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Hi, Helen Sullivan here. I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next few hours – get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
A national public health campaign promoting the flu vaccine is urgently needed to avoid stretched healthcare services being overwhelmed this winter as the US faces cold season while still struggling to gain control of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists have warned.
Influenza or seasonal flu is a perennial public health burden that, like Covid-19, causes most severe problems among elderly people and those with underlying health conditions.
During the winter of 2018-2019, about 35.5 million people in the US got sick with flu, almost half a million were hospitalized and 34,200 died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
That’s it from me, Jessica Murray, today, thanks to everyone for reading along - I’ll now hand over to my colleague Helen Sullivan in Australia.
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, called for the UK population to come together for “collective health” in a televised address in which he announced “perhaps six months” of new restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Johnson said the country must “reserve the right to go further” with coronavirus restrictions. He does not want to impose a second total lockdown, but said there have been “too many breaches” of the rules.
Updated
Hundreds of students in Scotland told to self-isolate
Hundreds of students in Dundee, Scotland have been told to isolate after a suspected Covid-19 outbreak in halls of residence.
NHS Tayside is investigating a single positive case and a small number of suspected cases of coronavirus linked to private student accommodation, Parker House in Dundee.
Close contacts of the positive case, who is a student of Abertay University, are being contacted.
All 500 residents at the accommodation have been asked to self-isolate until further contact tracing has been completed.
Dr Daniel Chandler, associate director of public health, said:
We know from outbreaks in other university settings across Scotland that the virus can spread very quickly in student accommodation.
Therefore, as a precautionary measure, we are contacting all residents of Parker House and advising them to self-isolate immediately.
Further investigation and contact tracing are continuing and we will review this advice in the coming days.
Prof Nigel Seaton, principal of Abertay University, said:
Our students in Parker House are being supported to self-isolate safely and we will remain in regular daily contact with them.
The university already has enhanced cleaning and safety measures in place on campus, in line with national guidance, and the campus will remain open.
We have contacted students and staff to remind them of their personal responsibilities in relation to Covid safety and to inform them of today’s changes in Scottish government guidance.
Updated
Saudi Arabia will gradually resume the year-round umrah pilgrimage from 4 October, the interior ministry said on Tuesday, seven months after it was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the first stage, “6,000 citizens and residents within the kingdom will be allowed to perform the umrah per day from October 4,” the ministry said in a statement published by the official Saudi press agency.
Visitors from outside the kingdom will be permitted from 1 November, when the capacity will be raised to 20,000 pilgrims per day, the ministry said.
Umrah, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be undertaken at any time of the year, attracts millions of Muslims from across the globe each year.
The ministry said umrah would be allowed to resume at full capacity once the threat of the pandemic is eliminated.
Saudi Arabia suspended umrah in March and scaled back the annual hajj over fears that the coronavirus could spread to Islam’s holiest cities.
The pilgrimages are a massive logistical challenge, with colossal crowds cramming into relatively small holy sites, making them vulnerable to contagion.
The decision to resume umrah was in response to the “aspirations of Muslims home and abroad” to perform the ritual and visit the holy sites, the interior ministry said.
Saudi Arabia’s custodianship of Mecca and Medina - Islam’s two holiest sites - is seen as the kingdom’s most powerful source of political legitimacy.
The sites draw millions of pilgrims every year and are a key revenue earner for Saudi Arabia.
The government hopes to welcome 30 million pilgrims to the kingdom annually by 2030.
Updated
No-deal Brexit will hit UK economy more than Covid: study
A “no-deal” Brexit could be three times more costly to Britain’s economy in the long term than the coronavirus outbreak, a new study published on Tuesday has warned.
The thinktank UK in a Changing Europe said the political and economic effects of the pandemic were likely to mitigate or hide that of failing to secure a trade agreement with the EU.
But in the short term, the lack of a new formal trading relationship with Brussels would be bad news for economic recovery, and its impact larger than that of the health crisis in the long term.
The thinktank, which collaborated with the London School of Economics (LSE), said Brexit would hit growth in the coming years more than if the UK had opted to remain in the bloc. Its authors wrote:
The claim that the economic impacts of Covid-19 dwarf those of Brexit is almost certainly correct in the short term.
Not even the most pessimistic scenarios suggest that a no-deal Brexit would lead to a fall in output comparable to that seen in the second quarter of 2020.
However - assuming a reasonably strong recovery, and that government policies succeed in avoiding persistent mass unemployment - in the long run, Brexit is likely to be more significant.
Our modelling with LSE of the impact of a no-deal Brexit suggests that the total cost to the UK economy over the longer term will be two to three times as large as that implied by the Bank of England’s forecast for the impact of Covid-19.
The study estimated that the negative impact on gross domestic product would be 5.7% over the next 15 years compared with the current level, while GDP was forecast to take a 2.1% hit from Covid-19.
The projections come despite a lack of clarity about the overall repercussions from the pandemic, and as a second wave of infections hits Europe.
Updated
French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi and Britain’s GSK have promised up to 72m doses of their Covid-19 vaccine candidate to the Canadian government, which has already signed similar agreements with several American companies.
The two groups, which plan to seek regulatory approval for the vaccine in the first half of 2021, launched human clinical trials in early September, for which 440 participants are being recruited.
Canada already signed in August agreements in principle for candidate vaccines with American firms Novavax, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna.
Ottawa has requested from Moderna an additional 14m additional doses, procurement minister Anita Anand said on Monday.
In total, “Canada has now ensured guaranteed access to a minimum of 154m doses and up to a maximum of 262m potential vaccines to protect Canadians and save lives,” she told a news conference.
As of Monday, Canada, which has a population of nearly 38 million, had recorded more than 146,000 cases of Covid-19 and 9,269 deaths.
Several countries have already reserved doses of the vaccine candidate from Sanofi and GSK – 60m doses have been promised to the British government, the European Commission has reserved 300m, and the US 100m with an option for up to 500m additional doses over the longer term.
Updated
Wisconsin governor Tony Evers declared a new public health emergency and extended a face coverings mandate into November to fight a flare-up of coronavirus cases, as the United States surpassed the grim milestone of 200,000 Covid-19 deaths.
In-person social gatherings led to cases skyrocketing among people aged 18 to 24, Evers said, as he pleaded with students who returned to colleges for the fall semester to stay out of bars and wear masks.
“We are seeing an alarming increase in cases across our state, especially on campus,” the governor said in a statement.
Evers’ previous mask mandate, part of a second public health emergency he issued in late July, was due to expire on Monday and has been challenged in court by a conservative group arguing the governor, a Democrat, violated state law in using emergency powers more than once.
Wisconsin has experienced one of the highest percentage increases of coronavirus cases nationwide over the past two weeks, and has the second-highest rate of positive coronavirus tests in the nation at 17%, according to a Reuters tally.
The US continues to have world’s highest number of Covid-19 deaths. On a weekly average, it is losing about 800 lives each day to the virus, according to a Reuters tally. That is down from a peak of 2,806 daily deaths recorded on 15 April.
Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei, who last week confirmed he tested positive for the coronavirus, said he is a “high-risk” patient due to his pre-existing medical conditions and history of heavy smoking.
In a televised speech, Giammattei, 64, said he felt tired but also in good spirits. He added that his oxygen levels, which can often be an indicator of deteriorating health, were fine.
The former surgeon, who took office in January, walks on crutches because of multiple sclerosis.
“I must admit that I am a high-risk patient for Covid-19 because of the disease I had,” Giammattei said.
He said his elevated risk levels were also due to having been “a chronic smoker for many years, because of hypertension, because of heart disease, because I can’t be called a very thin person.”
Guatemala has registered 85,694 infections and 3,134 deaths linked to Covid-19.
Updated
The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to soon announce new, higher standards for an emergency authorisation of a coronavirus vaccine, lowering the chances that a vaccine might be cleared before the 3 November election, the Washington Post has reported.
The agency is issuing the guidance to boost transparency and public trust as health experts have become increasingly concerned that the Trump administration might be interfering in the approval process, the paper said.
According to the report, the FDA is expected to ask vaccine manufacturers seeking an emergency authorisation to follow trial participants for a median of at least two months after they receive a second vaccine shot.
It also said the agency is asking that trials identify a specific number of cases of severe Covid-19 in patients treated with a placebo.
Lufthansa plans to start making rapid Covid-19 tests available to passengers in October and is weighing the option of opening test centres at airports in the US and Canada, a company executive said.
The move comes as airlines and airports globally have urged countries to accept a passenger’s negative Covid-19 test as an alternative to travel restrictions and quarantines that have battered demand for travel.
While the aviation industry has largely backed the use of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests which take several hours to process in a lab, airline trade group IATA on Tuesday touted antigen tests that can be processed on site and typically give results within about 15 minutes.
Abbott Laboratories recently won US Food and Drug Administration approval for BinaxNOW, a $5 disposable device the size of a credit card. Some other antigen tests must be read using a small, portable device.
Bjoern Becker, a senior director for the Lufthansa Group, said:
You know that companies like Abbott or Roche are bringing these tests to the market and we are definitely looking into this.
You will see us applying them for new products within the next few weeks in October. That’s definitely the next thing to come.
Becker said Lufthansa is considering making the new antigen tests initially available to its first class and business class passengers, given limited supply.
Lufthansa is also looking at ways to expand its network of testing centres to airports in the US and Canada, given that they are important markets, he said.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next couple of hours.
Please do get in touch with any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Summary
- Jordan reported its highest daily count since the start of the pandemic in March. As another 634 positive cases took the tally to 5,679, the health ministry warned the coronavirus was spreading fast across the country and urged people to social distance and wear masks to protect others.
-
The US coronavirus death toll passed the grim milestone of 200,000, the highest in the world. According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University, at least 200,005 Americans have died of Covid-19 since the pandemic started in March, about one-fifth of the global death toll.
- The UK recorded its highest daily tally of cases since early May.
- The EU Council has been postponed after its president went into quarantine when his bodyguard tested positive. Charles Michel’s test came back negative but he will quarantine nonetheless in accordance with Belgian rules, and the council will take place on 1 and 2 October.
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The Netherlands posted a record weekly number of new confirmed coronavirus infections. In the week through 22 September cases hit 13,471, an increase of 60% on the 8,265 cases reported the week prior.
- The weekly number of new recorded coronavirus infections worldwide was last week at its highest level ever, the WHO announced. With a new seven-day high of just short of two million new cases recorded by the WHO, the latest tally represents a 6% increase over the previous week as well as “the highest number of reported cases in a single week since the beginning of the epidemic”, the UN health agency said. Close to one million people have now died from the coronavirus since it first emerged in China at the beginning of the year.
- People arriving in Italy from Paris and seven other areas of France now have to undergo mandatory coronavirus tests. The move comes amid rising infections in France and affects people arriving from Île-de-France, the region including Paris, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Corsica, Hauts-de-France, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie.
- The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, introduced new restrictions for England likely to last six months following a surge in positive cases in recent weeks. The raft of new measures include telling the public to continue working from home, a 10pm curfew for hospitality venues, and limiting weddings to 15 people. His address to the nation at 8pm GMT will be covered on our UK live blog.
- Iran reported a record daily rise in infections. A further 3,712 positive cases took the tally to 429,193.
Updated
Spain’s cumulative tally of confirmed coronavirus infections rose by nearly 10,800 on Tuesday from the previous day to reach 682,267, health ministry data showed, as the region of Catalonia said it would further limit public gatherings.
That included 3,125 cases diagnosed in the last 24 hours, but these daily figures tend to end up much higher after retroactive updates of the infection tally, having exceeded 10,000 cases per day for most of last week.
With 21 deaths from the virus in the last day, the total number of Covid-19 fatalities has reached 30,904. More than 10,600 people were in hospital with Covid-19, 1,348 of them in intensive care. Coronavirus patients occupied nearly 10% of all hospital capacity across Spain, but in hard hit regions like Madrid, that share was as high as 25.5%, as doctors complained of a lack of staff and resources.
Spain has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in western Europe and health authorities in Catalonia said they would limit gatherings to six people from 10 across the northeastern region to reduce the spread of the virus.
In some of the working-class neighbourhoods in Madrid where infections have been soaring, regional authorities have ordered a partial lockdown from Monday, triggering protests and accusations of discrimination against poorer areas.
Business owners in the newly confined working-class area of Carabanchel complained of a steep drop in clients on Tuesday.
“It feels like people are afraid, they don’t even stop. It is a bit contradictory because there are many people on the streets,” said Marcelo Arandia, who works at a food stand.
Teofilo Jimenez, who works in a family-run restaurant, said the new restrictions appeared useless:
Because if they put restrictions in one neighbourhood but then you can go to work in another neighbourhood, then you can take the virus here and there. It is pointless. They tell us to stay open but tell people to stay home ... how will I cover my costs?
Updated
The Czech Republic will further limit the number of spectators at sporting events from 24 September, while bars and restaurants will have to close by 10pm, Mlada frontá Dnes reported on Tuesday, citing the health minister, Roman Prymula.
The paper did not report further details on sporting events, which are currently limited to 1,000 people at outdoor events and 500 indoors, with some exceptions.
Updated
Jordan reported 634 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, its highest daily count since the start of the pandemic in March, and health officials warned the coronavirus was spreading fast across the country.
The health minister, Saad Jaber, said in a statement:
This huge rise proves that personal measures from social distancing and wearing masks are crucial to protect our people.
The kingdom has reported a total of 5,679 Covid-19 cases and 33 deaths from the coronavirus since the pandemic began.
Infections have quadrupled over the last month as the coronavirus resurfaced in a second wave that pushed the authorities to reintroduce new restrictions on the country’s 10 million inhabitants.
The Jordan government closed schools last Thursday for two weeks, shortly after 2 million students went back following a five-month halt after dozens of cases surfaced among students and teachers. Restaurants, coffee shops and bars were also closed for two weeks. The authorities imposed up to a one-year prison term for anyone hosting a wedding or social or public gatherings where over 20 people are present.
But the prime minister, Omar al-Razzaz, has said his government will not impose a full lockdown, which officials have said could have a disastrous impact on an aid-dependent economy already hard hit by the virus.
Updated
US coronavirus death toll surpasses 200,000
The US has lost more than 200,000 people to coronavirus, representing a far higher death toll than in any other nation in the world.
According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University, at least 200,005 Americans have died of Covid-19 since the pandemic started in March.
That number represents about one-fifth of the global coronavirus death toll. Brazil has seen the second-highest national death toll, losing 137,272 people to the virus so far.
The US has also recorded the highest number of positive cases in the world, which currently stands at 6,861,211.
You can keep up with that story here:
Updated
UK records highest daily cases since early May
The UK has recorded 4,926 new coronavirus cases, according to the government dashboard.
This is the highest daily total since figures staring rising again about two weeks ago and the highest figure since 5,614 were recorded on 7 May.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued guidance on how to celebrate Halloween safely in light of the threat posed by Covid.
Among the activities classified as high risk are:
- Participating in traditional trick-or-treating where treats are handed to children who go door to door.
- Attending crowded costume parties held indoors.
- Going to an indoor haunted house where people may be crowded together and screaming.
Suggested low-risk activities include:
- Carving or decorating pumpkins outside, at a safe distance, with neighbours or friends.
- Doing a Halloween scavenger hunt where children are given lists of Halloween-themed things to look for while they walk outdoors from house to house admiring Halloween decorations at a distance.
- Having a virtual Halloween costume contest.
- Having a Halloween movie night with people you live with.
The guidance comes after new Covid-19 cases in the US rose last week for the first time after falling for eight straight weeks, an increase that health experts attributed to schools reopening and parties over the Labor Day holiday.
The health agency recommended tailoring all Halloween activities based on whether coronavirus infections were spiking in a given area, adding that the new guidelines are not meant to replace any local or state mandates on the pandemic.
Updated
European council postponed after president quarantined
The European council, scheduled for later this week, has been postponed after its president went into quarantine when his bodyguard tested positive, reports Euronews’ political editor, Darren McCaffery.
MEANS: EU Council due to be held this Thursday and Friday has been postponed until next week, 1st and 2nd of September
— Darren McCaffrey (@DarrenEuronews) September 22, 2020
Updated
The UN summit is proving to be a bad-tempered event.
In a recorded video, the US president, Donald Trump, called Covid-19 the “China virus”, adding: “We must hold accountable the nation that unleashed this plague upon the world.”
Our world affairs editor, Julian Borger, writes over on the Guardian’s UN general assembly liveblog of Trump: “It was a speech designed for a virtual campaign rally and that is its destiny, to be played on repeat on Republican social media.”
In response, China’s UN representative said: “China resolutely rejects the baseless accusations.”
Covid-19 has claimed the lives of thousands of people in the UK. Lockdown restrictions eased during the summer months as the numbers of fatalities, caused by coronavirus decreased. However, we would like to pay tribute to people in the UK who died during this period.
We would like you to share your memories and tributes for those who have died from Covid-19 in the UK during the months of June, July, August and early September. You can use the encrypted form at the link below.
One of our journalists will be in contact for publication before we publish, so please do leave contact details.
Updated
Sweden, which so far has decided against lockdowns as a means to contain Covid-19, is seeing early signs that the number of coronavirus cases are rising again and could impose new measures in the capital, its chief health officials have said.
Sweden’s strategy emphasising personal responsibility rather than major lockdowns to slow the virus drew fierce criticism as the number of deaths shot up during the spring, but has also been lauded by World Health Organization officials as a sustainable model.
Infections dropped significantly in the summer and so far Sweden had been spared the type of sharp increases in new cases seen in Spain, France and the UK in the past month.
However, about 1,200 new cases and five deaths have been reported since Friday compared with about 200 cases per day in the last weeks. The increase in new cases cannot solely be explained by increased testing, the public health agency said.
“The rolling average has increased somewhat,” Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist who devised its pandemic strategy, told a news conference.
It hasn’t affected the healthcare - yet. The number of new cases at ICU is very low and the number of deaths are very low.
Tegnell said new measures for the capital could not be ruled out.
We have a discussion with Stockholm about whether we need to introduce measures to reduce the spread of infection. Exactly what that will be, we will come back to in the next few days.
Earlier on Tuesday, the capital’s top health official warned that the region had had an increase in cases.
“The downwards trend is broken,” Stockholm’s director of health and medical services, Bjorn Eriksson, told a news conference.
We can only hope that this is a blip, that the spread start decreasing again. That depends on how well we follow the guidelines.
Sweden has reported 5,870 deaths since the start of the pandemic, many more per capita than its Nordic neighbours but also lower than countries such as Spain and Italy that opted for hard lockdowns.
Updated
All wine industry workers in Spain’s Rioja-producing region of Alava must undergo a coronavirus test before they start work to prevent Covid-19 outbreaks putting the grape harvest at risk, Reuters reports.
Grape pickers, who have dubbed 2020 the “harvest of the masks”, will be given their own equipment, including baskets and scissors, which cannot be exchanged, to avoid infections, said a spokeswoman for the Rioja wine regulatory board.
Authorities in the Basque Country have made it compulsory for wine estates to provide a list of workers. The health department then carries out the tests.
Seasonal workers living in precarious conditions were hard hit by coronavirus outbreaks this summer in Spain, prompting authorities to impose local lockdowns in fruit-growing areas. Authorities are keen to avoid a repetition as the grape harvesting season gets under way.
“Until we get the result of the test, we cannot work,” an employee in the wine industry, Quintino Benigno, told Reuters in a makeshift testing centre in Laguardia, Alava, where people waited in line wearing masks.
About 6,000 seasonal workers are employed in the Rioja harvesting campaign in the Basque Country’s Alava and the neighbouring region of La Rioja. In the latter, testing is not mandatory but Covid-19 prevention plans that include testing a number of workers are in place.
Although coronavirus cases associated with the agricultural sector have declined since the summer, official data shows they still account for 9.9% of the total.
A second wave of the coronavirus has put Spain, with the highest infection rate in western Europe, in the spotlight.
Amid uncertainty due to a sales decrease and fewer tourists expected in the wineries due to the pandemic, the Rioja wine regulatory board has not given estimates of how hard it expects business to be hit.
“Wineries have already said they will buy grapes for lower prices and business isn’t going as we expected because of Covid,” said vine grower Cristobal Fulleda.
Updated
Organisers run a huge risk by allowing 20,000 fans to attend a major football match, Thursday’s Uefa Super Cup final in Budapest, for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak, a leading Hungarian epidemiologist has told Reuters.
Uefa, European soccer’s governing body, normally kicks off the season with the Super Cup match between the Champions League and Europa League winners and said it would see how the game with spectators works in Hungary’s capital.
The new Puskas Arena, a recently completed pet project of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, an avid football fan, will be up to one-third full for the showdown between European champions Bayern Munich and Europa League title holders Sevilla, and Uefa has said all safety precautions would be observed.
However, András Csilek, who advises the Hungarian Medical Chamber, said in an interview with Reuters that the game’s timing “could not be worse” as the pandemic’s second wave grows around Europe, topping 600 new cases a day in Hungary.
It would have had the same terrible effect in the first two to four weeks [of the pandemic], and the plausible effects one can now expect are equally terrible. Just think of the football games we know sparked spring madness in Italy.
Experts have traced a surge in Italy’s Covid-19 infections to February football matches and the Venice carnival, he added.
Placing the fans in a stadium … [separation] is not really feasible, especially as fans gather before and after games … Public transit, entry crowds, finding your seats, toilets, beer stands, celebrations, or a fight: plausible infection points.
Hungary’s government is trying to “keep the country going” to avoid an economic disaster while containing the virus, Orbán has said. His chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, told broadcaster ATV on Monday:
Super Cup match measures will be so strict that it will be safer to attend than almost any other social gathering.
European countries, including Germany, have placed Hungary on a watch list as coronavirus cases rise, and the Bavarian premier, Markus Soeder, has warned fans to stay away from Budapest.
Csilek added:
Nobody knows where this leads, but if it is an experiment, that is wrong. You don’t experiment with people.
Updated
Dutch Covid-19 cases hit new weekly record
The Netherlands posted a record weekly number of new confirmed coronavirus infections in the week through 22 September, hitting 13,471 cases, an increase of more than 60% from the week before, health authorities said.
In the week through 15 September the National Institute for Health (RIVM) had registered 8,265 Covid-19 cases.
The RIVM recorded 33 deaths from the disease in the past seven days, up from 19 deaths a week earlier.
Updated
Weekly number of new coronavirus cases at highest level - WHO
The weekly number of new recorded coronavirus infections worldwide was last week at its highest level ever, the World Health Organization has announced, as deaths from Covid-19 in Europe increased by 27% week on week.
Close to one million people have now died from the coronavirus since it first emerged in China at the beginning of the year.
With a new seven-day high of just short of two million new cases being recorded by the WHO, the latest tally represents a 6% increase over the previous week as well as “the highest number of reported cases in a single week since the beginning of the epidemic,” the UN health agency said. That figure is skewed by the fact testing has become much more widespread globally over recent months.
You can read the full report from my colleague Peter Beaumont here:
From today, people arriving in Italy from Paris and seven other areas of France will have to undergo mandatory coronavirus tests.
Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, wrote on Twitter that “European data is worrying”. He added: “Italy is doing better than other countries but we need to be cautious.”
Ho firmato una nuova ordinanza che estende l’obbligo di test molecolare o antigenico ai cittadini provenienti da Parigi e altre aree della Francia. Dati europei sono critici. L’Italia sta meglio di altri Paesi, ma serve grande prudenza per non vanificare i sacrifici fatti finora.
— Roberto Speranza (@robersperanza) September 21, 2020
The move affects people arriving from Île-de-France, the region including Paris, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Corsica, Hauts-de-France, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie.
French health authorities reported 5,298 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, down from 10,569 on the previous day. That compares with Italy’s 1,350 new infections on Monday.
Boris Johnson introduces new restrictions for England likely to last six months
In a statement warning that the UK is at a “perilous turning point” and people should not be complacent, the prime minister Boris Johnson has announced new coronavirus restrictions for England.
- Office workers should work from home, but if people need to go to their workplace they should still do so
- From Thursday pubs and restaurants will have to offer table service, except for takeaways, and must close from 10pm
- Masks will become mandatory for retail and indoor hospitality staff and for passengers in taxis
- Hospitality venues will be required by law to enforce the rule of six and social distancing
- Covid-secure workplaces will become a legal obligation
- Weddings will be limited to 15 people (down from 30) from Monday
- Indoor team sports will be banned and, from 1 October, plans for partial return of sports fans to stadiums will be suspended
- The fine for not wearing a mask or breaking the rule of six will double to £200
Johnson said the new restrictions are likely to remain in place for six months.
My colleague Jessica Elgot’s full report is here:
And Andrew Sparrow is covering MPs’ questioning the prime minister here:
Updated
The Spanish government has agreed with unions and business leaders that employers must cover home working expenses after the coronavirus pandemic caused millions to work from their living rooms, the deputy prime minister Pablo Iglesias has said.
In an interview with state-owned TV channel TVE, Iglesias said:
It was fundamental to regulate remote working to protect the rights of workers.
The labour minister Yolanda Diaz had told him about the agreement late on Monday, he said.
Under the government’s draft proposal seen by Reuters, companies would have to bankroll all expenses employees may have when working from home, including computer equipment and furniture, while employees can ask for flexible working hours.
The benefits would only apply to employees who stay home for at least 30% of their work schedule, and employers will have the right to monitor workers’ online presence while respecting dignity and privacy, and to ask them to be flexible about working hours.
All home working arrangements have to be voluntary, both for employers and employees.
The new rules, if approved by parliament, would not apply to home working schedules that were put in place specifically to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Three months after the official end of Spain’s lockdown, millions of workers are still working remotely as social distancing rules limit office capacity.
The labour ministry is also seeking an extension of a furlough scheme that is due to expire on 30 September.
The lockdown marked a big change for Spaniards mainly unaccustomed to home-working. Only 3.5% of Spanish workers partly worked from home in 2019, compared with a 9% average in the European Union, according to Eurostat.
The Spanish government and regional authorities are set to cut the quarantine imposed on those who have had contact with people tested positive to coronavirus to 10 days from a previous 14 days, Cadena SER radio station reported on Tuesday.
Spain has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in western Europe and regional authorities have ordered a partial lockdown from Monday in some Madrid neighbourhoods and other regions are taking measures to curb the spread of the virus.
Authorities have diagnosed more than 670,000 cases in the country since the beginning of the contagion and 30,663 have died of the disease.
La Ser said the regions and central government would agree on the shorter quarantine later in the day. The northeastern Catalonia region has already announced it would switch to ten days.
Boris Johnson to announce tightening of restrictions as cases surge in England
The UK prime minister Boris Johnson is about to deliver a statement to MPs setting out a raft of new measures to combat the spread of coronavirus, ahead of a television address to the nation later tonight.
Amid growing concern over an “exponential rise” in coronavirus cases in England, the PM will set out tighter measures at a a national level for the first time since March, including that hospitality venues will have to close by 10pm and offer table service only from Thursday. The police will have powers to issue £1,000 fines and make arrests to enforce 2-metre social distancing in pubs and restaurants.
In yet another U-turn, Johnson will also advise people to continue to work from home if they can. This morning the Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove confirmed that the advice issued in July telling people to go back to offices if they could had been dropped. He told the BBC:
We are stressing that if it is safe to work in your workplace, if you are in a Covid-secure workplace, then you should be there if your job requires it. But, if you can work from home you should.
If you’re interested in following along, my colleague Andrew Sparrow is covering Johnson’s Commons address over on our UK coronavirus live blog, here:
Updated
Iran reports record daily rise in coronavirus cases
Iran’s health ministry has reported 3,712 new coronavirus infections in the previous 24 hours, the highest daily tally recorded since February, pushing the national cumulative total to 429,193.
On 19 February, the Iranian government publicly announced its first two cases of and deaths from Covid-19.
Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV that 178 people had died from the disease in the previous 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 24,656, one of the worst in the Middle East.
The awards ceremony for the 2020 Nobel peace prize, traditionally held at the Oslo city hall on 10 December, will instead be held in scaled-down form at the city’s university because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Olav Njoelstad, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the body that oversees the Nobel peace prize, told broadcaster NRK on Tuesday that, this year, just 100 guests are planned:
It is a strange and challenging year in many ways. We experience the same thing as many others, namely that things must be done in a new way.
Ceremonies for the other prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine and literature as well as the economic prize will be awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, on the same day. Organisers also have scheduled smaller ceremonies because of the pandemic.
Among this year’s nominees is the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. There is some uncertainty about whether winners will be able to travel to Sweden because of the pandemic, and a digital awards ceremony is being considered.
Njoelstad told NRK:
As the infection situation is now, I think it is most likely that the prize-winner or winners cannot be physically present. That is what we are planning for.
We are looking into the possibility of having a video link to a meeting room in the award winner’s home country. It may also be relevant to have a representative of the Nobel committee present there to present the peace prize.
The traditional banquet and concert held after the Nobel peace award ceremony have been cancelled.
Updated
South Africa’s lockdown is credited with helping to achieve a dramatic drop in rhino poaching, but as the country opens up experts warn of a possible resurgence of poaching of one of Earth’s most endangered mammals.
Redoubled efforts are critical to protect the country’s rhinoceros population, South African officials and wildlife activists told the Associated Press, as they marked World Rhino Day.
South Africa’s nationwide shutdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus was imposed at the end of March and halted all international and domestic travel. The country has gradually reopened and will allow a return of international tourists on 1 October.
Albi Modise, spokesman for the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, told AP:
The lockdown presented an opportunity for us. There was no international or local tourism and the lockdown also prevented poachers from moving around and we were able to ramp up our protective measures.
In the first six months of 2020, the numbers of South African rhinos killed by poachers fell by more than 50% from the previous year to 166, according to official statistics from the environment department.
Modise added:
We realise that as the country opens up, we need to up our game to address the possible threat of poaching.
South Africa is home to 20,000 rhinos, estimated to be 80% of the world’s total population, and the country has been hit hard by poachers killing the animals for the illegal international trade in rhino horns. Other countries with significant rhino populations are Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Cathy Dean, the chief executive of Save the Rhino, said that although the killings of rhinos had fallen this year, this could be a temporary reprieve:
With the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus, and the decline of tourism, many people are desperate and some may turn to poaching. With a resumption of international flights, we may again see seizures of illegal rhino horn, which indicates a resurgent trade.
Updated
Good morning from London! I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next eight hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have tips or stories to share:
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Russia expects to register a second potential Covid-19 vaccine by 15 October, the Tass news agency has cited Russian consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor as saying.
The vaccine has been developed by Siberia’s Vector Institute, which completed early-stage human trials of the vaccine last week.
Russia registered its first vaccine candidate, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, in August. Late-stage trials, involving at least 40,000 people, are ongoing.
Updated
Madrid residents advised against unnecessary journeys
Spain’s health minister has advised people in Madrid, the worst-affected region of Spain, against making unnecessary journeys as the authorities struggle to contain the second wave of the virus in and around the capital.
“I recommend that people in Madrid restrict their movements as much as possible over the next few days, only doing what is essential and limiting contact to their closest household members,” Salvdor Illa told Cadena Ser radio on Tuesday morning.
On Monday, more than 850,000 people in 37 zones around the region were placed under a partial lockdown. Residents in those areas – where there are more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people – are only allowed to enter and exit the zones on work, educational, legal or medical grounds.
Meanwhile, a group of 20 senior Spanish doctors has renewed its calls for an urgent review of Spain’s handling of the pandemic. Writing once again in the Lancet, the experts say lessons must be learned as soon as possible.
“We continue to encourage the Spanish central government and regional governments to take forward this evaluation, which could become an example for other countries to replicate,” they write.
“We will continue to offer more detailed proposals. This evaluation, based on scientific evidence, is now urgently needed to guide public health policy and contribute to overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Illa is due to meet members of the group on 1 October to discuss the proposal.
Updated
Employers in Spain could be made to cover home workings expenses during the coronavirus pandemic, deputy prime minister Pablo Iglesias has said.
“It was fundamental to regulate remote working to protect the rights of workers,” Iglesias said in an interview with state-owned TV channel TVE.
The draft bill would force companies to pay for all expenses employees may have when working from home while allowing working hours flexibility and granting workers disconnection time, Iglesias said.
He did not detail the expenses employers will have to assume or what employers may have obtained in the agreement.
The draft bill still needs to be approved by the cabinet before being sent to parliament.
During the strict lockdown imposed in Spain from mid-March to late June, millions of workers had to stay at home with their children and keep on working.
Three months after the official lockdown’s end, millions of workers are still working remotely as social distancing rules limit office capacity.
The European Medicines Agency has been in contact since the beginning of September with 38 makers of potential Covid-19 vaccines, an official at the EU drugs regulator said on Tuesday.
“As of early September the EMA has been in contact with developers of 38 potential COVID-19 vaccines,” Fergus Sweeney, Head of Clinical Studies and Manufacturing Task Force at EMA, told a hearing in the European Parliament.
Vaccines must be authorised by EMA before they can be used in the European Union.
The Philippines’ health ministry has reported 1,635 new coronavirus cases – the lowest daily increase in infections in two weeks.
In a bulletin, the ministry also reported 50 new deaths.
The total caseload in the Philippines now stands at 291,789, the highest in south-east Asia, while deaths have reached 5,049.
Updated
Plastic face shields are almost totally ineffective, modelling says
Plastic face shields are almost totally ineffective at trapping respiratory aerosols, according to modelling in Japan, casting doubt on their effectiveness in preventing the spread of coronavirus.
A simulation using Fugaku, the world’s fastest supercomputer, found that almost 100% of airborne droplets of less than 5 micrometres in size escaped through plastic visors of the kind often used by people working in service industries.
One micrometre is one millionth of a metre.
In addition, about half of larger droplets measuring 50 micrometres found their way into the air, according to Riken, a government-backed research institute in the western city of Kobe.
You can read more on this from our Tokyo correspondent, Justin McCurry, here:
Updated
You can now keep up to date with all the key UK coronavirus developments over on our other blog:
More from the UK’s Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, who has done the interview rounds on behalf of the government this morning.
Despite the incoming 10pm curfew on pubs and bars in England, he admitted that a group of six people could leave a pub at 10pm and carry on drinking at a house.
“It is the case that with the rule of six you can have six people in a social gathering, yes, but the steps that we are taking here reflect some of the evidence that has been gathered from those parts of the country where these restrictions have already been put in place in order to ensure that we restrict social mixing,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He also outlined the “reluctant” shift in government advice to ask people to work from home if they can again to combat the spread of coronavirus.
You can read more from our reporter Archie Bland here:
Updated
Russia’s daily coronavirus case count is at the highest since 18 July.
On Tuesday, the country reported 6,215 new infections in the past 24 hours, pushing its overall tally to 1,115,810 – the fourth largest in the world.
Authorities also reported 160 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 19,649 in a nation with a total population of around 144 million.
UK rise in cases tracking worst case scenario, says government scientific adviser
The rise in cases in the UK is tracking a worst case scenario, a member of the government’s scientific advisory group has warned.
At the end of August, a leaked Sage report suggested that a “reasonable worst case scenario” of 85,000 deaths across the country this winter due to Covid-19.
“The current rise in cases is tracking a worst case scenario,” Prof Colin Semple told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in a personal capacity, adding that there was “significant anxiety amongst the science community and health community” in the UK.
He added that the 10pm curfew on pubs, bars and restaurants to be announced by Boris Johnson today would not go far enough in curbing new coronavirus infections.
“We’re going to have to see potential reductions in sporting events,” said Semple. “We’re likely to see increased restrictions on the hospitality sector I think in time.”
“The provision of higher education and further education is likely to move to a more online service as many universities have already done so.”
He added: “I think we will go to a stage where we’re restricting people to not mixing between households.”
Updated
As Covid cases continue to surge in the UK, the prime minister is to announce a 10pm curfew on pubs, bars and restaurants as well as other new measures in England on Tuesday.
Hospitality venues will also be restricted to table service only. Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday morning, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said:
They are reluctant steps that we’re taking but they’re absolutely necessary because as we were reminded yesterday, the rate of infection is increasing and the number of people going to hospital is increasing and therefore we need to act.”
"They are reluctant steps but they are absolutely necessary."
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) September 22, 2020
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove confirms that pubs, bars and restaurants throughout England will face a 10pm curfew and there will be table service only.#KayBurley
Follow live updates: https://t.co/yXPRulkCKq pic.twitter.com/1DOHcdcEsl
During the announcement, Boris Johnson is also set to encourage Britons to work from home if they can to curb the spread of coronavirus, less than a month after a major plan to get people back to the office was unveiled.
In a later interview with the BBC, Gove said schools should remain open and that workplaces where staff cannot work remotely should operate in a Covid-safe way.
Updated
It has been billed as the world’s worst Zoom meeting, but the United Nation’s 75th general assembly could be even worse than that.
It is called the “general debate” but, unlike a Zoom meeting, there will be no discussion – just a week-long procession of pre-recorded video messages from the world’s leaders, stating their positions, very much with their domestic audience in mind. They were supposed to have sent their videos at the end of last week. As of Monday, only half had been turned in.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is hoping to use the organisation’s 75th anniversary as an opportunity for member states to recommit to its founding principles, but the UN and multilateralism itself has never seemed so beleaguered.
“The problem is that much of the world is questioning whether the UN is still relevant at 75,” said Sherine Tadros, the head of the UN office of Amnesty International. “To use a Covid analogy, it’s a matter of whether it’s got too many underlying pre-existing conditions to make it through this next period.”
You can read more on the UN general assembly from our world affairs correspondent, Julian Borger, here:
Updated
India’s daily coronavirus case tally is at its lowest in almost a month. On Tuesday, the country reported 75,083 new infections in the last 24 hours.
Federal health data also showed there were 1,053 deaths in the same period.
There have been 5.6 million cases of Covid-19 in India overall, the second highest caseload in the world after the US.
Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington:
Covid-19 restrictions have been dropped and school’s almost out for a fortnight – to the delight of mayors in New Zealand’s tourism hotspots, where there are hopes the holidays will boost coffers in the struggling tourism sector.
“Bring it on, bring it on,” said David Trewavas, the mayor of Taupō district – an area in the central North Island that is home to some of the country’s most famed skiing and hiking. “You can even have a mass gathering down here.”
He added: “Hopefully the [Ministry of] Health boys have got it all under control, which I’m sure they have.”
The removal of restrictions in New Zealand highlights the dilemma for governments trying to balance exhortations from struggling businesses to allow them more freedom, with the views of health experts, many of whom have urged more caution:
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today.
I leave you with this moment from US President Donald Trump’s Swanton, Ohio rally. At the event, where supporters stood or sat without socially distancing and where very few people wore masks, Trump complained that he doesn’t get enough media coverage:
Trump says he regularly goes home to Melania and asks if she's seen the huge crowds at his events and she says, "No."
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) September 22, 2020
Updated
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- There are 31.2m coronavirus cases worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 963,068 people have died over the course of the pandemic so far.
- US president Donald Trump claimed falsely at a rally in Ohio that the country’s fatality rate was “among the lowest in the world”. The US ranks 53rd highest out of 195 countries in the world with a case-fatality rate of 2.9%, according to Johns Hopkins. It is the 11th worst on deaths per 100,000 people, at 60.98.
- At least 199,815 Americans are known to have died since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins, which relies on official government data. With the worst death toll in the world, the US accounts for one in five coronavirus-related fatalities worldwide. Just under one in every 1,600 Americans has died.
- In Europe, stocks posted their worst fall in three months on Monday as fears of a second wave hit travel and leisure shares, while banks tumbled on reports of about $2tn-worth of potentially suspect transfers by leading lenders.
- Pubs, bars and restaurants in England will have to shut by 10pm from Thursday under new nationwide restrictions to halt an “exponential” rise in coronavirus cases. Boris Johnson is expected to make an address to the nation on Tuesday setting out the new measures.
- Scotland is also expected to announce new restrictions on Tuesday.
- The Czech Republic prime minister, Andrej Babiš, admitted on Monday that his government had made a mistake when it eased restrictions over the summer. “Even I got carried away by the coming summer and the general mood. That was a mistake I don’t want to make again,” the billionaire populist said in a televised speech.
- New Zealand recorded no new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, as restrictions on much of the country were removed entirely, and measures imposed on Auckland, the largest city, were due to ease further. There was no recorded community spread of the virus in the rest of New Zealand, where the government has now lifted all physical distancing restrictions and limits on gatherings.
- Mexico surpassed 700,000 confirmed cases on Monday after the health ministry reported 2,917 new confirmed cases in the Latin American country, bringing the total to 700,580 as well as a cumulative death toll of 73,697.
Updated
One-third of professional British musicians are considering giving up their careers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A survey of 2,000 members of the Musicians’ Union found that 34% “are considering abandoning the industry completely”, because of the financial difficulties they face during the pandemic, as performance opportunities are severely curtailed.
Almost half have already found work outside their industry, and 70% are unable to do more than a quarter of their usual work. Eighty-seven per cent of musicians covered by furlough and self-employment support schemes say they will face financial hardship when the schemes are due to end in October:
In the UK, rival groups of scientists are at loggerheads over how government should handle the Covid pandemic, with one advising that only over-65s and the vulnerable should be shielded, while the other backs nationwide measures.
The conflicting advice to the UK government and chief medical officers (CMOs) came in two open letters issued on Monday by the rival camps.
It came as Prof Chris Whitty, England’s CMO, and the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance made a national TV broadcast to set out the risk of the virus spreading exponentially, with a corresponding increase in cases and deaths, if public behaviour does not change.
Thirty-two scientists signed one letter warning the government is heading down the wrong road and must reconsider its policy to suppress the virus, adopting a targeted approach instead:
The Lancet changes editorial policy after hydroxychloroquine Covid study retraction
One of the world’s leading medical journals, the Lancet, has reformed its editorial policies following a shocking case of apparent research misconduct involving the study of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19.
In May, the Lancet published a peer-reviewed study about the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine, which concluded Covid-19 patients who received the drug were dying at higher rates and experiencing more heart-related complications than other virus patients.
The large observational study analysed data purported to be from nearly 15,000 patients with Covid-19 who received the drug alone or in combination with antibiotics, comparing this data with 81,000 controls who did not receive the drug.
This data was recorded by hospitals around the world in a database by a US data analytics company known as “Surgisphere”, the Lancet paper said. The findings prompted the World Health Organization to halt its clinical trials of the drug, given the paper’s findings that it was linked with deaths and complications.
But days after the paper was published, Guardian Australia revealed issues with the Australian data in the study. Figures on the number of Covid-19 deaths and patients in hospital cited by the authors did not match up with official government and health department data. Senior clinicians involved in Covid-19 research told Guardian Australia they had never heard of the Surgisphere database:
After rescheduling her wedding three times this year, Nalan Altas was finally supposed to be getting married last weekend. With weddings blamed for an uptick in coronavirus cases across Turkey throughout the summer and tight restrictions now in place limiting celebrations, however, the 36-year-old and her partner threw in the towel.
“I always hoped to have my loved ones and whole family with me on my wedding day but when they said weddings are now only allowed to be one hour we cancelled the whole thing. I am psychologically devastated, and financially it’s hard, too,” she said.
Turkey’s Covid-19 cases have steadily crept up since tough nationwide lockdown restrictions were lifted in July, with the daily number of new cases hitting 1,771 on Friday, the highest rate since mid-May. Doctors and opposition politicians allege that the caseload is actually much higher, accusing the government of a cover-up – a charge Ankara denies:
Asian markets extended the previous day’s losses following another rout in New York and Europe as governments impose new containment measures as they struggle to fight off a second wave of virus infections, AFP reports.
After months of economic recovery helped by an improvement in infection and death rates, there is a worry that the coming northern hemisphere winter - which experts say could help the disease spread - will see a return to the strict stay-at-home rules.
Madrid has already put 850,000 residents in lockdown, while under new rules to come into force on Thursday, English pubs, bars and other hospitality venues will be required to close at 10 pm while food and drink outlets will be restricted to table service only.
While nationwide lockdowns - which devastated economies globally this year - have not yet been imposed, the prospect of financially damaging measures being put in place has spooked investors.
London’s FTSE 100 and the CAC 40 in Paris tumbled more than three percent, while the Frankfurt DAX tanked more than four percent.
Wall Street also tumbled, though all three main indexes managed to end off their lows thanks to bargain-buying.
The selling continued into Asia but the losses were shallower.
Hong Kong slipped 0.6 percent and Shanghai shed 0.5 percent, while Sydney dropped 0.9 percent. Seoul, Manila and Jakarta all fell more than one percent.
Taipei and Singapore were also down.
Traders are becoming less optimistic US lawmakers will manage to hammer out a new rescue package for the beleaguered economy, with Democrat-Republican antipathy stirred by the death of Ginsburg.
Eight monks have tested positive for coronavirus and their monastery in a remote Orthodox Christian community in northern Greece has been quarantined, a Church official said on Monday.
One of the monks was taken to hospital in Thessaloniki in a serious condition, said the official who declined to be named. It is not the first outbreak at the Mount Athos site - four monks tested positive in March after travelling to Britain but recovered quickly.
Mount Athos, a 1,000-year-old site and one of the Orthodox Church’s most venerated places, has 20 monasteries and almost 1,700 monks.
The community, known for its austere rules, is almost most completely isolated in a mountainous nature reserve in the Macedonia region.
The country’s lockdown from March to May hit the Church hard, wrecking its Easter celebrations. Church leaders disputed some of the science behind the confinement rules - agreeing to halt masses but refusing to ban communion.
Greece has so far registered 338 deaths and more than 15,000 infections from the virus.
Czech Prime Minister says he 'got carried away' opening too soon
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis admitted Monday that his government had made a mistake when it eased restrictions aimed at containing coronavirus over the summer.
His mea culpa came as governments across Europe struggle with a second wave of Covid-19 infections following the holiday months in which the number of cases began rising sharply.
“Even I got carried away by the coming summer and the general mood. That was a mistake I don’t want to make again,” the billionaire populist said in a televised speech.
After fending off much of the pandemic earlier in the year with timely steps including mandatory face masks outdoors, the government lifted most measures before the summer holidays.
The Czech Republic registered a record high of 3,130 coronavirus cases last Thursday, almost matching the total for the whole of March, although testing capacity was low at the start of the pandemic.
Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said the country was now ranked second worst in the EU behind Spain in terms of daily case growth per 100,000 residents.
“The situation is serious. Experts say that if we exceed 120,000 new infections per month, we’ll start running out of hospital beds. We’ll do our best to prevent this,” he said.
Health Minister Adam Vojtech - a lawyer known for singing in the Czech version of the “Idol” series - announced his resignation earlier Monday.
He was immediately replaced with epidemiologist Roman Prymula, who has helped coordinate government measures to curb infections.
Updated
UK Prime Minister to encourage people to work from home again – report
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will encourage Britons on Tuesday to go back to working from home if they can to contain the spread of coronavirus, The Telegraph reported late on Monday.
Johnson also warned MPs that by “taking action now we may not have to take drastic action later on”, The Telegraph’s chief political correspondent said in a tweet, citing sources:
Mr Johnson confirmed he will urge more Britons to work from home, whilst shutting pubs at 10pm and more enforcement for rule breakers as Covid-19 worsens.
— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) September 21, 2020
He also warned the MPs that “taking action now we may not have to take drastic action later on”, according to sources. 2/
China reported six new Covid-19 cases on 21 September, down from 12 a day earlier, the national health authority said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
The National Health Commission said in a statement all of the new cases were imported infections involving travellers from overseas.
It also reported 15 new asymptomatic cases, also down from 25 reported a day earlier, though China does not classify these symptomless patients as confirmed Covid-19 cases.
The total number of confirmed infections for mainland China now stands at 85,297, while the total death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Mexico's cases top 700,000
Mexico surpassed 700,000 confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday even as health authorities cited what they described as nearly two months of slowing infection rates, Reuters reports.
On Monday, the Health Ministry reported 2,917 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the Latin American country, bringing the total to 700,580 as well as a cumulative death toll of 73,697.
According to a Reuters tally, Latin America has recorded around 8.7 million coronavirus cases and over 322,000 deaths, both figures being the highest of any region.
Summary: Trump rally in Swanton, Ohio
- Trump vowed to nominate a Supreme Court Justice before the election.
- “As the nation mourns the loss of our Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, I will soon announce a nominee for the Supreme Court,” Trump said. “I don’t want to make the crowd too angry, it will be a woman, is that ok?”. The crowd chanted “fill the seat”.
- The US president falsely claimed that coronavirus, which has killed nearly 200,000 Americans, “affects elderly people. Elderly people with heart problems and other problems. If they have other problems, that’s what it really affects. That’s it.”
- He also falsely claimed that it affects “virtually” no young people.
- Many people in the crowd did not wear masks.
- Trump also claimed that the United States had “among the lowest case-fatality rates of any country in the world.” The US ranks 53rd highest out of 195 countries in the world with a case-fatality rate of 2.9%, according to Johns Hopkins University. It is the 11th worst on deaths per 100,000 people, at 60.98.
Updated
New Zealand records zero new coronavirus cases
A break from the US now, to a country whose response to the pandemic could not have been more different.
New Zealand recorded no new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, as restrictions on much of the country were entirely removed, and measures imposed on Auckland, the largest city, were due to ease further.
There are 61 active cases of the coronavirus in New Zealand, 32 of them diagnosed as part of a community cluster in Auckland. The community outbreak prompted a second lockdown of the city last month, which is now easing.
There is no recorded community spread of the virus in the rest of New Zealand, where the government lifted all physical distancing restrictions and limits on gathering numbers overnight.
A further 29 cases of the virus are contained in managed isolation facilities for travelers returning to New Zealand.
The country has reported 1,464 cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began, with 25 deaths. Three people are currently in hospital.
Ohio does not have "unsolicited" mail ballots. Registered voters are sent an absentee ballot *application,* but they have to request a ballot. In other words, this is the kind of mail voting system Trump sometimes says is fair.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 22, 2020
Here is Trump dancing to YMCA by the Village People, which is what played when he was finished speaking:
Updated
The rally has ended with the following words from Trump – I’ll have a summary up soon:
“Together with the wonderful people of Swanton, Ohio we will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great Again.”
Here is Trump falsely claiming coronavirus affecting ‘virtually nobody” young. “Take your hat off to the young,” he says. “By the way, open your schools. Everybody open your schools.”
"It affects virtually nobody," Trump says of the coronavirus, which has now killed 200,000 Americans and counting pic.twitter.com/qHrZvUWNhX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2020
These “First Lady” anecdotes are really something:
I go home to the first lady and I say "First lady I was nominated twice" for the Nobel. "She says 'Oh that's great' and we turn on the TV and NBC ... and 20 minutes into the show they haven't mentioned it."
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) September 22, 2020
"I say, 'First lady, this is getting a little embarrassing.'" https://t.co/ugkzy13f47
Trump says the November 3 election will "decide whether we end the pandemic" or not, meaning that re-electing him will end the pandemic that has caused 200,000 confirmed deaths under him and is not close to ending.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 22, 2020
Trump has invited two young football players up onto the podium.
Trump has encouraged college football players to push for the opportunity to compete this season despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
Many football players, particularly those who play on the offensive and defensive lines, are in a higher risk category due to their body mass index, which may explain why linemen accounted for nearly half of the 66 NFL players who opted out of the forthcoming season before last week’s deadline. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of the player pool at the collegiate level are drawn from minority communities that have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
Here is my colleague Bryan Armen Graham on the politicisation of college football in the US and especially amid the coronavirus pandemic:
The promise of a return to normalcy has been central to Trump’s reelection pitch from the earliest days of the pandemic, so it’s no surprise that he would seize on America’s second most popular sport – a signpost of autumn and a pastime regarded as a vanguard of conservative values – during the run-up to his showdown with Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Four years ago, Trump was able to win the electoral college and the White House despite receiving nearly 3m fewer votes by toppling the so-called blue wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – none of which had gone Republican in nearly three decades – by a combined total of fewer than 80,000 votes (or 0.06% of 137m votes cast). All three of those crucially important battleground states fall squarely inside the Big Ten’s geographical footprint, as do Minnesota, Iowa and Ohio, which also figure into scenarios that could swing the election.
Here is how some players have responded:
Updated
Trump says virus affects "virtually" no young people
On coronavirus, Trump says that it it only “really” affects people who have “other problems.”
He also claims that when it comes to children it affects “virtually nobody”.
Here is what two doctors said to the Guardian in April when asked about the dangers of Coronavirus for young people . In August, the World Health Organization warned that young people were becoming the primary drivers of the spread of coronavirus in many countries.
Are more young people falling severely ill with Covid-19 than expected?
Dr Timothy Brewer: The data have actually been pretty consistent across lots of different countries. Initially, people were very focused on mortality rates, and death rates in young adults are low pretty much everywhere you look. And I think people interpreted that to mean that young adults were not getting infected, and were not getting severely ill. As more data came out about hospitalizations and infection rates, we learned that was not the case.
A recent study out of Shenzhen, China, showed that young people are just as likely to get infected as older individuals. Now that we’re seeing more data on hospitalization rates, we’re seeing that yes, young adults are experiencing severe illnesses. The big difference between them and older adults is [young adults’] mortality rates tend to be lower.
Dr Edith Bracho-Sanchez: Adults and people with underlying medical conditions are, without a doubt, the most severely impacted by this. But the American public, as a whole, has wide-ranging levels of underlying baseline health. Close to two out of every 10 kids in this country are obese; nearly four out of every 10 young adults are. And that’s just one baseline measure of health in the American public.
Unfortunately in America, not all our population is in top-shape health.
Updated
Trump also claimed that the United States had “among the lowest case-fatality rates of any country in the world.” The US ranks 53rd highest out of 195 countries in the world with a case-fatality rate of 2.9%, according to Johns Hopkins University. It is the 11th worst on deaths per 100,000 people, at 60.98.
“Our bold and early actions saved millions of lives,” he says.
The current death toll, the highest in the world and a fifth of the global total, is 199,816.
Updated
Here is footage of the rest of the crowd that shows that not many people (besides those standing directly behind Trump) are wearing masks:
Crowd in Swanton, Ohio, awaits Trump at his second rally in the state today pic.twitter.com/jMoloJLgu0
— Mario Parker (@MarioDParker) September 21, 2020
A reminder that Trump is speaking as the US is on the brink of a devastating 200,000 coronavirus deaths.
Trump says suburban women, including minorities, don't want "projects right next to their house." He adds, "I think suburbia has gotta wake up, because uh, if they get in, you know who's in charge? you know who's in charge of the program? Cory Booker. Cory Booker." (No.)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 22, 2020
Watch the event live here:
Updated
“This is the most important election in the history of our country in my opinion,” says Trump.
He is talking about his triumph in Ohio in 2016, in what we called a “stunning win”.
Ohio has voted for the victor in every presidential election since 1964. Trump won Ohio by a margin of 8.1 points in 2016, presenting a tough challenge for the Democrats, who will be hoping for a high turnout among black voters.
Here is the polling at the moment – the republicans are leading the swing state by 0.5%:
Here is more on the hopes placed on black voters by the Democrats:
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Those in the crowd wearing masks are wearing MAGA masks:
Trump is making fun of Biden having social distancing circles for people to sit in at his small-crowd events. He scornfully says it's a good way of looking good when you can't draw people, you just put circles down and people will say "he's practicing the science."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 22, 2020
Trump claims that the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will “destroy suburbia” if elected.
“You’ve also got your second amendment,” he says, referring to the right to bear arms.
“As the nation mourns the loss of our Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I will soon announce a nominee for the Supreme Court,” Trump says.
“I don’t want to make the crowd too angry, it will be a woman, is that ok?”
The crowd chants “fill the seat”:
Before RBG's memorial service has even occurred, Trump basks in "fill that seat!" chants at his rally in Swanton, Ohio pic.twitter.com/WB3EEEGcZr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2020
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Trump is ordering the cameras to be turned around so that they face the crowd, calling the cameramen “Stiffs. Real stiffs” and “Bad guys”.
“We’re always asking them – look at these crowds – [...] as far as the eye can see.”
Trump says he often goes home to the first lady and asks if she saw the huge crowds, and she says, “No.”
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Trump opens with: “Wow. This is a big crowd. This is a big crowd.”
“I’m thrilled to be back in Ohio with thousands of hard working loyal American patriots.”
Trump speaks in Ohio
Hi, Helen Sullivan here.
I’ll be bringing you the latest from the Trump event in Ohio, including – and I hope that I will be forgiven – points that are not strictly Covid-related.
Trump’s plane as landed, the door is open, the crowd is waiting for POTUS to descend the stairs and REM’s “Everybody hurts” playing at full volume.
Any minute now.
Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
US President Donald Trump is due to speak shortly at a “Great American Comeback” event in Swanton, Ohio.
We’ll be blogging it live here.
Updated
Joe Biden said Donald Trump’s ‘lies and incompetence’ since the start of the coronavirus pandemic had led to the ‘one of the greatest losses in American history’ as he spoke at an aluminum plant in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
The Democratic presidential nominee noted the country was about to hit the ‘tragic milestone’ of recording 200,000 deaths from Covid-19, adding that number represented many ‘empty chairs’ for families who had lost loved ones to the virus.
Having flu and Covid-19 together significantly increases your risk of death, say government scientists who are urging all those at risk of getting or transmitting flu to get the vaccine in the coming weeks and months.
The evidence for the double whammy is currently limited and comes mostly from a study with small numbers – 58 people – carried out in the UK during the early phase of the pandemic.
“As I understand it, it’s 43% of those with co-infection died compared with 26.9% of those who tested positive for Covid only,” said England’s deputy chief medical officer, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam. These were people who had been hospitalised and had been tested for both viruses, he said, and so were very ill – but the rate of death from Covid alone in the study between January and April was similar to the known rate of Covid hospital mortality generally of around 25% or 26%:
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest updates for the next few hours. We love to hear from you – get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
Pubs, bars and restaurants in England will have to shut by 10pm from Thursday under new nationwide restrictions to halt an “exponential” rise in coronavirus cases.
Boris Johnson is expected to make an address to the nation on Tuesday setting out the new measures. With cases doubling every week across the UK and a second wave expected to last up to six months, health officials had advised the government over the weekend to “move hard and fast”, according to a source.
There could be up to 50,000 new coronavirus cases per day in Britain by the middle of October if the pandemic continues at its current pace, the country’s chief scientist adviser warned. On Sunday, health minister Matt Hancock said a second national lockdown was possible.
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The US is nearing 200,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in the world. There are currently 199,756 deaths registered on the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The US has 6.8m cases. Worldwide, there are 31,180,434 cases and 962,232 deaths.
- Shares in London have had their worst losses in more than three months amid fears that a second wave of coronavirus cases will force the government into harsh lockdown measures that will damage the economy. The FTSE 100 – the leading benchmark of the UK stock market – closed more than 200 points down at 5,804 points on a day of sharp falls in equities in both Europe and North America.
- London mayor to propose new Covid-19 restrictions for capital. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said he has agreed with local council leaders and public health experts a plan to put to the central government for new Covid-19 restrictions to stem the spread of the virus in the capital. “We will collectively be asking the government to implement this plan as soon as possible and I will be discussing it with the prime minister tomorrow morning,” Khan said in a statement.
- A total of 156 countries have joined the global Covax scheme intended to ensure fair distribution of supplies of future vaccines against Covid-19, an alliance led by the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. The list includes 64 wealthier, self-financing countries, and accounts for about two-thirds of the global population, a statement issued by the WHO and GAVI vaccine alliance said, after a deadline of last Friday to make binding commitments.
- The number of coronavirus infections in Iran has risen by 3,341 in the past 24 hours, the highest daily tally since early June, taking total cases to 425,481, the health ministry spokeswoman told state TV on Monday.
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The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, nominated a top epidemiologist to become health minister on Monday after the previous minister quit over a sharp rise in Covid-19 infections. Roman Prymula, who helped lead the central European country’s response to the initial coronavirus outbreak in March, will replace Adam Vojtěch, who quit on Monday after criticism over the surge in new cases following an easing of restrictions.
- The head of an influential group in the UK parliament has signalled that the government could face resistance from its own party if ministers once again introduce new lockdown measures without proper legislative scrutiny. Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, a powerful group of Conservative party backbench MPs, said ministers had “got into the habit of ruling by decree”, adding: “The British people are not used to being treated like children.”
- The Taj Mahal will reopen after a six-month closure. There will be some restrictions such as compulsory mask-wearing, thermal screening of visitors and physical distancing at the monument
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