas, she said.
One further death has been reported, Sturgeon said – although the death occurred in mid-August and has only just been reported.
She said the Scottish government would be publishing its latest estimate for R, the reproduction number, in Scotland. If R is above 1, that means the spread of the virus is increasing, not decreasing.
For more UK-related coronavirus news, follow our other live blog:
Updated
Just six people in Hong Kong have tested positive for coronavirus out of a batch of 128,000 residents who underwent a mass-testing programme that began on Tuesday, Associated Press reports.
Four of the six were previous coronavirus patients who had been discharged last month and still carried traces of the virus when they were tested.
As of Thursday, 850,000 people in the city of 7.5 million had registered to take part in the week-long programme that offers all residents a one-time, free coronavirus test as the city seeks to identify silent carriers of the virus.
The low number of positive cases found so far has drawn criticism that the government’s universal testing programme was not cost-effective amid privacy concerns and fears that DNA data could be sent to mainland China.
Hong Kong experienced its third and worst surge of coronavirus infections in early July. At its peak, Hong Kong recorded more than 100 local cases a day, after going weeks without any in June. Cases have steadily dwindled following tough restrictions, including limiting dining-in hours and shuttering businesses such as bars and karaoke lounges.
Apart from the six people, Hong Kong reported eight other coronavirus infections on Thursday.
In total it has reported 4,839 confirmed cases with 93 deaths.
Updated
Iran has counted 129 more deaths from coronavirus, bringing the country’s total death toll from the pandemic to 21,926.
Sima Sadat Lari, the spokeswoman for the health ministry, also said that 1,944 new confirmed cases were detected in the past 24 hours, of which 1,063 had been admitted to hospital, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
So far 380,746 Iranians have caught the coronavirus, according to official figures, with 328,595 having recovered while 3,702 patients were in hospital in a critical condition.
The country of about 84 million people has carried out a total 3,307,383 tests.
Updated
As countries entered lockdowns to mitigate the impact of Covid-19, many citizens came out to protest against measures such as social distancing, face masks and potential vaccination programmes.
Demonstrations have subsequently erupted around the world, with causes ranging from the Black Lives Matter movement to protests against inequality and corruption.
In the latest edition of the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast, Nicola Davis asks Prof Clifford Stott why pandemics can trigger social unrest, how disease outbreaks should be policed, and what Covid-19 might mean for community relationships
Updated
Spain not heading back to lockdown, says health minister
The current Covid-19 situation in Spain does not bear comparison with the peak of the pandemic in March, according to the country’s health minister, who has suggested a return to lockdown is unnecessary, writes Sam Jones, the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent.
On Wednesday, Spain recorded 479,554 cases of the virus, up from 470,973 the previous day. Madrid continues to be the hardest-hit region of the country, accounting for more than a third of the cases diagnosed over the past 24 hours and a similar proportion of the 99,621 diagnosed over the past fortnight.
However, Salvador Illa said things were not nearly as grave as they were six months ago.
“We’re seeing an increase in cases, but there’s no comparison with what we saw in March; the system isn’t overwhelmed,” he told Cadena Ser Catalunya radio. “We need to take concrete measures and we are.”
Illa also rejected calls for Madrid to be isolated from the surrounding regions to limit the spread of the virus beyond the capital.
On Wednesday, the president of the neighbouring region of Castilla-La Mancha claimed that “80% of the cases we’ve got came from the radioactive viral bomb that was planted in Madrid”.
Illa said: “To be totally clear and honest, a lockdown of Madrid’s perimeters isn’t going to happen.”
Delays in receiving and processing information from Spain’s 17 autonomous regions mean there are sometimes lags when it comes to updating figures. Although the health ministry announced 8,581 additional cases on Wednesday, it said that only 3,663 new cases had been diagnosed over the previous 24 hours.
When the pandemic was at its peak on 31 March, Spain had 9,222 new cases and 849 deaths in a single day. According to the latest figures from the ministry, there have been 177 deaths from the virus in Spain over the past seven days.
Updated
Asia's Covid-19 death toll passes 100,000
There have been more than 100,000 coronavirus-related deaths across Asia since the virus first emerged in December, according to a tally of official statistics collated by the AFP news agency.
At 9am GMT on Thursday, a total of 100,667 deaths had been attributed to the coronavirus in the region out of 5,420,803 officially declared cases, with 4,255,760 people considered to have recovered.
In terms of fatalities, India is the most affected country with nearly three-quarters of total deaths in the region – 67,376 deaths from 3,853,406 cases.
India is the most affected country with nearly three-quarters of total deaths in the region – 67,376 deaths from 3,853,406 cases. It is followed by Indonesia with 7,616 deaths from 180,646 cases and Pakistan (6,328 deaths, 297,014 cases).
Updated
Hi, this is Damien Gayle taking the reins on the liveblog from Aamna Mohdin now. I’ll be with you for the next eight or so hours, bringing you the latest coronavirus-related updates and headlines from around the world.
If you have any comments, tips or suggestions, feel free to drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter DM to @damiengayle.
Amazon is taking on 7,000 permanent staff in the UK and recruiting 20,000 seasonal workers as it gears up for a busy festive season.
The new recruits, including engineers, IT specialists, warehouse workers and health and safety experts, will work across more than 50 sites, including Amazon’s corporate offices and two new delivery warehouses which will open in the autumn in Durham and Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.
Temporary workers will also help operate three pop-up parcel packing centres which will open for the busy Christmas period when online retail is expected to gain an even bigger slice of the market as shoppers continue to shun the high street.
The online retailer and IT services provider said the new jobs were on top of 3,000 new permanent UK-based roles already created this year at its warehouses and depots.
Spain’s ERTE furlough scheme will be extended “as long as is necessary,” the labour minister, Yolanda Díaz, said on Thursday in an interview with the IB3 radio station.
Reuters reports she said the scheme, which is currently due to end on 30 September, will continue to provide furloughed workers with 70% of their base salary for the first six months, before dropping to 50% for the following months.
Updated
Greece’s GDP shrank 14% between April and June, marking the steepest quarterly contraction in at least 25 years, Reuters reports.
The contraction, brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, threatened to undermine a decade of hard-won gains for the recently bailed-out economy.
The record slump, announced by statistics service ELSTAT, was not Europe’s worst, but it confirmed expectations for a sharp contraction over the second and third quarters, induced by the lockdown that authorities imposed in March to contain the coronavirus.
GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi are to start testing their protein-based Covid-19 vaccine on humans for the first time, following promising results in earlier studies.
GSK, the world’s largest vaccine maker, and the French drugmaker Sanofi joined forces in April to work on an effective treatment to halt the devastating pandemic.
The vaccine being developed by London-headquartered GSK and Paris-based Sanofi combines existing technology used by Sanofi to make its flu vaccine, along with an add-on from GSK, known as an adjuvant, which can be mixed with a vaccine to trigger a stronger immune reaction.
The firms said the clinical trial, which involves 440 healthy adults in the US, was designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immune response of the vaccine, and it is hoped that first results will be received in early December 2020.
A phase 3 trial could begin before the end of the year, which would involve the vaccine being given to thousands of people, and if successful, GSK and Sanofi would request regulatory approval in the first half of 2021.
France plans €100bn stimulus to counter Covid slump
France plans to spend €100bn ($118 bn) to pull its economy out of a deep coronavirus-induced slump, Reuters reports.
The stimulus equates to 4% of gross domestic product, meaning France is ploughing more public cash into its economy than any other big European country as a percentage of GDP, an official said ahead of its formal launch later on Thursday.
France’s recession, marked by a 13.8% second quarter GDP contraction that coincided with the country’s Covid-19 lockdown and is set to generate an 11% drop in 2020 as a whole, has also been one of Europe’s deepest.
The stimulus package earmarks €35bn to make the economy more competitive, €30 bn for more environmentally friendly energy policies and €25bn for supporting jobs, officials said.
Updated
India reported a staggering daily jump of 83,883 coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking its tally to 3.85 million, just 100,000 behind Brazil, the world’s second most affected nation, health ministry data showed, Reuters reports.
Updated
South Korea has vowed to double its critical care hospital beds amid a severe shortage, Reuters reports.
The spike in serious cases, as older people make up an increasing proportion of patients amid a broader resurgence, marks a sharp turn for a country that was seen as successful in crushing one of the worst early outbreaks of coronavirus outside China.
Fewer than 10 intensive-care beds were available in the greater Seoul area, a metropolis of 26 million people, as of Tuesday, health authorities said.
The health ministry said it would spend 100bn won ($84m) to acquire 500 beds for severely-ill patients nationwide by the middle of next year, aiming to secure at least 110 by the end of the month.
Updated
Indonesia reported 3,622 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, a record high in daily cases, and 134 new deaths, data from the country’s Covid-19 task force showed.
Reuters reports the number of new daily deaths reported was the highest since 22 July. That brought the latest Covid-19 tally in south-east Asia’s biggest country to 184,268 infections and 7,750 deaths.
Updated
The Czech Republic reported 650 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, its highest number for a single day since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Reuters reports the latest cases, recorded by the health ministry over the previous 24 hours, took the overall number of cases reported since March to 25,773 in the country of 10.7 million. The Czech Republic has registered 425 deaths associated with Covid-19, a lower toll than many of its fellow EU member states.
Updated
Pharmaceutical firms GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi Pasteur have enrolled more than 400 people for a human clinical trial of their Covid-19 vaccine candidate, PA Media reports.
The UK government has already signed a deal with the companies for 60m doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine.
A total of 440 healthy adults are taking part in the trial across 11 sites in the US and the companies anticipate initial results in early December.
The companies aim to move into a phase three trial by the end of the year if the first two phases go well. If the data is sufficient for licensure application, the companies plan to request regulatory approval in the first half of 2021.
Updated
Guardian journalist Katie McQue has written a devastating report on the migrant workers trapped in crowded labour camps in Dubai because they have no salary or money to pay for flights home.
Russia reported 4,995 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing its national tally to 1,009,995, the fourth largest in the world, Reuters reports.
Russia’s coronavirus taskforce said 114 people had died over the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 17,528.
Singapore health authorities have detected new coronavirus clusters at foreign worker dormitories previously found to be clear of the infection, Reuters reports.
The vast majority of Singapore’s nearly 57,000 cases are from cramped dormitories that house more than 300,000 mostly South Asian workers employed in sectors such as construction and ship-building.
Authorities declared last month that all workers living in dormitories had recovered or had been tested to be free from Covid-19.
But, over the last two weeks new clusters have emerged. On Wednesday, the health ministry said clusters were detected at three more dormitories after finding links between cases.
Updated
Liz Szabo of Kaiser Health News, and the Associated Press report:
Millions of Americans are counting on a Covid-19 vaccine to curb the global pandemic and return life to normal.
While one or more options could be available toward the end of this year or early next, the path to delivering vaccines to a population of 330 million people remains unclear for the local health officials expected to carry out the work.
“We haven’t gotten a lot of information about how this is going to roll out,” said Umair Shah, executive director of Texas’ Harris county public health department, which includes Houston.
Two in five working mothers with children under 10 in Britain are struggling to find the childcare they need, as breakfast and after-school clubs remain shut and care from friends and family remains limited, according to a survey for the TUC.
The lack of access to childcare has resulted in a crisis that risks turning the clock back on decades of labour market progress, warned Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress.
She said:
Women workers have borne the brunt of this crisis – both on the frontline and at home.
But this can’t go on. If we don’t take this childcare crisis seriously, women will be pushed out of the workforce.
The ICM survey found that 41% of working mothers with children under 10 cannot get, or are unsure whether they will get, enough childcare to cover the hours they need from this month.
Nearly half (45%) said they do not have their usual help from friends and family, while 35% said they cannot get places at after-school clubs and 28% have lost childcare provided by school breakfast clubs. The same proportion (28%) do not have their usual nursery or childminder available.
UK health secretory Matt Hancock said the country’s coronavirus testing regime is working “well” despite some people being directed to centres more than 100 miles away, according to a report by PA.
He told Sky News the issue was part of the reason why the Government was investing in trials of 20-minute Covid-19 tests.
Hancock said:
At the moment the system works well. Of course there are operational challenges from time to time but it works well.
And we’re finding a higher and higher proportion of people in the country who have coronavirus and getting them tests so they can be looked after.
But absolutely we need to roll out more testing - we have done throughout this crisis and today’s another step in solving some of those problems with the existing technology.
Vietnam plans to restart international commercial flights to and from six Asian cities from mid-September, Reuters reports citing state media. The move ends months of coronavirus-related suspension after easing some restrictions on foreign business travellers.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) is proposing resuming flights to Guangzhou, Seoul, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Taipei and Tokyo, which would mean about 5,000 travellers arriving each week, the transport ministry-run Giao Thong newspaper reported.
Those arriving must still undergo two weeks of quarantine, according to health ministry requirements, unless the duration of their visit is under 14 days.
Vietnam has not yet reopened to tourists.
Hello, I’m Aamna, a news reporter in London, taking over the liveblog for the next few hours. If you want to contact me, you can email me (aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com) or tweet me (@aamnamohdin)
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along.
My colleague Aamna Mohdin will be taking the baton now.
In Australia, the Victorian state government spent AU$1m (£550,000) on consultants for the botched hotel quarantine program, as costs for managing returned travellers went tens of millions of dollars over budget.
Documents tabled to the Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry last week reveal the program, as of the end of June, had blown out by $24m, to over $130m forecast for the year, but this was reduced to just over $11m for the state government when accounting for the commonwealth contribution under the national partnership agreement:
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Global deaths passed 860,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with the current total at 861,668.The highest toll is in the US, where 185,707 people have died. There are 26,031,410 cases worldwide.
- India reported a staggering daily jump of 83,883 coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking its tally to 3.85 million, just 100,000 behind Brazil, the world’s second most affected nation, health ministry data showed. According to Johns Hopkins, this is the second-highest one day total ever reported, with India breaking the world record on 26 August with more than 85,000 cases.
- US public health departments being told to prepare November vaccine distribution. Health officials across the US have reportedly been notified that they should expect a coronavirus vaccine available to health workers and high-risk groups by November, amid concerns the accelerated vaccine development process has become politicized.
- Trump plans to cut dues to WHO immediately. The Trump administration is planning to cut its membership dues to the World Health Organization, in a legally controversial move that will be challenged by Congress.
- Australia’s Victoria state on Thursday reported a triple digit rise in new Covid-19 infections for the first time in four days, denting optimism that a second wave of cases has been contained. Victoria state said 113 new cases were detected in the past 24 hours, up on the 90 infections reported on Wednesday.
- Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll appears to be easing for the first time since May, a sign the Latin American country could be descending from a long infection plateau that has seen it suffer the world’s second-worst outbreak after the United States. With nearly 4 million confirmed cases, the virus has killed over 120,000 people in Brazil. But the level of average daily deaths dropped below 900 per day last week - the lowest in three and a half months and below the rate of both the United States and India, according to a Reuters tally.
- Italy’s former prime minister the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi announced Wednesday that he had tested positive for coronavirus and is in quarantine at home. Berlusconi, who once owned AC Milan, stressed that he would continue his political activities.
- Turkey seeing second peak of Covid-19 outbreak, health minister says. Turkey is seeing a second peak of its coronavirus outbreak due to “carelessness” at weddings and other social gatherings, its health minister has said, amid a rapid rise in the number of daily cases and deaths.
- France’s new Covid-19 infections near all-time high. Daily new Covid-19 infections in France neared an all-time high on Wednesday and the number of people hospitalised in intensive care units for the disease grew at its fastest pace in almost two months.
- Nancy Pelosi claims to have been “set up” after she was photographed in a San Francisco hair salon without a face covering. “I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighbourhood salon that I’ve been to many times,” the House speaker said. “It was a setup, and I take responsibility for falling for a setup.”
- Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has tested positive for coronavirus. Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon who served as Italy’s prime minister in four governments, has tested positive for Covid-19. The 83-year-old is currently in isolation and working from home at his house in Arcore, near Milan, his staff said.
- Madrid president says most returning schoolchildren likely to contract Covid-19. The president of Madrid, the Spanish area hardest hit by the coronavirus, has said that “practically all the children” about to return to school in the region are likely to pick up the virus over the coming months.
- Major study finds steroids cut death rates among Covid-19 patients. Treating critically ill Covid-19 patients with corticosteroid drugs reduces the risk of death by 20%, an analysis of seven international trials has found, prompting the World Health Organization to update its advice on treatment.
- Nasal swab followed by antibody test may catch incorrect Covid-19 diagnoses. Testing people twice for the coronavirus, with a nasal swab followed by an antibody finger prick test, would catch most of those people who fail to get the right Covid-19 diagnosis, researchers believe.
Italian vaccine manufacturers are scrambling to produce millions of flu vaccination doses amid concern there will not be enough to meet demand this autumn and winter.
The country’s 20 regional authorities have so far ordered 17m doses between them – almost 50% more than in 2019 – as they seek to prevent the country’s health services from becoming overwhelmed in the event of a serious resurgence of Covid-19.
Vaccinations will be offered free of charge to children, people over the age of 60 (recently reduced from 65), health workers and those with underlying health conditions. The health ministry will launch an information campaign on 1 October in an attempt to boost coverage of an immunisation that is usually taken up by about 53% of the population each year:
Half of all refugee children were already out of school before the coronavirus hit, and the UN cautioned Thursday the pandemic risked deepening a crisis robbing millions of future prospects, AFP reports.
A new report from the UNHCR refugee agency warned that many refugee children, especially girls, who had attended school before the novel coronavirus swept the world would not be able to return.
“After everything they have endured, we cannot rob them of their futures by denying them an education today,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in a statement, calling for action to support refugees’ right to an education.
The report, using data from 12 countries that host more than half of the world’s refugee children, found that more than 1.8 million of them - or a full 48 percent of all refugee children of school age - are out of school.
Around 77% of the refugee children were enrolled in primary school, but only 31% attended secondary school and 3% were in higher education, the report showed.
While the UNHCR said a shift in methodology made it difficult to compare with data from previous years, it noted the statistics, dire as they look, actually represent a small improvement.
India reports 83,883 new cases
India reported a staggering daily jump of 83,883 coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking its tally to 3.85 million, just 100,000 behind Brazil, the world’s second most affected nation, health ministry data showed, Reuters reports.
Asia’s worst-hit country has been posting the world’s largest daily caseload every day for almost a month, although deaths remain relatively low.
The ministry said 1,043 people died from Covid-19, taking the toll to 67,376.
According to Johns Hopkins, this is the second-highest one day total ever reported, with India breaking the world record on 26 August with more than 85,000 cases.
Equities rallied in Asia on Thursday following another blow-out session on Wall Street as investors bet that the global economy is on the right track, fuelled by new vaccine hopes and central bank largesse, AFP reports.
Traders were even willing to overlook a well-below-forecast US private-sector jobs report and China-US tensions, with the fear of missing out on healthy returns keeping the money rolling into markets.
Payrolls firm ADP said the US added 428,000 new jobs in August, a third of what was expected, and boding ill ahead of the release of Friday’s much-anticipated government data, which is used as a guide for the state of the world’s top economy.
Still, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq clocked up yet more record highs and the Dow jumped an impressive 1.6%.
US officials have called on states to prepare to distribute a possible vaccine by November 1 - two days before the presidential election.
Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an August 27 letter that state leaders should consider waiving requirements that would “prevent these facilities from becoming fully operational by Nov. 1, 2020”.
The CDC explained details of a rollout plan, adding that they would either be approved as licensed vaccines or under emergency use authorisation.
In Australia, education experts are warning that schools will need to be specially equipped to help students stranded overseas to catch up on missed classes when they return, as trapped Australian children contemplate repeating a grade.
The alarm has been echoed by federal opposition’s education spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, with the Australian Education Union also warning that schools in general are under-resourced to support Covid-19-affected student learning.
On Wednesday, updated government statistics showed 23,000 Australians overseas wanted to return home but cannot, as the foreign minister, Marise Payne, acknowledged Australia’s strict international arrival caps “are making it harder” for them to do so.
Airlines warn flying back 100,000 stranded Australians will take six months unless travel caps easedRead more
The number of Australians who registered their intention with the government has increased by 5,000 over a fortnight:
In Australia, the arrest of a pregnant Victorian woman for incitement over a proposed anti-lockdown rally was done “entirely reasonably”, even though Victoria Police concede the incident looked “terrible”, AAP reports.
For those unfamiliar with this story, see Michael McGowan’s report here. It did, as the police coyly said, look terrible.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,311 to 246,166, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.
The reported death toll rose by eight to 9,321, the tally showed.
Updated
Deaths pass 860,000
The number of coronavirus-related deaths has passed 860,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with the current total at 861,668.
The highest toll is in the US, where 185,707 people have died.
Australian exports fell sharply in July after being one of the rare bright spots during the economy’s crash during the June quarter that confirmed the nation’s first recession since the early 1990s, AAP reports.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data on Thursday showed the international trade balance of goods and services surplus almost halved in July to $4.6 billion from $8.1 billion in June.
This was the result of a 4% fall in exports in the month compared to a 7% surge in imports.
New construction data also showed the industry remains in deep decline, not helped by the harsh Covid-19 restrictions in Victoria.
The Australian Industry Group/Housing Industry Association performance of construction index fell 4.8 points to 37.9, well below the 50-mark that separates contraction in the sector from expansion.
“The sharp fall in activity in Victoria was a major factor in the downturn while border restrictions in other states have hampered builders and constructors who are reliant on interstate supplies and the availability of tradies from across borders,” Ai Group head of policy Peter Burn said.
The figures come hot on the heels of Wednesday national accounts which showed the economy shrank by seven per cent in the June quarter, the biggest contraction since the late 1990s.
The number of empty shops on UK high streets has risen to its highest level in six years as city centres, and especially London, suffer from a dive in visitor numbers.
Nearly 11% of shops remained vacant in July compared with 9.8% in January, with the number of empty premises rising in six out of 10 UK regions, according to retail analysis firm Springboard. Greater London suffered by far the worst blow, with empty shops increasing by nearly two-thirds.
The rise in shut-up shops comes as the number of visitors to large city centres continues to drop.High streets, including city centres, saw nearly 40% fewer visitors in August compared with the same month last year, according to Springboard:
New Zealand has reported 2 new coronavirus cases today, the health department announced, bringing the total active cases to 115.
Here is the full story on Victoria’s new cases:
Podcast: is it safe for children to go back to school?
As millions of children in England and Wales return to class, the Observer’s science editor, Robin McKie, weighs up the potential health impact:
Victoria, Australia reports triple-digit case rise for first time in four days
Australia’s Victoria state on Thursday reported a triple digit rise in new Covid-19 infections for the first time in four days, denting optimism that a second wave of cases has been contained, Reuters reports.
Victoria state said 113 new cases were detected in the past 24 hours, up on the 90 infections reported on Wednesday.
Australia has now recorded more than 26,000 Covid-19 cases, while the death toll rose to 678 after 15 people in Victoria state died from the virus.
Victoria’s capital Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, is in its fifth week of a six-week lockdown. Authorities are scheduled to detail a timetable for easing curbs on Sunday.
Though strict restrictions have helped to prevent the spread of the virus beyond Victoria, they have wreaked havoc on the economy with official data on Wednesday showing Australia had entered its first recession in three decades.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi says she was ‘set up’ after she was photographed in a San Francisco hair salon without a face covering, breaking the city’s coronavirus prevention rules. ‘I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighbourhood salon that I have been to over the years many times,’ she said. ‘I don’t wear a mask when I’m washing my hair. Do you wear a mask when you’re washing your hair?’
Security camera footage of Pelosi in the salon was obtained by Fox News, sparking outcry over the incident which was pounced on by Donald Trump:
Joe Biden attempted to regain the narrative in the US presidential election on Wednesday, telling Donald Trump to “get off Twitter” and focus on safely reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Democratic nominee sought to put the virus back at the heart of the campaign after two weeks that saw the president capitalise on sporadic violence in American cities, which has blighted largely peaceful protests over police brutality and systemic racism, to push a “law and order” theme and force Biden on to the back foot.
With opinion polls narrowing two months before election day, Trump and Biden gave duelling speeches, both in cities called Wilmington but in different states, as they entered the final sprint to 3 November.
Declaring reopening schools “a national emergency” as he spoke in his home town, Wilmington, Delaware, Biden demanded: “Mr President, where are you? Where are you? Why aren’t you working on this? We need emergency support funding for our schools and we need it now. Mr President, that’s your job, that’s your job”:
Dwayne Johnson, also known as The Rock, has tested positive for coronavirus, he announced today via Instagram. His family have also tested positive, he announced.
“My number one priority is to always protect my family,” he said. “I wish it was me who only tested positive, but it wasn’t, it was my entire family, so this one was a real kick in the gut.”
He added that the family was “on the other end of it” and no longer contagious:
Mexico’s health ministry on Wednesday reported 4,921 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections and 575 additional fatalities, Reuters reports, bringing the total in the country to 610,957 cases and 65,816 deaths.
The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
On loneliness in Victoria, Australia:
Under Melbourne’s strict lockdown rules, couples who live apart can visit each other but other visitors are banned, so a lot of single people who live alone, like Ford, have spent weeks completely isolated. Victorians are allowed to exercise with one other person for an hour outdoors, but that person has to live nearby because of the restrictions on movement. In practice, this means that unless you live in the same suburb as your friends and family, you are unlikely to be able to exercise together:
The UK government is to trial routine weekly Covid testing of the population as part of preparations to head off a possible winter second wave, as the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt called for such tests to become the norm.
Matt Hancock said the government was committing an extra £500m to scale up testing capacity and launch community pilots trialling the effectiveness of repeat testing in schools and colleges, as well as in the population as a whole. It will also ramp up the trials of a new test kit that it is claimed can provide results within 20 minutes:
Mainland China reported 11 new Covid-19 cases as of 2 September, up from eight cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Thursday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement all of the cases were imported and involved travellers from overseas, marking the 18th consecutive day of no local infections.
The number of new asymptomatic cases fell to 12 from 19 a day earlier. China does not count symptomless patients as confirmed cases.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases now stands at 85,077. The death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Former Italy PM Berlusconi tests positive for coronavirus
Italy’s former prime minister the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi announced Wednesday that he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is in quarantine at home. Berlusconi, who once owned AC Milan, stressed that he would continue his political activities.
“I will be present in the electoral campaign with interviews on televisions and in newspapers,” he said during a video-conference of Forza Italia’s women’s movement.
However he recognised “the limitations imposed on my activities by testing positive for the coronavirus... but I will continue the battle.”
Berlusconi was first tested on 25 August after returning from a holiday in Sardinia where he owns a luxury property.
The result was negative, but he was tested again after some people he met on the Italian island were found to be positive.
These included businessman Flavio Briatore, former managing director of the Benetton Formula One racing team, who was briefly hospitalised in Milan.
Brazil death toll appears to be easing
Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll appears to be easing for the first time since May, Reuters reports, a sign the Latin American country could be descending from a long infection plateau that has seen it suffer the world’s second-worst outbreak after the United States.
With nearly 4 million confirmed cases, the virus has killed over 120,000 people in Brazil. But the level of average daily deaths dropped below 900 per day last week - the lowest in three and a half months and below the rate of both the United States and India, according to a Reuters tally.
Researchers at Imperial College London also calculate that the transmission rate in Brazil, at which each person infected with the coronavirus infects another person, is now below 1, the level required for new infections to slow.
However, the rate previously fell below 1 in August, only to rebound a week later, according to Imperial.
The government statistics are also volatile. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Brazil registered more than 1,100 deaths each day, and experts say it is too early to say the worst is over.
“We are on a downward trend compared to the previous high plateau,” said Roberto Medronho, an infectious diseases expert at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. “But, the numbers are still high and we have to remain vigilant so that it doesn’t grow again.”
US public health departments being told to prepare November vaccine distribution
Health officials across the US have reportedly been notified that they should expect a coronavirus vaccine available to health workers and high-risk groups by November, amid concerns the accelerated vaccine development process has become politicized.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) informed health officials that “limited Covid-19 vaccine doses may be available by early November 2020”, the New York Times reported.
Meanwhile, in a letter to governors dated 27 August, Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said states “in the near future” will receive permit applications from McKesson, a company which has contracted with CDC to distribute vaccines to places including state and local health departments and hospitals:
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next few hours.
You can get in touch with me on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com – news, questions and feedback all welcome. Jokes strictly forbidden.
The Trump administration is planning to cut its membership dues to the World Health Organization, in a legally controversial move that will be challenged by Congress.
The US issued its formal notice of withdrawal from the WHO in July, after Donald Trump accused the body of being pro-China and of failing to contain the coronavirus pandemic. However, the withdrawal does not take effect until next July, and until then – according to a 72-year-old agreement with Congress – the US is obliged to maintain its financial contributions.
You can read the full story from my colleague Julian Borger below:
Here are the other key developments from the last few hours:
- Trump plans to cut dues to WHO immediately. The Trump administration is planning to cut its membership dues to the World Health Organization, in a legally controversial move that will be challenged by Congress.
- Turkey seeing second peak of Covid-19 outbreak, health minister says. Turkey is seeing a second peak of its coronavirus outbreak due to “carelessness” at weddings and other social gatherings, its health minister has said, amid a rapid rise in the number of daily cases and deaths.
- France’s new Covid-19 infections near all-time high. Daily new Covid-19 infections in France neared an all-time high on Wednesday and the number of people hospitalised in intensive care units for the disease grew at its fastest pace in almost two months.
- Nancy Pelosi claims to have been “set up” after she was photographed in a San Francisco hair salon without a face covering. “I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighbourhood salon that I’ve been to many times,” the House speaker said. “It was a setup, and I take responsibility for falling for a setup.”
- Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has tested positive for coronavirus. Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon who served as Italy’s prime minister in four governments, has tested positive for Covid-19. The 83-year-old is currently in isolation and working from home at his house in Arcore, near Milan, his staff said.
- Madrid president says most returning schoolchildren likely to contract Covid-19. The president of Madrid, the Spanish area hardest hit by the coronavirus, has said that “practically all the children” about to return to school in the region are likely to pick up the virus over the coming months.
- Major study finds steroids cut death rates among Covid-19 patients. Treating critically ill Covid-19 patients with corticosteroid drugs reduces the risk of death by 20%, an analysis of seven international trials has found, prompting the World Health Organization to update its advice on treatment.
- Nasal swab followed by antibody test may catch incorrect Covid-19 diagnoses. Testing people twice for the coronavirus, with a nasal swab followed by an antibody finger prick test, would catch most of those people who fail to get the right Covid-19 diagnosis, researchers believe.
