Greece’s head of state has appealed for citizens to adhere to a ban on public gatherings enforced to curb the spread of Covid-19, as the country marks one of its most hallowed anniversaries: the 1973 student uprising against military rule.
Laying a wreath at the Athens Polytechnic where the landmark revolt took place, president Katerina Sakellaropoulou said democracy not only meant “freedom but responsibility”.
“The struggle of all of us today is to transcend our individualism for the common good,” she said, citing the unprecedented conditions in which this year’s commemoration takes place.
The uprising, which ushered in the beginning of the end of seven years of brutal dictatorship, is celebrated annually with thousands marching to the US embassy in protest of Washington’s support for the junta. The anniversary is an emblematic event for leftists and communists who resisted the regime.
But in the midst of a second lockdown, the centre right government, emphasising public health concerns, has refused to bow to calls from opposition parties to allow the traditional rally from taking place.
In a security operation that is expected to see some 6,000 police being seconded around the Greek capital, it has deployed helicopters and drones to ensure that no more than four people gather at any one time. Those who flout the rule will face fines of up to 5,000 euro.
The opposition has deplored the ban as unconstitutional with the leader of the leftist MeRa25 group, Yanis Varoufakis, vowing to commemorate the anniversary by marching to the US embassy with his MPs in a display of “responsible disobedience.”
Anti-establishment leftists and anarchists have also pledged they will defy the ban amid fears of clashes with police later on Tuesday.
Epidemiologists, who have raised the alarm over the potential of rallies being super spreader events, have called the coming weeks critical.
A surge in coronavirus cases has placed mounting pressure on the country’s health system with an estimated 80 percent of intensive care wards now occupied with patients who have fallen ill with the virus.
In northern Greece, which has been especially hard hit, the rise in numbers is such that only 5 percent of beds are currently free in Thessaloniki, the region’s metropolis.
The development and availability of a coronavirus vaccine could improve the outlook for the battered tourism industry but it is unlikely to convince consumers to spend more money in the short term, a survey showed on Tuesday.
The survey by research group Dynata asked more than 5,000 people in Germany, France, Britain, the United States and Australia how they would change their behaviour once a Covid-19 vaccine becomes widely available.
Most respondents said they were looking forward to visiting friends or relatives again (61%) and leaving the house more often (53%), the survey showed.
In Germany and Britain, nearly half of respondents said they were looking forward to going on holiday abroad again.
Overall, one in two respondent was looking forward to not having to wear a face mask any more. But only 12% said they were looking forward to spending more money and to focus less on savings, according to the findings.
During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in spring, the saving rate in Germany, for example, doubled to 20% as many consumers had to stay at home and shops were forced to close.
World stock markets grabbed a well-earned breather on Tuesday after a second major coronavirus vaccine boost in the space of a week had propelled them higher again and put Europe on course for its best month in nearly three decades.
European stocks eased from eight-month highs as tighter coronavirus-driven restrictions across the continent hit travel stocks, halting a broader rally that was powered by encouraging Covid-19 vaccine news, Reuters is reporting.
The pan-European STOXX 600 slipped 0.1% in morning trading. The index closed at it highest level since February 27th on Monday after positive data from drugmaker Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Earlier, Pfizer and partner BioNTech flagged strong progress in their Covid-19 vaccine, sparking a rally in global equities last week.
“Though the vaccine developments were incredibly positive, markets still have a bit of a ‘show me the logistics’ side to it,” Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid wrote in a morning note.
Near-term economic outlook remains hazy as the grip of the virus grows stronger, with Sweden moving to restrict the size of public gatherings and a British medical adviser suggesting strengthening the three-tier system of restrictions when the full lockdown in England ends.
Travel stocks fell the most, with British airline EasyJet sliding 5% after it recorded a 1.27 billion pound ($1.68 billion) annual loss, the first in its history that also highlights the extent of the pandemic’s impact on air travel.
European banks retreated after a more than 3% surge on Monday. BBVA fell 4.2% after it and smaller rival Sabadell said they were in talks to create Spain’s second-biggest domestic lender by assets.
Sabadell shares jumped 3.5% to become the second-biggest gainer on the STOXX 600.
Other economically sensitive sectors such as oil and gas and automakers retreated after a sharp rally in the past week as hopes of a vaccine prompted investors to bet on a faster economic recovery.
Tobacco company Imperial Brands gained 3% after it forecast a rise in profit for 2021, helped by expected improvements in its e-cigarette business.
Defensive sectors such as utilities and healthcare inched higher
Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now, according to Reuters:
Vaccine success gives world more hope
Moderna’s experimental vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing Covid-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said, becoming the second US drugmaker to report results that far exceed expectations.
Together with Pfizer’s vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorised for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year.
US states from coasts to heartland act to curb virus.
Several US governors, from the coastal states of New Jersey and California to the heartland of Iowa and Ohio, acted on Monday to restrict gatherings and boost face-coverings in confronting a coronavirus surge they warned is out of control.
Each of the four governors, representing both ends of America’s political divide and a mix of urban and rural regions, cited health data showing the pandemic reaching its most perilous point yet in the United States, threatening to overwhelm hospitals and claim thousands more lives in the weeks ahead.
South Korea warns of new crisis
South Korea will impose stricter social distancing rules for the greater Seoul area a month after easing them, officials said on Tuesday, warning of an even bigger crisis if anti-Covid efforts fail to dampen a spike in new cases.
Tighter curbs will ban public gatherings of 100 people or more, limit religious services and audiences at sporting events to 30% capacity, and require high-risk facilities including clubs and karaoke bars to broaden distance among guests.
Merkel very worried about Berlin
The situation in Germany is still very serious even though infection numbers are not rising so fast, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday, after federal and state leaders postponed until November 25th a decision on further lockdown measures.
Merkel said she would have preferred to have agreed stricter rules at a meeting with federal and state leaders on Monday, adding she was very worried about the uncontrolled spread of coronavirus in some places, including the capital Berlin.
“Infection numbers aren’t growing exponentially anymore, but are still far too high. So we have to reduce contacts, reduce contacts, reduce contacts,” Merkel said.
France regaining control
France’s health oberminister Olivier Veran said on Tuesday the country was regaining control over the coronavirus but was not ready to ease the second national lockdown.
After curfew measures applied in major French cities in mid-October failed to produce the results the government had hoped for, it enforced a one-month lockdown on October 30th, though it was less strict than the one that ran from March 17th to May 11th.
“If we let up our efforts too early, if we are less compliant with the lockdown, we might be subject to a new epidemic surge that would undo all the hard work done by the French people for several weeks,” Veran told BFM TV.
Life and livelihoods go together in fighting Covid-19, says WHO.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that the challenge of the coronavirus was not a choice between life and livelihoods, but that they were both part of the same fight, Reuters is reporting.
The organisation, which has recorded 65 cases of the coronavirus among staff at its headquarters, also said there was no time for complacency in confronting the coronavirus despite positive news about possible vaccines.
“The quickest way to open up economies is to defeat the virus,” the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a virtual briefing in Geneva.
He said G20 leaders would meet this weekend, giving them an opportunity to commit financially and politically to the Covax global facility, set up to provide Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries.
Several companies have published promising results with their vaccine candidates, but Tedros warned that people should not be complacent. “Right now we are extremely concerned by the surge in Covid-19 cases we’re seeing in some countries,” he said.
“Particularly in Europe and the Americas, health workers and health systems are being pushed to breaking point.”
More than 54.44 million people have been reported infected by the coronavirus globally and 1,318,042 have died, according to a Reuters tally. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China last December.
Updated
Pfizer is to start a pilot delivery programme for its Covid-19 vaccine in four US states, Reuters is reporting.
Pfizer Inc has launched a pilot delivery programme for its experimental Covid-19 vaccine in four US states, as the US drugmaker seeks to address distribution challenges facing its ultra-cold storage requirements.
Pfizer’s vaccine, which was shown to be more than 90% effective based on initial data, must be shipped and stored at -70 degrees Celsius (minus 94°F), significantly below the standard for vaccines of 2-8 degrees Celsius (36-46°F).
“We are hopeful that results from this vaccine delivery pilot will serve as the model for other US states and international governments, as they prepare to implement effective Covid-19 vaccine programs,” Pfizer said in a statement on Monday.
It picked Rhode Island, Texas, New Mexico, and Tennessee for the program after taking into account their differences in overall size, diversity of populations, immunisation infrastructure, and need to reach individuals in varied urban and rural settings.
The four states will not receive vaccine doses earlier than other states by virtue of the pilot, nor will they receive any differential consideration, Pfizer said.
The company expects to have enough safety data on the vaccine from the ongoing large scale late-stage trials by the third week of November before proceeding to apply for emergency use authorisation.
Updated
Denmark’s minority government has agreed with supporting parties to create the legal basis for an order to cull all of the farmed mink in the country given earlier this month to prevent the spread of a new strain of coronavirus, Reuters is reporting.
The legislation, which will be retroactive, follows an outcry after the Social Democratic government admitted it had no legal underpinning for the cull, which Denmark’s mink fur farmers say will end their business for good.
“The process has been messy,” food and agriculture minister Mogens Jensen said in a statement released on Monday night, about two weeks after the initial order to cull all mink was given.
“I am very happy that with this agreement we will hopefully create some peace around the very large culling operation taking place on the country’s mink farms.”
The deal, which will be made into law in the coming month, will ban all mink breeding until 2022 and provide a legal basis for ordering farmers to cull their healthy mink herds, which contain up to 17 million animals. Culls of infected mink had already been taking place under existing law.
The government will continue negotiations with parliament in order to reach a deal on compensating some 1,100 mink farmers.
Updated
The coronavirus situation in Germany is still very serious even though infection numbers are not rising so fast, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday, after federal and state leaders postponed until 25 November a decision on further lockdown measures.
“Infection numbers aren’t growing exponentially any more, but are still far too high. So we have to reduce contacts, reduce contacts, reduce contacts,” Merkel told a business event organised by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, noting that 30-40% of the German population belonged to vulnerable groups.
Merkel added that restricting contact between people was among he hardest decisions she has had to make in office.
But, she added, she would have preferred to have agreed stricter lockdown measures with federal and state leaders on Monday, because she is very worried about the spread of coronavirus in some places, including Berlin.
“Every day counts in fighting coronavirus,” Merkel said after federal and state leaders decided to postpone a decision on more measures to fight the pandemic until 25 November.
Updated
Several US governors, from the coastal states of New Jersey and California to the heartland of Iowa and Ohio, acted on Monday to restrict gatherings and boost face-coverings in confronting a coronavirus surge they warned is out of control, Reuters is reporting.
Each of the four governors, representing both ends of America’s political divide and a mix of urban and rural regions, cited health data showing the pandemic reaching its most perilous point yet in the US, threatening to overwhelm hospitals and claim thousands more lives in the weeks ahead.
They acknowledged that tighter limits on social interactions would prove especially difficult through the winter holidays. But without efforts to immediately tamp down the spread of the virus, the governors warned, more drastic action would be necessary in the near future.
Health experts have projected the coming holiday travel season and the onset of colder weather, with more people tending to congregate indoors, is likely to worsen the situation.
More than 70,000 Americans were hospitalised for treatment of Covid-19 as of Monday, the most ever at any time since the pandemic began, according to a Reuters tally of public health figures.
The number of US infections documented to date surpassed 11m on Monday, a little more than a week after crossing the 10m mark – the fastest time it has taken for the national tally to grow by a million cases.
The sharp rise in number of cases and hospitalisations has been especially striking in places like Iowa, a largely rural, Midwestern Corn Belt state spared the worst ravages of the pandemic when it began eight months ago.
Updated
Who will be the first to get Covid-19 vaccines?
No decision has been made, AP is reporting, but the consensus among many experts in the US and globally is that healthcare workers should be first, said Sema Sgaier of the Surgo Foundation, a nonprofit group working on vaccine allocation issues.
An expert panel advising the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also considering giving high priority to workers in essential industries, people with certain medical conditions and people age 65 and older.
Once a vaccine gets a green light from the Food and Drug Administration, the panel will look at clinical trial data on side-effects and how people of various ages, ethnicities and health statuses responded. That will determine the panel’s recommendations to the CDC on how to prioritise shots.
State officials are expected to follow the CDC’s guidance as they distribute the first vaccines.
Vaccine supplies will be limited at first. There won’t be enough to protect everyone, yet getting the shots to the right people could change the course of the pandemic.
Many other questions about distribution remain unanswered, Sgaier noted, such as whether to distribute shots equally across the country, or to focus on areas that are hot spots.
Updated
Reuters has just published an illuminating breakdown of Covid facts and figures from across the world.
Deaths and infections
• For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread of Covid-19, open here in an external browser.
Europe
• British prime minister Boris Johnson is considering a temporary cut to the aid spending to help the country’s Covid-ravaged public finances, The Times reported.
• The Premier League said 16 people had returned positive results in its latest round of tests conducted on players and staff last week.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) said there had been 65 coronavirus infections among staff at its Geneva headquarters.
• German chancellor Angela Merkel said leaders of the country’s 16 federal states were resisting her efforts to agree stricter measures.
Americas
* US president-elect Joe Biden said “more people may die” if outgoing president Donald Trump continues blocking a US transition of power as the pandemic worsens.
• Canada’s remote Arctic territory of Nunavut is suffering its first community outbreak and will close all non-essential services, as well as schools, for at least two weeks.
• Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine will be easy to distribute, particularly to rural areas, because it can be stored for one month at standard refrigerator temperatures, the head of vaccines for the US Operation Warp Speed programme said.
Asia-Pacific
• South Korea will impose stricter social distancing rules for the greater Seoul area a month after easing them.
• Australia’s fifth most populous state on Tuesday reported one new Covid-19 case overnight, dampening fears of another deadly cluster emerging.
• New Zealand has made masks mandatory from Thursday for users of public transport in Auckland as well as on all domestic flights.
Middle East and Africa
* Israel cast a wider net on Monday in its quest to secure a vaccine for Covid-19, approaching Russia to discuss buying its Sputnik V vaccine.
• Iran reported a record 13,053 new infections and 486 deaths over the past 24 hours as the government planned tougher restrictions.
Medical developments
• Samsung BioLogics said it is mass-producing a Covid-19 antibody treatment developed by Eli Lilly, as the US began distributing the drug last week after emergency-use approval.
• Moderna’s experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing Covid-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said.
• The US government will send over 7m of Abbott Laboratories’ BinaxNOW rapid antigen tests to states, hospice providers, and for other uses this week.
Economic impact
• Asian stocks cautiously pushed further into record territory on Tuesday, and oil edged higher after US benchmarks were pepped up by news of another promising coronavirus vaccine.
• The German economy is likely stagnating or contracting as Covid-19 measures hit leisure activities as well as exports, the Bundesbank said.
• The coronavirus is a bigger risk to the US economy than a prolonged dispute over the presidential election result, according to a Reuters poll that showed the near-term economic recovery was slowing more than previously thought.
Updated
Russia has just reported a record high of 442 deaths related to the novel coronavirus, taking the official death toll to 33,931.
Authorities also reported 22,410 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, including 5,882 in the capital, Moscow, bringing the national tally to 1,971,013.
Updated
France appears to have passed the peak of the Covid-19 epidemic but it is still too early to announce an end to the country’s lockdown, the minister of health, Olivier Véran, has said.
He also confirmed that French travel restrictions will not be lifted on 1 December.
“The virus is circulating a little bit less rapidly than it did earlier, at the start of curfew. We are regaining control over the virus but it is still too early to claim victor,” Véran told BFM TV, a day after the daily tally of new cases dropped to a more than one-month low.
“We are in a phase where the pandemic is decreasing, even if it remains at a high level but we cannot give any dates regarding any end to French lockdown for now,” he added.
“As of now, I do not think the health situation is appropriate to allow certain shops to reopen on 27 November.”
Updated
The low-cost airine easyJet has reported pre-tax losses of £1.27bn for the year to 30 September, marking the first loss in the carrier’s 25-year history, PA Media has just reported.
Easyjet announced this morning it is in line for a pre-tax loss of up to £845m for the full year, the first time the budget carrier will have reported an annual loss.
In a trading update, easyJet said passenger numbers for the full year had halved, falling to 48 million as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Shares in the airline fell three-quarters of a per cent as markets opened.
Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along.
My colleague Amelia Hill will be bringing you the latest pandemic news for the next few hours.
I will be googling giant salamanders for the next few hours.
0mg giant salamander paw pic.twitter.com/imhXRt97mf
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) November 17, 2020
Australia asks 4,000 people to quarantine
Australian authorities conducted mass tests on Tuesday and about 4,000 people were confined to quarantine in the hope of stifling a new cluster of cases of the novel coronavirus after hopes it had been largely eradicated, Reuters reports.
The state of South Australia reimposed social distancing restrictions on Monday after detecting 21 cases of the coronavirus, most of which were acquired locally.
The cases were the first local transmissions of the virus in Australia in nine days.
South Australia Premier Steven Marshall said testing had identified five new cases in the past 24 hours, while 14 people were suspected to be infected and were awaiting test results.
“We are not out of the woods. We are just at the beginning stages of dealing with this particular very nasty cluster,” Marshall told reporters in Adelaide.
Marshall said all cases could be traced back to an Australian who arrived in South Australia from overseas on 2 November and entered mandatory quarantine in a hotel.
Hotel workers are believed to have contacted the virus after touching a surface contaminated with the virus, Marshall said.
Authorities fear the virus could have spread beyond hotel workers and their close contacts, prompting a mandate that confined about 4,000 people to their homes.
“This is a very, very worrying situation. I’m not going to underestimate the concern that I’ve got about this,” said Nicola Spurrier, South Australia’s chief public health officer.
Australia has recorded about 27,800 novel coronavirus infections and 906 deaths.
The bulk of the infections were in Victoria state, which forced nearly 5 million people into a stringent lockdown for more than 100 days after a surge in cases.
That outbreak has been contained, with Victoria recording no new cases for the past 18 days.
Updated
Good morning – Warren Murray inoculating you against ignorance of the news this morning in our Briefing (full story at the link below):
Hopes are rising for a Covid jab to end the pandemic in the UK after a second company, Moderna, confirmed over 90% effectiveness of its vaccine in trials. The UK has secured 40m doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, and has rushed to reserve 5m of Moderna’s, but Britain has the most riding on the inoculation being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, of which it has reserved 100m doses. A source at the Department of Health and Social Care said the results from the Oxford vaccine trials were “imminent” and it could be one of the first to be rolled out.
Pfizer has launched a pilot delivery programme for its experimental Covid-19 vaccine in four US states, as it seeks to address distribution problems posed by its ultra-cold storage requirements. It has to be shipped and stored at -70C, compared with 2-8C for most other vaccines. California’s governor has pulled the “emergency brake” on reopening efforts amid a surge in cases. South Korea is to tighten its pandemic measures after health authorities reported more than 200 new infections for the fourth day in a row:
Updated
As France enters its third week of its second coronavirus lockdown, known as “le confinement,” here is a is a snippet of an account by Associated Press journalists of what it is like at the intensive care unit at La Timone, southern France’s largest hospital, as doctors struggle to keep even one bed open for the influx of patients:
The doctors and nurses tell themselves and each other that they just have to hold on a little longer. Government tallies show infections may have reached their second-wave high point, and hospitalisations dropped last weekend for the first time since September.
But the medical workers are also frustrated that France did not prepare more in the months after the first wave. And while doctors and nurses were seen as heroes back then, this time is different.
‘Before, they applauded every night. Now they tell us it’s just doing our job,’ says Chloe Gascon, a 23-year-old nurse who has spent half her 18-month career under the shadow of coronavirus.
Marseille has been submerged with coronavirus cases since September. The port city, on France’s Mediterranean coast, was spared the worst of the virus last spring only to be hit with a vengeance as the summer vacation wound down. Bars and restaurants closed across the city on 27 September, more than a month before they shut down nationwide. It wasn’t enough.
A decade of budget cuts left France with half the number of intensive care beds this year, when it needed them most. By the time the first confinement ended on 11 May, more than 26,000 people had died in France. The government pledged to take advantage of the expected summer lull to add beds and train reinforcements.
That was the time to act, when new infections were at their low point, said Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds.
‘It was always bubbling away under the surface,’ he said.
Summary
Here are the key global developments from the last few hours:
- Mainland China reported 15 new Covid-19 cases on 16 November, up from eight cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Tuesday. The National Health Commission said in a statement all new cases were imported infections originating from overseas.
- India’s daily cases fall to lowest number since mid-July. Daily coronavirus infections in India fell to their lowest since mid-July, with 29,163 new cases reported for the last 24 hours, taking the total to 8.87 million, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
- Parts of west Scotland braced for Level 4 restrictions, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to announce her decision on Tuesday. On Monday, Ms Sturgeon said at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing that rates in Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Lanarkshire health board areas are “stubbornly high”.
- Virus vaccine to be free in Belgium. The Belgian government said Monday it intends to make any coronavirus vaccine available to around 70% of the population, some eight million people, and free of charge.The jab will not be compulsory, added Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke as he and regional counterparts attended an interministerial health conference.
- Philadelphia bans indoor gatherings. In one of the most aggressive actions taken in the US to confront the looming crisis, Philadelphia officials on Monday ordered a ban on “indoor gatherings of any size in any location, public or private,” except among individuals who live together.
- WHO hails ‘encouraging’ virus vaccine news. Reported breakthroughs in Covid-19 vaccine research are “encouraging”, the World Health Organization’s chief said on Monday, but voiced concern about surging cases and warned against complacency.
- California will dramatically roll back its reopening efforts, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Monday, saying he was pulling the “emergency brake” amid a troubling surge in cases. The changes, which take effect Tuesday, will see more than 94% of California’s population and most businesses across the state return to the most restrictive tier of rules aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.
- The US biotech firm Moderna has claimed that its Covid-19 vaccine is 94.5% effective, according to an interim analysis released on Monday and based on 95 patients with confirmed Covid infections. The company plans to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency-use authorisation.
The experience of having to respond so rapidly to the Covid-19 crisis should serve as a wake-up call to accelerate action to deal with climate change, which is already hitting vulnerable communities hard, the Red Cross said on Tuesday.
In its annual World Disasters Report, the world’s largest humanitarian network said the coronavirus pandemic had shown how governments can “take unprecedented steps affecting their entire economies, and find the necessary resources to robustly face a major global threat”.
The same level of “energy and boldness” should be mobilised to curb global warming and use a window of opportunity created by the pandemic to prepare for future shocks, it added.
“A global catastrophe of the magnitude of Covid-19 could finally open this window wide enough for us to look directly into the face of the climate crisis,” the report said.
At the same time, the pandemic has exacerbated the difficulties facing poor countries and communities struggling to deal with worsening climate and weather extremes as the Covid-19 situation soaks up scarce resources, it noted.
In the first six months after the pandemic was declared in March, more than 100 disasters occurred, from floods to storms, affecting more than 50 million people, it said.
Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, cited Sudan as one country that had suffered such pressures - first a locust infestation, then Covid-19, followed by severe flooding.
Three months on, when he visited in October, more than 800,000 people were receiving minimal humanitarian support, with the transitional government forced to divert resources to tackle Covid-19, he added.
And here is the full story on Pfizer launching a vaccine delivery trial:
Here is our full story on the new restrictions in South Korea:
South Korea has strengthened social distancing measures amid a rise in new coronavirus cases, with the country’s prime minister warning that action was needed to avoid a crisis with the arrival of the winter flu season.
The country has won widespread praise for preventing a serious Covid-19 outbreak through a combination of mass testing, vigorous track and tracing and isolation, coupled with social distancing and mask wearing.
But the decision to implement stricter rules on distancing comes after health authorities reported more than 200 new infections for the fourth day in a row on Tuesday.
The country added 230 more cases, raising the total to 28,999, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The death toll remained unchanged at 497, it added:
India's daily cases fall to lowest number since mid-July
Daily coronavirus infections in India fell to their lowest since mid-July, with 29,163 new cases reported for the last 24 hours, taking the total to 8.87 million, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
Reuters: Daily cases have fallen in India, the country with the second-highest number of infections behind the United States, since hitting a peak in September.
Indians celebrated Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, over the weekend, and experts have warned that the festival season could lead to a new spike.
Deaths rose by 449 over the last 24 hours, the ministry also said, with toll now at 130,519.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 14,419 to 815,746, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday.
The reported death toll rose by 267 to 12,814, the tally showed.
As Switzerland contends with one of the worst coronavirus surges in Europe, the Swiss are gripped by one melting-hot question: is it still safe to share a fondue?
This pungent story from AFP: The beloved Swiss national dish consists of cheese melted down with white wine in a “caquelon” pot heated by an open flame.
By tradition, Swiss cheese fondue is eaten by dipping in bread with long-handled forks, with several friends or relatives joining in and sharing the same pot.
But can the convivial Swiss culinary experience still be done safely in the midst of a pandemic?
Internet sages are piling in on the hot topic. “Eat your fondue with a fishing rod”, reads one suggestion for maintaining physical distancing.
Another - with a touch more realism - proposes: “Each guest takes two forks and a knife, and it’s fixed: one fork to dip in the fondue, the knife to help remove the bread and the second fork to eat it.”
The press has called experts to the rescue, even dragging in Geneva’s celebrated infectious disease specialist Didier Pittet.
“A risk linked to fondue? Certainly not,” said the man considered the godfather of alcohol-based hand rub.
While Austria was held up as a model to follow during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, its return to lockdown Tuesday has sparked a backlash against the government, AFP reports.
Experts, news outlets and opposition politicians have been lining up to condemn the conservative-green coalition government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz for its handling of the second wave.
“Lack of anticipation” and “irresponsible behaviour” are just some of the criticisms levelled at the administration since the new lockdown was announced on Saturday.
The closure of all non-essential stores and schools is “without question the expression of a total loss of control” said Pamela Rendi-Wagner, leader of the opposition Social Democrats (SPOe).
“It is because of the government in particular that more severe measures are now necessary and that Austria has gone from being a model country to being the bottom of the table in terms of infections.”
Rendi-Wagner is herself a former health minister and trained as a doctor.
Saturday’s measures came two weeks after the closure of restaurants, bars, cultural and sports venues in a failed bid to curb the spread of the virus.
The country is now under curfew until December 6, with limited exceptions such as essential travel for work, buying groceries, helping or caring for others, or for exercise.
Disinfecting parcels and sending cards early are among scientists’ recommendations for those wanting to take extra coronavirus precautions this Christmas, PA Media reports.
Medical experts have said the risk of spreading coronavirus through the post is “really low” as laboratory experiments suggest it can live on packaging materials like cardboard for a maximum of 24 hours.
Research published by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO in October showed the virus can last up to four weeks on mobile phone screens and banknotes, but it has a much shorter survival on porous surfaces like paper.
Dr Lena Ciric, who specialises in molecular biology and described her work as “looking at where microbes lurk”, recommended sending gifts to family and friends “at the start of December” so they have time to quarantine parcels for “a few extra days”.
Dr Ciric, who is an environmental engineering lecturer at UCL, said coronavirus thrives in “cold and dry” conditions like warehouses and trucks where parcels are held - but the transit time will make a “big difference” to the virus’ survival.
She said: “The likelihood that a gift or card sent in the post by an infected person would have enough virus on it to cause an infection is really low.”
“I think chances are there’s not going to be enough stuff on the gift at the time of contamination, let alone at the time it gets there.”
Respiratory medicine specialist Professor Ashley Woodcock, who is also the University of Manchester’s Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, recommended a disinfecting procedure.
He said: “If granny gets lots of Christmas cards, what is she going to do?
“If I were an old person I would be handling Christmas cards with gloves and putting them on a radiator for a few minutes.”
Parts of west Scotland braced for Level 4 resrictions
Parts of the west of Scotland could move into Level 4 restrictions later this week, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to announce her decision on Tuesday.
On Monday, Ms Sturgeon said at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing that rates in Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Lanarkshire health board areas are “stubbornly high”.
The First Minister suggested a “limited period” of the strictest measures - moving from Level 3 to Level 4 - could allow an easing around Christmas.
Under the toughest restrictions, non-essential shops will be closed, along with bars, restaurants, hairdressers and visitor attractions.
Schools will remain open, however, with the First Minister saying on Monday it is her “objective and intention” to ensure they do not close.
The First Minister also told the briefing that restrictions in at least one local authority area will be eased, although she did not say where.
Pfizer launches vaccine delivery trial for four US states
Pfizer Inc said on Monday it would start a pilot program for Covid-19 immunisation in four US states to help refine the plan for delivery and deployment of its vaccine candidate.
The four states – Rhode Island, Texas, New Mexico, and Tennessee – were selected for the program because of their differences in overall size, diversity of populations and immunisation infrastructure, the drugmaker said in a statement.
“The four states included in this pilot program will not receive vaccine doses earlier than other states by virtue of this pilot, nor will they receive any differential consideration,” Pfizer said.
Updated
South Africa on Monday recorded 1,245 new coronavirus cases and 73 further deaths. The caseload stands at 752,269 , while 20,314 people have died.
The number of cases is lower than the average daily infection totals of around 2,000 cases, that have been recorded since September in the country, which is the worst-affected in Africa, but this may be due to the weekend.
#COVID19 Statistics in SA as at 16 November.
— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) November 16, 2020
Use the COVID Alert SA app to protect yourself, your loved ones and your community. Start using this privacy preserving app today. Add your phone to the fight! Download the Covid Alert SA app now! https://t.co/8YKEqaiiRF pic.twitter.com/MwMJovMXA9
In the US, the president-elect, Joe Biden, has warned “more people may die” unless the Trump administration starts cooperating with the incoming Democratic administration.
“We are going into a very dark winter. Things are going to get much tougher before they get easier,” he said.
Biden said the biggest threat from Trump’s refusal to accept that he had lost, and the consequent delay of the transition of government, was from coronavirus.
Biden said the idea that Trump was still playing golf and doing nothing about the pandemic was “beyond my comprehension”.
You can read our story on Biden’s comments here and see a video of what he said below.
Updated
More now on South Korea:
The country will impose stricter social distancing rules for the greater Seoul area a month after easing them, officials said on Tuesday, warning of an even bigger crisis if anti-Covid-19 efforts fail to dampen a spike in new cases.
Reuters reports that starting Tuesday midnight, tighter curbs will ban public gatherings of 100 people or more, limit religious services and audiences at sporting events to 30% capacity, and require high-risk facilities including clubs and karaoke bars to broaden distance among guests.
The tougher restrictions came as the daily case tally hovered above 200 for a fourth consecutive day, with a series of cluster outbreaks emerging from offices, medical facilities and small gatherings in Seoul and surrounding regions where around half of the country’s 52 million population live.
“Our anti-coronavirus efforts are facing a crisis, and the situation is particularly serious in the Seoul metropolitan area,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a meeting.
“The heightened curbs would cause greater inconvenience in our daily lives ... but we all know from our experiences that there would be an even bigger crisis if we don’t act now.”
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 230 cases as of Monday midnight, marking the ninth straight day of triple-digit rises and the highest since early September.
Of them, 202 were locally transmitted and 28 imported, and nearly 68% of the domestic infections came from the greater Seoul area, KDCA data showed.
The numbers took the country’s total infections to 28,998, with 494 deaths.
KDCA director Jeong Eun-kyeong warned on Monday the daily tally could go as high as 400 within coming weeks, asking citizens to stick to strict hygiene rules and minimise year-end celebrations.
Virus vaccine to be free in Belgium
The Belgian government said Monday it intends to make any coronavirus vaccine available to around 70% of the population, some eight million people, and free of charge, AFP reports.
The jab will not be compulsory, added Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke as he and regional counterparts attended an interministerial health conference.
“The objective is to vaccinate at least 70 percent of the population. Priority groups will be determined on the basis of scientific opinion and social debate,” Vandenbroucke stated.
“Vaccination will be free for every citizen” receiving it, he added.
Belgium, population 11.5 million, has registered almost 540,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 14,000 deaths to date. Its death rate per million residents is one of the worst in Europe.
As an EU member state Belgium is engaged in bloc-wide procedures for bulk purchases of anti-Covid-19 vaccines once they emerge in the coming months.
Earlier Monday, Brussels indicated it was signing a contract with German pharmaceutical company CureVac for another potential Covid-19 vaccine, bringing to five the number of vaccines in the bloc’s portfolio and a sixth on the way from US firm Moderna.
Belgium itself has so far signed up to receive 7.7 million doses from AstraZeneca (administered in two doses) and a further 5.5 million from Johnson & Johnson, national news agency Belga reported.
In Australia, returned travellers quarantining in an Adelaide hotel linked to a coronavirus cluster that has now infected 20 people are being told they may have to restart their quarantine in a new hotel, regardless of how many days they have already served.
It means some returned travellers may ultimately be forced to quarantine for up to 28 days.
The action is being taken out of concern Covid-19 could spread inside the Peppers medi-hotel in Adelaide’s city centre, where three Covid-19 cases in the cluster are linked to workers at the hotel:
More now on the measures being taken in US states.
Reuters: Ohio, where daily case tallies have increased by 17% and total hospitalisations by at least 25% in the past week, the state’s health department issued a revised order to limit mass gatherings starting on Tuesday, Governor Mike DeWine announced.
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced a new 11pm curfew for bars and restaurants starting on Thursday, while some 33,000 state employees will be required to wear masks at work beginning on Wednesday.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham urged residents to stay home for all but essential activities. “We face a life-or-death situation and we cannot fail to act,” Grisham wrote on Twitter.
Michigan and Washington state on Sunday imposed sweeping new restrictions on gatherings, including halting indoor restaurant service.
The flurry of measures came as 40 states have reported record daily increases in Covid-19 cases this month, while 20 states have registered all-time highs in daily coronavirus-related deaths and 26 reported new peaks in hospitalizations, according to a Reuters tally of public health data.
The United States as a whole has averaged more than 148,000 new cases a day, and 1,120 daily deaths, over the past week.
Philadelphia bans indoor gatherings
In one of the most aggressive actions taken in the US to confront the looming crisis, Philadelphia officials on Monday ordered a ban on “indoor gatherings of any size in any location, public or private,” except among individuals who live together.
“We need to keep this virus from jumping from one household to another,” city Health Commissioner Thomas Farley told a news conference.
If the current rate of “exponential” growth in cases continues, hospitals will soon be strained to their limits and more than 1,000 people could die in Pennsylvania’s largest city over the next six weeks, Farley said.
In neighbouring New Jersey, one of the hardest-hit states in the early phase of the pandemic, Governor Phil Murphy said he was ordering indoor gatherings of individuals from different households to limit to 10 people, down from 25, while the mandatory cap on outdoor gatherings will be lowered next week to 150 from 500.
Airbnb Inc’s initial public offering (IPO) registration showed on Monday that the home rental startup turned a profit in the third quarter despite the Covid-19 pandemic, as it gears up for one of the most anticipated stock market debuts in recent years, Reuters report.
The filing, published ahead of Airbnb’s anticipated stock market debut in December, showed a dramatic recovery in its fortunes, after the coronavirus outbreak dragged down its core home rental business during the first half of the year.
The slump forced it to lay off 25% of its workforce in May, suspend marketing activities for the year and seek $2bn emergency funding from investors, including Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners, at a valuation of $18bn. It has recovered by focusing on listing homes away from cities that people want to rent during the pandemic.
Airbnb’s revenue fell 18% in the third quarter to $1.34bn from a year earlier, but it reported net profit of about $219m, helped mainly by a clamp-down on costs. Its business took a bigger hit internationally than in the United States, reflecting the financial fallout of extensive lockdowns in Europe to contain the spread of the virus.
Movie theatre operator Cinemark Holdings Inc struck a deal that will allow Universal Pictures to offer its movies in US homes as soon as 17 days after they debut in theatres, the companies said on Monday, Reuters reports.
The multi-year agreement is similar to one that Comcast-owned Universal made in July with AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc, the world’s largest theater chain, embracing a major shift from traditional movie release patterns.
Under the arrangement, Universal could offer movies for sale via premium video-on-demand after they have played for at least three weekends in theaters, a statement from the companies said. That would shrink the exclusive window a movie plays in theaters from the roughly 74 days that was typical before the Covid-19 pandemic shut down cinemas.
Movies that open with more than $50 million at box offices would be exclusive to theaters for at least five weekends, or 31 days, before they could be offered on demand. That would likely include Universal’s big franchises such as “Fast & Furious” and “Jurassic World.”
Universal is one of the few major studios sending movies to theaters in the coming months as many movie houses remain closed due to the pandemic. The studio will debut animated film “The Croods: A New Age” on 25 November, Tom Hanks drama “News of the World” on 25 December and three other movies before year’s end.
Asian stocks opened firmer on Tuesday after the S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes hit record highs on news of another promising coronavirus vaccine, which supported hopes of a quicker economic recovery, Reuters reports.
Investor sentiment shot up after Moderna Inc said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing infection based on interim late-state data.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm became the second drugmaker, after Pfizer Inc, to announce promising trial data in the development of a vaccine to defeat the pandemic. Its shares gained 9.6% on the day.
“This is a continuation of what we saw last week as the vaccine being a catalyst for a rotation into cyclical sectors such as energy, financials, and defense with expectations for renewed demand and travel,” said Thomas Hayes, managing member at Great Hill Capital in New York.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.6% in early trading, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures gained 0.27%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.5%.
All three main Wall Street indexes advanced on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrials Average setting a record as it neared the 30,000 mark for the first time in nine months. The benchmark Dow is the last of the three to reclaim levels reached in February, before lockdowns sent the markets into free-fall. The S&P 500 surpassed its own record set on Friday.
China reports 15 new coronavirus cases, up from eight the day before
Mainland China reported 15 new Covid-19 cases on 16 November, up from eight cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Tuesday.
The National Health Commission said in a statement all new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not count as confirmed Covid-19 cases, fell to 12 from 14 a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 86,361, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.
We have more detail now on the curbs in Seoul, from Yohap agency.
The level will be raised to 1.5, which means that a cap will be placed on school attendance, limiting it to two thirds of the total student body – and restricting the use of “multi-use high-risk facilities” (such as some bars, karaoke rooms, restaurants and coffee shops), Yonhap reports:
The government decided Tuesday to raise the social distancing level by one notch to 1.5 in the greater Seoul area, amid a resurgence of new COVID-19 cases in and around the capital.
...
Under Level 1, people are required to follow basic guidelines, such as wearing masks, and gatherings of over 500 people are not recommended.
Under Level 1.5, the operation of multi-use and high-risk facilities will be restricted, and the attendance cap in schools is placed at two-thirds of the total student body.
South Korea tightens social distancing protocols in Seoul
South Korea decided to tighten social distancing curbs for the greater Seoul area amid recent spikes in new coronavirus cases, the Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a meeting hosted by Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun.
We’ll have more detail shortly.
California rolling back reopening efforts
California will dramatically roll back its reopening efforts, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Monday, saying he was pulling the “emergency brake” amid a troubling surge in cases.
The changes, which take effect Tuesday, will see more than 94% of California’s population and most businesses across the state return to the most restrictive tier of rules aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. The state is also strengthening its guidance on masks; Newsom announced face coverings would now be required outside people’s homes with limited exceptions.
You can read the full report, by Lois Beckett and Vivian Ho, here.
The WHO is experiencing its own outbreak of coronavirus, with Tedros spending 17 days in quarantine - though he said he had not developed any symptoms.
Five new cases within the same WHO team have been registered in the past week, WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove said.
“We don’t know if there is an actual cluster,” she said, adding that experts were trying to work out if transmission had happened on the premises.
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan stressed that the Geneva region is experiencing “some of the most intense transmission in the world right now”.
“We are human beings and we live within a society,” he said.
WHO hails ‘encouraging’ virus vaccine news
Reported breakthroughs in Covid-19 vaccine research are “encouraging”, the World Health Organization’s chief said on Monday, but voiced concern about surging cases and warned against complacency, AFP reports.
“We continue to receive encouraging news about Covid-19 vaccines,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press briefing.
Tedros, who has just spent more than two weeks in quarantine after coming in contact with someone with Covid-19, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that new tools would start to arrive in the coming months.
But he added: “This is no time for complacency.”
His comments came as hopes trials of a second candidate vaccine suggested it was nearly 95 percent effective against the virus.
The news from US biotech firm Moderna followed similar interim results last week for Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate vaccine.
But WHO has warned that widespread availability of any vaccine remains a long way off, and Covid-19 cases and deaths are surging in many parts of the world.
“Those countries that are letting the virus run unchecked are playing with fire,” he said.
He voiced particular alarm about the situation in Europe and the Americas, where he said health workers and systems were being pushed to breaking point.
“A laissez-faire attitude to the virus ... leads to death, suffering and hurts livelihoods and economies,” he said.
“The quickest way to open up economies is to defeat the virus.”
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 Covid-19 news from around the world for the next few hours.
Reported breakthroughs in Covid-19 vaccine research are “encouraging”, the World Health Organization’s chief said on Monday, but voiced concern about surging cases and warned against complacency.
“We continue to receive encouraging news about Covid-19 vaccines,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press briefing. But he added: “This is no time for complacency.”
His comments came as hopes trials of a second candidate vaccine suggested it was nearly 95% effective against the virus.
The news from US biotech firm Moderna followed similar interim results last week for Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate vaccine.
In South Korea, officials reported more than 200 new coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, as the government considers tightening social distancing.
“We are at a critical crossroads where we might have to readjust distancing,” South Korean Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said.
“The current situation is taking a very dangerous turn considering the rising infections from daily lives and the unrelenting pace of the spread.”
- The US biotech firm Moderna has claimed that its Covid-19 vaccine is 94.5% effective, according to an interim analysis released on Monday and based on 95 patients with confirmed Covid infections. The company plans to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency-use authorisation.
- Greeting the news, the head of the World Health Organization said a vaccine will not by itself halt the pandemic.
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Scientists have expressed hope that the preliminary success of mRNA vaccines could be a “leap forward” for fighting other diseases, including cancer.
- France’s coronavirus hospitalisations reach new record. French health authorities have reported that the number of hospitalised coronavirus patients has increased by 416 to reach a new all-time high of 33,497, even as the number of new cases reached a more than one-month low.
- There have been a further 21,363 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, according to government data, raising the cumulative total to 1,390,681. A further 213 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Monday, bringing the total to 52,147.
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Greece has reported 2,198 new coronavirus infections and 59 fatalities. The country’s caseloads stands at 76,403, while 1,165 have died.
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Norway’s minority government and the opposition party have agreed on an increased economic support package of 22.1bn Norwegian crowns (£1.84bn) amid the continuing coronavirus crisis.
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The United States registered more than one million new coronavirus cases last week as new infections rose in every state except for Hawaii, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.
- A highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has been found in the pet section of a shop in one of Corsica’s main cities, the French farm ministry has announced. It follows Denmark ordering the culling of 25,000 chickens after detecting H5N8 bird flu on a farm.
