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UN calls for ‘quantum leap’ in funding for virus fight
The United Nations on Thursday called for an immediate “quantum leap” in funding for global programmes to combat the coronavirus and restore prosperity.
The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, urged countries to find $15bn over the next three months to fund the ACT-Accelerator programme, a global collaboration to hunt for a vaccine and treatments led by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO).
“Either we stand together or we will be doomed,” Guterres told a virtual meeting of the ACT-Accelerator, calling the virus the “number one global security threat”.
“We need a quantum leap in funding to increase the chances of a global solution to get the world moving, working and prospering again,” he said.
He said the near $3bn contributed so far had been critical for the initial phase since the accelerator’s launch four months ago, but $35bn more was needed to shift from start-up to scale-up - beginning with $15bn in the next three months.
Without it “we will lose the window of opportunity”, Guterres said.
Summary
Here’s a quick summary of the biggest developments before we head over to a new blog. Thanks for following along.
- The global coronavirus death toll passed 900,000 – just over 10 weeks since passing 500,000. If global deaths continue at the current rate, the toll is likely to pass 1 million before 1 October. The global caseload is approaching 28 million.
- France recorded almost 10,000 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday, its highest ever total in a single day. The country reported 9,843 new confirmed cases, an increase of almost 900 on the previous day, as the government prepares to decide on new lockdown measures tomorrow.
- Greece has reported 372 new cases of the coronavirus, its highest daily figure since the pandemic began, bringing its total caseload to 12,452. Another four deaths were registered, taking the toll to 297.
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The United Nations has called for an immediate “quantum leap” in funding for global programmes developing coronavirus treatments and vaccine candidates. A $15bn funding gap needs to be plugged over the next three months, the the UN secretary-general said.
- Donald Trump has admitted he downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, claiming that he did not want to create panic. On 7 February he told the journalist Bob Woodward that coronavirus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus”, and then telling the public just three weeks later: “One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.”
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Finland’s prime minister will work remotely until further notice after the country’s new coronavirus tracing app warned that she may have been exposed to virus.
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Brazil recorded 40,557 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, and 983 deaths from the disease, the health ministry said on Thursday.
- Tougher coronavirus restrictions are to be imposed in Portugal ahead of the start of the school year, including halving the size of permitted gatherings and new curbs on drinking. Sales of alcohol will also be barred from 8pm as will drinking in public spaces.
- Mexico has signed an agreement to buy 32m doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, with the intention of beginning distribution in November, according to reports. The vaccine - the first to be get the green light globally - was approved despite not having completed phase 3 safety trials.
Updated
Brazil recorded 40,557 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, and 983 deaths from the disease, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The country has registered more than 4.2 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 129,522, according to ministry data.
Brazil is third globally in terms of caseload, after the US and India. The only country with a higher death toll is the US.
Updated
Finland’s prime minister will work remotely until further notice, officials announced on Thursday, after the country’s new coronavirus tracing app warned that she may have been exposed to virus.
Sanna Marin will be tested for Covid-19, her office said.
“She is asymptomatic and feeling fine.”
Finland launched its contact tracing app on 1 September, alerting smartphone users who have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus.
With 1.8m downloads already, close to one third of the country’s population has installed the app.
Greece reports record single-day rise in infections
Greece reported 372 new cases of the coronavirus, its highest daily figure since the pandemic began.
The latest increase brought Greece’s total caseload to 12,452.
Another four deaths were registered, raising the country’s toll to 297, according to Ekathimerini.
Renters in England and Wales facing eviction have been offered a reprieve – but only if they live in areas under local coronavirus lockdowns, Richard Booth reports.
Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, confirmed that court proceedings for evictions would restart in England and Wales on 21 September after being suspended early in the pandemic.
But he said that if an area was in a local lockdown that included a restriction on gathering in homes, evictions would not be enforced by bailiffs.
Welcome to those of you just joining us – here’s a quick run-through of the headlines you may have missed over the last few hours.
- The global coronavirus death toll passed 900,000 – just over 10 weeks since passing 500,000. If global deaths continue at the current rate, the toll is likely to pass 1 million before 1 October. The global caseload is approaching 28 million.
- Donald Trump has admitted he downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, claiming that he did not want to create panic. On 7 February he told the journalist Bob Woodward in a phone call that coronavirus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus”, but the message he gave to the public was very different, saying just three weeks later: “One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.”
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The United Nations has called for an immediate “quantum leap” in funding for global programmes developing coronavirus treatments and vaccine candidates. A $15bn funding gap needs to be plugged over the next three months, the the UN secretary-general said.
- France recorded almost 10,000 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday, its highest ever total in a single day. The country reported 9,843 new confirmed cases, an increase of almost 900 on the previous day, as the government prepares to decide on new lockdown measures tomorrow.
- The UK has recorded nearly 3,000 new cases of coronavirus, making Thursday the fifth day in a row that more than 2,000 infections have been detected. Government data shows 2,919 cases were reported on Thursday.
- India confirmed another record number of daily coronavirus infections, recording 95,735 new cases in the past 24 hours. This week, there have been a number of daily infection tallies over 90,000. With 4.4 million recorded infections, India has the second-highest number of cases worldwide, after the US.
- Mexico has signed an agreement to buy 32m doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, with the intention of beginning distribution in November, according to reports.
Greek authorities on the island of Lesbos are racing to find refugees who had tested positive for Covid-19 before a series of devastating fires forced thousands to flee Europe’s biggest migrant camp, Helena Smith reports.
Health officials have rushed 19,000 test kits to the north-eastern Aegean island amid fears of a surge in coronavirus cases.
“It’s a very dangerous, very explosive situation,” Efstratios Tzimis, Mytilene’s deputy mayor, told the Guardian. “And it’s making all of us crazed. On the one hand there’s coronavirus, on the other thousands of desperate, hungry people.”
Only eight of the more than three dozen refugees diagnosed with the virus have been found. Authorities say they have been quarantined in a special area with close family members.
Updated
President Trump has claimed the US is “rounding the corner” in the coronavirus pandemic, as the country’s death toll rises steadily towards 200,000.
Trump is speaking in a press conference following the revelation that he downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, knowing early on that it was deadly while telling the public: “It’s going to disappear. One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.”
At least 191,536 Americans have already died from the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University’s figures.
You can keep up with the latest in the US here.
Nigerian doctors in state hospitals have suspended their strike over pay, a shortage of personal protective equipment and inadequate facilities, union leaders said on Thursday.
The strike by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), which represents around 40% of the west African country’s medics, started on Monday.
In a break from previous industrial action, this strike had included doctors treating coronavirus patients.
The union’s president said the strike was called off to give the government time to meet its demands.
“The NEC (National Executive Council) of the association has resolved that the strike be suspended because nobody has received a dime anyway. But because we have received commitment from the government,” he said.
“We always give them time to do what they want. We have asked them what time they want and they say two weeks. We are giving them the two weeks.”
Doctors have complained about a shortage of beds and drugs in hospitals, as well as insufficient PPE. The union is also calling for unsettled wages to be paid, pay rises and life insurance coverage.
France records nearly 10,000 new infections
France recorded almost 10,000 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday, its highest ever total in a single day, Reuters reports.
The country reported 9,843 new confirmed cases, an increase of almost 900 on the previous day, when 8,975 infections were announced.
This comes as the government prepares for a Friday cabinet meeting that may end in new local lockdowns being introduced.
The president and prime minister are opposed to a national lockdown, which they say would be catastrophic for the economy, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent, Kim Willsher, reports.
New cases have surged in France during September, with an average daily increase of 7,292, compared to 3,003 in August.
Updated
The United Nations has called for an immediate “quantum leap” in funding for global programmes developing coronavirus treatments and vaccine candidates.
The UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, urged countries to find $15bn over the next three months to fund the ACT-Accelerator programme, a global scheme led by the World Health Organization.
“Either we stand together or we will be doomed,” Guterres told an ACT-Accelerator virtual meeting, describing the virus as the “number one global security threat”.
“We need a quantum leap in funding to increase the chances of a global solution to get the world moving, working and prospering again,” he said.
Nearly $3bn has been contributed to the scheme so far, for the programme’s initial phase, which was launched four months ago.
$35bn will be needed to scale the programme up, Guterres said.
Updated
Hello, my name is Clea Skopeliti and I’ll be running the blog for the next few hours.
Please do get in touch with any suggestions for coverage, particularly if you feel I’ve missed an important update from your part of the world. You can DM me on Twitter or drop me an email.
I won’t always have time to reply but will read everything. Thanks in advance.
Updated
Summary
Headlines from today’s coronavirus coverage from around the world so far include:
- The global coronavirus death toll passed 900,000 – just over 10 weeks since passing 500,000. If global deaths continued at the current rate, the toll is likely to pass 1 million before 1 October, 10 months after the World Health Organization was first informed of the first cases in Wuhan, China. The number of cases worldwide is nearing 28 million.
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Donald Trump has admitted he played down the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming that he did not want to create panic. On 7 February he told the journalist Bob Woodward in a phone call that coronavirus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus”, but the message he gave to the public was very different, saying just three weeks later: “One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.”
- One of the UK’s top disease experts suggested the government should “maybe pause at the headlong rush to get everybody back into offices”. Prof Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, warned there had been “uptick” in Covid-related hospital admissions in the UK in recent days, with infections increasing across all areas.
- The UK has recorded nearly 3,000 new cases of coronavirus, on the fifth day in a row that more than 2,000 infections have been detected. According to the latest update, 2,919 cases were reported on Thursday, the highest number since Sunday, when 2,988 new cases were reported. Prior to that, no single day had registered more than 2,000 cases since 24 May.
- Julian Assange’s extradition case in London was paused until Monday so that a lawyer can be tested for Covid-19 after potential exposure. Judge Vanessa Baraitser granted an adjournment at the request of lawyers for the WikiLeaks co-founder and the US government. “We should not really be here today. Covid would be in the courtroom,” said Edward Fitzgerald QC, for Assange.
- It was announced that Portugal will be added to UK quarantine list from Saturday. Grant Shapps, the UK transport secretary, announced on Twitter that people arriving from the country after 4am on Saturday would be required to self-isolate for 14 days. Hungary, French Polynesia and Réunion Island were also added to the list.
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India confirmed another record number of daily coronavirus infections, recording 95,735 new cases in the past 24 hours. This week, there have been a number of daily infection tallies over 90,000. With 4.4 million recorded infections, India has the second-highest number of cases worldwide, after the US.
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The number of people in the US applying for unemployment benefits was unchanged last week, at 884,000. The latest update from the Labor Department still far exceeds the number who sought benefits in any week on record before this year, a sign that layoffs are stuck at a historically high level six months after the viral pandemic flattened the economy.
- Tokyo is reportedly planning to lift restrictions on opening hours for bars and restaurants, as new coronavirus cases in the city continued on a downward trend. The capital has recorded far more cases than other parts of Japan, leading to its exclusion from a domestic travel campaign in July. But daily infections have gradually declined since reaching a peak of 472 in early August.
- Spain’s Balearic Islands region said it will impose restrictions on over 20,000 people in Palma de Mallorca due to high numbers of confirmed coronavirus infections. People living in four working-class neighbourhoods of Palma, located away from the city’s historic centre, will not be allowed out from 10pm on Friday, except to go to work or school or seek medical care
- Mexico has signed an agreement to buy 32m doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, with the intention of beginning distribution in November, according to reports. The vaccine, the first to be approved anywhere in the world, has been in use in Russia since August. According to a report by Russia’s Tass news agency, deliveries are expected to start in November 2020
That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for today.
Updated
Six months on since declaring a pandemic, the World Health Organisation’s director general has said what worries him most is the lack of solidarity and leadership among world powers.
Though the UN health agency declared a public health emergency of international concern – its highest level of alarm – on 30 January, Tedros first described the outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March.
Reflecting on this point in the crisis during a virtual news conference, Tedros said:
What worries me most is ... a lack of solidarity.
Because when solidarity lacks, and when we’re divided, that’s a very good opportunity for the virus – and that’s why it’s still spreading.
That’s what worries me and that’s what I ask the world to do.
We will need solidarity and we will need global leadership, especially of the major powers in the world. That’s how we can defeat this virus.
The virus has killed more than 900,000 people and infected at least 27.9 million since the outbreak emerged in China last December.
Updated
Mexico to buy 32m doses of Russian coronavirus vaccine
Mexico has signed an agreement to buy 32m doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, with the intention of beginning distribution in November, according to reports.
The vaccine, the first to be approved anywhere in the world, has been in use in Russia since August. It was greeted with scepticism by some observers, who pointed out that it was approved despite not having completed phase 3 safety trials.
According to a report by Russia’s Tass news agency, deliveries are expected to start in November 2020, subject to approval by Mexico’s regulators.
Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, was quoted as saying:
We have agreed to deliver the large batch of Sputnik V vaccine to Mexico, which will help 25% of the Mexican population to receive access to the safe and effective vaccine.
Mexico received about 2,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine in August, for testing.
Updated
Portugal tightens coronavirus restrictions
Tougher coronavirus restrictions are to be imposed in Portugal ahead of the start of the school year, including halving the size of permitted gatherings and new curbs on drinking.
Ministers decided on new rules to come into force from Tuesday, including limiting gatherings to 10 people rather than 20 previously - a cap already in force in the capital Lisbon since late June, according to the French state-funded news agency AFP.
Also extending a measure from the capital, sales of alcohol will be barred from 8 pm as will drinking in public spaces.
Meanwhile sporting venues will remain closed to fans ahead of the football championship kicking off next week.
“We’ve been seeing a sustained rise in the number of new cases since the beginning of August,” the prime minister, Antonio Costa, said. Portugal reported 646 new infections in the 24 hours to Wednesday - its highest since 20 April. On Thursday, a further 585 new cases were reported.
Most new cases were among asymptomatic people aged 20 to 39, Costa said.
After six months closed to the world, the central American republic of Guatemala, just south of Mexico, plans to reopen its borders next week, according to the Associated Press.
A government notice published Thursday in the official register said that with some limitations and requirements to follow health guidelines, the country’s land, sea and air borders would reopen on 18 September.
The notice also restricts Guatemalans’ ability to travel within the country for “recreational, social or familial” trips.
Guatemala’s government has so far reported 79,622 coronavirus infections and 2,897 deaths.
Western Europe is once again overtaking the US in daily coronavirus infections, with numbers of new cases rising once again since lockdowns that brought the pandemic under control this spring have ended.
A report by Bloomberg news points out that the 27 countries of the European Union, plus the UK, Norway and Liechtenstein, reported 27,233 new cases on Wednesday, compared with 26,015 for the US.
The resurgence comes after Europe largely abandoned the strict coronavirus measures that had been put in place across the continent earlier this year, with most economies almost completely reopened and children back at school.
Updated
Portugal added to UK quarantine list
Portugal will be added to UK quarantine list from Saturday, it has just been announced.
Grant Shapps, the UK transport secretary, announced on Twitter that people arriving from the country after 4am on Saturday would be required to self-isolate for 14 days. Hungary, French Polynesia and Réunion Island were also added to the list.
People arriving from Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira will not be required to self isolate, however.
The decision comes after Portugal reported a relative rise in the numbers of new infections, with 585 reported on Thursday and 646 reported on Wednesday.
Shapps made his announcement in a Twitter thread.
Data shows we need to remove PORTUGAL (minus the AZORES and MADEIRA), HUNGARY, FRENCH POLYNESIA and REUNION from the Travel Corridor list to keep everyone safe. If you arrive in England from these destinations after 4am Saturday, you will need to self-isolate for 14 days.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) September 10, 2020
Through enhanced data we now have the capability to assess islands separate to their mainland countries. If you arrive in England from the AZORES or MADEIRA, you will NOT need to self-isolate for 14 days.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) September 10, 2020
This week, SWEDEN has been ADDED to the Travel Corridors list. If you arrive In England from Sweden, you will NOT need to self-isolate for 14 days.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) September 10, 2020
All travellers returning to the UK MUST complete a Passenger Locator Form by law. This is vital in protecting public health & ensuring those who need to are complying with self-isolation rules. It is a criminal offence not to complete the form and spot checks will be taking place
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) September 10, 2020
Updated
The United Arab Emirates has urged residents to abide by coronavirus measures as it announced it was reporting five times as many new infections a day as a month ago, according to AFP.
The daily tally of cases hit 930 on Thursday, said Farida al-Hosani, spokeswoman for the Emirates’ health sector, compared with 179 on 10 August.
“This is the highest number recorded in four months,” she said during a televised conference.
“Those who violate the preventive measures in place, whether an individual, shops, or restaurants, will be held accountable.”
Hosani said 12% of cases were among residents or citizens returning to the UAE from abroad, even though they received negative tests from their destination countries – which are a requirement for entry. The remainder of the cases were among those infected as a result of social events, contact in the workplace, or other gatherings.
Hosani said the rise in cases was due to people not abiding by measures such as social distancing and compulsory mask-wearing, as well as continuing to gather in large numbers in homes, shops and restaurants.
The UAE – which has a population of approximately 9 million – has so far recorded 76,911 cases of coronavirus, including 67,945 recoveries and 398 deaths.
The country, a collection of seven emirates, went into strict lockdown in March to suppress infections. Dubai has since reopened for business and tourism although the capital, Abu Dhabi, still requires a negative coronavirus test for entry.
Updated
UK records nearly 3,000 new infections
The UK has recorded nearly 3,000 new cases of coronavirus, on the fifth day in a row the number in which more than 2,000 infections have been detected.
According to the latest update, 2,919 cases were reported on Thursday, the highest number since Sunday, when 2,988 new cases were reported. Prior to that, no single day had registered more than 2,000 cases since 24 May.
So far, the UK has recorded 358,138 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and 41,608 deaths – 14 of which were reported on Thursday. Unlike most other countries, the UK does not publish figures for the number of people who have recovered from coronavirus infections.
There were 837 patients in hospital with Covid-19 as of Tuesday, the most recent figures available, 80 of whom were on mechanical ventilation.
Updated
Lloyd’s of London, the world’s biggest insurance market, said it expected up to £5bn would be paid out in claims related to the coronavirus pandemic, writes Julia Kollewe for the Guardian’s business desk.
The insurers that operate in the Lloyd’s market are paying out Covid-19 claims in 16 different insurance areas, mostly related to event cancellations but also medical malpractice, travel cancellations and business interruption.
John Neal, the chief executive of Lloyd’s of London, said the first half of the year had been exceptionally challenging.
“The pandemic has inflicted catastrophic societal and economic damage calling for unparalleled measures to stifle the spread of the virus, and to get businesses and economies back on their feet,” he said.
This is Damien Gayle back at the controls, with thanks to Sarah Marsh for holding the fort for the past hour. Remember, you can reach me with any comments, tips or suggestions either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter DM to @damiengayle.
Stricter measures will be adopted in Portugal’s two biggest cities to contain a worrying rise in coronavirus cases as workers slowly return to offices and pupils gear up to go back to schools, the prime minister, António Costa, said on Thursday.
Portugal, which has reported 62,126 cases so far, initially won praise for its response to the pandemic but cases have crept back up, with the health authority reporting 585 new infections on Thursday, mainly in Greater Lisbon and the northern region.
“Since the beginning of August there has been a sustained growth in new cases,” Costa told a news conference. “We cannot ignore the incidence of this pandemic is particularly concentrated in Lisbon and Porto.”
From 15 September, the whole country will be put under a state of contingency, meaning gatherings will be limited to 10 people and commercial establishments must close between 8 and 11 pm.
Updated
Spain’s Balearic Islands region said Thursday it will impose restrictions on over 20,000 people in tourism hotspot Palma de Mallorca due to high numbers of confirmed coronavirus infections.
People living in four working class neighbourhoods of Palma, located away from the city’s historic centre, will not be allowed out from 10 pm Friday except to go to work or school or seek medical care, the islands’ regional government said in a statement.
Gyms and parks in the areas must close, while the capacity at bars, cafés and restaurants will be capped at 50 percent and they must shut their doors at 10 pm. Gatherings will be limited to a maximum of five people.
While residents of the neighbourhoods are not banned from leaving their homes, the regional government said it “discourages travel and non-essential activities”.
The four densely populated neighbourhoods are home to nearly 23,000 of Palma’s 416,000 residents.
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The United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has called for $35bn more – including $15bn in the next three months – for the World Health Organization’s programme to support coronavirus vaccines, treatments and diagnostics.
Just $3bn has been contributed so far, Guterres told an online event on Thursday. He called it “seed funding”.
“But we now need $35bn more to go from ‘start up’ to ‘scale up and impact’,” he said. “There is real urgency in these numbers. Without an infusion of $15bn over the next three months, beginning immediately, we will lose the window of opportunity.”
Updated
The US Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said on Thursday that Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic was “almost criminal” as the fallout continued over book revelations that the president admitted in early February that the disease was “deadly stuff” but deliberately played it down, writes Joanna Walters for the Guardian US.
As the death toll from Covid-19 nears 200,000 in the US, the world’s highest, Biden excoriated his opponent in November’s election, in an interview with CNN, over the way he did not address the dangers of the pandemic early and fully.
“He waved the white flag. He walked away, he didn’t do a damn thing, think about it, and it’s almost criminal,” Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview scheduled to be aired in full on Thursday afternoon.
The journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, Rage, highlights of which were revealed in the Washington Post on Wednesday, features many one-on-one interviews with Trump from late 2019 and into the early summer of 2020, covering the start and the peak of the pandemic in the US.
Updated
The Tour de France has confirmed that the four teams that lost staff to positive coronavirus tests this week will not automatically be sent home if further members test positive, according to the Associated Press.
Health rules for the multi-stage bicycle race say teams can be sent home if they have two or more positive tests in a seven-day span. But the organiser, ASO, confirmed on Thursday that the day-counter will be reset to zero when teams are tested again on the Tour’s second and last rest day next Monday.
The clarification is a reprieve for the Cofidis, AG2R La Mondiale, Ineos Grenadiers, and Mitchelton Scott teams, which each saw a staff member test positive on the first rest day. But any team that registers two or more positives could still be sent home. The battery of tests will be the last before the Tour finishes on 20 September in Paris.
No rider was positive in the first round of rest-day tests.
The Tour’s director, Christian Prudhomme, did test positive and was forced to quit the race for what he hopes will be just one week of self-isolation.
Updated
Almost one in five jobs are due to go at Singapore Airlines as a result of the impact on business from the coronavirus pandemic, as the company’s chief executive warned that the recovery would be “long and fraught with uncertainty.”
The city-state’s flag carrier said about 1,900 positions had already been eliminated in recent months due to a recruitment freeze, natural attrition and voluntary departures, reducing further expected job cuts to about 2,400, according to Reuters.
Positions are being cut across full-service Singapore Airlines, the regional carrier SilkAir and budget airline Scoot in Singapore and overseas. Goh Choon Phong, the group’s chief executive, said:
The future remains extremely challenging. Given the expectation that the road to recovery will be long and fraught with uncertainty, it has come to the point where we have to make the painfully difficult decision to implement involuntary staff reduction measures”
Singapore Airlines was more vulnerable than other major carriers around the world, as it did not have a domestic market and was wholly dependent on international routes, he said.
The carrier, which reported a net loss of more than US$800m in the first quarter, is operating at 8% of pre-pandemic capacity.
The cuts come despite the airline group raising a total Sg$11bn in new funds to help it weather the crisis – including Sg$8.8bn from a rights issue backed by its majority shareholder, the state investment fund Temasek.
Updated
884,000 applied for jobless benefits in the US last week
The number of people in the US applying for unemployment benefits was unchanged last week at 884,000, the Associated Press reports.
The latest update from the Labor Department still far exceeds the number who sought benefits in any week on record before this year, a sign that layoffs are stuck at a historically high level six months after the viral pandemic flattened the economy.
As portions of the economy have reopened, some companies have recalled workers temporarily laid off, so far adding back about half the 22m jobs lost to the initial crisis.
But hiring has slowed since June, and a rising number of laid-off workers say they regard their job loss as permanent. The government also said on Thursday that 13.4 million people were continuing to receive traditional jobless benefits, up from 13.3 million the previous week.
Updated
Julian Assange’s extradition case has been paused until Monday so that a member of one of the legal teams can be tested for Covid-19 after potential exposure, writes Ben Quinn in London.
Judge Vanessa Baraitser granted an adjournment at the request of lawyers for the WikiLeaks co-founder and the US government.
“We should not really be here today. Covid would be in the courtroom,” said Edward Fitzgerald QC, who is representing Assange in his struggle to resist extradition to the US, where he could face a prison sentence of up to 175 years if convicted on all charges.
His request for an adjournment was backed by James Lewis QC, acting for the US government, who addressed the Old Bailey via video link.
Baraitser said she had been told on Wednesday night that a member of one of the legal teams may have been exposed to Covid-19. She said she had intended to take matters one step at a time, but after hearing from both sides she had decided to accept that the hearing should be postponed.
Belgium has been cited by the UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, as a model for getting coronavirus under control – just as its public health body recorded a 15% rise in the number of daily infections compared with the previous week, writes Daniel Boffey, the Guardian’s Brussels bureau chief.
Despite a dip in the number of new infections in August, after a tightening of rules by the Belgian prime minister, Sophie Wilmès, the most recent data suggests the country’s success may be short-lived as people return to work and school.
An average of 509.7 people a day have newly tested positive during the past seven days, according to the latest figures by from Belgium’s scientific institute for public health.
Thursday marked the fifth successive day that the number of people newly infected rose.
Hospital admissions are also up. Between 3 and 9 September, an average of 20.6 new admissions per day was recorded, an increase from 16.7 the week before.
Hancock had praised Belgium as he sought to justify strict new laws on social gatherings in England, including the so-called rule of six people, limiting the size of social groups.
The health secretary said the UK was learning from the experience of other European countries that had recorded an increase in coronavirus infections in recent months.
Updated
The corporate partner due to manufacture the Oxford University coronavirus vaccine in India has had to be ordered to cease phase three trials that were due to take place next week, after a trial subject in the UK became ill.
The Serum Institute of India was issued the order by the drugs controller general of India on Wednesday, after trials of the vaccine in the UK, Brazil and South Africa were halted due to the “potentially unexplained illness” in a trial participant.
According to Indian broadcaster NDTV, the DCGI had questioned why trials were continuing in India while they had been paused elsewhere, and why it had not received a report detailing the symptoms of the patient in the UK.
The Serum Institute had been in the process of listing volunteers for the trials, which were expected to begin next week and involve 1,600 volunteers across 17 sites in India.
The Serum Institute was quoted by NDTV as saying: “We are reviewing the situation and pausing India trials till AstraZeneca restarts the trials.”
AstraZeneca is leading on production of the vaccine. On Thursday, the company’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, insisted the vaccine could still be available by the end of the year, or early next year.
Updated
In a room inside a hillside Taoist monastery in China's Shandong province lies a collection of 558 memorial tablets inscribed with the names and hometowns of people who died after contracting the coronavirus or while battling the pandemic https://t.co/OGZhPaN1nf pic.twitter.com/lSZm23uosw
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 10, 2020
Russia reported 5,363 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing the national tally to 1,046,370, the fourth largest in the world, according to Reuters.
Authorities said 128 people had died in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 18,263.
The Philippines has confirmed 3,821 more new coronavirus infections, the most in 11 days, and 80 additional deaths.
In a bulletin, the health ministry said total confirmed cases have increased to 248,947, the most in Southeast Asia, while Covid-19 deaths have reached 4,066. So far 186,058 people infected with the virus have recovered, the health ministry said.
Cats may be catching coronavirus at a higher rate than previously thought, a new study suggests.
Researchers from from Huazhong Agricultural University found that 15 out of a sample of 102 cats from Wuhan tested positive for antibodies against the virus. Eleven also had neutralising antibodies, which prevent infections entirely by binding tightly to the virus.
The sample included 46 abandoned cats from three animal shelters, 41 from five pet hospitals, and 15 cats from Covid-19 patient families. None of the cats actually tested positive for coronavirus or displayed obvious symptoms and, according to the results of return visits, none have died.
Commenting on the findings, the study’s lead author, Meilin Jin, said that while there was currently no evidence for cat-to-human transmission, precautions should be considered.
You can read a press release about the study here, while the full article is available here.
Updated
French government to announce new Covid measures
France’s government will announce new Covid-19 measures tomorrow, we have learned, after Emmanuel Macron hosts a defence council meeting, writes Kim Willsher, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent.
Ministers are saying nothing is excluded, but we know the president and prime minister are opposed to a national lockdown, which they say would be catastrophic for the economy.
Updated
The countries of central Europe, having come out of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in much better shape than most of their western European counterparts, are now facing higher numbers than during the spring peak of Covid-19, as restrictions return to the region, write Robert Tait in Prague and Shaun Walker, the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent.
On Tuesday, the Czech Republic passed the milestone of more than 1,000 Covid-19 cases in a day for the first time, while Hungary has closed its borders for September to counter rapidly rising daily infection rates. Cases rose in Poland in August too, though numbers have since dropped.
The rise in the Czech Republic is a sharp setback for a country previously hailed as among Europe’s most successful in tackling the pandemic, prompting the authorities to intensify face-mask requirements.
A record 1,164 new infections were documented in the nation of 10.7 million on Tuesday, and over the past 14 days, the country has seen one of the highest infection rates in Europe when adjusted for population, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Czech officials have attributed the rise to a sharp increase in testing. They also insist most of the new cases are mild and among otherwise healthy young people. Some 168 cases were traced to a party at a Prague nightclub in July.
The prime minister, Andrej Babiš, told the World Health Organization to “keep quiet” after it voiced concern over reports that Czech officials planned to reduce contact tracing and testing because many of the new cases were asymptomatic.
Romania is reaching the milestone of 100,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the latest update from the country’s public health agency.
On Thursday, 1,380 new infections were reported, bringing the total so far in the country to 99,684, of whom 4,065 have died - an increase of 47 on Wednesday.
Of those most recently reported deaths, 45 were of patients who presented with comorbidities, and 2 deceased patients did not present with comorbidities, the update said.
The total number of people being treated in hospital with Covid-19 is 7,133
Since the beginning of Romania’s outbreak, 41,010 patients have been declared cured, while 12,568 asymptomatic patients were discharged 10 days after detection.
Hi, this is Damien Gayle taking the reins of the liveblog from my esteemed colleague Alexandra Topping, who thinks she misses the very loud way I hammer away on the keyboard (but who actually one time made me get a quieter keyboard because it annoyed her so much).
For the next eight or so hours, I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus-related updates and headlines from around the world. If you have any comments, suggestions or tips for what we could be covering on here, please feel free to drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.
That’s it from me this morning, I’m handing over the liveblog to the inordinately capable Damien Gayle (who, in “normal” times would be clacking away at his keyboard right next to me - which I’ve just realised I weirdly miss).
Any stories and messages should be sent to him, thanks to the readers who got in touch with me this morning.
Indonesia’s capital Jakarta is to re-implement stricter social restrictions on Monday, after the number of Covid-19 cases in the country have increased over the last month, BBC News reports.
On Wednesday night, governor Anies Baswedan said that 77% of isolation beds in the capital were currently occupied and the city would run out of beds by 17 September.
Covid-19 intensive care units in the capital would be completely full by 15 September if cases continue to increase, he said.
The measures will see office workers working from home; shopping centres and places of worship closed, while traffic around the capital’s borders will be monitored more closely.
The reclosure of essential industries will be another blow to an already stricken economy that saw its biggest GDP contraction in more than two decades in the second quarter this year.
Jakarta has recorded over 50,000 Covid-19 cases as of Thursday, the highest number in Indonesia, and over 1,300 virus-linked deaths.
In total, Indonesia has recorded more than 207,000 Covid-19 cases and more than 8,400 virus-linked deaths, the highest coronavirus mortality rate in south-east Asia.
Updated
For a detailed look at the situation in France this Twitter thread by veteran Paris correspondent John Lichfield (@john_lichfield) is very much worth a look.
Time for another French Covid update. In the last week, the picture has darkened again. Cases are still growing steadily but acute cases, which fell from May until late August, are growing rapidly. I fear the “second wave” is here.
— John Lichfield (@john_lichfield) September 10, 2020
1/10
France facing difficult decisions after another high jump in cases
France’s Covid-19 scientific committee says the government is facing difficult decisions after recording the second highest number of new cases (+8,557) for months on Wednesday. The committee said the level of coronavirus in the country was “worrying” and that the government “will be forced to take a certain number of difficult decisions … in the next 8-10 days at most”.
Jean-François Delfraissy, the head of the committee told journalists:
France is now at a worrying level that is not far behind Spain with a lag of maybe two weeks, and much more severe than Italy.
He said the fact that new contaminations had not yet overwhelmed the country’s health system might have created a “false sense of security”.
The number of hospital admissions rose by 386 in the previous 24-hours and an additional 71 were admitted to intensive care. The percentage of positive tests has risen to 5.2%.
Four regions were particularly hit: the Ile-de-France (greater Paris) Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, l’Occitanie and Auvergne-Rhone Alpes.
President Emmanuel Macron and the prime minister, Jean Castex – who has just started seven days self-isolation after spending time with the boss of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, who has Covid-19 – have said a general lockdown would be a social and economic disaster for France and that the country is probably looking at geographically targeted stricter measures.
The furlough scheme in France in which temporarily laid off workers are paid 84% of their salary is likely to be maintained until next summer, Elisabeth Borne, the work minister, said this morning.
Updated
Scotland’s new contact tracing app to help combat the spread of coronavirus has gone live – ahead of its neighbour south of the border.
The Scottish government has said the software will support its test-and-protect system and is “another tool in the fight against Covid-19”.
The Protect Scotland app lets people know if they have been in close contact with someone who later tests positive and can be downloaded for free onto a smart phone from Apple’s App store or Google Play.
The first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, urged everyone in the country to sign up for the app.
She tweeted on Thursday morning:
📱There’s a new way to help fight COVID in Scotland. ‘Protect Scotland’ - our confidential contact tracing app - will anonymously notify app users you’ve been in close contact with, should you test positive. Please download, and let’s all protect Scotland https://t.co/rdrRPopPB4
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) September 10, 2020
Until this point, contact tracing has been done manually using a method followed for years to help control the spread of infectious diseases.
The new app uses Bluetooth technology to alert users if they have been in prolonged close contact with someone who then tests positive for coronavirus. here’s what happens next:
- When someone tests positive for the virus they are contacted by phone.
- The contact tracer will ask them if they are an app user and if they are willing to use the app’s upload function to anonymously alert close contacts.
- If they agree, they will be sent a unique code to their mobile letting them unlock this function.
- They share their positive test result, which then forms part of an anonymous database.
- The app on other users’ phones regularly checks this database to see if they have been in contact with an infected person.
- A warning is automatically issued when a match is found and users are then urged to get tested or self-isolate for 14 days.
The contact tracing app being developed by the NHS in England ran into technical problems and is currently being tested following a remodel.
Here’s the full story of that failure:
Updated
India confirms record 95,735
India has confirmed another record number of daily coronavirus infections recording 95,735 new cases in the last 24 hours.
The latest spike comes in a week which has seen a number of daily infection tallies over 90,000, representative of just how large the caseload is becoming in India.
The number of cases is linked to the country’s scaling up of testing – more than 1 million tests are being carried out every day, according to the health ministry.
But cases are also rising as the country continues to open up – bars and pubs reopened in Delhi this week and later this month schools will reopen.
With 4.4 million recorded infections, India has the second-highest number of cases after the US.
It does, however, have a high recovery rate in comparison to other countries
For every 100 people confirmed with the virus, nearly 78 have recovered.
Updated
Australia’s conservative government clashed with state lawmakers on Thursday over how fast to relax social distancing restrictions, as the number of new Covid-19 cases showed a steady decline, Reuters reports.
Australia in March created a national cabinet which includes federal, state and territory leaders to coordinate measures to stop the disease spreading, closing international and domestic borders, suspending schools and closing businesses.
The steps taken have helped Australia record far fewer Covid-19 infections and deaths than many other developed nations, and the divisions in the national cabinet are emerging at a time when the infection rate is coming down.
The federal government is now struggling to persuade states to relax restrictions in order to get the economy moving, especially after Victoria suffered a second wave of infections last month.
On Thursday, federal health minister, Greg Hunt, said Victoria – the epicentre of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak – should consider lifting a night curfew, just days after the state kept the curfew among other tough measures extended until 28 September.
And Queenland’s state premier snapped back at the prime minister, Scott Morrison, after he chided the state for refusing to let a woman from a virus-free part of the country attend the funeral of her father.
Queensland state premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, told state lawmakers in Brisbane:
To use the tragedy of this personal family is disgusting. I will not be bullied nor will I be intimidated by the prime minister of this country.
Australia on Thursday reported 58 new cases in the past 24 hours, down on the 76 infections detected on Wednesday.
Victoria accounted for the bulk of the cases, with 51 cases, well down on the more than 700 infections recorded in one day in early August.
Home to one-quarter of Australia’s 25 million population, Victoria accounts for about 75% of the country’s more than 26,000 Covid-19 cases and 90% of its 788 deaths.
Updated
Shipping a coronavirus vaccine around the world will be the “largest transport challenge ever”, according to the airline industry.
The equivalent of 8,000 Boeing 747s will be needed, says the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
One of the UK’s top disease experts has suggested the government should “maybe pause at the headlong rush to get everybody back into offices”, as a government minister admitted there was not yet a certified on-the-spot Covid test available.
Prof Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, warned there had been “uptick” in Covid-related hospital admissions in the UK in recent days, with infections increasing across all areas and geographies.
He said that it was still too soon to see if reopening England’s schools last week had contributed to a significant spread of the disease. If it has, there may be a case to “reduce contacts in other settings”, he told Radio 4’s Today programme. He said:
I’m still working from home, many people I know are still working from home and I think we should hesitate and maybe pause at the headlong rush to get everybody back into offices. But some people have to [go to] work and I completely understand the concerns in many quarters that everybody working at home has an economic impact, particularly on city centres.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said the government had pinned its hopes on the development of on-the-spot tests that can produce results in “20 or 90 minutes” without being sent to a lab. But he admitted it was as yet unproven, which is why Boris Johnson had billed it a “moonshot”. He told Sky News:
This technology, to be perfectly blunt, requires further development. There isn’t a certified test in the world, though people are working on prototypes of this sort of thing. So it’s not immediate but it is something that we want to develop.
We want to do what we are calling a moonshot. In other words, we know it is difficult and isn’t simple to achieve, but we hope that it will be possible through new technology and new tests to have a test which works by not having to return the sample to a lab, that it can work in-line and in a much shorter period of time. The prime minister has talked of 20 minutes or 90 minutes.
Of course the absolute panacea would be to have a vaccine.
On Wednesday the Oxford vaccine trial was put on hold due to a possible adverse reaction in a trial participant.
From Monday, people in England will not be allowed to gather in groups of more than six.
Shapps rejected the suggestion that young people should be exempt, despite most of the new Coronavirus infections in the UK being among young people, very few of whom die or need hospital care. He said:
Though unlikely to die, [young people] can be ill for a very long time – we have a lot of evidence that young people can suffer from coronavirus for months, it can be quite debilitating. I think it would be quite wrong as a society to let this virus run rampant in part of society and everyone else has to run away and hide like hermits. That’s not a way to run a society.
Ferguson warned that the virus was now spreading across the country again, “not just in hotspots” and was affecting all age groups. He said:
I should say in the last week we have seen a rise across the country, not just in hotspots. We are starting to now see now an uptick in hospitalisations. The data is early and all the analysis both we have been doing and other groups across the country suggests we will see an uptick in coming weeks. So now is the time to respond to get on top of that.
It will take two or three weeks to see if the new “rule of six” brings down infections, Ferguson told the BBC:
The measures just announced will take some weeks to take effect so we will have to see how much we manage to flatten the curve and if that’s not sufficient to reduce the reproduction number below 1 then yes we may need to clamp down in other areas.
Updated
The Japan Sumo Association said on Thursday that a major tournament due to start in Tokyo on Sunday would go ahead as planned after 19 wrestlers from the same stable tested positive for Covid-19.
All 27 rikishi belonging to the Tamanoi stable, as well as their stablemaster, will sit out the tournament. The association imposed measures to prevent transmission between stables – where wrestlers live and train together – after several athletes tested positive in April. The following month, a 28-year-old wrestler died of complications from the virus.
The pandemic forced sumo authorities to hold the March tournament in Osaka behind closed doors, while the May tournament was cancelled. The most recent competition, in July, went ahead, with spectator numbers capped at 2,500. Fans were asked to wear masks and to refrain from cheering.
Updated
In the UK the first climate assembly made up of ordinary members of the public is calling for some pretty radical policies to tackle the climate emergency that is facing the world, calling for the economic recovery from Covid-19 to help drive the move to net zero carbon emissions.
I’m always full of hope and admiration for the findings of citizens assemblies, who prove time and again if you are truthful and honest with normal people about the scale of a problem – they will collectively come up with real solutions.
Among those suggested by the UK group is a frequent flyer tax, phasing out polluting SUVs and restricting cars in city centres.
A large majority, 79% of the assembly, strongly agreed, or agreed, that economic recovery after the pandemic must be designed to help drive the country to its 2050 net zero target, which was signed into law last year.
You can read the full story by my colleague Sandra Laville below
Updated
Donald Trump admits he played down coronavirus risk
If you’re just joining us now, in the US Donald Trump has admitted he played down the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming that he did not want to create panic. On 7 February he told the journalist Bob Woodward in a phone call that coronavirus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus”, but the message he gave to the public was very different.
By 27 February he was telling the public:
It’s going to disappear. One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.
The president admitted to Woodward in March:
I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.
The Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, reacted to the reports by saying:
He knew how deadly it was. It was much more deadly than the flu. He knew and purposely played it down. Worse, he lied to the American people. He knowingly and willingly lied about the threat it posed to the country for months … he failed to do his job, on purpose. It was a life and death betrayal of the American people. Experts say that if he’d acted just one week sooner 36,000 people would have been saved.
But speaking to Fox News’s Sean Hannity late on Wednesday, Trump insisted he had done an “amazing” job dealing with the pandemic. Trump said:
If you look at our numbers, our fatality numbers compared to other countries, it’s amazing what we’ve done. We’ve been able to do something ... that especially with the country the size we have, we’ve done an incredible job.
Coronavirus-related deaths in the US, which stand at more than 190,000, account for a fifth of the global total. The figure is equivalent to one death for every 1,700 Americans. The US has one of the highest fatality rates: 57.97 for every 100,000 in the population.
According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, among the twenty countries currently most affected by COVID-19 worldwide the only countries with higher deaths per 100,000 are Peru (93.71), Spain (63.34), Bolivia (62.51), Chile (62.37), Ecuador (62.20), Brazil (60.85).
My thanks, as ever, to the blogging powerhouse that is Helen Sullivan. I’m with you for the next few hours. If you have a story where you are or want to give some insight into life in your country right now please do get in touch. I’m on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com, and I’m @lexytopping on Twitter. My DMs are open.
Updated
The UK’s coronavirus test-and-trace system will not function unless ministers boost statutory sick pay (SSP) to ensure that workers can afford to stay at home, the head of the TUC has said.
Speaking shortly before the union movement’s first virtual annual congress, Frances O’Grady said that 4 in 10 workers would be plunged into financial hardship if forced to self-isolate for two weeks, according to a survey.
Millions of low-paid workers either do not qualify for the statutory sick pay of £95.85 a week or cannot afford to live on the allowance, leaving them unable to pay bills if they have to quarantine due to coronavirus.
Helen Sullivan here. UK readers who are just waking up and tuning into the blog, this is where I leave you.
My colleague Alexandra Topping is up next.
Japan plans to lift restrictions on bar and restaurant opening hours
Tokyo is reportedly planning to lift restrictions on opening hours for bars and restaurants, as new coronavirus cases in the city continued on a downward trend.
The capital has recorded far more cases than other parts of Japan, leading to its controversial exclusion from a domestic travel campaign in July.
But daily infections have gradually declined since reaching a peak of 472 in early August. On Wednesday it reported 149 infections, down from between 300 and 500 a day early last month.
Nationwide, Japan reported more than 500 new infections on Wednesday, down from the 1,300-1,500 level in early August.
Japanese media said a request for restaurants and bars to close at 10 pm could be lifted as early as next Tuesday, adding that the metropolitan government could lower its virus alert from the current “red” status, which means infections are spreading.
Tokyo’s nightlife districts have been blamed for driving up cases since a nationwide state of emergency was lifted in late May, prompting local authorities to call on establishments serving alcohol to voluntarily close early.
The national government is considering raising the upper limit on spectator numbers at some sports events following requests from the country’s professional baseball and football leagues.
The move, which could come ahead of a four-day weekend from 19 September, would raise the maximum number of spectators from 5,000 to 20,000, or up to 50% of capacity at smaller venues, the Kyodo news agency reported.
Updated
It was inevitable that the lifting of lockdown would throw up contradictions that make no sense. From next Monday, children in England will spend their days in classrooms of 30, but adults won’t be able to meet in groups of more than six. Earlier in the season, childcare was reinstated before people were allowed to visit their families, throwing up the absurdity that you could have your mum round, but only if she was prepared to look after your two-year-old.
Nowhere, though, has been more divisive than the pub: how was it more important to reopen pubs than swimming pools? Why should drinkers take precedence over gym-goers? Lately, a really cruel anomaly has surfaced. Pregnant women are still not allowed to take a partner with them for scans and appointments, or even have someone with them for early labour, so you can go for a pint with your beloved, but you will be on your own when you first hear your baby’s heartbeat.
Responses to this have varied by platform. Twitter was alive with helpful suggestions (“I have an idea – why don’t pregnant women get their scans done in pubs?”), while Mumsnet was alive with fury. Yet even while criticism was mostly aimed where it belonged, at the government, there was a top note of disapproval – why are people drinking in the first place, while other people are trying to grow a human?
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- The global coronavirus death toll has passed 900,000 – just over 10 weeks since passing 500,000. If global deaths continued at the current rate, the toll is likely to pass 1 million before 1 October, 10 months after the World Health Organization was first informed of the first cases in Wuhan, China. The number of cases worldwide is nearing 28 million.
- Donald Trump says he has done an “amazing” job with regard to the virus. Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity late on Wednesday, “If you look at our numbers, our fatality numbers compared to other countries, it’s amazing what we’ve done. We’ve been able to do something ... that especially with the country the size we have, we’ve done an incredible job.” Coronavirus-related deaths in the US, which stand at more than 190,000, account for a fifth of the global total. The figure is equivalent to one death per 1,700 Americans. The US has one of the highest fatality rates per 100,000 population, at 57.97.
- Infections continue to rise rapidly across Europe. France has seen its second-highest one-day case total of the pandemic so far and hospitalisations are at a one-month high, as the Netherlands and Portugal both confirmed their highest daily infections since April.
- In Vatican City, Pope Francis was seen on Wednesday wearing a face mask for the first time since the start of the pandemic but took it off to chat to the faithful. The pontiff quickly removed the mask as he emerged from a car carrying him to one of his traditional general audiences.
- UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson believes a mass testing programme is the UK’s “only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine”, according to leaked official documents.
New Zealand’s health minister has pleaded with people to stop spreading misinformation about the coronavirus, as the government struggles to contain a mini-cluster centred on an evangelical church in Auckland.
The mini-cluster started with four cases in the suburb of Mt Roskill last month, and has now grown to 45 cases.
Health authorities say they have struggled to isolate and lock down the cluster as some people have refused to co-operate, saying they do not believe in the virus, and will not share their close contacts
“Repeated, deliberate and malicious spread of misinformation” is also proliferating online, health minister Chris Hipkins said, prompting him to issue a stark warning that lives are at stake:
Podcast: what happens when flu season hits? (part 2)
As the northern hemisphere heads into autumn and winter, cold and flu are beginning to spread and more people find themselves with coughs, fevers and a runny nose. With Covid-19, this brings new challenges. Should we quarantine at the first sign of the sniffles? Could co-infections of flu and Covid-19 make your symptoms worse? Do we have the capacity to test for more than one virus?
'Superbugs' a far greater risk than Covid in Pacific, scientist warns
Sheldon Chanel reports from Suva , with the Guardian’s Pacific Editor, Ben Doherty:
The emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including drug-resistant bacteria, or “superbugs”, pose far greater risks to human health than Covid-19, threatening to put modern medicine “back into the dark ages”, an Australian scientist has warned, ahead of a three-year study into drug-resistant bacteria in Fiji.
“If you thought Covid was bad, you don’t want anti-microbial resistance,” Dr Paul De Barro, biosecurity research director at Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, told The Guardian.
“I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say it’s the biggest human health threat, bar none. Covid is not anywhere near the potential impact of AMR.”
“We would go back into the dark ages of health.”
While AMR is an emerging public health threat across the globe, in the Pacific, where the risk of the problem is acute, drug-resistant bacteria could stretch the region’s fragile health systems beyond breaking point:
I’m hearing a lot of smart, educated people say it wouldn’t have made a difference if the public knew what Trump, top U.S. officials and Bob Woodward did about the virus.
— Mara Gay (@MaraGay) September 9, 2020
Made a difference to whom?
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has attacked the Bank of England for failing to place enough emphasis on jobs, as he called for a rethink of the model of independence he created for Threadneedle Street in the late 1990s.
Brown, who as chancellor in Tony Blair’s government was responsible for granting the Bank operational freedom to set interest rates, said the UK’s central bank should be more like the US Federal Reserve, which has to take employment as well as inflation into account when making policy decisions:
Although the four most populous US states - California, Florida, New York and Texas - account for about 40% of the 6.3 million US infections, the Midwest has been hardest hit in recent weeks.
Iowa currently has one of the highest US infection rates, with 15% of tests last week coming back positive. Nearby South Dakota has a positive test rate of 19% and North Dakota is at 18%, according to a Reuters analysis.
A surge linked to colleges reopening in Iowa and an August motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, are behind some of the recent spikes in cases.
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice expressed concern about his state’s transmission rate and urged residents to “buckle down” and try harder to stop the spread of the virus.
On a per-capita basis, the United States ranks 12th in the world for Covid-19 fatalities, with 58 deaths per 100,000 people, and 11th in the world for cases, with 1,933 cases per 100,000 residents, according to a Reuters analysis.
New York City restaurants struggling to stay in business after months of closures imposed in the face of the coronavirus pandemic won a long-awaited approval on Wednesday to resume limited indoor dining.
But Los Angeles County health officials have prohibited Halloween parties and said children should not be allowed to trick or treat during the popular holiday on 31 October.
The contrasting moves on opposite coasts of the United States came as new coronavirus infections have fallen for seven weeks in a row but the nationwide death toll since the pandemic broke out in March exceeded 190,000, according to a Reuters tally.
In New York City, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday said indoor dining could resume at thousands of restaurants as of 30 September, although capacity was limited to 25%.
Cuomo had previously said lifting the ban could lead to a resurgence of the virus in New York, which has seen 32,000 deaths, more than any other US state.
Restaurants will also be required to take the temperature of diners and collect information from one member of each party for contact tracing in case of an outbreak.
The state will establish a whistle-blowing system whereby patrons can anonymously report restaurants not in compliance.
New York City could raise the capacity to 50% after a reassessment conducted by 1 November, depending on infection rates, Cuomo said. Most of New York state is operating with indoor dining at 50% capacity.
In Los Angeles, health officials said children should not be allowed to trick or treat because maintaining proper social distancing on porches and at front doors would be difficult and “because sharing food is risky”.
“Halloween gatherings, events or parties with non-household members are not permitted even if they are conducted outdoors,” the department said in statement entitled “Guidance for Celebrating Halloween”.
County health officials also banned Halloween carnivals, festivals, live entertainment and haunted houses.
Here is what that looks like in terms of the global deaths confirmed each day:
A reminder that Trump is boasting about having done an “amazing” job when it comes to deaths as the global toll passes 900,000. Not only that, but one in five of these – 190,000 – is in the United states.
There will soon be a million dead worldwide. Here is how long it took for another 100,000 people to die since 29 June, when the toll passed half a million – the days below are those that passed between the dates. These figures are based on the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data (I’m counting the days between dates when these numbers were passed):
- We passed 600,000 on 19 July. 19 days
- We passed 700,000 on 5 August. 16 days.
- We passed 800,000 on 24 August. 18 days.
- We passed 900,000 on 10 September. 16 days.
Looking at the above, if the rate continues to be similar to the last few months, it looks likely that the death toll will pass 1 million before 1 October. (20 days).
Updated
US President Donald Trump spoke to Fox News’s Sean Hannity about the Woodward book revelations. He repeated that his response to the pandemic was intended to avoid panic.
“I said don’t panic (over the virus)... I’m a cheerleader for this country and I don’t want to see panic,” Trump said.
Trump also said the US had done an amazing job with regards to deaths.
“If you look at our numbers, our fatality numbers compared to other countries, it’s amazing what we’ve done. We’ve been able to do something...that especially with the country the size we have, we’ve done an incredible job.”
The US has recorded more than 190,000 deaths. It has the 12th highest deaths per 100,000 of population in the world at 57.97, according to Johns Hopkins data.
Updated
New Zealanders are experiencing more depression and anxiety since the coronavirus lockdown, doctors say, despite the country leading the world in its battle against the pandemic.
New Zealand has been lauded for its effective management of the virus, with most Kiwis returning to their normal routines following a strict seven-week lockdown in April and May. A recent outbreak in Auckland has now largely been contained.
But GPs working on the front line say “generalised anxiety” is proliferating in the community, and putting a strain on mental health services that are already overburdened:
Natalie Grover reports for the Guardian:
A risk calculator that takes seconds to produce a score indicating a Covid-19 patient’s risk of death could help clinicians make care decisions soon after patients arrive in hospital, according to a large study conducted by a consortium of researchers across the UK.
As UK Covid-19 cases rise, schools reopen and the weather gets colder, doctors at UK hospitals are expected to see an influx of coronavirus patients.
Patients with Covid-19 behave very differently to patients with other conditions such as flu and bacterial pneumonia, said Dr Antonia Ho of the University of Glasgow, one of the study’s authors, and it is very challenging for doctors managing this unfamiliar disease to accurately identify those who are at high risk of deterioration or who can ride out their illness at home:
CoronaVac has however gotten caught up in a political battle in Brazil, according to AFP.
President Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration has tense relations with China, has criticized the vaccine, and lashed out at Doria, a leading opponent, for supposedly backing it.
The far-right president has instead allocated 1.9bn reals ($360m) to purchase another vaccine candidate, developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.
Trials of that vaccine, which is also being tested partly in Brazil, were suspended Tuesday after a volunteer recipient developed an unexplained illness - a move the company described as “routine.”
In the latest development, Brazilian medical diagnostics company Dasa and US vaccine-maker COVAXX announced a deal Wednesday to conduct Phase 2 and 3 trials of the latter’s Covid-19 vaccine in Brazil.
COVAXX, a subsidiary of US firm United Biomedical, plans to test the vaccine on at least 3,000 volunteers in Brazil.
Clinical trials in Brazil of a Chinese-made vaccine against Covid-19 have shown “extremely positive” results, and a widespread vaccination campaign could begin as early as December, the governor of Sao Paulo state said Wednesday.
Sao Paulo, the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in hard-hit Brazil, is one of six states helping to test the so-called CoronaVac vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech, AFP reports.
The vaccine produced an immune response in 98% of recipients over 60 years old, with no adverse side-effects reported so far, said Governor Joao Doria.
“The results have been extremely positive,” he told a news conference.
“We will soon be able to immunise Brazilians in Sao Paulo and across the country with the CoronaVac vaccine.... The projected delivery date is in December this year.”
Sinovac has partnered with a Brazilian public health research centre, the Butantan Institute, to conduct Phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine - the last step before regulatory approval.
The deal gives the institute the right to produce 120 million doses of the vaccine, according to officials.
Pope Francis seen wearing mask for first time since start of pandemic
Pope Francis was seen on Wednesday wearing a face mask for the first time since the start of the pandemic but took it off to chat to the faithful, AFP reports.
The pontiff - known for a fondness for close personal contact - quickly removed the mask as he emerged from a car carrying him to one of his traditional general audiences.
The audience was only the second in the past six months to be held in the presence of the public after the coronavirus crisis forced the Vatican to exclude the public and stream the weekly event from his private library.
But Francis shunned his usual practice of shaking hands and kissing babies as some 500 faithful filled a courtyard at the Apostolic Palace inside the Vatican.
Crowds thronged behind a barrier and some even lowered their masks to greet the leader of the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday. The pope shook hands with prelates attending the audience and, smiling, then turned to the crowd, urging them to return to their seats in order to “avoid contagion”.
He also used hand sanitiser which was handed to him by a personal assistant. Francis focused on the socio-economic impact of the pandemic which he said was “without barriers”.
He advocated a society in which people should have more solidarity and that “health, in addition to being an individual good is also a public good”.
“A healthy society is one that takes care of everyone’s health,” the pope said.
The pope also castigated those who wanted to derive “economical or political benefits” from the pandemic without showing ethics.
The Guardian’s Robert Booth and Sarah Boseley report:
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson believes a mass testing programme is “our only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine”, according to leaked official documents setting out plans for “Operation Moonshot”.
The prime minister is said to be pinning his hopes on a project that would deliver up to 10m tests a day – even though the current testing regime is struggling to deliver a fraction of that number and is beset by problems.
The documents say the “Mass Population Testing Plan” could cost £100bn – the equivalent to the UK’s entire education budget.
If delivered, the moonshot programme would be unprecedented in scale and, as reflected by its name, is considered by some officials to be at the outer level of possibility.
Some of the technology it would require does not yet exist:
The first UK climate assembly made up of ordinary members of the public is calling for the economic recovery from Covid-19 to help drive the move to net zero carbon emissions.
In recommendations by UK citizens who took part in meetings to discuss reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the final report of the assembly said recovering from Covid-19 should be used as an opportunity to drive different lifestyles to tackle the climate crisis, including a frequent flyers tax and a reduction in meat and dairy consumption.
A large majority, 79% of the assembly, strongly agreed, or agreed, that economic recovery after the pandemic must be designed to help drive the country to its 2050 net zero target, which was signed into law last year.
These steps should include limits or conditions on investment in high carbon industries, and government encouragement for lifestyles to become more compatible with reaching net zero.
The assembly, which met for 6,000 hours across six weekends over 2020, said strong and clear leadership was needed:
A health official hired by a Donald Trump appointee has been working to prevent Dr Anthony Fauci from talking about dangers that Covid-19 poses to children, Politico reported on Wednesday.
The attempts by Dr Paul Alexander – who serves as a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) assistant public affairs secretary – were described in emails obtained by Politico.
Trump knew Covid was deadly but wanted to ‘play it down’, Woodward book saysRead more
Alexander reportedly told media liaisons at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about what Fauci should discuss during interviews. Alexander opined on Fauci’s possible responses to inquiries from publications such as Bloomberg News, HuffPost and BuzzFeed:
Here is a video of US President Donald Trump saying he was ‘trying to avoid panic’ by not revealing the severity of Covid-19, despite CNN audio published on Wednesday from an interview in February in which he acknowledged the virus was ‘deadly’:
Oxford Covid-19 vaccine trial participant undeterred by pause
A participant in the Oxford University coronavirus vaccine trial in the UK has said he is undeterred by a pause in the trial, which has been caused by an adverse reaction in one patient, and would continue to take part “in the name of science”.
“I didn’t have a great experience with the first round of the vaccine. I would admit that I had considerable concern about getting the second shot, just because I knew basically the first one took me out of action for two or three days.”
Before receiving the first vaccine dose, he had been warned that he may feel pain at the site of the injection and a fever for a few days, both of which he experienced. But three days after the fever subsided it returned, he said, and his temperature reached 39.4C (103F).
The fever subsided and when he received the email about the booster shot a few weeks later, he nonetheless agreed to take it.
“If something has gone wrong on a more serious level, then I doubt that they would continue to administer it,” he said.
He added that he would “certainly” recommend that others participate if more volunteers were needed:
The Oxford vaccine trials could resume in days, the Times reports:
Trials of Oxford University’s potential coronavirus vaccine could resume within days after being paused for an urgent investigation into possible adverse side-effects.
It is understood that Astrazeneca, the British drugmaker working with Oxford, halted new enrolment on trials after a British volunteer showed symptoms of transverse myelitis (TM), a rare inflammatory condition that affects the spinal cord.
Stat, the health industry website which first reported the hiatus, said that a woman was suspected to have TM but the diagnosis was not confirmed, and she was on course to be discharged from hospital as early as last night.
Global deaths pass 900,000
The number of coronavirus-related deaths worldwide over the course of the pandemic so far has passed 900,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The true toll is likely to be higher, due to delays in reporting, differing definitions (of what constitutes a coronavirus-related death, for example) and suspected underreporting in some countries.
The next milestone of this magnitude will be 1 million dead.
The toll has happened over the course of just around nine months.
The US, with 190,589 has the highest number of deaths worldwide – a fifth of the global total.
Updated
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 updates from around the world. We’d love to hear from you: get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
Donald Trump knew the extent of the deadly coronavirus threat in February but intentionally misled the public by deciding to “play it down”, according to interviews recorded by one of America’s most venerated investigative journalists.
On Thursday, specifically asked whether he downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump told reporters, “In order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so.”
Meanwhile infections are rising across Europe. France has seen its second-highest one-day coronavirus case total of the pandemic so far and hospitalisations are at a one-month high, as the Netherlands and Portugal both confirmed the highest infections since April.
Germany’s foreign ministry has advised tourists against travelling to a batch of European destinations including Prague, Geneva, Dubrovnik and Corsica due to high coronavirus infection rates.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- France’s covid hospitalisations at one-month high as cases surge. France’s daily new Covid-19 infections rose by more than 8,500 for the third time in six days on Wednesday, with the disease spreading at its fastest pace since it emerged in the country. The number of people taken to hospital with the virus was also up, by 43 - increasing for the 11th day in a row to reach a one-month high of 5,003.
- Boris Johnson pinning hopes on £100bn ‘moonshot’ to avoid second lockdown. UK prime minister Boris Johnson believes a mass testing programme is “our only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine”, according to leaked official documents setting out plans for “Operation Moonshot”.
- Portugal reports highest daily cases since 20 April. Portugal has reported 646 new coronavirus cases. The country’s health secretary, Jamila Madeira, said transmission was occurring primarily in family households.
- Germany advises against tourist trips to batch of European destinations. Germany’s foreign ministry has advised tourists against travelling to a batch of European destinations including Prague, Geneva, Dubrovnik and Corsica due to high coronavirus infection rates.
- Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook won’t remove anti-vaccine posts despite Covid concerns. The Facebook chief said he would not remove anti-vaxxer posts, even as the leading virus experts express cautious optimism that a Covid-19 vaccination may become available late this year or early next year.
- Daily Netherlands cases highest since April. The number of new coronavirus cases registered in the Netherlands rose to 1,140 in the past 24 hours – the highest daily total since April.
- Greece calls on UK to review ‘unfair’ quarantine decision. Greece’s tourism minister has said the UK government should review its decision to quarantine people travelling from seven of the country’s most popular islands, labelling the move “unfortunate and unfair”.
- We have no idea where Covid-19 vaccine will come from, says expert. Nobody can know where the first safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19 will come from, warned one of the UK’s leading medical experts, as the trials of the frontrunner, from Oxford University, were put on hold.
- Silvio Berlusconi says he is fighting ‘hellish’ case of coronavirus. The former Italian prime minister has said doctors at the hospital treating him for Covid-19 told him he was “No 1” for the severity of his viral load and that he is fighting to emerge from a “hellish” illness.
