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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Clea Skopeliti (now); Kevin Rawlinson, Jamie Grierson and Helen Sullivan (earlier)

Brazil records 290 deaths in 24 hours – as it happened

People wearing face masks walk by the Colosseum in Rome.
People wearing face masks walk by the Colosseum in Rome. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images

We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:

Slovakia to introduce tighter measures

Slovakia will impose stricter coronavirus restrictions from Thursday, including making face masks compulsory in public and limits to public gatherings, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday.

The government will also debate on Monday whether to limit gatherings to six people, health minister Marek Krajci said.

The country has reported a sharp increase in coronavirus cases in recent days, recording 19,851 cases on Saturday, up from 13,139 over the week.

Restaurants will be allowed only to serve food outdoors or for takeaway. All fitness facilities, water parks, swimming pools and saunas will be closed.

Updated

Brazil confirms 12,345 new infections

Brazil confirmed 290 coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours and 12,345 new cases, the nation’s health ministry said on Sunday.

The South American country has now registered 5,094,982 total confirmed coronavirus cases and 150,488 total deaths.

Jennifer Williams, politics and investigations editor for the Manchester Evening News, says “in reality there’s no clarity” about what will happen to Greater Manchester, despite a Telegraph front page announcing a four-week shutdown for hundreds of pubs in the northwest from Wednesday.

Updated

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, has tweeted that “urgent action” is needed to bring down rising infections, sharing a report suggesting there could be 850 deaths in hospitals in the northwest England by mid-November.

Italy plans new coronavirus restrictions

Italy is preparing new restrictions as daily infections surpassed 5,000 in recent days for the first time since March.

Deaths linked to the virus, however, are far lower than at the peak of the pandemic in spring.

Health minister Roberto Speranza said he had proposed a nationwide ban on private parties, while Rome would also target opening hours for bars and restaurants.

Speranza said Italy needed to add restrictions after having eased them for several weeks, as it aims to avoid a new national lockdown.

“Now we need a change of pace, and to intervene with measures, not comparable to those adopted in the past, which could allow us to put the contagion under control and avoid tougher measures later on,” he said in an interview with RAI state TV.

Earlier on Sunday, foreign minister Luigi Di Maio ruled out another national lockdown, saying the economy could not afford it.

Updated

Summary

Here are the key recent developments:

  • The UK has reported an additional 12,872 infections and 65 deaths – down from 15,166 and 81, respectively, on Saturday. However, figures are usually lower on Sundays due to weekend reporting delays.
  • Israel has opened a new coronavirus treatment centre co-run by the army’s medical corps, as the country deals with one of the world’s highest daily infection rates per capita.
  • The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday reported 7,694,865 coronavirus cases, an increase of 53,363 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 577 to 213,614.
  • Twitter has flagged a tweet by Donald Trump suggesting he has coronavirus immunity as misleading.
  • Greece announced 280 new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday, along with 13 deaths – the highest number of daily fatalities recorded in the country since the pandemic began.
  • Iran registered 251 deaths in 24 hours – its highest daily toll. The health ministry said the total number of identified cases had risen above 500,000.
  • Russia suffered its worst day yet for new infections. Moscow reported 13,634 new cases in 24 hours; the worst such figure since the pandemic began.
  • India’s confirmed coronavirus toll crossed 7 million on Sunday with a number of new cases dipping in recent weeks

Updated

Business leaders are mounting a legal challenge to the government’s lockdown restrictions, which they say have decimated the hospitality industry.

The challenge to the legality of emergency legislation is due to be handed to Downing Street on Monday as swathes of the country prepared for stricter lockdown rules.

Boris Johnson has come under increasing pressure to act after Scotland announced fresh restrictions on the hospitality sector. Ministers are planning to outline a new three-tiered system of restrictions, with measures expected to force pubs and restaurants to shut across the north of England.

Exclusive by Nazia Parveen here:

Updated

Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious disease expert, responded to his misleading appearance in a new ad for Donald Trump’s campaign, saying that he was taken out of context by the spot.

In the ad, Fauci can be heard saying “I can’t imagine that… anyone could be doing more”. The expert, however, was referring to the efforts of federal public health officials – not the president.

More on this over on the US blog.

Updated

Self-employed people have claimed they are “falling through the cracks” after new measures were announced on Friday to bolster the Jobs Support Scheme, PA news agency reports.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that workers in pubs, restaurants and other businesses which are forced to close under new coronavirus restrictions will have two-thirds of their wages paid by the government, up to a maximum of 2,100 a month.

Ministers will also increase cash grants to businesses in England which have been legally required to close, while a 1.57bn fund for the creative industries was launched.

With no change to the support for self-employed people, however, freelancers have expressed that their finances throughout the pandemic have been a “struggle”.

Campaigners believe as many as three million freelance and self-employed workers have been unable to claim on the government’s support schemes due to various restrictions.

Independent SAGE member Anthony Costello has shared this very thorough Twitter thread outlining the options the UK has as it faces its second coronavirus wave.

Greece reports highest daily rise in fatalities

Greece announced 280 new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday, along with 13 deaths – the highest number of daily fatalities recorded in the country since the pandemic began.

This takes Greece’s cumulative total to 22,358, while the death toll is at 449.

New restrictions on the number of people allowed inside restaurants, museums and archaeological site will be imposed on Monday in Athens and several other regions where cases are rising rapidly.

Updated

Twitter flags Trump tweet for breaking Covid-19 misinformation rule

Twitter has flagged a tweet by Donald Trump suggesting he has coronavirus immunity as misleading.

The disclaimer said the tweet violated its policies about misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19.

“A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know,” Trump said in the tweet.

A Twitter spokeswoman told Reuters that the tweet made “misleading health claims” about Covid-19 and that engagements with the post would be “significantly limited,” as is standard in such cases.

Updated

Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City Region, has tweeted that “no agreement has yet been reached with government and negotiations are ongoing”, regardless of reports suggesting otherwise.

France reported 16,101 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, down from a record of almost 27,000 the previous day.

This brings the country’s cumulative total to 734,974.

The health ministry said there had been a further 46 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s toll to 32,730.

New cases are generally lower on Sunday because fewer tests are taken over the weekend.

Updated

Germany should continue restricting the number of people allowed to gather in groups and crack down on unnecessary travel, an adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.

“We must be a bit stricter in places where infection chains spread mostly, which is parties and, unfortunately, also travel,” the chancellor’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, told public broadcaster ARD.

“We are at the beginning of a second wave and only the politicians’ and the population’s determination will decide whether or not we can avoid it, or slow it down,” he added.

Infections and deaths had remained lower in the country than in many of its European neighborus, but the daily number of new cases has leapt above 4,000 since Thursday, the highest since April.

Tougher penalties are on the cards, with Bavaria’s prime minister, Markus Soeder, at the weekend proposing steeper fines for people not wearing masks where mandated in places such as public transport and shops. They should rise to €250 compared with the current €50 and €500 for repeat offenders, he said.

Updated

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday reported 7,694,865 coronavirus cases, an increase of 53,363 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 577 to 213,614.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

Demand for food relief has risen by 47% on average during Covid-19, Australian charities say, with the trend driven by growing numbers of international students and casual workers asking for help.

In a report to be released on Monday, Foodbank surveyed about 500 charities once a month between April and September, as well as 1,000 Australians aged 18 and older who had experienced food insecurity in the past 12 months.

Despite the doubling of the jobseeker payment and the introduction of the jobkeeper subsidy, Foodbank said casual workers and international students were among two “newly food insecure groups emerging as a result of the pandemic”.

ITV’s political correspondent, Paul Brant, has tweeted that Liverpool City Region is heading for a tier 3 lockdown, adding that “there’s still a possibility that the above measures could evolve before tomorrow”. He says Downing Street have declined to comment.

Updated

Nottingham’s weekly rate of new Covid-19 cases has climbed even higher and has now topped 800 cases per 100,000 people, the latest data shows.

The local authority continues to have the highest rate in England, with 2,763 new cases recorded in the seven days to 8 October – the equivalent of 830.0 cases per 100,000 people.

This is a huge jump from 314.5 per 100,000 in the seven days to 1 October.

Knowsley has the second highest rate, which has climbed from 485.9 to 669.5, with 1,010 new cases.

Liverpool is in third place, where the rate has increased from 504.4 to 598.5, with 2,981 new cases.

Newcastle upon Tyne has the fourth highest rate, increasing from 420.1 to 509.5, with 1,543 new cases.

Burnley is fifth, rising from 445.3 to 503.8, an increase of 448 new cases.

PA’s figures are calculated based on Public Health England data published on Sunday.

Updated

Police dispersed a party of up 100 students in Manchester on Saturday, as the city reckons with looming new restrictions due to surging infection rates.

Officers broke up the party at an address in Withington, an area in the south of the city popular with students.

The city, which has a very large student population, has among the highest rates of coronavirus infections in the UK.

Police issued seven fixed penalty notices (FPN) and a noise abatement order, PA media reports.

The FPNs were some of the more than 70 issued by GMP this weekend for breach of Covid-19 laws, the force said.

Fallowfield, another area of south Manchester popular with students, where up to 20 people attempted to flee from the rear of the property. Four FPNs were issued during this incident.

Updated

As England waits for Boris Johnson to announce a new system of restrictions on Monday, here’s Jamie Grierson with an explainer on what a three-tier plan may look like, based on recent leaks to the media.

The ‘traffic-light’ plan is meant to simplify the current system of locally varying restrictions.

Tier 1 could expect restrictions to mirror the current national measures in place, including the rule of six and guidance for public venues.

Tier 2 would likely see an end to household mixing, unless you have formed a support bubble under established guidelines.

Tier 3 could see a ban on social contact with another household in any setting. Hospitality venues could be completely closed.

In an unprecedented development for the country in its fight against the pandemic, Israel has opened a new coronavirus treatment centre co-run by the army’s medical corps.

The state has one of the world’s highest daily infection rates per capita, and the number of patients who are seriously ill with Covid-19 is steadily increasing.

The facility is in the Ramabam hospital in the northern city of Haifa. The army’s intervention is will help to “to free up Rambam personnel (to go back) to regular floors”, a deputy manager at the hospital said, as regular services have been cut due to the pressure of dealing with Covid-19 patients.

There are currently around 60 patients in the unit, but could accommodate up to 800 if needed.

The pandemic marks the first time the unit has worked inside a civilian hospital, said Ariel Furer, head of the army’s Covid-19 department.

“We understand that the times are very difficult. The pandemic is here to stay,” he told AFP.

Updated

UK reports an additional 12,872 infections

There have been a further 12,872 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, according to government data. This compares with 15,166 new cases registered on Saturday.

A total of 603,716 cases have been confirmed.

A further 65 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Sunday, bringing the total to 42,825. There were 81 on Saturday.

It is important to note that Sunday figures are often lower due to delays in reporting over the weekend.

Updated

Hello, I’ll be taking over the blog for the next few hours. My Twitter DMs are open for any news tips or suggestions for coverage from your part of the world. Thanks in advance.

Summary

Here are the key recent global developments:

  • Boris Johnson held a rare Sunday briefing with ministers as the row between Westminster and local leaders continued. Mayors in Manchester and Liverpool accused government minsters of handing down decisions on local lockdowns as faits accomplis and refusing to properly consult. The prime minister is due to set out his new plan to the Commons on Monday.
  • Iran registered 251 deaths in 24 hours – its highest daily toll. The health ministry said the total number of identified cases had risen above 500,000.
  • Russia suffered its worst day yet for new infections. Moscow reported 13,634 new cases in 24 hours; the worst such figure since the pandemic began.
  • Trump no longer a transmission risk to others, says White House doctor. White House physician Sean Conley said President Trump took a Covid-19 test on Saturday that showed that he is no longer a “transmission risk to others”. Conley said in a statement that tests show there is no longer evidence “of actively replicating virus”. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Conley’s statement indicated that the president had tested negative for the virus.
  • India cases pass 7m. India’s confirmed coronavirus toll crossed 7 million on Sunday with a number of new cases dipping in recent weeks. The health ministry reported another 74,383 infections in the past 24 hours. India is expected to become the pandemic’s worst-hit country in the coming weeks, surpassing the US, where more than 7.7 million infections have been reported.
  • US president Donald Trump made his first public appearance since returning to the White House after a three-day hospital stay, an appearance seen as a first step toward a return to the election campaign trail next week.
  • The number of new infections in France jumped to over 26,000 in one day for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
  • The UK recorded 15,166 new daily cases of coronavirus on Saturday; a rise on the 13,864 cases reported the day before, bringing the total official death toll to 42,760.
  • The Australian state of Victoria has reported 12 new cases and one death over the past 24 hours, while the 14 day rolling average has slightly dropped.
  • Brazil passed the grim milestone of 150,000 coronavirus deaths on Saturday.
  • Iran made mask-wearing mandatory in public in Tehran on Saturday with violations punishable by fines, after the daily death toll from Covid-19 peaked at 239 this week.
  • Ireland reported 1,012 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the highest daily figure since April and up from an average of 523 over the previous seven days.
  • The number of people in New Yorkers hospitalised with the coronavirus continues to rise, state governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday.

Updated

The US president Donald Trump has claimed he no longer has Covid-19 and is not a transmission risk, as he prepares to hit the campaign trail on Monday with a return to big rallies.

Trump, who has frequently demonstrated himself to be an unreliable source, said tests showed he would be able to return to campaigning with no risk to others. His doctor said on Saturday the president was not a transmission risk but did not address whether he tested negative for the virus. Trump told the Fox News channel:

I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I’m in great shape. It seems like I’m immune. I can go way out of the basement.

A significant number of French nurses responding to a poll say they are tired and fed up, with 37% saying that the pandemic is making them want to change jobs. The poll published Sunday by the National Order of Nurses comes as infection rates soar across the country.

Nearly 59,400 nurses responded to the poll on the impact of the health crisis on their working conditions, out of 350,000 in the Order of Nurses. The numbers painted a grim diagnosis of the profession and suggested that French medical facilities may not be keeping pace with the growing need caused by the pandemic, despite lessons that should have been learned from the height of the virus last spring.

Of nurses in public establishments, 43% felt that “we are not better prepared collectively to respond to a new wave of infections”, according to the poll. The figure rises to 46% for nurses in the private domain. About two-thirds of respondents say their working conditions have deteriorated since the start of the crisis.

Burnout looms, the poll suggests, with 57% of respondents saying they have been professionally exhausted since the start of pandemic, while nearly half saying there’s a strong risk that fatigue will impact the quality of care patients receive.

For 37% of the nurses responding, the crisis “makes them want to change jobs” and 43% “don’t know if they will still be nurses in five years”, according to the poll, which did not provide a margin of error.

Updated

A further 32 people who tested positive have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 30,471, NHS England has said.

The patients were aged between 54 and 100 years old. All but one patient, aged 65, had known underlying health conditions. Seven other deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

Ireland plans to introduce testing at airports as part of a possible alternative to quarantine for some arriving passengers, although it is not clear when the capacity will be ready, its health minister Stephen Donnelly has said.

Th airlines Ryanair and Aer Lingus have heavily criticised the government for imposing some of the strictest travel restrictions in Europe, with 14-day quarantines advised for almost all incoming travellers.

Under an EU system to be signed off next week, travellers from regions with extremely low levels of the virus will be placed in a “green” category and allowed to travel without restriction, but very few regions in Europe now qualify.

Other regions would be listed as “amber” or “red” with governments to impose restrictions.

Donnelly said the default position would be to require travellers from “red” and “amber” regions to restrict their movements. But plans are being worked on by the government for testing that could allow some passengers to avoid quarantine.

Testing at airports “will happen because it is required as part of the protocol”, Donnelly said in an interview with RTÉ radio, though he declined to specify a timeframe.

One option being considered would be to allow passengers from some destinations to avoid a quarantine if they produce negative tests taken three days before travelling. Others might be required to take a second, rapid test before departing.

The UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson is holding a telephone conference with his cabinet members he prepares to bring in a new three-tier restrictions regime.

Johnson’s decision to brief ministers on a Sunday is a rare move and comes as some northern English leaders have expressed anger at what they see as a lack of consultation and a determination in Whitehall to push through restrictions in their areas without offering the support needed to deal with them.

The prime minister is set to detail the new system, with measures expected to force pubs and restaurants to shut across much of the north of England and see millions of people banned from mixing indoors and outdoors.

Reports suggest the top tier will see no household mixing allowed either, which could affect millions of people living in areas with high Covid-19 rates across England.

The empathy and community spirit created in the early days of the lockdown risks being destroyed by a backlash of declining trust in politicians and the government’s handling of the crisis, according to a Labour MP.

Jess Phillips has warned that the country would become more divided, saying:

I’m afraid to say that the way that it has been handled, the fact that there is trust is an incredibly low bar with those who are in charge, whether it’s public health, whether it’s the economy, whatever it is.

Trust has been actually worsened and degraded throughout the process that I actually think, I’m afraid to say, that you could sweep away the good community element of the beginning of it.

Phillips, who was speaking at an event at the Cheltenham Literature Festival about transforming society in a post-Covid world, said she expected to see “very, very, very hard and divisive times”.

What worries me is that we’re about to see a downturn in the economy that is largely, partially unprecedented, but partially poor management and years of poor management that has meant that we haven’t ... we didn’t mind the gap.

And there is a growing gap that some people are going to fall into.

Instead of taking that on the chin and facing it down, like with the EU, like with the people in the boats, the government will allow it to become somebody else’s fault.

In places, like where I live, where we live in a local lockdown, very early on in places like Blackburn, in Oldham, it was very, very completely wrongly suggested that the virus was being largely spread by the Asian community.

Before too long when we go into further lockdowns in places like London and in places like Chelmsford, where they’re going to think Asian people in Oldham are the reason that their businesses going under and the government will allow them to think it.

We should all watch out for it now. This is the backlash that is coming. Spot it when it arrives and ignore it because it is not true.

Staff at a Vue Cinema wearing PPE.
Staff at a Vue Cinema wearing PPE. Photograph: Maureen McLean/REX/Shutterstock

Nearly a quarter of Vue cinemas in the UK will be shut three days a week an effort to reduce costs following delays in the release of a string of blockbusters, PA Media is reporting.

From next week, the cinema chain will reduce its opening hours to four days a week at 21 of its 91 sites, keeping them shut on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

This comes after rival chain Cineworld announced it will temporarily close 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse sites in the UK.

The chief executive of Vue Cinemas previously said cinema chains were dealt a “body blow” by the delay to the next James Bond film, No Time To Die, until April next year.

Marvel film Black Widow, sci-fi blockbuster Dune and Jurassic World: Dominion are also among the high-profile titles that have seen release delays as a result of the global pandemic.

Updated

A bartender wearing a protective face mask prepares a drink at a bar in Beirut
A bartender wearing a protective face mask prepares a drink at a bar in Beirut Photograph: Issam Abdallah/Reuters

Almost 170 Lebanese villages and towns will go into lockdown for the next week as it grapples with record numbers of coronavirus cases, the news agency AFP is reporting.

Authorities in the Middle Eastern country have also ordered bars and nightclubs nationwide closed until further notice.

An interior ministry statement said 169 villages and towns across the country would be locked down for one week from 6am (3am GMT) on Monday. About half of those localities had already been placed in lockdown under measures announced earlier this month, including the closure of all public and private institutions excluding bakeries and pharmacies.

Lebanon, a Mediterranean country reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades, has recorded 52,558 novel coronavirus cases, including 455 deaths.

Infections rose sharply in the aftermath of a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port on 4 August that killed more than 200 people, injured thousands, damaged several hospitals and overwhelmed the capital’s health services.

Updated

The Czech government will announce stricter measures within days to curb soaring infections and hospitalisations, but will seek to avoid the kind of blanket lockdown imposed in the spring, a deputy prime minister has said.

The nation of 10.7 million people has recorded Europe’s fastest rate of growth in new cases per capita in recent weeks after authorities eased most restrictions during the summer following a tough lockdown when the pandemic began in March.

“It won’t be entirely (like in spring),” Alena Schillerová said in a debate broadcast on Czech television, adding that the government was likely to announce the measures within two days. “We don’t want to switch off the economy. We want to have it (the measures) more targeted … We will limit contacts and gatherings of people,” she said.

Her comments came ahead of the government’s planned security council meeting on Monday to assess possible measures, the cabinet’s press department said.

So far in October, the Czech Republic has reported more than 43,000 cases, the same number as for the whole of September. The number of hospitalised patients jumped by 76% to 2,085 in the past week, raising fears that hospitals may soon be overwhelmed.

Some hospitals have started postponing planned procedures to make space for Covid-19 patients, while the Czech medical chamber warned last Sunday that the number of infected doctors, nurses and other medical staff was rising rapidly.

Updated

Iran sees worst one-day death toll

Iran has registered 251 deaths in 24 hours – its highest daily toll – the health ministry has said, as the total number of identified cases rose above 500,000 in the worst-hit country in the Middle East.

Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV that the latest toll took the total death toll to 28,544. There were 3,822 new cases, with the total number of identified cases to date reaching 500,075, she added.

Updated

The Spanish regions of Catalonia and Navarre will bring in new restrictions on working and public gatherings after worrying rises in cases, local authorities have said.

Josep Maria Argimon, the Catalan health secretary, asked companies to tell employees to work from home for the next 15 days. He told the RAC1 radio station:

Without establishing measures, we could reach the situation in Madrid in two or three weeks. But we will not reach the situation in Madrid, because we are going to take mandatory measures that will be announced this week.

Madrid, where a state of emergency was imposed on Friday to halt soaring infection rates, is one of Europe’s hotspots.

Catalonia reported 2,360 cases and 13 deaths in 24 hours, health authorities said on Sunday. In Navarre, which has a population of 650,000, the regional leader María Chivite announced new restrictions after 463 cases were reported on Sunday; the highest daily figure since the start of the pandemic.

From Tuesday, meetings will be limited to six people, bars and restaurants must close at 10pm and their capacity will be limited to 50%, while the capacity in children’s parks will be cut to 30%.

Updated

Summary

Here are the key recent global developments:

  • Russia suffered its worst day yet for new infections. Moscow reported 13,634 new cases in 24 hours; the worst such figure since the pandemic began.
  • In the UK, the row between Westminster and local leaders carried on. Mayors in Manchester and Liverpool accused government minsters of handing down decisions on local lockdowns as faits accomplis and refusing to properly consult. The prime minister is due to set out his new plan to the Commons on Monday.
  • Trump no longer ‘a transmission risk to others’, says White House doctor. White House physician Sean Conley said President Donald Trump took a Covid-19 test on Saturday that showed that he is no longer a “transmission risk to others”. Conley said in a statement that tests show there is no longer evidence “of actively replicating virus”. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Conley’s statement indicated that the president had tested negative for the virus.
  • India cases pass 7m. India’s confirmed coronavirus toll crossed 7 million on Sunday with a number of new cases dipping in recent weeks. The health ministry reported another 74,383 infections in the past 24 hours. India is expected to become the pandemic’s worst-hit country in the coming weeks, surpassing the US, where more than 7.7 million infections have been reported.
  • US president Donald Trump made his first public appearance since returning to the White House after a three-day hospital stay, an appearance seen as a first step toward a return to the election campaign trail next week.
  • The number of new infections in France jumped to over 26,000 in one day for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
  • The UK recorded 15,166 new daily cases of coronavirus on Saturday; a rise on the 13,864 cases reported the day before, bringing the total official death toll to 42,760.
  • The Australian state of Victoria has reported 12 new cases and one death over the past 24 hours, while the 14 day rolling average has slightly dropped.
  • Brazil surpassed the grim milestone of 150,000 coronavirus deathson Saturday.
  • Iran made mask-wearing mandatory in public in Tehran on Saturday with violations punishable by fines, after the daily death toll from Covid-19 peaked at 239 this week.
  • Ireland reported 1,012 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the highest daily figure since April and up from an average of 523 over the previous seven days.
  • The number of people in New Yorkers hospitalised with the coronavirus continues to rise, state governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday.

Updated

Malaysia has reported 561 new cases – the bulk of them in Sabah state, which has already seen a large increase in infections over the past few weeks. The new cases raise Malaysia’s cumulative tally to 15,657 cases, according to the health ministry. There were two new deaths reported, raising the fatality toll to 157.

The Manchester city council chief said the data presented to local officials by Westminster from was not related directly to the city, but to the North West of England.

That’s got rural Cumbria being lumped with Merseyside and Greater Manchester, that’s not appropriate data to be looking at.

Leese, a Labour member, said there were “great difficulties” for the party’s leader Keir Starmer and MPs to not be seen to be opposing measures to tackle the pandemic, such as the 10pm curfew in pubs.

But, accusing the Conservative government in Westminster of an unwillingness to cooperate with local officials, he said Labour’s parliamentary party must eventually refuse to support ministers’ plans and put forward their own alternatives.

Leese said his data showed very little evidence of transmission of the virus in pubs and suggested closing them just displaced the problem to gatherings outside and unregulated settings.

He added that he would “absolutely not” be happy to see a Tier 3 lockdown for the city as he said it would not tackle the spread of the virus and would be “absolutely disastrous” for the local economy. Asked about a time limit on any new restrictions he said:

Well, government at the moment are talking about a four-week sunset element and sunset appears to be a review rather than the end of the period.

No, we are not at all clear what the exit strategy is to this. It appears to mean that you are stuck with whatever is there for four weeks and at the end of four weeks you can review it, but that’s all there is, a review as far as I can understand it.

In the UK, there is a “large gulf” between Manchester’s leaders and Westminster in ongoing discussions about further restrictions, according to the head of the city council Sir Richard Leese. He told Times Radio:

We seem to have an almost impossible task of penetrating the Westminster bubble.

Leese said the council’s own data showed there was “no evidence closing pubs works”, adding that the government ha talked about a four-week “sunset” clause to review any future restrictions – but there was “not clarity” on the issue.

And he questioned the data central government was working with, with largely rural Cumbria “lumped in” with Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

I think we believe with good cause, because of the data and knowledge of what is going on, on the ground we have far more finely grained data than government does and we are in a far, far better position to lead in the containment process.

And we are still getting things coming from government and meetings that took place on Friday, not just in Greater Manchester across the north [of England], where we are getting proposed solutions with no evidence to suggest why they are needed and no evidence to suggest they would work when all the evidence we have got says they are looking in the wrong place.

Turkey will start declaring the number of asymptomatic cases from 15 October, its health minister has said, following criticism that its disclosure of only symptomatic cases hid the extent of infections.

At the end of July, Turkey changed the wording of its daily report to show the number of “patients” instead of “cases” . And, on 30 September, the health minister Fahrettin Koca said the government was only sharing the number of positive cases with symptoms.

Medics and opposition parties criticised the practice, saying it was aimed at hiding the real scale of the pandemic and was meant to keep the economy moving. On Sunday, the daily newspaper Hurriyet quoted Koca as saying:

We will start (releasing all the numbers) on 15th. We will share the cross sectional screening results even though they show no symptoms. We will report these to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The UK is in a precarious position with rising case numbers, hospital admissions and deaths, according to a senior government adviser. The Universiity of Oxford’s Prof Peter Horby, who is also chairman of the government advisory group for new and emerging respiratory virus threats (Nervtag), said the risk of death for Covid-19 patients in hospitals was falling.

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show he said:

We are already seeing in some parts of the north that some hospitals are starting to see the pressure.

We have a doubling time of about eight to 15 days so it is not long before those ICU (intensive care unit) beds could be full and we could be in a really difficult situation. So I am afraid we are going to have to make some very difficult choices and act very quickly.

Asked if the country faced a second national lockdown, he said: “I think that’s a possibility and we have to do what we can to avoid that at all costs.”

Updated

Russia suffers worst day for cases

Moscow has reported 13,634 new cases in the last 24 hours; the worst such figure since the pandemic began. That brings its nationwide tally to 1,298,718.

The country’s taskforce said 149 people had died overnight, pushing the death toll to 22,597. Russia, which has a total population of about 145 million people, has recorded the fourth highest number of infections in the world since the start of the pandemic.

Updated

Anderson scorned those raising questions about the cost of economic support during the pandemic. He said they needed to “wake up and smell the coffee” because, if Westminster does not offer economic support for people and businesses during the lockdown, they will have to pay instead for people to be on benefits.

So it’s a no-brainer to make sure we actually support people. And what’s the difference between the initial national lockdown and the national furlough scheme and a local lockdown and a local furlough scheme? In my view, no difference at all.

And that’s my point. If this was in London, we wouldn’t be talking about this. It’s because it’s the north-west they want to do it on the cheap and we are not going to allow them to do that.

And let me make this absolutely clear, the people in the north-west won’t stay on their knees and tolerate a government that is actually dictating in a way that’s going to damage our economy for many, many years to come.

Asked what he would say to Jenrick, Burnham told Times Radio:

Isn’t it time for a major change here, a complete reversal of what we have seen so far? Localising the response to this crisis but critically, as Joe said, putting in place a help package and an economic package to help the north of England through.

I would say to him this: ‘Are we levelling up here or are we levelling down? Which is it?’

If you go ahead with this financial package, in my view, that will be to break what the government said it would do when they were elected.

If they continue with this, jobs will be lost, businesses will collapse, the fragile economies of the north will be shattered.

The government has a real choice here, if it proceeds on the path it is on, in my view, the central so-called mission of this government to level-up will be over.

Updated

Rather than vote down the UK government’s plan, the opposition Labour party will focus on presenting alternative support packages for those areas facing tightened restrictions, its foreign policy spokeswoman has said.

Labour could vote against the Conservative government’s measures to control the coronavirus but fears that would further hurt places in northern England where Covid-19 cases are rising rapidly, Lisa Nandy told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

Instead, Nandy said, Labour would look at presenting an alternative financial package for those affected by any new restrictions, criticising the government’s measures as offering too little.

Her shadow cabinet colleague, Jonathan Reynolds, told Sky News earlier he would back measures such as the 10pm curfew as long as they came with financial support.

Updated

Speaking alongside Burnham on Times Radio, the mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson added:

We’ve got very little powers or influence over this and we are being done to rather than being collaborated with or talked to.

The rhetoric of this prime minister is about levelling up and what we are going to be witnessing in Liverpool – and I know, I’m quite happy to say I’ve been told – [is] that Liverpool will be likely to be placed in tier three.

That is going to have huge economic damage and damage that will take us back to the position this city was in in the 80s with large levels of people unemployed and it will set us back a long time.

Let’s make it absolutely clear here, if this was down in the south-east, in London, it wouldn’t be happening, it simply wouldn’t be tolerated.

Updated

Local leaders from parts of northern England are still in discussion with the Westminster government on more restrictions, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham ,has said.

He again criticised the UK government’s response to the pandemic amid a growing north-south lockdown row and said the test and trace system is “failing” and has been all year.

We are powerless to change that, a system that’s not working for us and then the government comes along and asks to put us under more restrictions, it’s not acceptable for us to be left in this position.

Asked in a Sky News interview if local mayors would be given more control over test and trace efforts, the communities secretary and local government secretary, Robert Jenrick, said:

Yes, we want to work very closely with the local mayors and with the councils. We are going to be ensuring that the national testing infrastructure … works in harmony with what’s happening locally because local councils and local communities are very good at contact tracing.

Updated

The UK’s housing secretary Robert Jenrick has defended the government’s local lockdown strategy, claiming the alternative is a national lockdown that would be even more disruptive. He told Sky News:

Though the number of cases is rising rapidly across the country there are still huge variations. If you go to north Norfolk the latest statistics showed that the number of cases is around 19, if you go to Manchester it’s well over 500.

So, it is right that we pursue a localised approach. That must be the way forward because none of us want to see a return to blanket national measures – that would be the alternative.

He insisted the Westminster government is communicating effectively with local leaders, despite its insistence before the weekend that they were being informed of decisions that have already been taken, rather than being engaged in any meaningful consultation. He said:

We have spent the weekend working with those local leaders. I have spent the whole weekend talking to leaders from Merseyside, from Greeter Manchester, from other parts of the country.

We are trying to work very closely with mayors, with council leaders, with chief executives to design these measures with them. That does take time.

We want to have good communication between national and local government before we announce how we are going to take this forwards.

Updated

The widely used BCG tuberculosis vaccine will be tested on frontline care workers in Britain for its effectiveness against Covid-19, researchers running the UK arm of a global trial have said.

The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine induces a broad innate immune system response and has been shown to protect against infection or severe illness with other respiratory pathogens. Prof John Campbell of the University of Exeter medical school said:

BCG has been shown to boost immunity in a generalised way, which may offer some protection against Covid-19. We are seeking to establish whether the BCG vaccine could help protect people who are at risk of Covid-19. If it does, we could save lives by administering or topping up this readily available and cost-effective vaccination.

The UK study is part of an existing Australian-led trial that launched in April and also has arms in the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil. The BCG vaccine is also being tested as a protection against Covid-19 in South Africa.

The British trial is recruiting volunteers ahead of winter months that officials have warned may be tough as the country grapples with a second wave of infections.

Boris Johnson has indicated that restrictions to curb the pandemic could be in place until spring.

The trial’s UK arm, which is being run from Exeter, southwest England, is seeking to recruit 1,000 people who work in care homes and community healthcare nearby. Globally, more than 10,000 healthcare staff will be recruited.

The UK prime minister Boris Johnson has lost control of the crisis and, while further restrictions are necessary, they should be accompanied with additional financial help, the shadow work and pensions secretary has said.

Jonathan Reynolds told Sky News there was anger in northern England over how the new restrictions, which are expected to be brought in on Monday, had been briefed to newspapers before being communicated to local populations.

Here’s a little more on Sturgeon’s comments about Scotland’s approach to lifting lockdown restrictions. She has told Sky News:

We suppressed the virus to very low levels because of lockdown and lifted lockdown a little bit more slowly than other parts of the UK but as lockdown measures are lifted and people start to interact with each other more then the virus just gets more opportunities to spread.

We’re also going into winter, we’re not into the depths of winter yet but temperatures are falling a little bit so the conditions for the virus start to come more favourable for it.

She also added that Scottish schools and universities return after the summer earlier than in other parts of the UK.

There’s a multitude of factors there but what is important is that we try and strike a balance between living as best we can with this virus, retaining some of the freedoms that we didn’t have during very strict lockdown, but still making sure we’re keeping it under control.

Sturgeon is asked why the MP Margaret Ferrier has not been thrown out of her Scottish National Party for mixing with people in several locations despite knowing she had tested positive.

The SNP leader says Ferrier’s membership has been suspended and that party proceedings against her are ongoing. But she said she cannot remove Ferrier without due process.

She renews her call on Ferrier to resign as a Westminster MP but Sturgeon, who does not sit in the UK parliament, says she does not have the power to force her to do so.

Asked why Scotland is typically using less than half of the 40,000-per-day testing capacity, Sturgeon says the system’s designed to operate through the winter, when more people are likely to fall ill during the annual flu season and need a test.

The Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon is being interviewed now, as it emerges that the virus is spreading faster in Scotland than in many parts of the UK. She tells Sky News that cases are still lower in the nation than elsewhere because the numbers were suppressed too “very low levels” in the summer and Scotland was slower to remove lockdown restrictions.

Updated

South Korea will begin to ease social distancing rules on Monday, its government has said, allowing the reopening of nightly entertainment facilities and sports fixtures, as new cases have been edging lower in recent weeks.

Daily infections have largely been in the double digits over the past two weeks, down from as many as 440 during outbreaks following a church and a political rally in August. Those prompted authorities to tighten curbs on gatherings and some businesses.

The eased rules mean entertainment facilities such as nightclubs and karaoke bars can reopen and limited audiences will be allowed at sports matches such as the popular Korea Baseball Organization League, as long as they comply with anti-virus guidelines.

But some stricter rules will be kept in the heavily populated Seoul area and high-risk venues including religious gatherings and door-to-door sales businesses, the government said. The prime minister Chung Sye-kyun told a meeting:

We will lower the level of social distancing nationwide but maintain the controls on risk factors such as the door-to-door sales industry. Many citizens are feeling fatigue over prolonged distancing, and we also took its negative impact on the economy into consideration.

The decor is nightclub chic meets Turkish opium den. The lighting, soft pink and electric blue. And, were it not for the sweet waft of marijuana, it could be the lobby of a Las Vegas boutique hotel. In fact, it’s one of Barcelona’s 156 cannabis clubs, known as asociaciónes.

The idea was a quiet place where you could buy and smoke marijuana, often grown by members, and only on the premises, but many are now businesses and, police say, fronts for drug mafias. With the collapse of tourism, the cannabis business is one of very few thriving in Catalonia, but beyond the low lights and chilled vibe of the associations, darker forces are in play. An internal report by the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police, claims “Catalonia is the epicentre of Europe’s illegal marijuana market” and has become a net exporter of cannabis to other European countries.

Hello, I’m taking over the blog from Helen Sullivan for the next few hours. If you’d like to draw my attention to anything, your best bet is probably Twitter, where I’m KevinJRawlinson.

That’s it from me for today. Thanks for following along – my colleague Kevin Rawlinson will take you through the next few hours of pandemic news.

The British government is on a collision course with the information commissioner over its refusal to publish a confidential report warning that the UK’s health system could not cope in a pandemic.

In a dramatic move, the Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to hand over the report into Exercise Cygnus, or explain its decision for refusing, by 23 October.

Cygnus, a three-day simulation exercise in 2016, assessed the UK’s ability to cope with an influenza pandemic, but its findings are pertinent to the current coronavirus crisis:

Millions of people could be banned from mixing indoors and outdoors and thousands of pubs forced to close under new coronavirus restrictions due to be announced on Monday, PA Media reports.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to outline a new three-tiered system of restrictions with measures expected to force pubs and restaurants shut across the north of England.

Reports suggest under the top tier no household mixing will be allowed either, which could affect millions of people living in areas with high Covid-19 rates across England.

Leaders across Northern England criticised the plans, accusing the Government of treating the region as “second-class” and did not rule out possible legal action.

But the Sunday Times reported ministers were drawing up proposals to give town halls more powers over the test and trace system to try to secure their support.

Like the Covid-19 virus itself, the idea of herd immunity has surged back into public life having been suppressed for months. It was initially touted as a way to hold back the pandemic – by allowing sufficient numbers of infections to occur and so reduce numbers of non-immune potential hosts for the virus. The disease would then stop spreading, it was argued.

The notion quickly fell out of favour when researchers highlighted the high death toll that would have to occur in the UK before herd immunity was achieved. Nevertheless, the idea has now bubbled back and is again making headlines.

According to signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration which was published last week, it is now time to remove lockdown restrictions for most of society and to allow the population to get on with their lives while still protecting the vulnerable and old. Herd immunity would build up and soon the scourge of Covid-19 would disappear.

It is an enticing argument. But is herd immunity really a panacea whose time has come? Can it lift the curse of Covid from the world? Many UK scientists counsel caution:

It started badly, with gag orders, cover-ups and ignored offers of help from overseas, but then the Chinese government seized the narrative. It reined in the burgeoning epidemic of Covid-19 at home, and started exporting its rapidly accumulating scientific knowledge of the disease to the rest of the world. Chinese science has often been marginalised and even mistrusted in the west. But will the pandemic change its standing in the world?

“China has moved from student to teacher,” says Kate Mason, an anthropologist at Brown University in Rhode Island and author of Infectious Change, an account of how the 2002-3 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in China transformed the way the country managed public health. After Sars, she says, western experts went to China to help it put in place an evidence-based health system that was informed by international research. That system now exists, with its most visible symbol being the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, and this time it has been Chinese experts giving instruction abroad. “It has been a good year for China,” Mason says.

But China has long held a goal to lead the world in science, and it was already well on its way to achieving it before the pandemic. Five years ago, it didn’t appear in the top 10 countries for university rankings; this year, it’s joint sixth. It is second in the world for output of science and engineering publications, behind the European Union but ahead of the United States, and the impact of Chinese research – as measured by the proportion of articles that are highly cited – doubled between 2000 and 2016, growing much faster than that of the US and the EU, which increased by around 10% and 30% respectively over the same period:

The best non-coronavirus thing I learned today:

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has confirmed the country will move “very cautiously” to reopen quarantine-free travel with a “handful” of countries, raising the prospect Europe and the United States will be excluded until 2022 unless a Covid vaccine is available.

Morrison made the comments at a doorstop in Redbank, campaigning with Queensland’s Liberal National party leader, Deb Frecklington, and targeting the Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk over the state’s reluctance to remove its state border travel ban.

On Sunday the federal tourism minister, Simon Birmingham, said that moves to establish quarantine-free travel with low-risk countries such as New Zealand “can’t be done at the expense of our health and economic strength at home”.

“The prospects of opening up widespread travel with higher risk countries will remain very reliant on effective vaccination or other major breakthroughs in the management of Covid,” he told the Sun Herald:

Fans of BTS tuned in to an online concert by the K-pop boyband on Saturday, holding their signature light sticks and sharing messages in a chatroom, Reuters reports.

Titled “Map of The Soul ON:E,” the virtual event came after the seven-member group scrapped its initial plan to hold an in-person show for a limited audience, in line with the South Korean government’s tightened social distancing curbs. The band had already cancelled planned world tours.

Fans of K-pop idol boy band BTS enjoy as they watch a live streaming online concert, wearing a protective masks to avoid the spread of the coronavirus outbreak at a cafe in Seoul, South Korea 10 October 2020.
Fans of K-pop idol boy band BTS enjoy as they watch a live streaming online concert, wearing a protective masks to avoid the spread of the coronavirus outbreak at a cafe in Seoul, South Korea 10 October 2020. Photograph: Heo Ran/Reuters

The band’s latest success was “Dynamite”, its first song entirely in English, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart last month.

“You’re not here but I feel you here, as if I can hear your chants, and next time let’s really be here together,” vocalist V, or Kim Tae-hyung, told fans.

Since its 2013 debut, BTS has spearheaded a global K-Pop craze with catchy, upbeat music and dances, as well as lyrics and social campaigns aimed at empowering young people.

As the band performed, a background wall of small screens showed thousands of fans joining from across the world, many waving light sticks known as “army bombs”. A chatroom was opened to allow fans to post comments simultaneously.

Trump said he could kill and win – Covid and cheating may prove it

‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,’ Donald Trump boasted in 2016. He thought his almost unlimited bravado, bombast and dominance of any situation allowed him to get away with figurative murder.

Since then, the president’s Fifth Avenue principle has been repeatedly tested – most notably by the Access Hollywood tape, Robert Mueller’s findings that Trump obstructed justice and his campaign aides cooperated with Russia, overt racism, quid pro quo to the president of Ukraine, and impeachment – yet some 40% of American voters have stuck by him notwithstanding.

That’s all he’s needed. And for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, he’s counting on them to preserve his presidency after 3 November.

They’ve stuck by him even as more than 210,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, one of the world’s highest death rates – due in part to Trump initially downplaying its dangers, then refusing responsibility for it, promoting quack remedies for it, muzzling government experts on it, pushing states to reopen despite it, and discouraging people from wearing masks.

Summary

Here are the key global developments from the last few hours:

  • Trump no longer ‘a transmission risk to others’ says White House doctor. White House physician Sean Conley said President Donald Trump took a COVID-19 test on Saturday which showed that he is no longer a “transmission risk to others.” Conley said in a statement that tests show there is no longer evidence “of actively replicating virus.” The White House had no immediate comment on whether Conley’s statement indicated that the president had tested negative for the virus.
  • India cases pass 7m. India’s confirmed coronavirus toll crossed 7 million on Sunday with a number of new cases dipping in recent weeks. The Health Ministry reported another 74,383 infections in the past 24 hours. India is expected to become the pandemic’s worst-hit country in coming weeks, surpassing the US, where more than 7.7 million infections have been reported.
  • US president Donald Trump made his first public appearance since returning to the White House after a three-day hospital stay, an appearance seen as a first step toward a return to the election campaign trail next week.
  • The number of new infections in France jumped to over 26,000 in one day for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
  • The UK recorded 15,166 new daily cases of coronavirus on Saturday,a rise on the 13,864 cases reported the day before, bringing the total official death toll to 42,760.
  • The Australian state of Victoria has reported 12 new cases and one death over the past 24 hours, while the 14 day rolling average has slightly dropped.
  • Brazil surpassed the grim milestone of 150,000 coronavirus deathson Saturday.
  • Iran made mask-wearing mandatory in public in Tehran on Saturday with violations punishable by fines, after the daily death toll from Covid-19 peaked at 239 this week.
  • Ireland reported 1,012 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the highest daily figure since April and up from an average of 523 over the previous seven days.
  • The number of people in New Yorkers hospitalised with the coronavirus continues to rise, state governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday.

Here is a summary of Australian news:

  • Australian state premier Daniel Andrews and his senior staff will hand over their text message and telephone records to the inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine system, after the board of inquiry requested the data on Saturday.The premier revealed the request at his press conference on Sunday morning, when Victoria recorded a further 12 cases of Covid-19 and one death, ending a three-day stretch without a fatality.
  • Andrews also announced new Covid-19 rules to come into effect from 11.59pm on 11 October, which include forcing close contacts who refuse a test on their 11th day of isolation to isolate for a further 10 days. Under another rule to come into effect at the same time, regional Victorian businesses will have to take “all reasonable steps” to ensure patrons are not from Melbourne before seating them.
  • Andrews said the state of emergency and state of disaster in Victoria had been extended until 11.59pm on 8 November, but no one should read the four-week extension as a guide to shifting rules.
  • Two new cases in Western Australia. The Western Australia state health department has confirmed two new coronavirus cases overnight in the state.
  • ‘New outbreak’ declared in Western Australia after case confirmed among Vega Dream crew. The WA department of health has confirmed a crew member from the Vega Dream ship off Port Hedland has been transferred to hospital overnight and has tested positive for coronavirus.A “new outbreak” has been declared by the department, which said in a statement that the situation is “rapidly evolving situation.
  • The state of Queensland has recorded no new Covid-19 cases as health authorities urge Townsville residents to get tested after traces of the virus were detected in local sewage.

Updated

When companies postpone their annual results, it isn’t usually because they need a bit more time to cram in all the good news.

Pub chain Wetherspoons should have had its numbers out by now but instead pushed the financial statement back to the coming Friday. Given the storm clouds hanging over the pubs trade – what with curfews, regional “circuit breakers” and social distancing – it’s bound to be a more sombre affair than usual.

Typically, Wetherspoons confidently swats aside any obstacle that stands in its way.

The company is targeted frequently on social media with calls for a boycott, over anything from employment conditions to the pro-Brexit views of its loquacious founder-chairman, Tim Martin. The consequence is always the same – yet another year of barnstorming sales, based on the simple equation that most of its customers aren’t too bothered about what Martin says, as long as he’s prepared to sell them cheap food and beer. The people who boycott Wetherspoons are not, by and large, the people who ever went there very often.

This time, as the company has already indicated, will be different. The irresistible force of Spoons has collided with an immovable object in the form of a pandemic, heralding the impossible event – a stomach-churning loss:

India’s death toll of 108,334 as of Sunday is also lower than in the US and other countries with higher caseloads, AFP reports.

The United States has recorded 214,000 deaths while Brazil, with two million fewer infections than India, has lost nearly 150,000 lives so far.

Possible factors for this include India’s relatively young population, immunity thanks to other diseases - and under-reporting.

The rise in infections in India comes as the government continues to lift restrictions to boost an economy battered by a severe lockdown imposed in March.

On Thursday, cinemas are set to re-open - albeit at 50 percent capacity - and experts fear the upcoming festival season when large crowds gather for public celebrations will exacerbate the situation.

Anticipating a fresh surge in cases, the government has issued strict guidelines and capped the number of revellers for the two main Hindu festivals of Dussehra on October 25 and Diwali next month.

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a mass awareness campaign, encouraging the public to wear masks, practise hand hygiene and maintain physical distance.

India cases pass 7m

India’s confirmed coronavirus toll crossed 7 million on Sunday with a number of new cases dipping in recent weeks.

The Health Ministry reported another 74,383 infections in the past 24 hours. India is expected to become the pandemic’s worst-hit country in coming weeks, surpassing the US, where more than 7.7 million infections have been reported.

People wearing masks in Kolkata.
People wearing masks in Kolkata. Photograph: Sudipta Das/Pacific Press/REX/Shutterstock

The ministry on Sunday also reported 918 additional deaths, taking total fatalities to 108,334.

Johns Hopkins has not yet updated the total on its tracker, but with the new cases the current total is expected to be around 7,054,806.

'New outbreak' declared in Western Australia after case confirmed among Vega Dream crew

More on the news out of Western Australia: The WA department of health has confirmed a crew member from the Vega Dream ship off Port Hedland has been transferred to hospital overnight and has tested positive for coronavirus.

A “new outbreak” has been declared by the department, which said in a statement that the situation is “rapidly evolving situation”.

Based on the current information, the State Health Incident Coordination Centre has declared a new outbreak. This is a precautionary measure in the interests of safety and response and consistent with the Outbreak Management Plan. If the laboratory result is negative, the response will be stood down.

This is a rapidly evolving situation and new information is continuing to come to hand.

...

The person is stable, isolated from general hospital population and has not had contact with the public.

The vessel has a crew of 20. The remaining 19 seafarers remain on the Vega Dream, and in line with standard maritime procedures, have not disembarked or had contact with public.

Updated

Here is today’s wrap of the top pandemic news from around the world:

Two new cases in Western Australia

The Western Australia state health department has confirmed two new coronavirus cases overnight in the state. From the statement:

The two new cases, one female and one male, are in hotel quarantine and are related to international travel.

The State has now recorded a total of 694 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

There are 15 active cases being monitored and 670 people have recovered from the virus in WA.

Yesterday 449 people presented to WA COVID-19 clinics – 439 were assessed and 438 swabbed.

There have been 442,299 COVID-19 tests performed in WA. Of those tested, 75,650 were from regional WA.

Visit WA Health’s HealthyWA website for the latest information on COVID-19.

Covid-19 kills thousands of mink in US

CBS is reporting that 12,000 mink have died from coronavirus in Utah and Wisconsin.

After first contracting the virus in August, nearly 10,000 mink have died in Utah fur farms [alone], a spokesperson from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF) told CBS News on Friday. The state veterinarian, Dr. Dean Taylor, told The Associated Press that no animals were euthanized due to the virus.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) said that humans working on the farm that were infected with COVID-19 in July likely transferred the virus to the animals — there are no signs that the mink infected any workers. Still, the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have issued guidelines for farmers handling mink and other mustelids.

The Telegraph’s US correspondent attended a rally Mike Pence rally at Florida’s largest retirement village where, she says, only one in four people were wearing masks.

More on Trump’s doctor clearing him to resume public engagements from Saturday.

Reuters reports that some medical experts said the timeline appeared to be rushed.

Dr. Sandy Nelson, an infectious diseases specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said public health guidelines allowed those with mild cases of Covid-19 to resume contacts 10 days after the onset of symptoms and after 24 hours with no fever, without the use of fever-reducing medications.

But for people who were hospitalised and required oxygen, such as Trump, the guidelines generally called for isolation of longer than 10 days and up to 20 days, she said.

“It’s fair to say that he’s meeting the time-based criteria, but those criteria are not designed for people who are hospitalised,” she told Reuters.

In his statement on Saturday, Conley said the president’s tests revealed decreasing viral loads and “decreasing and now undetectable subgenomic mRNA.” He provided no further details.

Nelson, who is also a professor at Harvard Medical School, said the reference to mRNA was puzzling since the test was not used outside of research applications.

It was the first time Trump had appeared in public since his release from the hospital on Monday, when some observers said he appeared at times to be short of breath.

Israelis kept up weekly protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, defying lockdown restrictions imposed by authorities aimed at stemming a surge in coronavirus cases, AFP reports.

The parliament in Israel, which currently has one of the world’s highest Covid-19 infection rates per capita, last week approved a law restricting demonstrations during an emergency lockdown.

Part of draconian measures, it restricts people from moving more than one kilometre (less than a mile) from their homes.

Protesters march in the street during a demonstration against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a national lockdown, in Tel Aviv, Israel, 10 October 2020.
Protesters march in the street during a demonstration against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a national lockdown, in Tel Aviv, Israel, 10 October 2020. Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

Anti-Netanyahu protests have been staged each Saturday since July to denounce the prime minister’s handling of the virus pandemic and the economy.

In the latest demonstration, people waved Israeli flags and held up signs addressed to Netanyahu, whom many accuse of corruption, saying “Go away”, AFP reporters said.

The demonstrators largely respected social distancing measures unlike in Tel Aviv where thousands took to the streets and clashed with police.

With more than 280,000 coronavirus infections confirmed so far and over 1,900 deaths in a population of nine million, Israel currently has the world’s highest weekly infection rate per capita.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 3,483 to 322,864, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday.

The reported death toll rose by eleven to 9,615, the tally showed.

Germany’s cases are rising sharply, with the previous two days’ confirmed infections, at more than 4,000 each, at levels last seen in early May.

Updated

It is unclear why this is the case, but Trump’s doctor no longer seems to be signing his memos.

Updated

Back to the letter from Trump’s doctor. This is an interesting thread what the note tells us:

The New York Times’ front page splash on Sunday is “The Swamp Trump Built”, about what the Times calls “a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivalled in modern American politics.”

Updated

Here is our full story on Victorian premier Daniel Andrews’ announcements earlier:

Daniel Andrews and his senior staff will hand over their text message and telephone records to the inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine system, after the board of inquiry requested the data on Saturday.

The premier revealed the request at his press conference on Sunday morning, when Victoria recorded a further 12 cases of Covid-19 and one death, ending a three-day stretch without a fatality.

Andrews also announced new Covid-19 rules to come into effect from 11.59pm on 11 October, which include forcing close contacts who refuse a test on their 11th day of isolation to isolate for a further 10 days.

Meanwhile in the US:

On the issues with the White House’s efforts to test guests and staff, from the Wall Street Journal:

The White House says it has relied on rapid testing to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 among officials and guests. Officials don’t wear masks or socially distance because they are tested daily. The president is also tested for the coronavirus every day, as is anyone who comes in close contact with him.

The administration relied on Abbott Laboratories ’ ID Now rapid test at the Sept. 26 event for Judge Barrett. After guests tested negative, they were ushered to the Rose Garden, where few people were wearing masks. The White House didn’t comment on whether anyone screened at the event tested positive.

Public-health experts say the White House isn’t using the test appropriately, and that such tests aren’t meant to be used as one-time screeners. Regardless of the type or brand of test, any strategy that relies solely on testing is insufficient for protecting the public against the virus, epidemiologists and researchers say.

‘What seems to have been fundamentally misunderstood in all this was that they were using it almost like you would implement a metal detector,’ said Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health.

All tests, including those processed in a lab, can produce false negatives, he and other experts say. Some studies have shown that the Abbott Now ID test, which can produce a result in minutes, has around a 91% sensitivity—meaning 9% of tests can produce false negatives.

‘A metal detector that misses 10% of weapons—you’d never, ever say that’s our only layer of protection for the president,’ said Dr. Jha.

On the new requirements for regional businesses in Victoria, Australia:

In Australia, Queensland state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has promised to hire more than 9000 frontline health staff, including 1500 doctors, if her Labor government is re-elected.

From AAP: Ms Palaszczuk said 9475 health workers would be employed over the next four years, including an additional 5800 nurses, 475 paramedics and 1700 allied health professionals.

“We need to make sure that we continue to grow our health staff to give Queensland families the best possible care they can get,” she told reporters on Sunday.

“Health is everything.”

Updated

A US federal appeals court on Saturday issued a temporary stay that allows the Republican governor of Texas to continue limiting counties to a single drop-off site for absentee ballots in the 3 November presidential election, Reuters reports.

Texas is a longtime Republican stronghold but this year President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are fighting what could be a tight race to win the state’s electoral votes.

On Friday, a federal court had struck down Governor Greg Abbott’s limit on drop-off sites, which Democrats had denounced as voter suppression.

But on Saturday a panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said it granted a temporary stay while the case was appealed.

Travis County (TX) election officials collect mail-in ballots and the only authorised facility in the county a week before early voting starts for the November 2020 elections.
Travis County (TX) election officials collect mail-in ballots and the only authorised facility in the county a week before early voting starts for the November 2020 elections. Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Abbott’s order means that for voters who want to return absentee ballots in person rather than by mail, some will have to travel greater distances to cast their votes. The governor has said the limit is needed to prevent voter fraud.

The fight between Republicans and Democrats over absentee ballots has become a defining issue of the 2020 election.

Absentee voting is expected to surge due to the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, Texas is one of the few US states that limits who can request absentee ballots: Only voters who are over the age of 65, have a disability, are confined to a jail or will be out of town on Election Day can vote by mail.

Trump’s campaign and his Republican allies have sought to limit drop boxes in many states, arguing without evidence that they could enable voting fraud.

Democrats have promoted drop boxes as a reasonable and reliable option for voters who do not want to risk voting in person during the Covid-19 pandemic and say it helps reduce the possibility of U.S. Postal Service delivery problems.

Mainland China reported 21 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus on 10 October, up from 15 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Sunday.

All the new cases were imported infections involving travellers from overseas, the National Health Commission said in a statement.

The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed, fell to 23 from 39 a day earlier. All of them were imported.

The total confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China stands at 85,557, while the death toll remained at 4,634.

An employee works at a textile factory on 10 October 2020 in Rugao, Jiangsu Province of China.
An employee works at a textile factory on 10 October 2020 in Rugao, Jiangsu Province of China. Photograph: VCG/Getty Images

Zero new cases in ACT

In Australia, the ACT has confirmed no new coronavirus cases. From the statement sent by the ACT government:

There have been no new cases of COVID-19 recorded in the ACT in the past 24 hours, leaving the ACT’s total at 113. There are no active cases in the ACT.

A total of 110 cases have recovered from COVID-19 in the ACT.

There are no COVID-19 patients in Canberra hospitals.

The ACT has recorded three (3) deaths.

The number of negative tests recorded in the ACT is now 98,345.

Back to the US, a reminder that Covid-19 cases are again climbing in the country, with the highest daily rates of new infections since August, when major states such as Florida became hotspots, new data from Johns Hopkins University’s Covid-19 tracker shows.

Now, several midwestern states are posting steep increases in Covid-19 cases, with at least one setting up a field hospital to cope with the flood of patients. Cases are also ticking up in the north-east, where tight restrictions had the virus under control for most of the summer:

Queensland records no new Covid-19 cases.

Back to Australia for a moment:

The state of Queensland has recorded no new Covid-19 cases as health authorities urge Townsville residents to get tested after traces of the virus were detected in local sewage, AAP reports.

Testing of wastewater turned up traces of coronavirus for the first time in what authorities say is a worrying development.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles previously said health officials would increase testing rates in the northern city.

“We will be working with the Townsville Hospital and health service to increase testing rates and to try to work out if there is a case or cases in and around Townsville that have been picked up in that wastewater testing,” he said on Saturday.

“It underlines just how valuable that wastewater testing is proving to be.”

Queensland Health completed more than 2400 Covid-19 tests across the state in the 24 hours to Sunday morning.

Four cases remain active.

From the New York Times:

The memo from Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, said he was releasing information with Mr. Trump’s permission. But the amount of information he provided was limited, in keeping with restrictive presentations to the public that Dr. Conley has made throughout Mr. Trump’s battle with symptoms of the coronavirus since officials made his diagnosis public early on Oct. 2.

Experts have repeatedly called into question the true severity of Mr. Trump’s illness. According to guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with severe Covid-19 may need to isolate for up to 20 days.

‘I don’t think he’s out of the woods for certain,’ said Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician based in South Carolina.

The start date of Mr. Trump’s symptoms has also remained unclear. By Dr. Conley’s assessment, Mr. Trump would have needed to show signs of his illness on Wednesday, Sept. 30, for Saturday to qualify as 10 days after the onset of symptoms. Most people stop being infectious by the tenth day after they start feeling ill, according to the C.D.C.

If you’re just joining us, Trump has been cleared to return to an active schedule, according to a memo from White House physician Dr Sean Conley.

Although Trump has not tested negative, as far as we know, he does meet the US Centers for Disease Control criteria for returning to work.

The CDC does not require people to test negative before returning to work.

On the PCR test referred to in the memo, from AP:

Sensitive lab tests — like the PCR test — detect virus in swab samples taken from the nose and throat. Dr. William Morice, who oversees laboratories at the Mayo Clinic, said earlier his week that using the PCR tests, the president’s medical team could hypothetically measure and track the amount of virus in samples over time and watch the viral load go down.

The statement does not say that Trump has tested negative, which almost likely means that he is still testing positive – or, as Trump appeared to say on Thursday, that he is simply refusing to be tested until the test would come back negative.

As the White House physician releases a statement that doesn’t specify whether the US president is still on medication, here is what Trump had to say on Friday (from our story earlier on Trump’s White House event):

In a Friday night interview on Fox News, Trump, who was given a cocktail of antiviral drugs and strong steroids during his hospital stay, insisted he was “medication-free”.

“We pretty much finished, and now we’ll see how things go. But pretty much nothing,” Trump said when Fox medical analyst Dr Marc Siegel asked the president what medications he was still taking.

In the Friday interview, Trump said he had been tested, but gave a vague answer about it. “I haven’t even found out numbers or anything yet,” he said. “But I’ve been retested and I know I’m at either the bottom of the scale or free.”

You can read the full story here:

More on what the statement does not say:

The statement from White House physician Sean Conley also seems to indicate that Trump had a fever 24 hours ago:

The statement from White House physician Dr Sean Conley does not say that Trump has tested negative.

Instead Conley writes, “This morning’s PCR demonstrates, by currently recognised standards, [The President] is no longer considered a transmission risk to others.”

The statement also says “there is no longer evidence of actively replicating the virus.”

Trump no longer 'a transmission risk to others' says White House doctor

White House physician Sean Conley said President Donald Trump took a COVID-19 test on Saturday which showed that he is no longer a “transmission risk to others.”

Conley said in a statement that tests show there is no longer evidence “of actively replicating virus.”

The White House had no immediate comment on whether Conley’s statement indicated that the president had tested negative for the virus.

Updated

Mexico’s Health Ministry on Saturday reported 4,577 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 135 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 814,328 cases and 83,642 deaths.

The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases:

A man walks amid “trajineras” at the Caltongo canal pier in Xochimilco, a network of canals and floating gardens that is one of Mexico City’s top tourist attractions, on 10 October 2020, during the new coronavirus pandemic.
A man walks amid “trajineras” at the Caltongo canal pier in Xochimilco, a network of canals and floating gardens that is one of Mexico City’s top tourist attractions, on 10 October 2020, during the new coronavirus pandemic. Photograph: Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is still speaking. He has just said that he knows people are “getting very weary. They’re getting very fatigued.”

We’ll leave it there and move on to other news now.

I fully acknowledge that people are getting very weary.They’re getting very fatigued, they’re getting frustrated, we all are, we all want this to be over, but all of us deep down know, I think, that we can’t pretend it’s over just because we want it to be.I think we all know that and even those who for months and have been calling for every restriction to betaken off, I think, deep down they know that what that would - what that would mean and it wouldn’t mean anything good. So where you can take safer steps, you should. I acknowledge that there’s a lot of pain out there and people are really feeling it. That’s the nature of these things. This is - we’re well into the last quarter and people’s legs are tired, the game is very tight, and you just got to dig deep and find all of us - and find a way to get to that final siren, that is what we have to do and I’m really confident we will. That isn’t to say that there - there isn’t great need out there and great pain.

That’s why we’re working to support people as much as we possibly can and that’s why the budget, when it’s delivered, will be unprecedented in the level of investment to underpin confidence, to repair damage, but also to make sure that 2021 is very, very different.

In New Zealand, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, on Sunday burnished her leadership credentials on the back of her successful response to the coronavirus pandemic at a campaign rally six days ahead of the country’s election on 17 October, Reuters reports.

Polls show Ardern’s Labour Party is expected to win the election with a wide lead over the conservative National Party.

Prime Minister And Labour Leader Jacinda Ardern meets supporters at Otara Market on 10 October 2020 in Auckland, New Zealand.
Prime Minister And Labour Leader Jacinda Ardern meets supporters at Otara Market on 10 October 2020 in Auckland, New Zealand. Photograph: Hannah Peters/Getty Images

“While there was no playbook for Covid-19, we went hard and early and committed to a strategy of elimination which has meant that when we’ve had new cases, we’ve circled and stamped them out and opened up our economy faster than others,” Ardern told a campaign rally in the capital Wellington.

“I will always maintain that it has been and will continue to be the right thing to do.”
New Zealand, with 1,514 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and just 25 deaths in a population of 5 million, has been hailed along with South Korea and Taiwan for its success in combating the novel coronavirus partly due to swift lockdown measures.

Ardern, 40, became the world’s youngest female leader in 2017 and holds huge appeal following her strong response to the pandemic and her handling of last year’s shooting by a white supremacist at two mosques in New Zealand’s worst mass murder.

She is running for re-election on a platform of boosting infrastructure spending, tackling the country’s chronic housing shortage, improving health care and achieving 100% renewable electricity by 2030.

Updated

In other Australian news:

Josh Frydenberg has “absolutely” recommitted to $130bn of middle and high-income tax cuts due to begin in 2024, despite the Coalition opting not to bring them forward in last week’s budget.

Speaking on the ABC’s Insiders, the treasurer said the Coalition wanted government to act as a “catalyst” for recovery by allowing some businesses to fail while others grew and took advantage of tax concessions in the budget to hire and invest.

The first polling on Tuesday’s budget, released on Sunday by the Australia Institute, suggests a majority of Australians believe it will benefit the economy, although most plan to save more than half their share of the $18bn income tax cuts.

The budget brought forward stage two of income tax cuts, worth about $47 a week for high-income earners and provides a one-off $21 cut for middle-income earners in 2020-21 due to the extension of the low- and middle-income tax offset.

According to the poll, with a sample of 1,005, 58% believe the budget will be good for the economy, and almost half (47%) think they will personally be better off:

Andrews say that “outdoor activities” are on the table when he announces an easing of restrictions next weekend.

A whole lot of outdoor activities is on the table. And we’ll also spend quite a bit of time thinking about what’s a safe group size for people outside to be able to come - to be able to join each other and to be part of the thing that we crave the most and that’s some of the connections that we have been deprived - we have had to go without for such a long period of time.

...

I think it will be significant, it will be the stuff that people are really missing. The other thing, too, there are some outdoor industries, there are some outdoor workers.

Andrews on the announcements happening next weekend:

It’s about trying to give people a little bit of notice that I don’t think we’re going to be able to go as far in and as fast as we’d hoped but there will be significant changes.They won’t be as much as we’d hoped to do. But it’s not like next Sunday it will be the same rules that this Sunday is being conducted under.

We will have more to say. Frustrating, I know, for everybody, I’m not in a position to detail what they’ll be. The day for that, in fact, will be Sunday.

More on those records:

REPORTER: And how many staff wouldthat cover? Say your staff and mediastaff, how many people?

ANDREWS: I’m not sure. It will be a significant number. I might just make the point,I don’t know that any of my senior staff would ever have spoken toGraham Ashton, because it would not be appropriate for them to speak to Graham Ashton. There are always channels to be gone through. But for completeness sake and out of an absolute determination to provide the inquiry with whatever it is they need and want, all those senior staff, including media staff, myself, I assume that the same requests may have been made of others, but I’m not in a position to... It’s not really appropriate that I should know who else the inquiry might have asked for things from. But the inquiry would probably be able to confirm that for you.

REPORTER: When you say other people?

ANDREWS: It could be ministers or public servants

REPORTER: Are there people within your service?

ANDREWS: Mr Eccles is not a member of my private office. He’s head of the public service. He may have received a similar request. I don’t know. I think that those questions would best be answered by the Board of Inquiry themselves.

Andrews is now taking questions. He is asked about the request that he hand phone records to the Board of Inquiry.

REPORTER: Premier, on the Board ofInquiry’s request for your own phonerecordss that from the start of thepandemic or over a select period oftime?

ANDREWS: I think they’ve indicated theday in question, the 27th. Whateverthey’ve asked for, they’ll get.

REPORTER: Just for the day, or likefor a short period of time?

ANDREWS: I’m not... I’ve not actually seen the letter. It’s come to me via my staff. I think it was received either last night or early part of the evening last night. I’ve not seen the letter. But what I can confirm for you is each and every record they’ve sought, they’ll get.

REPORTER: Can we clarify whether that includes messages on apps including Whatsapp, and other messaging services?

ANDREWS: I would assume so.

REPORTER: Or just phone messages?

ANDREWS: I’m not sure whether they’ve broadened it out, but in the spirit of the request, they’ll receive any and all.

Foley also gave more detail about that requirement for regional businesses to take steps to identify where customers are from – and the fines that will be used to enforce this.

The fine also applies to those individuals, approximately a $5,000fine, to those individuals who don’t act appropriately if they are permitted workers from Melbourne in regional Victoria. These combined measures are just those few extra tools as we get closer to a Covid-safe Covidreopening, to make sure that our public health teams, our businesses and the overwhelming majority of Victorians who support this strategy are given the efforts and the bricks they need to build that wall for a Covid-safe reopening.

These one-percenters count, particularly as we get towards the end of this stubborn second wave. We’re nearly there. And we will get there and we will have a Covid-safe summer in the very near future. I’ll ask Professor Sutton to talk to the figures of the day.

And that’s it for announcements from the Premier. He now hands over to the health minister, Martin Foley.

He gives a bit more detail about the 11th-day testing requirement.

So, as we all know, if you are identified as a close contact for a positive case, you are required to go straight home and to isolate and quarantine for the required period of time, 14 days. And at the 11th day, overwhelmingly, we’ve seen people cooperate in the testing that is part of that system. And I want to thank all of those people who have been part of that system. As of today, we will be making sure that the obligation is pretty clear. That if you are identified as a close contact, that you would be asked to test at day 11, and should you choose not to test at day 11, you will be required to continue your quarantining for a further ten days.That’s the period of which we can be absolutely sure that the incubation period has seen its way off. I stress that that is a very, very small number of people.

Andrews to hand phone records to Board of Inquiry

Victorian Premier has announced that he will be handing his phone records to the Board of Inquiry:

One final matter, as I indicated previously and consistent with the fact that I established the Independent Board of Inquiry into Quarantine Matters andOther Matters, the board have sought additional information from me and my senior staff, text message, telephone records, as I had indicated, as I had committed.

All of that detail will be handed to the board. It will be done as soon as possible. I can’t give you an exact timeline because Telstra and others have to provide us with those details but that will be provided, just as they’ve asked, just as I indicated we would, if such a request was made. All of us want answers. All of us are entitled to answers. There’s an independent process. I can only speak for me and my senior staff, including media staff. They will all be handing over the relevant details. I can’t speak for any other requests that the board has made of anybody else. If they have, then the Board of Inquiry would be best placed to answer any questions that you have.

I’m struck after a week of blogging the White House outbreak, by that new requirement announced by Andrews: if only all close contacts of Trump had to A) quarantine and B) take tests and C) have their quarantine extended by ten days if they refused to test.

Trump still has not tested negative, as far as we know – his health team and the White House refuse to say when his last negative test was.

Victoria State of Emergency extended by four weeks

Back in Victoria, premier Daniel Andrews has announced that he has extended the State of Emergency and the State of Disaster by another four weeks.

“That’s simply a 4-week extension. No-one should read anything more into that in terms of it being key dates for shifts in rules,” he says.

I’ve just signed paperwork to extend the state of emergency and the state of disaster from tonight to 11:59pm on November8. That is simply to make sure that we’ve got that legal framework in place in order to continue to have rules, to drive these numbers down even further. That’s simply a 4-week extension. No-one should read anything more into that in terms of it being key dates for shifts in rules. We try to do those things in 4-week blocks. That’s the most appropriate way to go.

NSW records five new cases – three locally acquired

New South Wales has recorded three new locally-acquired cases of coronavirus, plus two cases among travellers in hotel quarantine. One recently reported case has been excluded after further investigations.

From the NSW Health media release:

Two of the locally acquired cases are linked to a known case or cluster – one of these is linked to the Liverpool private clinic cluster, and the other is a social contact of a previously reported confirmed case of unknown source. The third locally acquired case is under investigation and people who were at the following medical facility at the date and time below are considered casual contacts of a known case. These people should monitor for symptoms and if they develop get tested for COVID-19 and self-isolate.

  • Lakemba Radiology, from noon to 2.30pm on October 1. We are also updating previous casual contact advice for passengers on a bus from Central to Strathfield. This bus was a train replacement service. All passengers on the bus are now considered close contacts and are advised to immediately get tested for COVID-19 and self-isolate for 14 days from the time of travel. Passengers should remain isolated for the full 14 days regardless of their test result.
  • Bus from Central at 11.48pm on October 4 arriving Strathfield 12.15am on October 5

Andrews confirms that "significant steps" to ease restrictions will be announced next weekend

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed that “some significant steps” will be taken this coming weekend to ease restrictions.

He has not detailed those steps, but he hints that it will involve people being able to see a greater number of their loved ones:

They will not be as big steps as we hoped but they will be significant, and they will allow us to move more freely. They will allow us to connect more easily with those that we love the most. Those that we miss the most. I can’t go through a full list of all of those changes because those decisions have not been made, but I would hope that with a sense of confidence, Victorians can look at the numbers and see that yes, this second wave is stubborn. It is absolutely stubborn. But tame, the magnificent job that Victorians have done and are doing means that we will be able to take some significant steps this coming weekend.

Andrews has announced that businesses in regional Victoria will now need to take “all reasonable steps” to determine where a person is from – ie whether, if they are from Metropolitan Melbourne, they are there only “for lawful purposes.”

It’s really important that we have a strong partnership between our public health officials, WorkSafe officials, people out there checking to make sure that COVID-safe planning is being done and adhered to. One important part about this is making sure that people fromMetropolitan Melbourne are only in regional Victoria for lawful purposes.

From, again, on the same timeline, 11:59pm on October 11, businesses in regional Victoria will be required to take all reasonable steps to determine where a person is from before they are seated, for instance. This will have different applications in different settings, but there is a fine, there is a penalty of nearly $10,000, which is the standard business penalty for not complying with other parts of the COVID-safe plan.

But this is all about trying to make sure that people who are going into regional Victoria - yes, with a lawful purpose - but making sure that they are taking the rules and restrictions from the higher virus community, metropolitan Melbourne, into a virus community, regionalVictoria, follow them. That is all about keeping people safe.

Andrews announces new quarantine testing measure

People who have been deemed close contacts must get tested for coronavirus on the 11th day of their quarantine period, Andrews has announced. Should someone choose not to be tested then, their quarantine will be extended by ten days:

From 11:59pm on October 11, a person who has been deemed a close contact by the Department of Health and HumanServices must get tested for coronavirus on day 11 of their quarantine period.

That testing is not mandatory as such, but if a person chooses not to take that coronavirus test on day 11 to establish that they are virus-free at that point, then their quarantine, their mandatory quarantine period will be extended by a further ten days.

Andrews continues:

There are 18 health care workers who are active cases. The rolling average to October 10 is metro 9.3, regional Victoria, 0.4. C

The regional-metro split - there are five active cases in regional Victoria, and they are all in Mitchell Shire. The number of active cases connected to aged care - there are 34 active cases, so again, those numbers continue to fall, which is very important.

Daniel Andrews begins as usual by giving a rundown of the numbers. “We are just shy of 100,000 tests for the week, which is an amazing,” he says.

Two of [the 12 cases confirmed overnight] are linked to known outbreaks in complex cases and ten are being investigated by our public health team.

There have been 810 people pass away in Victoria as a result of this global pandemic. That is one further fatality since yesterday’s report - a woman in her 80s linked to an aged care outbreak.

...

There are 21 Victorians in hospital. None in ICU. A total of 2,840,686 tests have been received. Those test results have been received since the beginning of the year. That’s an increase of 12,925 since yesterday.

In Australia, the premier of the state of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, is due to hold a press conference shortly. We’ll be bringing that to you live.

A coronavirus curfew closed doors early on German capital Berlin’s legendary nightlife Saturday in a bid to limit surging infections, AFP reports.

Bars and restaurants closed at 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) in Berlin under a partial curfew announced until October 31, with the capital following in the footsteps of financial hub Frankfurt where a curfew had already been imposed, but starting an hour earlier.

With more than 400 new cases daily in Berlin, the 11:00 pm shutdown also covers all shops except pharmacies and petrol stations in a bid to prevent sales of alcohol late at night.

Chancellor Angela Merkel had already warned Friday that high-infection areas would be given 10 days to bring down cases or face tougher action, calling big cities the “arena” to keep the pandemic under control.

Late night shop customers make their final beer purchases at 11pm on the first night of the implementation of new safety regulations after coronavirus cases rose to over 4000 a day in the country, on 10 October 2020 in Berlin, Germany.
Late night shop customers make their final beer purchases at 11pm on the first night of the implementation of new safety regulations after coronavirus cases rose to over 4000 a day in the country, on 10 October 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Photograph: Adam Berry/Getty Images

In the UK, only about one in 15 workers in shut-down businesses stand to benefit from the expansion of the government’s job support scheme, Labour has said.

Workers in sectors such as weddings, cinemas and events and conferences, which are not “legally closed” but have been forced to “shut in all but name” due to restrictions imposed in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus, will not enjoy protections from the programme, said the shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband.

He said close to 1m jobs will be put at risk and the latest government announcement was like putting whole sections of the economy on the “scrapheap”.

For six months beginning on 1 November, staff off work for more than seven consecutive days because their workplace was legally required to close due to local or national restrictions will get two-thirds of their salaries covered, up to £2,100 per month, the government has said:

Mayors of some of the UK’s biggest city regions were threatening legal action against the government last night as they went into open revolt against “grossly unfair” financial support for workers in northern England facing new local lockdowns.

As No 10 desperately tried to win over council leaders before announcing new lockdown rules for the north-west and north-east on Monday, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and former health secretary, said Boris Johnson was leaving himself open to court action on grounds of discrimination, particularly against people in low-paid hospitality jobs across the north:

In Trump news that I cannot actually believe I am seeing, the New York Times reports that the US president considered wearing a Superman T-shirt under his clothes when he left the hospital – in order to be able to suddenly reveal it for the cameras:

In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering: When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. He ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt.

At the White House on Saturday, Mr. Trump took note of the teal blue shirts the attendees wore, pointed to the crowd and said, “I want to put one of them on instead of a white shirt.”

In Australia, Labor’s shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has defended the opposition’s habit of labelling the country’s Covid-19 recession “the Morrison recession”.

Speaking with Sky News earlier, Chalmers said:

I think Australians understand that we’ve said all throughout that the health crisis is having a big impact on the economy and the budget – we’ve acknowledged that at every turn. But it’s a statement of fact: Scott Morrison is the prime minister, and this is the worst recession we’ve had for almost 100 years. We’ve got one million unemployed, the government says there’ll be another 160,000 unemployed between now and the end of the year. It’s a statement of fact and in our view – this recession is deeper and worse than it needs to be, and the unemployment queues longer than they need to be because of a massive missed opportunity throughout but particularly in the budget. Having wracked up $1tn to build almost nothing that lasts, leaving people out and leaving people behind when it comes to some of the support measures.”

Summary

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you all the US and Australian Covid news that’s fit to blog as well as updates from the rest of the world.

If you have news, questions, tips or feedback you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan or email me: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.

Trump made his first public appearance since returning to the White House from hospital on Saturday, as the US reported a two-month high in new infections had been confirmed for Friday with over 58,000 new cases reported.

Ten of the country’s 50 states saw a record day-on-day rises in cases.

Meanwhile in Australia, the state of Victoria reported 12 new cases and one death over the past 24 hours, according to a government update for Sunday.

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