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Summary
Here is a recap of the main developments from the last few hours:
- Brazil registered almost 11,000 new daily cases. The country reported another 10,917 new cases of coronavirus, totalling 5,590,025, the Health Ministry said. The country’s death toll rose by 231 to 161,106.
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Ukraine’s president, finance minister, defence minister and the president’s top aide are reported to have tested positive for Covid-19. Volodymyr
Zelenskiy’s office said: “The head of state is feeling well and will continue to perform his duties remotely in self-isolation.” The president said earlier on Monday that Ukraine may introduce a lockdown at weekends in an effort to curb the pandemic, and such a move would not have a serious negative impact on the economy. - The Tunisian prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, said that the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the country may reach 6,000-7,000, describing the health situation as “very dangerous”. Coronavirus cases have been rising quickly in Tunisia, which had managed to contain the virus earlier this year, and have now reached 70,000 cases and 1,900 deaths in a country of 11.5 million. Medical sources told Reuters intensive care units in most state hospitals had reached maximum capacity.
- The adviser charged with leading the US president Donald Trump’s post-election legal challenges, David Bossie, reportedly tested positive for Covid-19. It came after White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the housing secretary Ben Carson also tested positive amid an outbreak in the White House.
- Italy will ramp up coronavirus restrictions in Tuscany and four other regions from Wednesday to rein in the second wave of the pandemic, a health ministry source said.
Cambodians marked their Independence Day holiday on Monday, but new coronavirus restrictions kept them from celebrating at karaoke parlours, beer gardens, museums, cinemas and other entertainment venues, which have been ordered to shut until further notice.
Students in the capital, Phnom Penh, and the satellite town of Kandal will not return on Tuesday to their schools, which were shut for two weeks by order of the education ministry to contain the virus.
The new restrictions were issued by the health ministry on Sunday because Hungary’s foreign minister tested positive for the coronavirus after visiting Cambodia last week. Peter Szijjarto tested positive upon arrival in Thailand on Tuesday following a one-day Cambodia visit. He was placed in quarantine in Bangkok before leaving for Hungary on Wednesday.
The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, announced on Saturday that a Cambodian bodyguard for Szijjarto had also tested positive for the coronavirus. A second round of tests on Monday discovered three more infected people among the 900 who were involved with Szijjarto’s visit: a lawmaker from Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, a senior agriculture ministry official, and Hungary’s ambassador to Cambodia and Vietnam.
Hun Sen and four cabinet ministers went into quarantine because they met with Szijjarto the same day he tested positive. Hun Sen said he will stay quarantined for 14 days, and announced on Monday on his Facebook page that he, his wife and other members of their household have all tested negative twice.
All of the people involved with the Hungarian foreign minister’s trip are to be tested four times during their 14-day quarantine period.
Education ministry spokesperson Ros Soveacha issued a statement on Monday saying Phnom Penh’s Olympic stadium would close its gym and other facilities because the infected Cambodian bodyguard for Szijjarto also coached sports there.
In his Saturday audio message, Hun Sen said he would not declare a national or local state of emergency, or bar travel by people not involved, but urged people to observe health ministry guidelines.
The education ministry said the school shutdown was necessary because it has been unable to collect enough information to determine if the parents of any students had direct or indirect contact with Szijjarto.
Schools throughout Cambodia reopened on 2 November after being closed since March due to the coronavirus, but with limited class sizes and hours. The country has reported a total of 297 cases of the coronavirus, with no deaths.
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Brazil has registered another 10,917 new cases of coronavirus, totalling 5,590,025, the health ministry said. The country’s death toll rose by 231 to 161,106.
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Following the news that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, tested positive for the coronavirus, the finance minister, the defence minister and Zelenskiy’s top aide are also reported to be infected.
“The head of state is feeling well and will continue to perform his duties remotely in self-isolation,” Zelenskiy’s office said in a statement.
“Despite all the quarantine measures, I also received a + [positive] result. I have 37.5, and I wish everyone 36.6!” Zelenskiy said in a Telegram message, referring to his body temperature.
Minutes after Zelenskiy’s announcement, Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office, said on Facebook that he had also tested positive for the virus.
The office of the finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, said he had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and would work remotely. State news agency Ukrinform reported that defence minister Andriy Taran had also tested positive. The ministry was unavailable for comment.
On Thursday, Marchenko, the prime minister Denys Shmygal and other ministers took part in a parliamentary session. Shmygal’s office said he had no signs of the infection but would undergo a test on Tuesday.
The president’s wife, Olena, contracted Covid-19 in June and spent several weeks in a hospital.
The daily tally of coronavirus infections in Ukraine spiked in late September and remained consistently high throughout October and early November, prompting the government to extend lockdown measures until the end of this year.
Shmygal said last week the number of new cases could jump to 15,000 a day by the end of November and to 20,000 daily by the end of the year.
Ukraine’s health minister said last week the coronavirus situation in Ukraine was close to catastrophic and that the nation must prepare for the worst.
Zelenskiy said earlier on Monday that Ukraine may introduce a lockdown at weekends in an effort to curb the pandemic, and such a move would not have a serious negative impact on the economy.
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The Tunisian prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, said on Monday that the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the country may reach 6,000-7,000, describing the health situation as “very dangerous”.
Coronavirus cases have been rising quickly in Tunisia, which had managed to contain the virus earlier this year, and have now reached 70,000 cases and 1,900 deaths in a country of 11.5 million.
Medical sources told Reuters intensive care units in most state hospitals had reached maximum capacity.
The government imposed a night curfew this month and banned travel between cities to slow a second wave of the pandemic.
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Reuters is reporting that the adviser charged with leading President Donald Trump’s post-election legal challenges, David Bossie, has tested positive for Covid-19, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Bossie, a prominent conservative activist who leads advocacy group Citizens United, tested positive on Sunday, joining White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the housing secretary Ben Carson as victims of the latest coronavirus outbreak to touch the White House.
More on our US live blog:
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Italy extends tougher curbs to Tuscany and four other regions
Italy will ramp up coronavirus restrictions in Tuscany and four other regions from Wednesday to rein in the second wave of the pandemic, a health ministry source said on Monday.
Last week, the government imposed nationwide curbs including a nightly curfew, and divided the country into three zones based on the intensity of their Covid-19 outbreaks, calibrating additional limitations accordingly.
Tuscany, which includes the cities of Florence and Siena; Liguria; Abruzzo; Umbria and the southern Basilicata region are designated as “orange zones” where bars and restaurants are closed but shops remain open. People are free to move within their towns and cities but not leave them.
The zoning depends on factors such as local infection rates and hospital occupancy. Milan and most of the industrial north are part of the “red zone” under a partial lockdown.
The northern province of Bolzano will be added into the red zone, the source added.
The southern regions of Puglia and Sicily were already part of the orange zone.
Italy, the first European country hard-hit by Covid-19, tamed its outbreak after a rigid lockdown in March and April, but has toughened up its curbs once again following a resurgence in infections and deaths.
On Monday, the country registered 25,271 new infections after 32,616 the day before, mainly due to a customary fall in daily tests on Sundays. Covid-related deaths were 356, the health ministry said.
The steady surge in hospital admissions is straining the country’s health system, and doctors warn that Italy could suffer some 10,000 fatalities in the next month on current trends.
“The situation could become tragic ... We need drastic measures, such as a total lockdown,” said Filippo Anelli, the president of Italy’s doctors’ federation.
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France’s new Covid-19 infections were sharply down over 24 hours on Monday, as they always tend to be at the beginning of the week, but deaths and hospital admissions linked to the disease were sharply up again. Hospital admissions are closing in on the April record, Reuters reports.
While the country’s health director acknowledged that the main French cities put under curfew inmid-October were starting to see a lesser spread of the disease, he stressed the peak of the coronavirus pandemic was still to come.
“We are at a crucial moment,” Jérôme Salomon told a news conference, with France already more than 10 days in its second national lockdown aimed at reining in the virus.
Salomon reported 20,155 daily new Covid-19 infections, sharply down from Saturday’s record of 86,852 and Sunday’s 38,619. The Monday figure tends to dip as there are fewer tests conducted on Sundays.
The seven-day moving average of new infections, which averages out weekly data-reporting irregularities, stood at 48,734, the third-highest on record.
With 1,807,479 confirmed cases since the outbreak of the disease, France has the fourth-highest tally in the world – it leapfrogged Russia over the weekend – behind the US, India and Brazil.
The number of people who have died from Covid-19 rose by 551 to 40,987, versus 270 on Sunday and a seven-day moving average of 508, a figure that is at a 28-week high.
There were 882 more people treated in hospital for Covid-19, taking the total to 31,125, versus a seven-day moving average of 856. That means the 14 April record of 32,292 is bound to be overtaken in the coming days.
The number of patients in intensive care units was up by 151 to 4,690. For that indicator, the all-time high is 7,148, reached on 8 April.
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Good evening from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Summary
I’ll shortly be handing over to a colleague. Here is a summary of what feels – albeit cautiously – like an incredibly hopeful day in the world’s fight against Covid-19.
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World leaders and scientists reacted with cautious optimism after pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and BioNTech revealed interim results of large-scale trials which showed that its Covid-19 vaccine was 90% effective. The manufacturers’ analysis shows a much better performance than most experts had hoped for and brings into view a potential end to a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, battered economies and upended daily life worldwide.
- The US president-elect Joe Biden led the tone for much of the reaction from world leaders. He said it could be “many months” before the vaccine is widely available – providing it passes several more hurdles in the approval and distribution process – and warned Americans: “We’re still facing a very dark winter.”
- Sir John Bell, one of the UK’s most eminent vaccines experts, said he believed “with some confidence” that life should return to normal by spring next year following the Pfizer/BioNTech announcement. Bell went further than many of peers in the scientific community but his prediction carries significant weight given his role on the UK’s vaccines taskforce.
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A senior World Health Organisation official said a Covid-19 vaccine may be rolled out by March 2021 to the most vulnerable. Bruce Aylward told the WHO’s annual ministerial assembly that interim results from Pfizer’s late-stage vaccine trial were “very positive”.
- You can read Sarah Boseley’s analysis of the vaccine announcement here and a Q&Q by Nicola Davis here. There is also this piece by Philip Oltermann on the husband and wife dream team behind BioNTech and how the news was a shot in the arm for Germany’s Turkish community.
- There was also positive news from Belgium, where health officials said a second wave of Covid-19 hospital admissions appeared to have peaked and would now begin to decline. About 400 people were hospitalised due to coronavirus complications on Sunday, compared with 879 on 3 November.
- Iran was one of a number of countries reporting a record rise in the daily number of coronavirus cases. It said the figure had reached 10,463 over the previous 24 hours, the first time the numbers for new infections had reached five figures. Russia also reported its highest 24-hour tally of new infections.
- Doctors in Italy have warned there will be an additional 10,000 Covid-19 deaths in a month in the country unless a national lockdown is imposed. As Italy edges towards a million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, 32,616 new cases were registered on Sunday, a more than sevenfold increase since 8 October
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has tested positive for coronavirus. Zelenskiy said he “feels good” and was self-isolating, adding on Twitter: “It’s gonna be fine!”
The UK has reported a total of 194 new deaths from Covid-19 on Monday, up from 156 a day earlier, although the numbers are always lower on Mondays.
Data showed the weekly total of 2,385 deaths was up by 28.6% compared with the previous seven-day period, Reuters reports.
The number of new cases has risen by 21,350 on the previous 24-hour period, bringing the total across the country to 1.2 million. The seven-day total of 159,502 new cases was almost unchanged compared with the previous seven days.
France has reported 20,155 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, a short drop on Saturday’s record of 86,852. However, infections tend to dip on Mondays due to fewer people being tested over the weekend.
The seven-day moving average of new infections, which averages out weekly data reporting irregularities, stood at 48,734.
The number of people in France who have died from Covid-19 infections rose by 551 to 40,987, versus 270 on Sunday and a seven-day moving average of 508. The country’s total number of cases now stands at 1,807,479, the fourth-highest in the world.
Updated
Doctors in Italy have warned there will be an additional 10,000 Covid-19 deaths in a month in the country unless a national lockdown is imposed, my colleague Angela Giuffrida reports from Rome.
The government is moving toward placing further restrictions in four more regions considered high risk: Campania, Liguria, Abruzzo and Umbria.
The Italian Order of Doctors, however, has urged tougher action as hospitals struggle to find space for coronavirus patients. Ambulances have been queuing outside emergency units from Turin in the north to Naples in the south. People were treated for Covid-19 in their cars outside Cotugno hospital in Naples, the capital of Campania, over the weekend. One 78-year-old woman waited in an ambulance for 26 hours before being admitted to hospital.
As Italy edges towards a million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, 32,616 new cases were registered on Sunday, a more than sevenfold increase since 8 October. There were 331 Covid-related fatalities, bringing the total to 41,394, the highest in mainland Europe.
You can read the full story below:
Spain’s coronavirus death toll has risen to 39,345, an increase of 512 compared with Friday, according to the country’s health ministry. But the number of deaths during the past seven days was slightly down at 1,054 on Monday compared with Friday’s 1,088, according to Reuters.
Spain’s total tally of coronavirus cases now rose to 1,381,218 on Monday from 1,328,832 on Friday.
Spain, one of the hardest-hit countries by Covid-19, at the end of October imposed a six-month state of emergency, giving regions legal backing to implement curfews and restrict travel in a bid to control the spread of Covid-19.
A Covid-19 vaccine may be rolled out by March 2021 to the most vulnerable, which along with other advances could fundamentally change the course of the pandemic, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official has said.
Bruce Aylward told the WHO’s annual ministerial assembly that interim results from Pfizer’s late-stage vaccine trial were “very positive”.
“There is still much work to be done, this is just interim results ... but some very positive results coming today which should hold great promise hopefully for the entire world as we move forward,” Aylward told the 194-member state forum.
“By March as a result of the extraordinary work happening globally we could be in a position to fundamentally change the direction and the dynamic of this crisis,” he added.
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UK prime minister welcomes vaccine news but says these are 'very, very early days'
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has issued a cautious welcome to Pfizer/BioNTech’s announcement on its vaccine candidate, which it said had proved 90% effective in interim results.
He said the world had “cleared one significant hurdle” but there remain several more to jump before the vaccine is approved. Mixing his metaphors, he compared the announcement to a “distant bugle” of a cavalry coming to the rescue – but he warned that “these are very, very early days” yet.
He added:
We absolutely cannot rely on this news as a solution and the biggest mistake we could make now would be to slacken our resolve at a critical moment.
The US housing secretary, Ben Carson, has tested positive for coronavirus, according to reports. The ABC News reporter Katherine Faulders posted the news on Twitter:
NEWS: Sec. Ben Carson tested positive for COVID-19 this morning. His deputy chief of staff says he's "in good spirits & feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics which aid and markedly speed his recovery." Carson attended the election night party at the White House
— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) November 9, 2020
That would make Carson the latest victim of a second outbreak affecting the White House and top advisers to President Donald Trump.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has frequently appeared at public events without wearing a mask, was diagnosed last week, a source told Reuters, along with several other staffers.
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Watch the joyous reaction of BBC presenter Sarah Montague, when the UK vaccine expert Sir John Bell tells her the vaccine news means life should be able to return to normal by spring next year:
"Yes, yes, yes" said the Professor.
— BBC Radio 4 (@BBCRadio4) November 9, 2020
World at One presenter @Sarah_Montague reacts to the positive early results of one of the big coronavirus vaccine trials. pic.twitter.com/Gw56tkLTUL
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Italy has registered 25,271 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry has said, down from 32,616 on Sunday.
The ministry also reported 356 Covid-related deaths, up from 331 the day before. The number of registered cases regularly falls on Mondays, with tests traditionally dipping on Sundays.
A total of 41,750 people have now died because of Covid-19 in Italy, which has registered some 960,373 coronavirus infections since the start of its outbreak.
The Pfizer vaccine news might have come too late to help Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, but the vice-president, Mike Pence, tried to claim their administration’s Operation Warp Speed programme had helped its development.
HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers.
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) November 9, 2020
Pfizer immediately slapped down the suggestion. “We were never part of the Warp Speed,” Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice-president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said in an interview. “We have never taken any money from the US government, or from anyone.”
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Ukraine's president tests positive for Covid-19
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has tested positive for coronavirus, the presidential office has said.
”The head of state is feeling well and will continue to perform his duties remotely in self-isolation,” his office said in a statement.
Zelenskiy confirmed the news on Twitter:
There are no lucky people for whom #COVID19 does not pose a threat. Despite all the quarantine measures, I received a positive test. I feel good & take a lot of vitamins. Promise to isolate myself, but keep working. I will overcome COVID19 as most people do. It's gonna be fine!
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 9, 2020
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Latin American children have lost four times as many days of education from the coronavirus pandemic as students in the rest of the world, according to a Unicef report.
More than 137 million young people in the region are still not back at school, the study says. “While schools are gradually reopening in several parts of the world, the vast majority of classrooms are still closed across the region,” it said. “Over one-third of all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have yet to set a date for school reopening.”
Latin America has been hard hit by Covid-19, with more than 11.6 million cases and over 400,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.
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Professor Dr Uğur Şahin and his wife Özlem Türecki, both of whom are the children of Turkish immigrants to Germany, are being described as the masterminds behind the Covid 19 vaccine which, it has been announced this morning, has been shown in large-scale trials to be 90 per cent effective.
An article by Spiegel magazine last month, describes the professor as waiting in a state of “severe tension” with his team of 500 scientists at the German company Biontech in Mainz, for the results of the study which has just emerged, offering the first optimistic news on coronavirus for months, and causing euphoria on the markets.
Some 44,000 participants received either the vaccine, known as BNT162b2 or a placebo. Şahin, described by Spiegel as a quiet, emphatic man of few words, told the magazine he was aware that “every week counts”, and that his vaccine was capable of saving hundreds of thousands of lives if it worked.
The company specialises in mRNA agents, a molecule which is an essential component of human biology, serving as a messenger which transports the ‘building instructions’ between the genome of the cells and the cells’ protein ‘factories’.
Already in January long before Germany entered its first lockdown, under Şahin’s leadership, Biotech established the make up of Coronavirus’ genetic information and within two days it had produced the suitable RNA and began immediately with the first experiments. Within a short time Biontech had already produced 20 vaccine candidates.
Şahin told Der Spiegel that even the scientists were surprised at the speed of the results.A teacher at the University of Mainz, initially as a professor for Oncology, Şahin is described as a natural educator - who has continued to assist doctoral students even whilst dedicated to the intense work on the vaccine - and a reluctant businessman.
He has long been considered one of the world’s leading cancer researchers, but qualified as a professor in the field of immunology. He insists that cancer and coronavirus are closely related. “We see ourselves as immunology engineers,” he said. “We want to instruct the immune system to protect us from certain illnesses.”
Şahin and Biontech’s lack of experience in bringing a new medicine out of the research lab and turning it into a global product available worldwide, prompted it to join forces with the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, earlier this year.Spiegel was requested not to reveal the exact location of Şahin’s office at the Biontech headquarters. It described ‘muscular bodyguards’ watching over the building’s entrance, and said the firm had been offered protection by Germany’s intelligence service against cyber attacks.
The US president-elect, Joe Biden, has welcomed the “excellent news” about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine breakthrough, but said “the end of the battle against Covid-19 is still months away”.
He said: “Americans will have to rely on masking, distancing, contact tracing, hand washing, and other measures to keep themselves safe well into next year. Today’s news is great news, but it doesn’t change that fact.”
His full statement is below:
Biden's statement on the news that Pfizer is getting closer to an effective coronavirus vaccine.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) November 9, 2020
He starts off by saying he already knew the news last night.
And says it'll be months before there's widespread vaccination. pic.twitter.com/ReWa1nIniL
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Russia has reported a record high of 21,798 new coronavirus infections as the authorities called for stricter measures to contain the virus in certain regions.
Reuters reports that Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s consumer health watchdog, told the prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, at a televised meeting with government officials:
It is necessary to strengthen restrictions and control over their implementation in the regions where the daily case load and the infection is spreading at rates significantly higher than the average Russian levels.
She said the regions where restrictions should be increased include the far-eas Magadan and Sakhalin regions, as well as the Arkhangelsk and Ulyanovsk regions, among others.
Authorities also reported 256 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 30,793.
With 1,796,132 infections since the start of the pandemic, Russia has the world’s fourth-largest number of cases after the US, India and Brazil.
Updated
Michael Safi’s update (below) certainly added a good dose of realism to the vaccine news, didn’t it?!
But there are other reasons to be cheerful, not least the backstory of the BioNTech co-founders, Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci.
The children of Turkish migrant workers who came to Germany in the late 60s, Şahin and Türeci met while pursuing their respective careers working in teaching hospitals. So committed were they to medical research, according to this Reuters report, that they even found time for lab work on their wedding day.
If you want to tell positive stories about immigration, look no further than the BioNTech vaccine: company co-founders Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci are both children of Turkish Gastarbeiter who came to Germany in the late 1960s. https://t.co/wcHG7da61x
— Philip Oltermann (@philipoltermann) November 9, 2020
Şahin, 55, and Türeci, 53, now feature among the 100 richest Germans, according to the German weekly Welt am Sonntag.
The freezing temperatures required to store and transport BioNTech and Pfizer’s vaccine candidate means it could be outside of reach of up to two-thirds of the world’s population.
The potential vaccine must be stored at -75 degrees celsius and administered in two separate doses about three weeks apart. In wealthy countries that would mean it would likely be distributed at hospitals or specially-built centres rather than at pharmacies or the office of your local GP. For poor countries - without reliable electricity supplies or the infrastructure to keep the vaccines at that freezing temperature - it might mean it is not delivered at all.
A white paper by the logistics company DHL released in September found that “extraordinary measures” would be required to distribute a frozen vaccine beyond about 25 countries - covering only one-third of the world’s population - that currently have the capacity to store it.
“Currently, large parts of Africa, South America and Asia could not be readily supplied at scale due to lack of cold-chain logistics capacity suitable for life science products,” DHL said in its study.
Seemingly prosaic issues such as poor quality roads might also be a major hurdle, increasing the risk of damage to fragile vials as they are distributed to remote and rural areas.
Pfizer and BioNTech have sought to address these issues by designing reusable suitcase-sized shipping boxes that could store between 1,000 and 5,000 doses of the vaccine at freezing temperatures for up to 10 days.
That might ease distribution bottlenecks but is unlikely to eliminate the problems completely, leaving potentially billions of people waiting for another candidate that can be stored at milder temperatures, such as a potential vaccine being developed by Johnson & Johnson which has to be shipped frozen, but can be stored at typical refrigeration temperatures for several months and only requires one dose - easing its distribution in poorer countries.
US president-elect Joe Biden announces Covid-19 advisory board
Joe Biden, the US president-elect, has announced the team of public health experts that will shape the new US administration’s policies on Covid-19 before they assume office on 20 January.
Biden’s Transition Covid-19 Advisory Board will be led by co-chairs Dr David Kessler, Dr Vivek Murthy and Dr Marcella Nunez-Smith, his team announced in a press release.
President Donald Trump’s record on coronavirus has been sharply criticised from experts the world over. As of Monday, the US has recorded almost one in five of the world’s 50m confirmed infections and nearly a quarter of a million deaths – again nearly 20% of the global tally, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Biden said:
Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts.
The advisory board will help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations.
A full list of experts on Biden’s advisory board is here.
Some more detail from my colleagues Sarah Boseley and Philip Oltermann in their story on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine:
People from black and minority ethnic backgrounds appear to have been as well-protected as everyone else, the company says.
The phase 3 trials have involved more than 43,000 people and are intended to establish whether the vaccine works. Volunteers are given either the Covid vaccine, which was administered in two shots about three weeks apart, or a placebo alternative such as the meningitis vaccine, and neither they nor their doctors know which they have had.
The interim analysis looks at how many of those who got infected with Covid-19 had had the new vaccine and how many had the placebo. So far, 94 people have become infected with Covid-19 – this is three times more than the company originally planned, but since the analysis shows that 90% had not received the vaccine, it implies that no more than eight people had received it.
To confirm its efficacy rate, Pfizer said it will continue the trial until there are 164 Covid-19 cases among participants in vaccinated and non-vaccinated groups. Given the recent spike in US infection rates, that number could be reached by early December, Pfizer said.
The data is yet to be peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. Pfizer said it would do so once it had results from the entire trial.
Life should return to normal by spring, says UK vaccine expert
Sir John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at Oxford University who sits on the UK’s vaccine taskforce, has said he believes “with some confidence” that life should return to normal by spring next year following the Pfizer/BioNTech announcement.
Bell is one of the UK’s leading experts on this topic, so his prediction carries significant weight – not just for the UK but for other countries, too.
Bell said he was “really delighted” with the news and described the vaccine’s preliminary efficacy of 90% as “amazing”. He said there would be distribution challenges but that these were not insurmountable.
It was likely that “more than one” vaccine would be rolled out in the UK by the end of the year or early next year, he said. “It rolls the pitch for other vaccines because I can’t see any reason now why we shouldn’t have a handful of good vaccines available. It’s a major step.”
On BBC Radio 4’s World at One, the presenter, Sarah Montague, asked Bell if the vaccine meant that life should be returning to normal by spring.
Bell answered: “Yes, yes, yes. I’m probably the first guy to say that but I will say that with some confidence.”
“That’s fabulous news,” said Montague. It certainly is.
Updated
The US president, Donald Trump, has found time between playing golf and raging about the election to hail the potential Covid vaccine as “SUCH GREAT NEWS”:
STOCK MARKET UP BIG, VACCINE COMING SOON. REPORT 90% EFFECTIVE. SUCH GREAT NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2020
Updated
Scientists react to 'promising' vaccine news
Scientists from around the world have welcomed with “cautious optimism” the announcement by Pfizer/BioNTech that their coronavirus vaccine is 90% effective, with one expert describing it as “a watershed moment.”
Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, said:
This news made me smile from ear to ear. It is a relief to see such positive results on this vaccine and bodes well for Covid-19 vaccines in general. Of course we need to see more detail and await the final results, and there is a long long way to go before vaccines will start to make a real difference, but this feels to me like a watershed moment.
“At face value, this is exceptionally good news,” said Eleanor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. However, she said there were important questions that had not been immediately answered by Pfizer or BioNTech, including: how long will the immunity likely last? How severe were the infections used in the trial? And what age were the trial participants?
Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School, described it as a “very timely and encouraging development”. He pointed out that it would be a challenge to distribute this vaccine as it needs to be stored at -70 to -80C. He added:
It is difficult to fully evaluate the interim data without more information but it appears that the vaccine is able to protect against Covid-19 disease. The big question is whether the vaccine can block virus infection and subsequent transmission.
Updated
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, will hold a Downing Street press conference at 5pm GMT. The country enters its second week of lockdown on Thursday.
The focus of this press conference is not yet known but there were reports in the weekend newspapers that Johnson is set to announce an expansion of the mass-testing pilot, which began in Liverpool on Friday, to other towns and cities.
It has also been reported – for weeks, it has to be said – that the UK government is planning to reduce the length of time that people need to self-isolate from 10 or 14 days to seven.
Updated
My colleague, Patrick Winter, has more on Iran reporting a new record rise in the daily number of infections:
Iran’s health ministry reported a new record rise in the number of infections, revealing the figure had reached 10,463 over the previous 24 hours, the first time the numbers for new infections had reached five figures.
The number of new deaths was 458, also a record, pushing the death total to 38,749. Iran was the first middle east country to be hit by coronavirus and is the worst affected. The number of daily new infections has more than doubled since 20 October.
The rise in new infections means the number of deaths is likely to escalate shortly. Starting on Tuesday, for one month, all non-essential businesses must close at 6pm, Iranian media reported.
Some hospitals have run out of beds to treat new patients, Nader Tavakoli, a member of Iran’s national coronavirus taskforce, told the ISNA news agency:
Beds allocated for coronavirus patients are full at hospitals. We should have a temporary phase of two-week closure in Tehran to control the wave of the disease ... meanwhile we can get into planning.
The heads of 65 faculties and universities of medical sciences in Iran in an open letter called for a two-week national shutdown.
The total number of deaths is 38,749, placing Iran in the top ten of countries for deaths. Iran moved outside its previous pattern of fewer than 3,000 daily new infections in October, as the colder winter months arrived.
On Monday, Tehran’s Etemad newspaper published a front page with the photos of 99 health workers killed by the coronavirus. The accompanying piece praised their bravery, but contained strong words for those who continued not to wear masks, travel or fill cafes, saying they were responsible for the health worker’s deaths.
Updated
Belgium confident second wave of hospital admissions has peaked
Some more positive news to share – this time from Belgium. The country’s health authorities say they are confident that a second wave of Covid-19 hospital admissions has peaked in Belgium and will now begin to decline.
Speaking at a news conference reported by the Associated Press, virologist Yves Van Laethem said about 400 people were hospitalised due to coronavirus complications on Sunday, compared with 879 on 3 November.
“Subject to an unpleasant surprise,” the peak in hospital admissions was reached that day, Van Laethem said. Some 6,948 Covid-19 patients are currently being treated in Belgian hospitals – about 500 fewer than on 3 November.
Belgium has returned to partial lockdown measures including the closure of nonessential shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the extension of the autumn school vacation. Van Laethem said the measures seem to have had an impact as the number of patients in intensive care was tending to stabilise.
Updated
The BBC’s medical editor, Fergus Walsh, has said the Pfizer vaccine “looks highly promising” but that there remains important questions about its efficacy, not least how long the protection may last.
As always, the devil is in the detail, including how long does protection last? But this looks highly promising. The UK has advance orders for 30m doses of the vaccine, enough to immunise 15 m people.
— Fergus Walsh (@BBCFergusWalsh) November 9, 2020
Vaccine candidate is 90% effective, says manufacturer
A vaccine against Covid-19 is in sight, writes my colleague Sarah Boseley, with the announcement of the first interim results in large-scale trials showing the Pfizer/BioNTech candidate is 90% effective, according to the manufacturers. Their analysis shows a much better performance than most experts had hoped for.
The high percentage of those protected makes the findings compelling. Regulators have said they would approve a vaccine that is just 50% effective – protecting half those who get it. The company says there are no serious side-effects.
Dr Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, said:
Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19.
We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen.
The trial will continue until there have been 164 confirmed cases, so there is potential for the efficacy rate to change, but a finding that 90% of infections were prevented will excite politicians and public health leaders alike and brings into view a potential end to the pandemic.
The phase 3 trials have involved more than 43,000 people. People from black and ethnic minority backgrounds appear to have been as well protected as everyone else, the company says.
Gathering the required safety data will take until the third week of November, the company says. The dossier will then be submitted to the regulators for approval. Speedy licensing could mean the first doses in healthcare workers by the end of the year.
Updated
The World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has congratulated the US president-elect, Joe Biden, and said he looked forward to working together to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We welcome any and all efforts to strengthen this organisation not for its own sake, but the sake of the people we serve,” Tedros told health ministers at the start of the WHO’s resumed annual meeting.
Donald Trump has accused the WHO of being “China-centric” in its handling of the pandemic, a charge Tedros has repeatedly denied. Trump has frozen US funding to the organisation and promised to withdraw from the WHO next July – a decision expected to be reversed by Biden when he takes office on 20 January.
Tedros urged the international community to recapture a sense of common purpose, adding:
In that spirit we congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and we look forward to working with this administration very closely. We need to reimagine leadership, build on mutual trust and mutual accountability to end the pandemic and address the fundamental inequalities that lie at the root of so many of the world’s problems.
Updated
Coronavirus infections in Switzerland rose by 17,309 cases since Friday, data from Swiss health authorities shows.
Total confirmed cases in Switzerland and neighbouring principality Liechtenstein increased to 229,222 and the death toll rose by 169 to 2,576, according to a Reuters tally.
Hospitalisations in Switzerland grew by 536 to 9,205 as the government deployed army personnel to help the hard-pressed healthcare system cope with the surge in admissions.
Updated
One of Britain’s most influential businessmen, Sir Martin Sorrell, has said the country’s economy could take five to 10 years to recover fully from the coronavirus pandemic.
Sorrell is the founder of WPP, the world’s largest advertising agency, and one of the longest-serving chief executives of a listed company in the UK.
Britain has recorded the worst death toll in Europe and the deepest economic contraction of any leading G7 country from the coronavirus. It is now preparing to finally leave the European Union on 31 December and is yet to secure a future trade deal.
He told Reuters:
It is going to take a long time for the UK to recover unfortunately. It’s going to be a tough 5-10 years; we’re going to be 5-10 years before the economy fully recovers from the Brexit withdrawal and the industrial changes that will need to take place, to re-skill, to re-educate, to invest in the necessary infrastructure.
Updated
Iran is the latest in a string of countries to report a record daily rise in coronavirus cases today. The health ministry reported a daily jump of 10,463 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours.
This brings the Middle East’s worst-affected country’s total cases to 692,949, according to Reuters.
Sima Sadat Lari, an Iranian health ministry spokeswoman, told state TV 458 people had died from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, pushing the death toll to 38,749.
Updated
Well, what a lovely handover. Thanks Caroline! It’s Josh here, in Manchester, England, ready to guide you through the day’s coronavirus news. Thank you for being with us.
I’ll try to read as many of your emails and messages as possible but I may not be able to get to them all. You can reach me on:
Twitter: @JoshHalliday
Email: josh.halliday@theguardian.com
That’s all from me. Thank you for your time. Now handing over to my esteemed colleague Josh Halliday.
China’s financial hub of Shanghai said on Monday it had confirmed one new coronavirus case involving a 51-year-old man who worked at the city’s Pudong airport.
Li Guohua, the deputy head of Pudong New Area, made the announcement at a news conference.
Updated
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, announced a range of lockdown measures on Monday morning, as the coronavirus situation in the country threatens to spiral out of control. Orbán has previously been resistant to tough measures, but with case numbers rising sharply has been forced to act, Shaun Walker reports from Budapest.
Restaurants and bars will be closed, while a curfew will be implemented from 8pm until 5am. High school and university teaching will go online, and gatherings of more than 10 people banned. Sports events will now be held only behind closed doors. Opposition figures had criticised the prime minister, who is a football fan, for allowing crowds into stadiums despite the rising virus figures.
The measures, which last for an initial 30 days, will be voted on in parliament on Tuesday and come into force on Wednesday.
During the first wave in spring, Hungary avoided the catastrophic situation of much of western Europe, registering about 100 cases per day at the peak. Now, however, things have got much worse.
There were 5,162 new cases of Covid-19 reported on Monday, but a positive test rate of more than 30% suggests the real figure is much higher. There are more than 6,000 patients in hospitals and health experts say the country’s struggling medical system could hit capacity within weeks.
Updated
Warning that Germany's health system will not cope if case rate continues to rise
The German health minister, Jens Spahn, has warned once again of the danger that the country’s health system will no longer be able to cope if the coronavirus infection rate continues to rise.
If there are, as we saw last week, approximately 20,000 new registered infections a day with about 2 % of those cases needing to go to into intensive care, which amounts to 400 people a day. And with the average stay in ICU being 15 days, it will quickly be the case that 6,000 ICU beds are filled.
The health system can just about cope with such figures, but beyond that it will struggle, he has said in an interview with the video channel of the tabloid Bild.
Germany tightened coronavirus measures a week ago, and it is still too early to say if they have yet had the effect of slowing down the virus’s spread.
Spahn also pointed out that up to 40% of Germans are considered to be in a risk category, bearing in mind that after Japan, Germany has the oldest population in the world, with 23 million people over the age of 60, with a high rate of the typical first world illnesses of diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.
Spahn told the tabloid that he was not expecting a vaccine to become available until the beginning of next year at the earliest, and it would take months for the programme to reach the entire population.
In Germany, there is also concern over the continuing rise in the number of demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions. At the weekend, police in the eastern city of Leipzig appeared unable to control a protest that later turned violent, at which about 20,000 people took to the streets of the city centre, many of them not wearing masks.
The authorities had tried to get the demonstration moved to the outskirts of the city, amid fears its tight concentration in the city centre would further spread the virus, but a last-minute court decision ruled that it should go ahead in the centre as planned.
Updated
Here is the latest Covid world map, showing how the virus has spread.
Updated
Indonesia reported 2,853 new coronavirus infections on Monday, taking the total number of cases to 440,569, data from the country’s Covid-19 task force showed.
It also reported 75 more deaths, taking total fatalities to 14,689. Overall, 372,266 people had recovered from the virus, it said.
Updated
In India, Delhi is experiencing one of the worst spells of air pollution in years, data released on Monday shows, raising the risks to city residents posed by coronavirus, doctors say.
Pollution in the city had almost disappeared earlier this year, when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the virus, Reuters reports.
But the curbs have been lifted and the pollution, and the virus, are back with a vengeance. Delhi’s overall air quality index, which includes the concentration of PM2.5 particles as well as bigger pollutants, has stayed above 400, on a scale of 500, for five consecutive days, government data shows.
The tiny PM2.5 particles can cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases including lung cancer, and pose a particular risk for people with Covid-19.
Updated
Cambodians marked their 67th Independence Day holiday on Monday, but new restrictions kept them from celebrating at karaoke parlours, beer gardens, museums, cinemas and other entertainment venues, which have been ordered shut until further notice, AP reports.
Students in Phnom Penh, the capital, and the satellite town of Kandal will not be returning to schools on Tuesday as an education ministry order to contain the spread of the virus has shut them down in those places for two weeks.
The new restrictions were issued by the health ministry on Sunday because Hungary’s foreign minister tested positive for coronavirus after visiting Cambodia last week. Péter Szijjártó tested positive upon arrival in Thailand on Tuesday following his one-day Cambodia visit. He was placed in quarantine in Bangkok before leaving for Hungary on Wednesday.
Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen announced on Saturday that a Cambodian bodyguard for Szijjártó had tested positive for the virus He said the bodyguard was the only one of more than 900 people who were involved with Szijjártó’s visit to test positive.
Hun Sen and four cabinet ministers are in quarantine because they met with Szijjártó the same day he tested positive. Hun Sen said he has tested negative and will abide by the country’s guidelines and stay quarantined for 14 days.
All the people involved with the Hungarian foreign minister’s trip were undergoing a second coronavirus test Monday. They will be tested four times during the 14-day quarantine period.
Cambodia has reported a total of 297 cases of coronavirus with no deaths.
Updated
A visitor takes a selfie while wearing a protective face mask at Shanghai Disney Resort as the Shanghai Disneyland theme park reopens following a shutdown due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, in Shanghai, China.
Updated
The Philippines reported 108 new deaths from Covid-19 on Monday, the highest daily death toll since 23 October, taking total fatalities to 7,647, the country’s health ministry said.
The Department of Health also reported 2,058 new infections, taking the total to 398,449, the second highest number in south-east Asia.
Updated
As America grapples with record-breaking surges in Covid-19 infections and no meaningful federal response, some state and local governments are implementing new restrictions to combat the surging virus.
Other hard-hit areas, however, are taking little to no action against a pandemic that has claimed more than 200,000 lives and sent the US economy into a tailspin.
Oregon, which reported a state record-breaking 805 new cases Thursday and 769 Friday, will implement new restrictions in at least five counties to stop Covid-19 from spreading. These measures halt visits to care homes, and limit indoor dining at restaurants to 50 people, according to the Associated Press.
Authorities are also urging businesses to require work-from-home. Officials are also asking Oregon residents not to gather with people they don’t live with, but to limit any non-household gathering to six people, the AP reported.
In New York, Andrew Cuomo, the governor, said on Friday that officials were weighing additional restrictions to combat the surge in western and central New York and would announce details on Monday. Cuomo also said that officials would ramp up enforcement of new quarantine requirements for out-of-state travellers.
Read more here:
Updated
Russia reported a record high of 21,798 new coronavirus infections on Monday, including 6,897 in the capital Moscow, bringing the national tally to 1,796,132.
Authorities also reported 256 coronavirus related deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 30,793.
France’s economic activity is 12% lower than normal this month after the country entered a lockdown for the second time this year, the central bank said on Monday.
The government imposed the new lockdown on 30 October to rein in a surge in new cases although the restrictions were softer than the first time to limit the impact to the euro zone’s second-biggest economy, Reuters reports.
The Bank of France said economic activity was expected to be reduced by 12% of normal levels as a result, worse than the 4% drop in October but far better than the 31% loss seen in April during one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe.
“Before the second wave we thought we’d have a recession of a bit less than 9%, we now expect that for the whole of 2020 we will be between -9 and -10%,” Bank of France governor François Villeroy de Galhau said on RTL radio.
Updated
The Czech Republic reported 3,608 new coronavirus cases for 8 November, the lowest daily tally in the country in four weeks, health ministry data showed on Monday.
The number of new cases is nearly 3,000 less than reported a week earlier and brings the total count to 414,828 in the country of 10.7 million, which has had one of Europe’s highest infection rates in recent weeks, Reuters reports.
The ministry also reported 177 new deaths, including 101 on Sunday along with revisions to previous days. In total, 4,858 people have died in relation to Covid-19.
Updated
Still in Australia, the New Year’s Eve fireworks over Sydney Harbour will go ahead this year but will be shortened to just a few minutes and the city precinct will be restricted to those with restaurant, cafe and hotel bookings in order to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Prime harbourside spots, normally coveted by thousands of revellers to watch the traditional 12-minute pyrotechnic display, will be set aside for health workers who have been treating Covid-19 patients and firefighters, Reuters reports.
Although Australia has for weeks recorded just daily single digit new cases of Covid-19, New South Wales state premier Gladys Berejiklian said crowd numbers will be limited for the event in areas that typically draw thousands of viewers.
*New Year’s Eve celebrations will be a symbol of hope and optimism for next year,” Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney. “But unless you have a booking in a restaurant or cafe, please do not expect to go.”
Those without a booking will be unable to gain access into the city, Berejiklian said.
Australia has recorded just over 27,600 coronavirus infections and 907 deaths, far fewer than many other developed countries.
Updated
Australian states and territories are currently under different levels of restrictions to contain Covid-19.
Here we answer some of the most common questions people have about the restrictions in each state, based on the information available as of 9 November.
Hi. Caroline Davies here, taking over the live blog for the next few hours. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today – oh, except this one very serious and important thing:
A “voter-fraud” hotline set up by Donald Trump’s campaign team has been on the receiving end of a slew of prank calls after being targeted by TikTok and Twitter users.
The hotline, which is being run by campaign staff from the headquarters of the re-election campaign headquarters in Virginia, has turned into a “nightmare”, with staffers answering “prank calls from people laughing or mocking them over Biden’s win before hanging up”.
Some have also received “disturbing unsolicited adult images” and calls from “lefty teenagers”, according to Axios reporter Jonathan Swan:
Joe Biden's coronavirus task force to meet as first public schedule released
Joe Biden will convene a coronavirus task force on Monday to confront one of the biggest problems vexing the United States, as the president-elect and his running mate, Kamala Harris, are moving ahead with their transition process.
On Sunday night, Biden and Harris released their first public schedule as “president-elect” and “vice president-elect”.
Biden is due to meet with a 12-member advisory board led by former the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler to examine how best to tame a pandemic that has killed more than 237,000 Americans.
He will give remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, about his plans for tackling the coronavirus pandemic and rebuilding the economy later in the day:
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- The US, the world’s worst-affected country in terms of the number of confirmed Covid-19 infections, is about to pass 10m cases, according to Johns Hopkins. According to Reuters calculations, the latest seven-day average shows global daily infections are rising by more than 540,000, and October was the worst month of the pandemic so far. The US currently has just under a fifth of the global total – 9,96m cases – and in recent days has often registered over 100,000 cases a day. America has lost at least 237,542 people to the pandemic this year. The global death total is 1,254,453.
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Pandemics expert says half of positive cases in UK not being identified. Around half of the positive coronavirus cases in the UK are not being identified, according to a pandemics expert. Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said these cases mean attempts to control the virus are being done “with one hand behind our back”. Mr Woolhouse sits on a sub-group of SAGE and is a member of the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 advisory group.
- October was worst month for pandemic so far. A Reuters tally has calculated that October was the worst month of the coronavirus pandemic so far, with its second wave in the past 30 days accounting for a quarter of all cases.The last month saw the spread of the virus accelerate at a rapid pace: while it took 32 days for cases to rise from 30 million to 40 million, it only took 21 days to add another 10 million.
- China reports 33 new cases. China reported 33 new Covid-19 cases on 8 November, up from 28 cases a day earlier, the national health authority reported on Monday. The National Health Commission said 32 of the cases were imported in people returning from overseas. The number of new asymptomatic cases fell to nine from 36 a day earlier, the commission said. The total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in mainland China now stands at 86,245, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.
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The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 50 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which shows that the US, India and Brazil have the highest figures.
- The economic fallout during the coronavirus pandemic has made the prospect of a third world war “a risk”, the UK’s most senior military commander has said. General Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff made the comments when asked by Sky News in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday whether he feared the global economic crisis brought on by coronavirus could lead to war.
- France reported a further 38,619 coronavirus cases on Sunday,bringing the country’s total to 1,787,324. It follows a record daily increase on Saturday, when a staggering 86,852 cases were logged.
- Algeria’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, has responded well to coronavirus treatment after being hospitalised 13 days ago. Algeria’s government has also extended a night-time curfew already in place in 20 of the country’s 48 regions to a further nine areas. The curfew will start at 8 pm (1900 GMT), three hours earlier than previous restrictions, but will still end each morning at 5 am (0400 GMT).The new measures will come into effect from Tuesday for 15 days.
The government has failed to publish any information about £4bn of Covid-related contracts awarded to private companies, in what appears to be a continuing breach of UK law.
The gap was uncovered by campaign group the Good Law Project, which along with a cross-party group of MPs, is suing the health secretary, Matt Hancock, in the high court. They are accusing his ministry of an “egregious and widespread failure to comply with legal duties and established policies”.
The group is warning of a “transparency gap” and is pushing for an independent judge-led inquiry into the billions spent on personal protective equipment, medicines and virus testing and tracing since the pandemic began:
Here is the full story on New Zealand investigating the Cook Islands travel bubble:
Japan on Sunday held a one-day exhibition gymnastics meet in front of several thousand fans with 22 athletes participating from Russia, China and the United States.
They were joined by eight from Japan, AP reports.
The non-Japanese entered after a 14-day quarantine at home and were largely kept penned up in their Tokyo hotel in strict isolation. They also underwent PCR tests daily in Japan.
The event is the latest a Japanese baseball stadium was filled to capacity last week intended to show that the postponed Tokyo Olympics can open in just under nine months.
Next year’s Games will involve 11,000 athletes from 206 nations and territories, all affected differently by Covid-19. Add to this 4,400 more Paralympians and thousands more officials, judges, VIPs, media, broadcasters and sponsors who will also need to enter Japan.
Tokyo organisers and the International Olympic Committee have given few details and concrete plans are not expected until next year when a vaccine and rapid testing might be available to resolve some problems.
Japan is officially spending $12.6 billion to organize the Olympics, although a government audit last year said it was twice that much. All but $5.6 billion is public money.
Over and above this, estimates suggest the postponement will cost another $2 billion to $3 billion. The University of Oxford published a study in September showing these are the most expensive Summer Olympics on record.
Just over 1,800 people in Japan have died from Covid-19. Japan has controlled the virus better than most, although Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga warned Friday of a resurgence of the coronavirus in Japan. The northernmost island of Hokkaido also raised warning levels last week.
Gymnastics organisers also said the southern Japanese city of Kitakyushu will hold the 2021 world championships in artistic and rhythmic gymnastics on 17-31 October.
Updated
New Zealand and the Cook Islands are set to open a ‘travel bubble’ between the two countries, with NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern confirming officials from her government would visit the South Pacific archipelago later this week.
“While I don’t wish to put any time-frames on a potential travel bubble, it is my aim and hope that this can resume as soon as is safely possible, and this on-the-ground visit by officials to the Cook Islands is the next step in that process.
“We of course have also said to counterparts in the Cook Islands we welcome any visits that they may wish to do in the other direction to equally assure themselves of the practices that we would have in place at the border too.”
An announcement is not expected within a week, Ardern said.
The Cook Islands is known as a ‘self-governing associated state’, part of the grandly titled Realm of New Zealand. Its citizens are also NZ citizens.
With its borders sealed for months, the Cook Islands has remained Covid-19 free throughout the pandemic. But the closure of borders - especially with New Zealand - has cruelled the Cooks’ economy and the country is desperate to re-open travel with safe countries.
New Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown has said he is hopeful of being able to open quarantine-free travel with New Zealand by December. A travel bubble between the two countries was mooted for as early as July, but had to be delayed because of a coronavirus outbreak in Auckland.
US President-elect Joe Biden’s healthcare advisers have held talks with drugmaker executives on the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed program to accelerate development of a possible Covid-19 treatment, a Biden spokesman said on Sunday.
Reuters reports that under the Trump administration, Operation Warp Speed has struck deals with several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for effective treatments for the disease amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
The US Covid-19 death toll stands at over 237,000, with more than 9.9 million cases now reported in the country since the outbreak began, according to a Reuters tally.
“As we previously said in September, because President-Elect Joe Biden is absolutely committed to helping develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible, campaign medical advisers have received briefings from companies working to produce vaccines in order to be informed about the process,” Biden’s spokesman Andrew Bates said in an emailed statement.
Biden’s advisers met with companies that have Covid-19 vaccines or therapies in late-stage clinical trials in September and October, Bloomberg News had reported earlier.
The report added that the meeting was aimed at gathering information about the development, manufacturing and distribution of shots to ward off the novel coronavirus and therapies to treat the sick.
Biden has vowed to “listen to the science”, with his coronavirus plan calling for scaling up testing and contact tracing and promising to appoint a “supply commander” to oversee supply lines of critical equipment.
A gardening craze dubbed “plantdemic” has spread across the Philippines after coronavirus restrictions fuelled demand for greenery, sending plant prices soaring and sparking a rise in poaching from public parks and protected forests, AFP reports.
Photos of delicate flowers and broad-leafed foliage cultivated in backyards and on balconies have flooded social media as housebound Filipinos turn to nature to relieve stress and boredom.
“It’s unbelievable. People are super interested in plants these days,” said landscape gardener Alvin Chingcuangco, who has seen prices for some varieties of monsteras reach 55,000 pesos ($1,140) each, compared with 800 pesos before the pandemic.
Manila plant seller Arlene Gumera-Paz said her daily turnover tripled after she reopened her doors following months of lockdown.
Demand remained robust even as prices for the most popular varieties of indoor plants, such as alocasias, spider plants and peace lilies, doubled or even quadrupled.
“It’s hard to understand people. When plants were cheap, they were ignored,” said the 40-year-old, who buys her plants in bulk from growers in nearby provinces.
But as demand has grown, authorities have warned that many plants on the market may not have been legally obtained.
Rangers patrolling the forests of Zamboanga in the country’s south for illegal loggers and wildlife poachers were ordered to watch out for plant thieves, after officials noticed some species posted on social media could only be found in the region’s protected areas.
“Prior to the pandemic we hadn’t observed many plant poachers,” said Maria Christina Rodriguez, Zamboanga regional director for the Department of Energy and Natural Resources.
“This only became popular during lockdown.”
And now for a break from all my cooing about coronavirus:
A couple out for a walk in eastern France have discovered a tiny capsule containing a message despatched by a Prussian soldier over a century ago using a carrier pigeon.
The message from an infantry soldier based at Ingersheim, written in German in a barely legible hand, detailed military manoeuvres apparently during the first world war and was addressed to a superior officer, said Dominique Jardy, curator of the Linge Museum at Orbey in eastern France.
It appears to be dated 16 July 1910, or possibly 1916.
The message reads: “Platoon Potthof receives fire as they reach the western border of the parade ground, platoon Potthof takes up fire and retreats after a while.
“In Fechtwald half a platoon was disabled. Platoon Potthof retreats with heavy losses”:
South Korea’s foreign minister arrived in Washington on Sunday for talks with her American counterpart on a visit now overshadowed by Joe Biden’s projected win in the US presidential election.
Reuters: Kang Kyung-wha’s trip came at the invitation from the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who cancelled his planned visit to Seoul last month after President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus.
Speaking to reporters after visiting the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Kang said it was too soon to predict how the new US administration would handle specific issues, but she didn’t expect Biden to return to former US President Barack Obama’s policy of strategic patience toward North Korea.
“From the public remarks made by several of Biden’s aides, I don’t believe it intends to return to the strategic patience of the past,” Kang said, according to Yonhap news agency.
“It should be made based on various progress and achievements made the past three years.”
Yonhap said Kang would meet Biden’s foreign affairs and security members and discuss cooperation during her unusually long visit to the United States, without elaborating.
Country singer Lee Brice tested positive for Covid-19 and will not perform as scheduled at the Country MusicAwards on Wednesday.
A representative for Brice told The Associated Press on Sunday that he is “in good spirits and not experiencing any symptoms.”
Brice was tested ahead of the awards show, which will be broadcast on ABC from Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been scheduled to perform with Carly Pearce. Pearce and Brice are both nominated for their duet “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” in the categories musical event of the year and music video of the year.
Brice, who is known for hit songs like “I Drive Your Truck” and “I Don’t Dance,” will be isolating at home until he’s cleared by a doctor, according to a statement from his representative.
A CMA spokesperson said Brice was tested and received his result before arriving onsite for any of show rehearsals or activities. Although the show doesn’t have a normal audience of fans because of the pandemic, CMA CEO Sarah Trahern had promised to bring country stars together in one room for the awards show, while still physically distanced.
“Lee would like to thank the CMAs and all of his incredible fans for his nominations and is wishing his fellow nominees an incredible evening celebrating the best of country music,” the statement said.
Podcast: US election 2020 – can Joe Biden unite America?
The Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, tells Anushka Asthana that when Biden formally takes charge in January he will be beset by some of the biggest crises the country has faced in recent history. A pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 Americans, an economy devastated, a climate rapidly overheating and a population divided. It’s a task that would be difficult at the best of times, but he must face the prospect of having to navigate it without a majority in the Senate.
His victory speech was laced with the intention to take on these challenges and reunite the country. As good wishes flooded in from around the world, it’s clear he will have no shortage of allies for the task ahead:
Pandemics expert says half of positive cases in UK not being identified
Around half of the positive coronavirus cases in the UK are not being identified, according to a pandemics expert.
From PA: Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said these cases mean attempts to control the virus are being done “with one hand behind our back”.
Mr Woolhouse sits on a sub-group of SAGE and is a member of the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 advisory group.
He said the mass testing scheme which began in Liverpool is an attempt combat the problem.
From Friday anyone in the city can be tested - repeatedly - for coronavirus regardless of whether they have symptoms.
Speaking on the BBC Scotland’s Seven Days programme, Prof Woolhouse said: “The problem that testing pilot scheme in Liverpool is trying to solve is that we’re still not finding about half of the Covid cases in Scotland or in the UK more generally.
“That’s a very high proportion.”
He added: “It’s probably partly because many of them are asymptomatic or so mildly infected they don’t recognise the symptoms, partly because people do have symptoms but actually genuinely aren’t recognising them as Covid - I’ve heard a few cases of that in the last week - and also the possibility that some people are having symptoms and actually ignoring them, perhaps because they don’t want to go into self-isolation.
“Whatever the reason, those missed 50% of cases - it’s like trying to control the epidemic with one hand tied behind our back. We can’t do it effectively if those cases are not also being self isolated and their contacts traced. It’s going to make it much more difficult.
“The idea of Liverpool is to try and find these cases and hopefully ... persuade them to self-isolate.”
Welcome:
Now, back to our regular programming, COVID fear
— Tanya Chen (@tanyachen) November 9, 2020
Mexico’s health ministry reported on Sunday 5,887 additional coronavirus cases and 219 more deaths, bringing the official number of cases to 967,825 and the death toll to 95,027, Reuters reports.
Health officials have said the real number of infections and deaths is likely significantly higher.
Taiwan is yet to receive an invite to a key World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting this week expected to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic due to “obstruction” from China, the island’s foreign ministry said, expressing its disquiet over being again isolated.
The US mission in Geneva last week urged WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to invite Chinese-claimed but democratically ruled Taiwan to the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly (WHA).
Late on Sunday, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said the island had yet to get an invite to the virtual meeting of 194 member states.
“The foreign ministry expresses strong regret and dissatisfaction at China’s obstruction of Taiwan participating in the WHO and the WHO’s continuing to neglect the health and human rights of Taiwan’s 23.5 million people,” it said.
The WHO’s refusal to invite Taiwan based on political considerations makes a mockery of the body’s “health for all” claim, the ministry said.
Taiwan is locked out of most global organisations such as the WHO due to the objections of China, which considers the island one of its provinces with no right to the trappings of a sovereign state.
The WHO says it is up to member states whether to invite Taiwan, which has been praised internationally for quickly containing the coronavirus, to observe the WHA meeting.
Backed by the United States, Taiwan has stepped up lobbying this year to take part, angering China.
China’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva on Friday denounced the “distorted” US remarks on Taiwan, saying the island can only take part if it admits to being part of China, something Taipei’s government has refused to do.
The WHO says it cooperates with Taiwan on various health matters including on aspects of the pandemic and that the island has been provided with the help it needs.
Australian food delivery riders say their hourly rates of pay are being cut during the pandemic, even as demand rises, meaning that food delivery companies like UberEats and Deliveroo are profiting off “both sides” of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Three food delivery riders were killed in the space of a month in October, in three separate road collisions in Sydney and Melbourne.
On Monday, four current delivery riders and rideshare drivers testified before a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry about their experiences of being injured or financially stressed on the job:
For a quick break from bad US news, here – for those who have déjà vu and those who have not – is the sheer delight that is the man Forbes has identified as Meka Anyanetu, celebrating following the announcement that Joe Biden had won the 2020 elections:
J'en chialle pic.twitter.com/e35nw2BQaa
— Pierre Le Texier (@pierre_lt) November 7, 2020
Updated
China reports 33 new cases
China reported 33 new Covid-19 cases on 8 November, up from 28 cases a day earlier, the national health authority reported on Monday.
The National Health Commission said 32 of the cases were imported in people returning from overseas.
One of the cases was a local infection reported in Tianjin - a cold storage worker who had handled frozen pork from Germany. The city government is carrying out tests on some cold storage facilities and their staff.
The number of new asymptomatic cases fell to nine from 36 a day earlier, the commission said.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in mainland China now stands at 86,245, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.
Algeria’s government has extended a night-time curfew already in place in 20 of the country’s 48 regions to a further nine areas, AFP reports.
The curfew will start at 8 pm (1900 GMT), three hours earlier than previous restrictions, but will still end each morning at 5 am (0400 GMT).
The new measures will come into effect from Tuesday for 15 days.
Rising stress levels have taken a toll on the mental and emotional health of young people since the first coronavirus lockdown was imposed in March, children’s charity the NSPCC has warned.
Calls to the charity’s ChildLine service reached nearly 43,000 between March and October, with mental health worries making up more than a third of all its counselling sessions, new figures showed.
The NSPCC said its counsellors had heard from children who were feeling isolated, anxious and insecure after being cut off from their usual social support networks.
Some children had developed eating disorders such as binge eating and bulimia for the first time, while others with existing eating disorders had reported worse symptoms or had relapsed, the charity found:
Britain’s economy is set for a pre-Christmas slump with further job losses and shop closures, despite government measures to protect businesses during the latest Covid-19 restrictions.
Surveys of business activity reveal a sharp decline as tough new restrictions were launched across the UK amid the second coronavirus wave, setting the stage for a difficult winter ahead as the economy plunges into reverse.
While the damage to many industries will be less severe than during the first lockdown, the accountancy firm BDO said measures of business confidence and output fell in October for the first time since April:
On the US nearing 10m cases:
33 percent positivity rate in Wisconsin. That tells us that testing is seriously inadequate and covid is out of control. https://t.co/63h705bqki
— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) November 8, 2020
October was worst month for pandemic so far
A Reuters tally has calculated that October was the worst month of the coronavirus pandemic so far, with its second wave in the past 30 days accounting for a quarter of all cases.
The last month saw the spread of the virus accelerate at a rapid pace: while it took 32 days for cases to rise from 30 million to 40 million, it only took 21 days to add another 10 million.
The bleak milestone followed the US reporting more than 100,000 new cases on four consecutive days. The country broke its own record for daily cases nearly every day last week.
Europe has also greatly contributed to the global surge in cases. The region has reported around 12 million infections, making it the worst-affected region, overtaking Latin America. It also makes up almost a quarter (24%) of coronavirus deaths.
A Reuters analysis has shown the number of new coronavirus cases in Europe is growing by around one million every three days:
Economic fallout from Covid-19 makes prospect of third world war ‘a risk’
Here is more on a third world war being a ‘risk’ in the wake of the pandemic.
The economic fallout during the coronavirus pandemic has made the prospect of a third world war “a risk”, the UK’s most senior military commander has said.
PA Media reports that General Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff made the comments when asked by Sky News in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday whether he feared the global economic crisis brought on by coronavirus could lead to war. He told the Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme there was a worry that the increase in regional conflicts playing out across the world could ramp up into “a full-blown war”, mirroring the run-up to the two world wars in the 20th century when a series of alliances between countries led to years of bloodshed.
The senior official argued that, with the world being “a very uncertain and anxious place” during the pandemic, there was the possibility “you could see escalation lead to miscalculation”.
“We have to remember that history might not repeat itself but it has a rhythm and if you look back at the last century, before both world wars, I think it was unarguable that there was escalation which led to the miscalculation which ultimately led to war at a scale we would hopefully never see again,” said Carter.
Asked whether he was saying there was a “real threat” of a third world war, he replied: “I’m saying it’s a risk and we need to be conscious of those risks
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus news from around the world. I’ll also include updates from the US elections where relevant.
As always, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
Speaking of the US, the world’s worst-affected country in terms of the number of confirmed Covid-19 infections is about to pass 10m cases, as the global total tops 50m, according to Johns Hopkins. According to Reuters calculations, the latest seven-day average shows global daily infections are rising by more than 540,000, and October was the worst month of the pandemic so far.
The US currently has just under a fifth of the global total – 9,949,530 cases – and in recent days has often registered over 100,000 cases a day. America has lost at least 237,542 people to the pandemic this year.
The global death total is 1,254,453.
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The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 50 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which shows that the US, India and Brazil have the highest figures.
- The economic fallout during the coronavirus pandemic has made the prospect of a third world war “a risk”, the UK’s most senior military commander has said. General Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff made the comments when asked by Sky News in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday whether he feared the global economic crisis brought on by coronavirus could lead to war.
- France reported a further 38,619 coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the country’s total to 1,787,324. It follows a record daily increase on Saturday, when a staggering 86,852 cases were logged.
- Algeria’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, has responded well to coronavirus treatment after being hospitalised 13 days ago.
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Greece has reported a record daily rise of 35 coronavirus deaths, and 1,914 new cases of the virus. The authorities announced 34 deaths on Saturday.
- Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Manchester on Sunday to object against the national lockdown in England, resulting in four arrests and several fines.
- Italy has registered 32,616 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Sunday, down from 39,811 on Saturday.
- The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a further 93,811 coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 9,808,411. It follows a string of record figures, with the country tallying more than 100,000 new cases for four consecutive days.
- The UK has reported 20,572 new infections and 156 deaths, taking the country’s caseload to 1,192,013 and its official toll to 49,044.
Updated
