We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest, including updates from the New Zealand press conference happening shortly:
Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now.
I’ll be bringing you the latest global pandemic news for the next while. Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
All of New Zealand’s rest homes are entering a three-day lockdown after the first cases of community transmission of Covid-19 were discovered in the country after more than 100 days without any.
The city of Auckland, where the four new cases were diagnosed, has been placed in a strict lockdown, while the rest of the country faces lesser restrictions on gatherings.
The Aged Care Association said in a statement that it had advised all rest homes to move into a three day lockdown until midnight on Friday.
That means no visits and no staff moving between facilities, the chief executive, Simon Wallace, said.
The new cases were not diagnosed in a rest home, but almost all of New Zealand’s 22 deaths in its first Covid-19 outbreak were connected to such facilities.
World leaders based decisions on implementing lockdown measures on what neighbouring countries were doing to prevent the spread of the virus, a study has suggested.
In research of 36 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - including the UK, US and New Zealand - Swedish researchers examined when decisions such as school closures and restrictions on internal travel were implemented.
They found that despite differences in the spread of the virus, countries mimicked each other in a short space of time, with around 80% of OECD nations implementing multiple measures within a two week period in March.
The researchers said this was “striking” given the differences in the scale of the pandemic in each country, the preparedness of healthcare systems and the make-up of their populations.
The author, Prof Karl Wennberg, from the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Linkoping University, said:
We found that the decisions were not based on, or had a very weak correlation to, standard epidemiological indicators such as number of infections, number of deaths, intensive care capacity etc.
A much stronger determinant was whether many neighbouring countries had already implemented measures.
The researchers found that with the exception of population density, it was not primarily the country’s exposure to Covid-19, its demographics or healthcare capacity that determined how quickly a country will lockdown, but the number of countries who have already done so in the same region.
They added it was “at best a partial answer” that this was the case because the countries were uniformly exposed to the same threat of coronavirus.
Prof Wennberg told the PA news agency:
Politicians are very much human, they react and observe and are influenced by what their fellow leaders in neighbouring countries do.
The study also suggested countries with strong democracies are slower to implement restrictive policies, but are more likely to mimic the actions of their neighbours.
Prof Wennberg explained this may be due to the variety of voices that can influence democratic government including unions and corporate leaders as well as the public.
He added leaders of strong democracies may be less willing to impose strict measures such as curfews when compared to more authoritarian countries.
The authors, also from the universities of Uppsala and Gothenburg, said their work was not a judgment on when it would be optimal to take lockdown measures, but said countries may have done so too early or too late.
Prof Wennberg said he hoped the pattern would not be repeated with local peaks of the virus or a second wave to show leaders have learned. He said:
It’s very natural for human beings to mimic each other in times of great uncertainty but now we know much more about the virus and how it spreads and how it’s treated, my hope would be countries adopt much more precise and tailored measures for specific regions and cities.
The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Pnas).
Colombia topped 400,000 confirmed coronavirus cases on Tuesday, as deaths climb toward 13,500 and intensive care units in the capital Bogota remain near capacity.
The Andean country has 410,453 confirmed cases of the virus, the health ministry said in its daily tally, while deaths reached 13,475. Active cases number 165,698.
Colombia has been in nationwide lockdown since late March, though most businesses are gradually reopening or allowed to function via delivery.
Intensive care units in Bogota are at about 89% capacity, according to local health authorities. The capital is home to more than a third of Colombia’s cases.
Other major cities, including Medellin, Barranquilla and Cali have also been close to ICU capacity during lockdown, but are enjoying lower hospitalisation figures.
Russia has approved a controversial Covid-19 vaccine for widespread use after less than two months of human testing, including a dose administered to one of Vladimir Putin’s daughters.
The announcement that Russia was pushing ahead with large-scale manufacture and mass immunisation before so-called “phase 3” testing was greeted with criticism from experts who described the Russian approach as reckless and unethical, saying it risked exacerbating rather than helping manage the pandemic.
The World Health Organization said the vaccine should not be produced until it had completed phase 3 trials.
Get more on this story here:
Brazil on Tuesday registered 1,274 further coronavirus deaths, bringing the total death toll to 103,026, the health ministry said. Confirmed cases in the country rose by 52,160 to 3,109,630.
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New Zealanders on Wednesday scrambled to stock up on essentials as the country’s biggest city prepared to go into lockdown again, following new cases of the coronavirus that ended a 102-day record run without any new infections, Reuters reports.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced overnight that she was shutting down Auckland after four new cases of Covid-19 were discovered in the city from the same family, despite the international borders’ being shut to foreigners and returning New Zealanders put in mandatory quarantine.
The government has said the source of the new infections was unknown so far.
Long queues were reported outside supermarkets in Auckland and across other parts of the country, as people raced to stock up on food and other essential items before the new restrictions took effect from noon.
New Zealand’s biggest city will move back into alert level-3 lockdown, which would mean people should stay away from work and school, and gatherings or more than 10 people would again be restricted. The restrictions will be in effect for three days, until Friday.
The rest of New Zealand will move into level 2, meaning social distancing measures would be applied and mass gatherings would be limited to 100 people.
Health minister Chris Hipkins told Radio New Zealand on Wednesday that the government was considering making mask wearing mandatory for Aucklanders.
New Zealand’s successful fight against Covid-19 was hailed globally, and the Pacific island nation of 5 million was seen as one of the safest places, as the pandemic raged globally.
It marked 100 days without a domestic transmission of the coronavirus on Sunday, but warned against complacency as countries like Vietnam and Australia which once had the virus under control now battle resurgences.
Calls have grown to postpone the national election scheduled for 19 September, as political parties suspended campaigns due to the new restrictions.
“It’s going to be very difficult to have an election in mid-September when we are now mid-August,” opposition National Party leader Judith Collins told Newshub.
Ardern, who is seen winning comfortably, according to opinion polls, has said she has not yet considered the impact of the new restrictions on the polls.
Summary
As Australia wakes up, here’s a summary of some of the latest headlines from the last couple hours:
- Lebanon registered a record daily number of coronavirus cases. As the country grapples with the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion that has rocked the political sphere and overwhelmed hospitals, Lebanon’s totals now stand at 7,121 cases and 87 deaths since February, according to health ministry data. Even before the blast there had been a recent surge in infections.
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The Netherlands plans to introduce mandatory home quarantine for people identified by local authorities as having been in close contact with somebody infected with coronavirus, and for travellers returning from high-risk countries. The Dutch health minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to lawmakers that mandatory quarantine could be imposed if people refuse to isolate voluntarily. It comes amid rising infection rates in the Netherlands and an unwillingness among some people to adhere to social distancing measures and cooperate with contact tracing.
- Germany has extended a partial travel warning for Spain to the capital of Madrid and the Basque region amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The foreign ministry said it was warning against any unnecessary tourist trips to both regions because of a rising number of new infections and local restrictions put in place to contain the spread of the virus.
- The United States has reported a total of 5,064,171 cases of Covid-19 as of 4pm ET on 10 August, according to the CDC. That is an increase of 40,522 cases from its previous count. The number of deaths in the country rose by 565 to 162,407.
As we reported earlier, the Dutch health minister said he plans to introduce mandatory home quarantine for people identified by local authorities as having been in close contact with somebody infected with coronavirus, and for travellers returning from high-risk countries.
Health minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to lawmakers that mandatory quarantine could be imposed if people refuse to isolate voluntarily.
The move comes amid rising infection rates in the Netherlands and an unwillingness among some people to adhere to social distancing measures and cooperate with contact tracing.
“Mandatory quarantine is a tough measure but justified. Quarantine stops the spread of the virus so sticking to the rules is crucial,” De Jonge wrote.
He added that he also wants to introduce mandatory quarantine for travellers returning from countries considered a high risk for infections. It is not clear how soon such a measure can be implemented. De Jonge said that the move will require a law change.
The Dutch coronavirus quarantine currently stands at 14 days.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Dutch public health institute said there were 4,036 new confirmed infections in the last week, 1,448 more than the week earlier.
The institute said that the confirmed number of people who have died of Covid-19 rose by nine to 6,159. The true number of deaths could be higher because not all people who died of suspected Covid-19 were tested.
The increases come despite local initiatives aimed at reining in infections, which have been climbing since the Dutch government relaxed lockdown measures on 1 July.
The country’s two most populous cities - Amsterdam and Rotterdam - last week made use of face masks mandatory in a number of busy streets and markets.
The percentage of people who tested positive also is rising, from 2.3% in the previous week to 3.6% over the last seven days.
Dutch lawmakers are returning from their summer recess Wednesday for a debate on the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Germany has extended a partial travel warning for Spain to the capital of Madrid and the Basque region due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
The foreign ministry said it was warning against any unnecessary tourist trips to both regions because of a rising number of new infections and local restrictions put in place to contain the spread of coronavirus.
The German government had already issued travel warnings for the Spanish regions of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarra.
The Israel Museum has pulled the priceless Dead Sea scrolls out of a heavily fortified vault ahead of its reopening to the public following a five-month shutdown amid to the coronavirus pandemic.
The museum, Israel’s largest cultural institution, closed down in March as the country entered lockdown. But budgetary problems left the Jerusalem museum shuttered after Israel began easing restrictions on public spaces in May.
Most of the museum’s 500 employees have returned from months of furlough ahead of Thursday’s reopening, which will also see the return of other treasured artworks and artefacts. Throughout the empty galleries, curators and cleaners dusted off works, removed protective coverings and returned masterpieces from storage.
The Dead Sea scrolls fragile, two millennia-old parchments that include the oldest existing copies of Biblical texts came out of deep sleep in the museum’s climate-controlled vaults to return to display, Shrine of the Book curator Hagit Maoz said.
The delicate scrolls require low light and humidity for their long-term preservation.
Each scroll sits in the showcase only for three months, then we rotate the parts,” said Maoz. Because we didn’t know how long we won’t be here ... to be on the safe side we decided to take everything down” to the vault.
In the museum’s modern art wing, senior curator Adina Kamien oversaw the re-installation of several statues by celebrated French sculptor Auguste Rodin, including the iconic “The Kiss”. She said:
I feel that the museum is returning to life. A museum that can’t welcome its patrons is a dead museum. An artwork and exhibit are not complete without visitors.
Though the country began rebooting the economy in May, the Israel Museum struggled to raise funding to allow it to sustainably open for the duration of the crisis, director Ido Bruno said.
Israel closed its borders at the start of the lockdown, and the international tourism on which the museum relies for ticket sales plummeted from a record high of over 900,000 visitors in 2019 to zero by mid-March. The museum received funds from American donors and a pledge of funds from the culture ministry that helped it reopen.
In line with health ministry regulations, entry to the museum will be restricted to a cap of 2,000 people at any given time, and tickets must be ordered online in advance.
“Its very, very difficult to be a director of a closed museum, because museums want to be open,” Bruno said.
They want to welcome people. They want to open up.
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Updated
Lebanon registers record daily number of coronavirus cases after blast
Lebanon has announced a record daily number of Covid-19 infections, more than 300, and seven deaths from the virus as the country grapples with the aftermath of the port explosion that rocked Beirut and overwhelmed hospitals.
The country’s totals now stand at 7,121 cases and 87 deaths since February, according to health ministry data. Even before the blast there had been a recent surge in infections.
The 4 August explosion killed at least 171 people, injured about 6,000 and damaged swathes of the capital, leaving around 300,000 people without habitable housing. Hospitals, many of which were damaged and their staff injured, were overwhelmed with wounded people.
The World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jarasevic told a United Nations briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that the displacement of so many people risked accelerating the spread of Covid-19.
The WHO on 7 August issued an appeal for $15m to cover emergency health needs in Lebanon, where the healthcare sector was already under strain owing to shortages of medical supplies and medicine caused by a deep financial crisis.
“The emergency in Beirut has caused many Covid-19 precautionary measures to be relaxed, raising the prospects of even higher transmission rates and a large caseload in coming weeks,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report on 10 August.
It said at least 15 medical facilities, including three major hospitals, sustained partial or heavy structural damage from the blast. An assessment of 55 primary healthcare centres in Beirut showed only 47% could still provide full routine services.
Updated
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday reported 5,064,171 cases of coronavirus. That is an increase of 40,522 cases from its previous count. The CDC said the number of deaths in the country had risen by 565 to 162,407.
The CDC reported its tally of cases of Covid-19 as of 4pm ET on 10 August versus its previous report a day earlier.
The figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.
The Dutch government plans to order mandatory quarantine for people who are known to have been exposed to the coronavirus, national broadcaster NOS reported on Tuesday, citing a letter to parliament.
The decision follows a 55% rise in the number of positive cases in the Netherlands to 4,036 in the past week from 2,588 cases the week before.
A total of 1,148 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the United Kingdom as of 9am GMT on Tuesday, compared with a figure of 816 on Monday, UK government data showed. The cumulative total of confirmed UK cases stood at 312,789.
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Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest news:
- The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said his country has granted the first regulatory approval to a Covid-19 vaccine. The announcement came after less than two months of human testing. The country’s sovereign wealth fund said the vaccine would be named Sputnik V, in a reference to the cold war space race.
- The news from Moscow was greeted with some scepticism. Experts highlighted the lack of proper phase-3 testing, with one warning that “collateral damage from release of any vaccine that was less than safe and effective would exacerbate our current problems insurmountably”.
- The WHO said it had not received enough information to evaluate the Russian vaccine. The Pan American Health Organization said the vaccine should not be introduced in Brazil, as has been reportedly planned, until phase 2 and 3 trials are completed.
- New Zealand’s largest city is to go into lockdown. Restrictions were announced for Auckland after the first community transmission in more than 100 days was detected. All restrictions on daily life had eased in early June when the last remaining Covid-19 case recorded in the community recovered.
- Auckland residents were told that from midday Wednesday they were not to gather in large numbers and to work from home if possible. The rest of New Zealand will have measures imposed too.
- Employment in the UK fell by the largest amount in over a decade between May and July, according to official figures. Employment decreased by 220,000 on the quarter, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
- Covid-19 infections have passed 20 million cases. In acknowledging the milestone, the head of the WHO warned against despair, saying if the virus could be suppressed effectively, “we can safely open up societies”.
- The Trump administration is reportedly considering a measure to block US citizens and permanent residents from returning home if they are suspected of being infected with coronavirus. A senior US official told Reuters that draft regulation, which has not been finalised and could change, would give the government authorisation to block individuals who could “reasonably” be believed to have contracted Covid-19 or other diseases.
- Singapore’s economy shrank almost 43% in the second quarter, in a sign that the country’s first recession in more than a decade was deeper than initially estimated, official data showed on Tuesday, AFP reports, as it warned of a “true resurgence” or “risk of further escalation of Covid-19” in several countries.
- Concern is growing that a resurgence of coronavirus in Europe will lead to a “second wave” of uncoordinated border restrictions. In a letter, the European commission warns that “while we must ensure that the EU is ready for possible resurgences of Covid-19 cases … we should at the same time avoid a second wave of uncoordinated actions at the internal borders of the EU”.
- Greece is “formally” in the midst of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the country’s top infectious disease experts said, adding: “We can say that Greece has formally entered a second wave of the epidemic. This is the point that we could win or lose the battle.”
- Wearing a face mask became compulsory on dozens of busy Paris shopping streets and in other popular parts of the city from 8am on Monday as coronavirus numbers continued to rise in and around the French capital.
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Authorities in Iran shut down a newspaper after it published remarks by an expert who cast doubt on official coronavirus figures, claiming they only account for 5% of the real toll. Meanwhile, 189 more people died from Covid-19 and 2,132 more people had tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said.
- There is a huge gap between funds needed to fight the coronavirus and funds committed worldwide, the World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said. Tedros said that ACT accelerator, an initiative established to develop and distribute tools to counter the spread of the pandemic, had received just one-tenth of the funding it needed.
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Standing outside the high cemetery walls as a sharp breeze blows down from the Andes, Mauricio Castiblanco pulls on a disposable coverall, adjusts his mask under a face shield, and snaps on latex gloves.
He adds extras to his personal protective equipment (PPE), befitting his role as a Catholic deacon: a purple sash decorated with an embroidered red cross, a plastic bottle of holy water, and a book of funeral rites.
Castiblanco, who works at a Bogotá funeral home, is getting ready to receive four hearses bearing the bodies of presumed or confirmed Covid-19 victims.
As Latin America becomes the new global hotspot for the pandemic, Colombia is set to pass 400,000 confirmed cases; the eighth-highest total in the world. That is despite five months of nationwide lockdown.
The disease has killed more than 13,000 people in Colombia. Intensive care units (ICUs) in the capital are close to capacity. Families have been allowed a brief wake and now Castiblanco will lead a curbside ceremony, witnessed by journalists from Reuters and other news agencies, before the hearse disappears into the cemetery. Entry is barred for all but burial workers and the dead. He tells mourners:
This goodbye is even more painful. This doesn’t give us time, it’s against the clock.
The health ministry has banned the embalming of remains from confirmed and suspected Covid-19 patients. Instead, they must be cremated or buried quickly in individual tombs. Castiblanco says:
It’s really impacted me because we did have a gentle rhythm, unhurried, but we’ve gotten to the point where we have to abandon our usual locations, our wake rooms, our chapels. The [number of] services is incalculable, there are so many.
Soon, there is a traffic jam of hearses and family transport. Castiblanco gathers each family for prayers, accompanied by a violinist, before he douses the vehicle in holy water.
One victim, not yet a confirmed Covid-19 death, was just 44, a relative tells Reuters. Castiblanco says the ceremony helps families longing for usual graveside rites. He also urges them to remember that loved ones “haven’t died, they’ve just gone ahead”.
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The Brazilian health regulator Anvisa has said it has not received a request to authorise Russia’s newly touted vaccine, which the Paraná state government has said it is in talks to produce locally.
Anvisa said it could not comment on the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine before getting official data from the Russian laboratory responsible for the vaccine. Russia has said it is ready to bring the vaccine to market, despite not having finished standard mass testing.
A large coalition of labour unions and climate action groups have petitioned the US health and homeland security departments to take over the manufacture and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE).
The unions, including the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers and the Amalgamated Transit Union, represent more than 15 million workers, from nurses to flight attendants to nannies. The administration is required to respond within 15 days.
The groups could sue if they do not receive a response.
Healthcare and other frontline workers have experienced rolling shortages of gowns, gloves and critical N95 face masks since March, when the pandemic broke the global supply chain for such products. Healthcare workers could make up between 10% and 20% of total infections, the petition said, citing previous health authority estimates.
“It’s terrifying to risk your life every day just by going to work. It brings a lot of things into perspective,” said Rick Lucas, the president of the Ohio State University Nurses Organization and a nurse at Ohio State University Wexner medical center.
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French health authorities reported 1,397 new infections over 24 hours on Tuesday; almost twice Monday’s tally.
The health ministry said there were 15 new deaths in hospital due the disease, compared to an increase of 16 over a three-day period between Saturday and Monday, with the total death toll standing at 30,354. The number of people hospitalised with the disease went down again after creeping up Monday for the first time in two and a half months.
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Amid increasing public clashes with his top public health advisers on the pandemic, the US president Donald Trump appears to have turned to an academic whose views on swift reopening mirror his own.
On Monday, the president said Scott Atlas, a healthcare policy expert at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, “will be working with us on the coronavirus”, adding that Atlas “has many great ideas”.
Atlas appears to be more in tune with Trump’s thinking on the virus after the president publicly criticised both of his top pandemic officials, Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, over concerns they raised about the disastrous spread of Covid-19 in the US and the danger of allowing students to return to school.
Spain’s health ministry reported 1,418 new cases on Tuesday; below last week’s peaks.
Cumulative cases, which also include results from antibody tests on people who may have recovered, increased further to reach a total of 326,612.
The disease claimed 64 lives over the past seven days, the statistics showed. In total, more than 28,500 people have died from the disease in Spain, one of Europe’s hardest-hit countries.
Since lifting a nationwide lockdown, Spain has struggled to contain a rise in new infections, with heavy concentrations in the populous regions of Madrid and Catalonia.
New infections recorded on Monday and Tuesday were however below last week’s peak of 1,895, reported on Friday.
Here’s a little more detail on those comments from the WHO’s director in the Americas Carissa Etienne, who has noted concerning spikes in countries that had controlled their epidemics.
She said there was an increase in cases in Central America, where Belize reported its highest number of new infections this week. The Dominican Republic has more cases than all other Caribbean island nations combined.
Etienne said the stress on healthcare services threatened an increase in illnesses that were under control, such as TB, HIV and hepatitis, and more people will die from preventable and treatable conditions.
The Pan American Health Organization has data indicating that 30% of people living with HIV, a preventable and treatable virus, are avoiding seeking care during the pandemic, and countries have limited supplies of antiretrovirals, she said.
This is worrisome since without continued care and consistent medications, people living with HIV are more likely to become ill and to pass it to their partners.
Cases of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, however, have fallen, because people are stuck at home during the pandemic and less prone to getting bitten by mosquitoes.
Health systems must make it easier for patients to be treated by expanding telemedicine and offering more care outside hospital settings, Etienne said.
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Dental patients and staff need to be protected from any potential infection by aerosol-generating procedures, the World Health Organization has said, as dentists return to work in areas where the pandemic is easing.
There is currently no data on the spread of coronavirus from the dentist’s chair, it said, calling for more research into common procedures that produce tiny floating particles that may cause infection if inhaled.
These include three-way air/water spray, ultrasonic cleaning equipment that removes deposits from the tooth surface, and polishing, the WHO said. Dr Benoit Varenne, a dental officer with the organisation, told a news briefing:
WHO guidance recommends in case of community transmission to give priority to urgent or emergency oral cases, to avoid or minimise procedures that may generate aerosol, prioritise a set of clinical interventions that are performed using an instrument and of course to delay routine non-essential oral health care.
The likelihood of Covid-19 being transmitted through aerosol, micro-particles or airborne particles ... today I think is unknown, it’s open to question at least. This means that more research is needed.
Last month, the WHO released general guidelines on the transmission of the coronavirus which acknowledged some reports of airborne transmission, but stopped short of confirming that the virus spreads through the air. Dental facilities must have adequate ventilation to reduce the risk of the virus spreading in closed settings, it said on Tuesday.
We think that the most pressing issue is related to the availability of essential personal protective equipment, PPE, for all health care personnel undertaking or assisting in the clinical procedures.
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WHO – not enough information to evaluate Russian vaccine
The World Health Organization has not received enough information on the Russian vaccine to evaluate it, the assistant director of its regional branch the Pan American Health Organization has said.
Asked about plans to produce the potential vaccine in Brazil, Jarbas Barbosa said that should not be done until phase 2 and 3 trials are completed to guarantee its safety and effectiveness.
Any vaccine producer has to follow this procedure that guarantees it is safe and has the WHO’s recommendation.
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Auckland has been swiftly put under a three-day lockdown after four cases were confirmed in one family in the city.
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, made the announcement at a late-night press conference after 102 days without any community transmission in New Zealand. The family had not travelled overseas and the source of the infection was unknown.
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More than 100,000 cases are being reported every day in the Americas, half of them in the United States, and there are worrisome spikes in countries that had controlled their epidemics, like Argentina and Colombia, the World Health Organization regional director Carissa Etienne said on Tuesday.
“Our region remains under Covid’s grip,” she said in a virtual briefing from Washington with other Pan American Health Organization directors. Etienne said the disruption of healthcare services threatened an increase in illnesses that were under control such as TB, HIV and hepatitis.
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Barcelona’s city council has said it will fund a child-minding service in six low-income areas come September in a bid to ease the pandemic’s impact on gender and social inequality.
Operating seven days a week from 8am to 8pm (CEST), the service will prioritise requests from single mothers and households with limited incomes, among others.
The five-month pilot scheme comes as campaign groups warn that the pandemic is having a devastating effect on gender equality. As women bear the brunt of the extra childcare and household duties demanded by the pandemic, decades of progress risk being rolled back.
The pandemic has made us reflect on the care crisis that we are in,” said Barcelona city councillor Laura Pérez, citing women who were forced to decide between quitting their jobs or leaving their children at home alone after the pandemic shuttered schools. “The objective is to provide more tools so that families in our city can balance their family, personal and work life.”
The scope of the project in Barcelona is fairly limited, however, with capacity for around 40 children per hour, ranging in age from three to 12 years-old.
The initiative is part of a broader effort by the city to tackle the socio-economic fallout of the pandemic. A recent study published last week in the Journal of Public Health suggested that the pandemic has disproportionately hit Barcelona’s poorest neighbourhoods, with 2.5 times more cases documented in the city’s lowest-income district as compared to its highest.
The pilot project is set to launch in September, as uncertainty continues to cloud children’s return to school – a scenario further complicated by the surge in new cases seen across Spain in recent weeks.
To date, Spain has recorded 322,980 cases, according to data from the health ministry, overtaking Britain to register the highest total number of cases in western Europe.
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That’s all from me, Caroline Davies. Handing back over to my colleague Kevin Rawlinson. Thank you for your time.
Britain will be officially declared in recession for the first time since the financial crisis on Wednesday when figures are set to show the pandemic sent the economy plunging by a record 21% between April and June.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is expected to confirm the mammoth second quarter contraction, the worst in western Europe, and the UK’s nosedive into recession after a 2.2% fall in the first three months of 2020, PA media reports.
A recession is defined as two successive quarters of decline in gross domestic product (GDP), which has not been seen in the UK since 2008 and 2009 during the financial crisis.
It comes after ONS data showed around 730,000 UK workers had been removed from the payrolls of British companies since March when the coronavirus lockdown began in a sign of the toll taken on the economy by the pandemic.
Employment also dropped by the largest amount in a quarter since 2009 between May and June.
But despite the record-breaking GDP slump expected for the second quarter, experts will be keenly watching the monthly figure for June amid predictions it will show a sharp 8% bounce-back as lockdown restrictions eased further.
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A huge wave of evictions is gathering pace across the US, with tens of millions of people facing the looming prospect of being ejected from their homes with the expiry of federal government protections, Oliver Milman reports from New York.
A moratorium on evictions from most federally backed housing, along with a $600-a-week unemployment benefit, helped ensure many Americans avoided being made homeless from an economic crash sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.
But these protections expired at the end of July and a slew of evictions are starting to unfurl across the country, while party leaders are at an impasse over further economic relief and a slew of stopgap measures from Donald Trump are on an uncertain path.
A picture shared widely on the internet described “eviction cairns” in New Orleans, showing belongings heaped beside the road, reportedly from a family of six that had been evicted from their home after being unable to pay rent.
You can read Oliver’s report here:
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More than 500 public figures in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo today demanded an “urgent” response from authorities to tighten measures against the coronavirus after a worrying spike in new cases.
Alarm bells are ringing as Bosnia, a poor Balkan country of 3.5 million people, faces record daily numbers of deaths from Covid-19, AFP reports.
According to official data, 22 deaths were logged over a 24-hour period on Tuesday, the highest toll yet in a country where nearly 450 lives have been lost.
In an open letter, writers, doctors, journalists and other public figures said they were “frightened by the lack of an even minimal necessary institutional response” to the resurgence of the epidemic.
After lifting a strict lockdown at the end of April, authorities have imposed few mandatory restrictions, instead issuing recommendations with weak enforcement.
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The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has insisted it will be safe for children to return to school in England in September despite reports a study has found secondary school pupils transmit coronavirus like adults do.
Johnson said he had “no doubt” that schools would be able to reopen, but stressed the need for discipline to prevent the spread of the virus.
The UK education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has insisted that research shows “little evidence that the virus is transmitted at school”, and the health minister Edward Argar has warned against reading too much into the unpublished work by Public Health England (PHE).
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Hi. Caroline Davies here. I will be at the helm of the live blog for a short while. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
The US hopes to have a vaccine approved by December, its health secretary Alex Azar has said, as he tamped down Russia’s celebrations at choosing to approve its own vaccine after rapid development.
The point is not to be first. The point is to have a vaccine that is safe and effective for the American people and the people of the world.
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The race to find a vaccine against Covid-19 has not always been particularly edifying, driven at times by so-called “vaccine nationalism” – much cautioned against by the World Health Organization, which has itself been invested as much in self-interest and prestige as global public health.
Russia’s announcement that it has registered its Sputnik V vaccine as safe and effective for mass production and mass inoculation even before so-called phase 3 large-scale safety trials, which usually take months, fits the pattern.
Amid a desire across the globe to return to the pre-pandemic normal, any vaccine might seem like a light at the end of the tunnel, but is it?
Mexico will conduct late-stage clinical trials for vaccines in development by Johnson & Johnson and two Chinese companies, its foreign ministry has said.
Large-scale, phase three human testing for the J&J unit Janssen Pharmaceuticals’s candidate could start in the second half of September, the company has previously said. Mexico will also help test candidates for Chinese companies Cansino Biologics Inc and Walvax Biotechnology Co Ltd, the ministry said in a presentation at a news conference.
India’s ability to rein in a surging outbreak hinges on its 10 most populous states, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has said, urging regional leaders to ramp up testing and contact tracing.
India has more than 2.2 million confirmed infections; the world’s third-worst tally after the US and Brazil.
“If we can defeat corona in these 10 states, the country will win,” Modi said in a video conference with state chief ministers. The 10 states accounted for 80% of its 639,929 active cases and 82% of its 45,257 deaths, Modi said.
India has reported at least 50,000 cases every day since 30 July, according to Reuters. And experts worry the already burdened health system may not be able to take the strain as infections spread to the hinterland.
Modi said five states, including the two poorer northern provinces of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which have a combined population of more than 300 million, needed to ramp up testing. Experts have cited India’s low testing rate as a cause for concern.
India has a mortality rate of 1.99%; lower than the global average of 3.65%. But Modi said state governments should aim to push it lower still.
Indian politicians have been infected in recent days, including the former president Pranab Mukherjee. Local media report said he was put on ventilator support after undergoing surgery.
The 84-year-old, who served as president between 2012 and 2017, also led the federal defence, foreign and finance ministries over a decades-long career.
Updated
Vietnam has reported 16 more infections and one new death, taking the total number of cases in the south-east Asian country to 863, of which 16 have been fatalities.
Most of the new cases are linked to the central city of Danang, where the new outbreak began late in July after Vietnam had been more than three months without domestic transmission.
According to Reuters, the health ministry has said more than 165,000 people are being quarantined in the country.
Updated
Cases in Belgium are rising at a slower rate than last month, after a leading virologist warned the country was entering a critical week.
The latest official data show an 11% week-on-week increase in cases, compared to a 58% jump in mid-July. In the week until 7 August there were an average of 588 new cases a day, with average daily deaths in low single figures.
At the height of the pandemic in March and April there were between 1,000 and 1,700 new cases a day, and 300-400 deaths.
More people are also being tested: the latest weekly figures show the average number of daily tests stands at 558, up 11% on the previous week.
The leading virologist Marc Van Ranst told the Belgian newspaper De Morgen earlier this week that the country was entering a “crucial” week.
“If the current stricter rules do not work, we will move towards lockdown again,” he said in comments reported by the Brussels Times. “We know that that worked, even though it hurt us.”
The British government last week imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine on all travellers from Belgium, because of the surge in cases.
Cases have begun to decline in Antwerp, a recent virus hotspot, but continue to rise in Brussels and the province of Liège.
The Belgian government has also rejected calls to limit trains going to the Belgian coast, after a weekend beach brawl prompted calls for restrictions on the number of people who could visit the seaside.
Updated
New confirmed cases in the Netherlands jumped to 4,036 in the past week, continuing the rapid increase seen since the easing of lockdown measures last month, Dutch health authorities have said.
The number of infections was up 55% from the 2,588 cases reported over the previous week.
Updated
The name of the newly approved Russian vaccine makes reference to what Moscow sees as one of its great cold war scientific and technological successes: the world’s first satellite.
Reuters reports that Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the country’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, said Moscow had already received requests from more than 20 countries for 1bn doses of the vaccine.
He was speaking after the president, Vladimir Putin, announced the approval after less than two months of human testing.
The speed at which Russia is moving to roll out the vaccine has prompted some international scientists to question whether Moscow is putting national prestige before solid science and safety.
Updated
My colleague Peter Beaumont has put together this detailed story on the Russian vaccine, which the Russian sovereign wealth fund is reportedly saying will be labelled “Sputnik V” for international markets:
While the approval paves the way for mass inoculations in Russia, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, it is unlikely to accelerate the pace of efforts to produce a vaccine for use in the west, where licensing requirements are more stringent.
Russian authorities have said that medical workers, teachers and other at-risk groups will be the first to be inoculated, planned to begin in October.
Russian officials have treated the race to produce a vaccine as akin to the cold war space race, leading to suggestions in some quarters that international prestige had been given precedence over safety.
Speaking at a government meeting on state television, Putin said the vaccine, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, was safe and that it had even been administered to one of his daughters, appearing to confirm a report by Bloomberg that the families of some members of Russia’s elite had been given early preferential access to the vaccine, perhaps as early as April.
Putin said that his daughter had a temperature of 38C on the day of the first vaccine injection, and then it dropped to just over 37C on the following day. After the second shot she again had a slight increase in temperature, but then it was all over.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and Russian health authorities are discussing the process for possible WHO pre-qualification for its newly approved vaccine, a WHO spokesman has said.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said his nation has become the world’s first to grant regulatory approval to a vaccine. It comes after less than two months of human testing, a move hailed by Moscow as evidence of its scientific prowess. The WHO’s spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a UN briefing in Geneva:
We are in close contact with Russian health authorities and discussions are ongoing with respect to possible WHO pre-qualification of the vaccine but, again, pre-qualification of any vaccine includes the rigorous review and assessment of all required safety and efficacy data.
Updated
Germany’s hospitality sector is starting to discuss ways in which it can prepare itself for a winter with coronavirus, amid fears that many pubs, restaurants and hotels are heading for bankruptcy if they cannot find long-term solutions for adapting to hygiene rules.
In the southern city of Munich, the city council has said its goal is to ensure patrons stay outside for as long as possible. It has called on landlords and restaurateurs to come up with creative ideas compatible with cold weather.
The feedback so far has included the installation of infra red patio heaters, or offering guests blankets, even hot water bottles, which it has suggested could encourage a whole new era of al fresco dining.
Other suggestions have included allowing people to order and consume their drinks on the pavement. Some landlords are even looking at the idea of allowing patrons to participate in Eisstockschiessen or ice stock shooting – an alpine sport similar to curling – on restaurant terraces that would otherwise be closed for winter. This would help some pubs and restaurants to make up for months of custom they lost during the height of the lockdown.
Environmentalists are warning that many patio heaters – known as Heizpilze or heat mushrooms in German – are not ecological, and that a green alternative must be found.
The association representing the economic, social and professional interests of the hospitality industry, from luxury hotels to works canteens, has warned that a survey suggested 60% of its 7,200 members are concerned they will not survive the crisis.
The long closure, coupled with the distancing rules, have halved the number of guests. Between January and July, establishments experienced a 60.1% drop in turnover, which reduces to 51% when spread over the whole year.
Updated
Hello, this is Kevin Rawlinson taking over the blog from Aamna Mohdin. I’ll be with you for the next few hours. I’d like to hear from you and the best way to get in touch is via Twitter, where I’m KevinJRawlinson.
New Zealand is less than six weeks from an election, with lawmakers crossing the country in whistlestop tours. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister – who has recently been in Auckland where the Covid-19 outbreak has been recorded – said she would remain in Wellington for the next three days.
The three-day restrictions on the country, which are most stringent in Auckland, could be extended longer than the three days. But that gives officials the chance to find where the outbreak of four cases in Auckland has come from.
“We’re expecting to see other cases,” said Ashley Bloomfield, the country’s top health official. “We want to find those other cases as soon as possible and identify or isolate any contacts.”
Only those who are returning home are allowed to enter Auckland – and only those who live elsewhere are allowed to leave New Zealand’s largest city.
Updated
New Zealand tells all residents to work from home if possible and avoid large gatherings
Auckland, New Zealand, will move into a restrictive phase of lockdown – the second strictest available – for the next three days. But the rest of the country will have measures imposed too.
All restrictions on daily life had eased in early June when the last remaining Covid-19 case recorded in the community recovered. From tomorrow, outside of the city of Auckland, where the cases were recorded, New Zealanders will not be allowed to gather in large numbers, and should work from home if possible.
“I know that this information will be very difficult to receive,” Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, said during a late-night news conference.
“As a team we have also been here before,” she told New Zealanders. “We know that if we have a plan and stick to it we can work our way through difficult and unknown situations.”
Updated
Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, to be placed in a restrictive phase of lockdown for three days
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, says “many questions remain” about the four new cases of Covid-19 diagnosed in the community – after 102 days of no such cases in the country.
She has announced that as of 12pm on Wednesday, Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, will be placed in a restrictive phase of lockdown for three days.
Ardern said the most important thing was “tracing this case back to its original origin”.
“We have not been able to determine the source of these cases,” she told reporters in a late-night news conference, of the four new cases.
Those diagnosed had no known link to the managed isolation facilities for returning travellers, nor to the country’s borders, where all recorded cases of the virus have been registered.
All schools and childcare facilities will be closed in Auckland from tomorrow, except for classes for the children of essential workers.
Updated
New Zealand records first community transmission of Covid-19 in over 100 days
After 102 days New Zealand has its first cases of Covid-19 outside of a managed isolation or quarantine facility, Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, has just told reporters in a late-night news conference.
There are four confirmed cases of Covid-19 in one family in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland. The family had not travelled from overseas and the source of the infection is unknown.
This is significant because the country had not recorded transmission of the virus within the community in more than three months and daily life had returned to normal, except for strict border controls. All 22 known cases of the virus before this announcement were among returning travellers quarantined in isolation facilities.
The latest case in New Zealand was diagnosed in a person in their 50s who lives in south Auckland. That person was tested on Monday; a second test on Tuesday was also positive. The person had no history of overseas travel.
Three other family members of the six in the house have tested positive for the coronavirus; the others have tested negative.
Ardern has not yet announced what restrictions will be imposed as a result.
Updated
Ireland is to increase testing at meat plants and asylum seeker centres after a spate of Covid-19 outbreaks sent the country’s incidence of cases surging past that of the UK for the first time.
In recent weeks Ireland’s cases per 100,000 people rocketed from around 5 to 16.9, overtaking the UK rate of 16.5, according to the European Centre for Disease Control.
Irish health officials cited clusters at meat packing factories in the midlands and to a lesser extent to refugee shelters known as direct provision centres. Restrictions were imposed last weekend on the counties of Kildare, Laois and Offaly.
Compared to last week daily cases have fallen in recent days but Ronan Glynn, the acting chief medical officer, said it could be next week before authorities know if the outbreaks have been tamed.
The spike has has increased scrutiny on meat plants, which rely on foreign, low-paid workers. “It is not logical that a factory can run such labour intensive production at the same pace prior to the pandemic,” said Edel McGinley, director of Migrant Rights Centre Ireland. “It’s time that workers lives are valued more than profits.”
The cabinet sub-committee on Covid-19 is to meet via video link on Tuesday. The health minister, Stephen Donnelly, is expected to announce further testing at meat plants and direct provision centres.
Updated
Putin says Russia has become first country to grant regulatory approval to a Covid-19 vaccine
President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia had become the first country in the world to grant regulatory approval to a Covid-19 vaccine after less than two months of human testing, Reuters reports.
Speaking at a government meeting on state television, Putin said the vaccine, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, was safe and that it had even been administered to one of his daughters.
“I know that it works quite effectively, forms strong immunity, and I repeat, it has passed all the needed checks,” Putin added.
There are however concerns about the speed at which Russia is moving to roll out its vaccine, with some concerned that it may be putting national prestige before sound science and safety.
Putin hoped the country would soon start mass-producing the vaccine.
Its approval by the health ministry comes before the start of a larger trial involving thousands of participants, commonly known as a Phase III trial.
Such trials, which require a certain rate of participants catching the virus to observe the vaccine’s effect, are normally considered essential precursors for a vaccine to receive regulatory approval.
Updated
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, is about to hold an unscheduled news conference at 9.15pm local time, along with the country’s top health official.
The country has recorded 102 days of no community transmission of Covid-19, and all 22 diagnosed cases – at this point – are contained among returning travellers at quarantine facilities.
This afternoon, however, a rest home in the city of Christchurch was placed in lockdown after reports of flu-like symptoms among residents.
The Guardian will bring you news from Ardern’s briefing as it happens.
Updated
Indonesia has reported 1,693 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing the country’s total tally of infections to 128,776, Reuters reports, citing data from the country’s health ministry.
The data also showed an additional 59 deaths, taking the total to 5,824, the highest Covid-19 death toll in south-east Asia.
Meanwhile, the Philippines reported 2,987 new coronavirus infections, Reuters said. The tally of confirmed cases now stands at 139,538, the highest in south-east Asia. A health ministry bulletin also reported 19 more fatalities, bringing the country’s death toll to 2,312.
Updated
Russia registered 4,945 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, pushing its national case tally to 897,599, the fourth largest in the world, Reuters reports.
The official death toll rose to 15,131 after authorities said in their daily coronavirus report that 130 people had died in the previous 24 hours.
Updated
UK employment falls by largest amount for a decade
Official figures show employment in the UK fell by the largest amount in over a decade between May and July.
Employment decreased by 220,000 on the quarter, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
This was the largest quarterly decrease since May to July 2009, it added. Unemployment has not surged as much as feared, because large numbers of firms have put employees on the government-backed furlough scheme.
Economists warn the full effect on employment will not be felt until the scheme ends in October.
For more information, follow the UK liveblog.
Bhutan has ordered its first nationwide lockdown on Tuesday after a returning resident who tested positive for coronavirus came in close contact with people in the capital Thimphu, Reuters reports.
The lockdown was ordered after a 27-year-old Bhutanese woman, who returned from Kuwait and was discharged from quarantine after testing negative, tested positive at a clinic on Monday.
The case took the total in the tiny Himalayan kingdom to 113, still the lowest in south Asia. The country has yet to record a fatality. The lockdown will restrict movement of people and vehicles in the largely Buddhist nation of 750,000 people.
The government said in a statement:
The unprecedented lockdown is enforced to identify and isolate all positive cases, immediately breaking the chain of transmission.
Everyone is asked to stay home to protect themselves and their families from the disease, should there be undetected, rampant transmission.
Updated
I’m Aamna and I’ll be taking over the liveblog. If you want to get in touch, you can email me (aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com)
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thanks for following along – and stay tuned for the latest with my colleague Aamna Mohdin.
Global report: coronavirus cases pass 20m as WHO points to ‘green shoots of hope’
Nearly five months to the day since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, Covid-19 infections have passed 20m cases. In acknowledging the milestone, the health body’s chief warned against despair, saying if the virus could be suppressed effectively, “we can safely open up societies”.
Global cases reached 1m at the start of April. By 22 May, there were 5m cases. That figure had doubled to 10m cases by the end of June, and, seven weeks later, it had doubled again to 20m infections.
The WHO’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said he thinks despite the “great deal of pain and suffering” and the growing numbers, “there are green shoots of hope and … it’s never too late to turn the outbreak around”.
Tedros gave examples of countries that had successfully clamped down on the spread of Covid-19, citing New Zealand and Rwanda, and praised nations that had suffered major national outbreaks and were now responding quickly to local spikes:
Updated
The rise above 1,000 daily confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the UK breaches the ceiling that the government’s own Joint Biosecurity Centre said was acceptable in May, it has emerged.
After the number of tested and confirmed cases rose to 1,062 in 24 hours at the weekend – the first time the daily total has exceeded 1,000 since late June – a senior public health expert said the escalation was “unacceptable, ineffective and dangerous”.
Prof Gabriel Scally, president of epidemiology and public health at the Royal Society of Medicine and a member of Independent Sage, said the government was failing to suppress the virus by its own standards:
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
-
Covid-19 infections have passed 20 million cases. In acknowledging the milestone, the health body’s chief warned against despair, saying if the virus could be suppressed effectively, “we can safely open up societies”.
- The Trump administration is reportedly considering a measure to block US citizens and permanent residents from returning home if they are suspected of being infected with coronavirus. A senior US official told Reuters that draft regulation, which has not been finalised and could change, would give the government authorisation to block individuals who could “reasonably” be believed to have contracted Covid-19 or other diseases.
- Singapore’s virus-hammered economy shrank almost 43% in the second quarter, in a sign that the country’s first recession in more than a decade was deeper than initially estimated, official data showed on Tuesday, AFP reports, as it warned of a “true resurgence” or “risk of further escalation of Covid-19” in several countries.
- Concern is growing that a resurgence of coronavirus in Europe will lead to a “second wave” of uncoordinated border restrictions. In a letter, the European commission warns that “while we must ensure that the EU is ready for possible resurgences of Covid-19 cases … we should at the same time avoid a second wave of uncoordinated actions at the internal borders of the EU”.
- Greece is “formally” in the midst of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the country’s top infectious disease experts said, adding: “We can say that Greece has formally entered a second wave of the epidemic. This is the point that we could win or lose the battle.”
- Wearing a face mask became compulsory on dozens of busy Paris shopping streets and in other popular parts of the city from 8am on Monday as coronavirus numbers continued to rise in and around the French capital.
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Authorities in Iran shut down a newspaper after it published remarks by an expert who cast doubt on official coronavirus figures, claiming they only account for 5% of the real toll. Meanwhile, 189 more people died from Covid-19 and 2,132 more people had tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said.
- There is a huge gap between funds needed to fight the coronavirus and funds committed worldwide, the World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said. Tedros said that ACT accelerator, an initiative established to develop and distribute tools to counter the spread of the pandemic, had received just one-tenth of the funding it needed.
Updated
The Chief Minister of Australia’s Northern Territory, Michael Gunner, has announced that border controls barring people from coronavirus hotspots from entering the area are likely to be in place for 18 months, saying, the ABC reports, that “the Northern Territory is ‘much more likely’ to add more Covid-19 hotspots and ban more Australians from travelling to the NT than to remove any current declared hotspot areas.”
Most Australians have been allowed to visit the NT since 17 July, but those travelling from hotspots have to undergo a two-week quarantine:
Mr Gunner, who faces an election on August 22 and has been campaigning on his Government’s handling of coronavirus, said the NT was planning to maintain border controls for at least 18 months.
‘My advice to every Territorian is if you can stay in the Territory. You’re safe here, don’t go,’ he said.
‘If you can, cancel your Christmas holiday plans and stay here in the Northern Territory.
‘We’re working towards at least an 18-month window from today towards the end of next year if how we are resourcing our borders.
Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape will press ahead with plans to lift lockdown measures in the Pacific nation this week, even as a recent sharp spike in coronavirus infections worries health officials.
Marape said a two-week lockdown in the capital of Port Moresby would be lifted from Wednesday, despite the country’s reported cases of Covid-19 doubling over the past week.
“Whilst the spread is there, we have to adapt to living with Covid-19 this year, instead of taking on drastic measures,” Marape told a news conference.
PNG has a total of 214 cases and three deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports, but the number of confirmed cases has more than doubled in a week.
More worryingly, WHO said it was likely the real infection numbers were much higher, given low rates of testing throughout the country.
“Testing in all provinces remains critically low, therefore ongoing transmission in other parts of the country is a possibility as population mobility continues,” the WHO said in a statement. “Testing needs to increase substantially to understand the extent of transmission.”
It’s estimated only about 11,000 tests have been carried out across the entire country.
Significant stigma still remains around those who contract the virus - or display similar symptoms - with people cast out of homes and ostracised.
Social distancing is difficult in many parts of the country, with large extra-familial groups living in close confines.
As well, about 40% of the population of Port Moresby - the epicentre of most Covid clusters across the country - live without access to running water, making hand-washing difficult.
Like many of its Pacific neighbours, Papua New Guinea appeared to have escaped the worst of the pandemic’s health crisis. But new cases in the past week were reported in nine provinces, including remote areas of the country, WHO said, saying the bulk of those had been traced back to Port Moresby.
Health workers at Port Moresby general hospital have been a significant cluster of infections.
The capital was placed in a two-week lockdown on July 28, with only essential businesses to operate, schools closed, and transport services stopped.
The government had halted entry for travellers except those arriving by air, late last month.
While case numbers remain low, but on a problematic trajectory, the PNG economy has already been devastated by Covid-19 shutdowns.
The government has indicated it expects export values to drop 13%, losing 1 billion Kina ($280mUSD) from the country’s already indebted coffers. It is estimated 10,000 private sector jobs have already been lost.
Sunny weather and the reopening of non-essential shops across most of the UK has fuelled an increase in consumer spending close to pre-pandemic levels, according to retail industry figures.
The deepest recession in a century is expected to be confirmed on Wednesday, but figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and accountancy firm KPMG indicated that a recovery is under way via the consumer, with total retail sales increasing by 3.2% in July compared with the same month a year ago.
Food, furniture and homeware sales boomed as people ditched their usual summer holiday plans and increasingly invested in their homes. In a sign of shoppers returning to the high street and ramping up spending online, separate figures from Barclaycard – Britain’s biggest credit card provider – also revealed a bounce-back in overall consumer spending:
Wearing face coverings, avoiding kissing and choosing positions where you are not face to face are among the recommendations from a leading UK sexual health charity to reduce the risk of catching coronavirus during sex.
Publishing advice on managing the risk, the Terrence Higgins Trust said asking people to abstain indefinitely was not realistic and that people needed to find a way “to balance our need for sex and intimacy with the risks of the spread of Covid-19”.
The guide comes as the charity’s research shows that the number of people seeking new sexual partners fell after the introduction of social-distancing measures in March. It found that people had abstained from sex outside their immediate household because of the restrictions.
After several months of lockdown and partial easing, the trust said it was no longer realistic to ask people to refrain from sex completely:
In Australia, the number of jobs held relatively steady through July, apart from Victoria where positions dropped by 1.5% before Melbourne headed back into lockdown, AAP reports.
Nationwide payroll jobs declined 0.1% in July, leaving them 4.5% down since March, when Australia recorded its 100th confirmed Covid-19 case.
Total jobs losses in Victoria now stand 6.7% lower since mid-March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found.
“Around 40% of jobs lost in Victoria by mid-April had been regained by June 25, but by the end of July this had reduced to 24 per cent,” ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said on Tuesday.
The weekly payrolls data is a special series introduced to give a more frequent reading on the economic impact of coronavirus.
The monthly labour force report is due on Thursday, which economists expect will show the jobless rate rising to a 22-year high of 7.8% in July, compared with 7.4% in June.
Lawyers in New Zealand report surge in separations as a result of Covid lockdown
Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington
Some New Zealand family lawyers have been overwhelmed with enquiries - and are even turning prospective clients away – because of an increase in newly-separated couples seeking legal advice after they split during the country’s strict Covid-19 lockdown.
“We’re having new inquiries daily, certainly more than usual,” said Alissa Bell, a partner at McVeagh Fleming in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. “We often get an increase post Christmas, and it’s similar to that and even above that.”
While there are no official figures on the number of couples breaking up, the surge of new clients noticed by some New Zealand lawyers mirrors Australia research suggesting 42% of couples had experienced negative changes in their relationship. Therapists and lawyers there said demand had increased:
New Zealand retirement village goes into lockdown after residents display respiratory illness symptoms
In New Zealand, News Hub reports that a retirement village in Christchurch is in lockdown, “after ‘several residents’ began displaying symptoms of a respiratory illness”:
The Village Palms Retirement Village in Shirley advised of the lockdown in a letter to family members of residents on Tuesday.
“We currently have several residents on our 1st floor care unit who are displaying symptoms of a respiratory illness,” the letter says.
“We have forwarded swabs to the Public Health department to test for COVID-19.”
The letter says the chance of the illness being COVID-19 is low but the care unit will be placed into lockdown as a precautionary measure.
Hi, Helen Sullivan here. I’ll be with you for another few hours still.
Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 966 to 217,293, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday.
The reported death toll rose by four to 9,201, the tally showed.
Here is the video of New Zealand director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield having a coronavirus swab on live television:
‘It’s much less painful then tackling Billy Weepu on the rugby field a couple of weeks ago - I’ve still go the bruise to show for that’, Bloomfield joked to reporters. The stunt was aimed at reassuring New Zealanders that the swab is less uncomfortable than having a flu vaccinations. ‘Say yes to the test,’ Bloomfield said
More on Singapore from AFP:
For the full year, the government said it expects the economy to contract between 5.0 and 7.0%, compared with an earlier forecast of between 4.0 and 7.0%, but added the road to recovery remains rough.
“Many of Singapore’s key final demand markets saw worse-than- projected economic disruptions in the second quarter,” the trade ministry said in a statement.
These markets “are also expected to experience a more gradual pace of recovery in the second half of 2020 due to the threat of localised outbreaks and the continued need for restriction measures to contain such outbreaks as they occur,” it added.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a National Day message on Sunday warned that “the crisis is far from over” as many countries have seen a resurgence of cases after initially managing to control the situation.
Singapore initially kept the virus in check through a strict regime of testing and contact-tracing, only for serious outbreaks to later sweep through crowded dormitories housing low-paid migrant workers.
It has reported more than 55,000 infections so far and 27 deaths.
Singapore falls into deeper than expected recession
Singapore’s virus-hammered economy shrank almost 43% in the second quarter, in a sign that the country’s first recession in more than a decade was deeper than initially estimated, official data showed Tuesday, AFP reports.
Tough curbs within the city state to contain the coronavirus pandemic took a heavy toll on the economy, which is largely dependent on global trade and tourism.
Gross domestic product fell 42.9% in the three months to June from the previous quarter, worse than the government’s advance estimate of a 41.2% contraction released last month based on two months of data, the trade ministry said.
On-year, the economy shrank 13.2% in April-June, more than the initial estimate of 12.6%.
It marked the second consecutive quarter of contraction, meaning the city state has entered a recession for the first time since 2009, when it was battered by the global financial crisis.
Trade-dependent Singapore is one of the first countries to report growth data for the period when many nations entered lockdowns, and offers an ominous warning of the devastation being wrought on the global economy.
The worse-than-estimated figures will also ring alarm bells for other Asian economies reliant on trade - typically, Singapore is hit first before ripples spread across the region.
A seal has been spotted eating a large fish in a river in Melbourne’s inner north-west while the city remains in stage-four coronavirus lockdown. The seal delighted passersby who were out on their one hour of sanctioned daily exercise.
Melbourne local Alicia Pavlis filmed the seal flapping about in the Maribyrnong River. ‘We might be a little more excited about things like this than normal,’ Pavlis said. ‘But it really is all about enjoying the brief moments of respite between heavy global news and grim prospects, and it’s these small things that keep us going’:
The Australian state of Victoria has again suffered 19 deaths overnight – the same number as yesterday’s record one-day high.
For a second day it has confirmed cases in the 300s, with 331 new cases overnight, 11 higher than Monday’s total of 322, which marked the lowest cases since 28 July.
On Monday, Premier Daniel Andrews said the drop could signify “greater stability that is a result of the cumulative impact of stage three.”
There were 331 new cases of #coronavirus (#COVID19) detected in Victoria in the last 24 hours.
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) August 10, 2020
Sadly, 19 deaths were reported.#Covid19VicData pic.twitter.com/bajE79zjUy
Antonio Banderas announced on Monday that he has tested positive for Covid-19 and is celebrating his 60th birthday in quarantine, AP reports.
The Spanish actor announced his positive test in a post Monday on Instagram. Banderas said he would spend his time in isolation reading, writing and “making plans to begin to give meaning to my 60th year to which I arrive full of enthusiasm.”
“I would like to add that I am relatively well, just a little more tired than usual and hoping to recover as soon as possible following medical instructions that I hope will allow me to overcome the infection that I and so many people in the world are suffering from,” wrote Banderas.
A spokeperson for Banderas didn’t immediate respond to messages Monday.
Earlier this year, Banderas was nominated for the Academy Award for best actor for his performance in Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain & Glory.”
Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian:
In New Zealand, Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, the country’s beloved director-general of health, has taken a Covid-19 nasal swab during a live news conference in order to encourage the public to accept the tests if offered.
The government is facing a complacency problem, as we wrote about last week, in a country with no known community transmission of the virus, and all 22 active cases diagnosed in travellers returning to the country – who are quarantined in managed isolation facilities.
Officials are urging free tests for anyone with cold and flu symptoms as a means of checking there is not undetected community transmission in New Zealand – but many patients are declining.
Bloomfield, a mild-mannered public servant, has been fêted as a hero for his handling of the crisis, with his visage featured on tea towels and bottles of hot sauce, and tattooed on people’s legs.
He took the test without incident at the end of a news conference in Wellington on Monday, saying he was “not expecting anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.”
It made his eyes water, but was not painful, he added. “It’s way less uncomfortable than when fizzy drink goes up the back of your nose.”
New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, has also takena live, televised coronavirus test.
New Zealand has recorded 102 days with no reported community transmission of Covid-19 from an unknown source.
Updated
Australian state of New South Wales reports 22 new coronavirus cases
NSW reports 22 cases in the past 24 hours, which is slightly higher than average for the last month. Four of the 22 people are in hotel quarantine, two are in quarantine after returning from the state of Victoria:
Of the 22 new cases reported to 8pm last night:
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) August 11, 2020
•16 were locally acquired and linked to known cases
•four are returned travellers from overseas
•one was acquired in Melbourne
•one was locally acquired, and is under investigation
22 new cases of #COVID19 have been diagnosed in NSW between 8pm on 9 August and 8pm on 10 August.
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) August 11, 2020
For the latest list of COVID-19 locations, visit: https://t.co/pqkRdfh3cR pic.twitter.com/3taGQZzP27
The New South Wales case map is here:
Updated
'It's never too late to turn outbreak around' says WHO chief
The World Health Organization insisted Monday there was still hope of conquering the coronavirus pandemic despite the suffering behind the looming landmarks of 750,000 deaths and 20 million cases, AFP reports.
With both figures expected to be reached within days, the WHO stressed it was never too late to take action to suppress the COVID-19 crisis that has gripped the planet.
“This week we’ll reach 20 million registered cases of COVID-19 and 750,000 deaths,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.
“Behind these statistics is a great deal of pain and suffering. Every life lost matters. I know many of you are grieving and that this is a difficult moment for the world.
“But I want to be clear: there are green shoots of hope and... it’s never too late to turn the outbreak around.”
Tedros gave examples of countries that had successfully clamped down on the spread of COVID-19, citing New Zealand and Rwanda, and praised nations that had suffered major national outbreaks and were now responding quickly to local spikes.
“My message is crystal clear: suppress, suppress, suppress the virus,” he said.
“If we suppress the virus effectively, we can safely open up societies.”
People arriving in Finland from coronavirus “risk countries” have to self-isolate for 14 days or risk a fine or up to three months’ imprisonment, ministers announced on Monday, AFP reports.
Until now the Nordic country has relied on arrivals voluntarily quarantining themselves, with no sanctions in place for those who do not follow the recommendation.
Announcing that the new rules will be implemented “as soon as possible”, health minister Krista Kiuru also said arrivals may face compulsory coronavirus testing.
The decision follows a number of reports in recent days of planes arriving from Eastern European and Balkan countries carrying passengers who were either found to be infected or who refused to be tested on arrival.
After a number of weeks early in the summer with only a trickle of cases, 135 new infections have been recorded in the past seven days.
“The number of infections has surprised us all,” Kiuru told a press conference on Monday, while health officials blamed arrivals from overseas for some of the increase in cases.
“We have had discussions as to whether we can stop flights from risk countries. We are looking into it,” Kiuru said.
The measures will apply to arrivals to all countries except those on Finland’s green list, which are those with fewer than eight new cases per 100,000 population in the last two weeks.
Currently 25 countries are deemed safe, including Ireland, Japan, Greece, Cyprus and Uruguay.
According to the World Health Organization, Finland has one of the lowest virus incidence rates in Europe, with just three new cases per 100,000 population.
One creature’s droppings can be another’s treasure, as Germany’s Krone Circus is finding out during the new coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.
Home to 26 lions and tigers, the circus has found an unusual side income and raised money despite coronavirus-related restrictions: selling jars of big cats’ droppings.
Customers have told lion tamer Martin Lacey they swear by the stuff.
“I am told it keeps cats away from the garden, and since then we have learned that also it keeps the animals away from the car, where they eat all the electric cables,” Lacey said.
Lion tamer Martin Lacey brushes Lion King Tonga, amid the coronavirus disease pandemic, in Munich, Germany, 10 August 2020. Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters
The circus’ pop-up shop is also a way to give people a few laughs, says Lacey as the circus waits to be allowed to perform again.
The jars sell for 5 euros each, with some of the money going towards a charity to improve the living conditions of captive animals.
And if you don’t have a garden pest problem but find your neighbours pesky? - “Put some in the garden, and the neighbours will go away,” Lacey chuckles.
Updated
California’s governor faced a grilling from reporters on Monday over the resignation of one of the state’s top health officials, Sonia Angell, who stepped down without explanation on Sunday night after database errors led to a backlog of thousands of coronavirus tests.
Gavin Newsom refused to disclose the reason for Angell’s departure from her role as the director and state public health officer at the California department of public health, even after reporters pressed him at a briefing.
“She resigned. She wrote a resignation letter. And I accepted her resignation,” Newsom said. He added: “We’re all accountable in our respective roles for what happens underneath us. I don’t want to air any more than that.”
Angell often appeared during news conferences about California’s response to the pandemic alongside Newsom, who had appointed her to the dual roles. Her letter to staff, released by the California health and human services agency, did not give a specific reason for her resignation:
brb just touching every single possession in my bag whilst trying to find my hand sanitizer
— lolly (@lollyadefope) August 10, 2020
Donald Trump was abruptly escorted out of a press briefing by a Secret Service agent on Monday after an armed suspect was shot outside the White House.
The president was just minutes into his coronavirus briefing when a Secret Service agent asked Trump to leave the podium and quickly exit the room along with other administration officials.
Reporters were briefly placed into lockdown as members of the president’s security detail surrounded the West Wing. One Fox News correspondent said they’d heard two shots fired soon before Trump was hurried out.
Trump returned to the stage around 10 minutes later to confirm someone had been taken to hospital following a shooting outside of the White House perimeter fence.
“There was an actual shooting and somebody’s been taken to the hospital,” Trump said. The president said the shots were fired by law enforcement.
Trump considers blocking Americans who may have Covid-19 from coming home
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is reportedly considering a measure to block US citizens and permanent residents from returning home if they are suspected of being infected with coronavirus.
A senior US official told Reuters that draft regulation, which has not been finalized and could change, would give the government authorization to block individuals who could “reasonably” be believed to have contracted Covid-19 or other diseases:
Here are the ten countries with the highest numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases.
The US accounts for more than one in four cases worldwide:
- US: 5,085,821
- Brazil: 3,057,470
- India: 2,215,074
- Russia: 890,799
- South Africa: 563,598
- Mexico: 480,278
- Peru: 478,024
- Colombia: 387,481
- Chile: 375,044
- Iran: 328,844
Global coronavirus cases pass 20m
There are more than 20m known coronavirus infections worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with 20,001,0019 currently confirmed.
Cases worldwide have doubled in just six weeks, and have risen 200-fold since mid-March. Deaths have increased from more than 4,000 globally at the time of the WHO declaration to more than 730,000 now.
Updated
Brazil, with over 3m infections, is the next worst-affected country after the US. On Sunday, the country’s death toll climbed past 100,000.
Asked about Brazil at a White House press briefing on Monday evening, Trump said, “I have a very good relationship with President Bolsonaro. And I hear he’s doing well. He’s recovering from Covid-19.” Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for the virus, which he calls a “little flu”.
Both Bolsonaro and Trump have in the last five months sought to downplay the danger of the virus, with Bolsonaro calling it “a little flu” and Trump repeatedly promising the disease would disappear under his leadership.
Last week, Trump repeated that he believes coronavirus will “go away”, despite his top public health expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, warning that it could take most of 2021 or longer to get the pandemic under control and that it is “unlikely” the virus can ever be eradicated.
Both Bolsonaro and Trump have sidelined health experts, with Bolsonaro losing two health ministers and Trump repeatedly criticising Fauci, the US’s top infectious diseases expert and a member of the White House’s coronavirus taskforce.
Global coronavirus cases near 20 million
Cases of coronavirus across the world are on the brink of 20 million, with Johns Hopkins University currently listing 19,971,615.
Cases worldwide have doubled in just six weeks, and have risen 200-fold since mid-March. Deaths have increased from more than 4,000 globally at the time of the WHO declaration to more than 730,000 now.
The United States, which on Sunday passed 5m infections, accounts for a quarter of the global case total and one in five deaths worldwide. It is the worst-affected country in both the number of cases and fatalities.
One in every 65 Americans has tested positive for coronavirus, while one in 2,000 has died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
And one in every 65 Americans has tested positive for coronavirus https://t.co/QTnW5IQLUu
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) August 10, 2020
Updated
EU health agency calls for new lockdowns
In case you missed this earlier:
The European Union’s health agency has called on member states that are seeing an increase in cases of coronavirus to reinstate control measures, as it warned of a “true resurgence” in several countries.In a “rapid risk assessment” published on Monday, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) warned of a “risk of further escalation of Covid-19” across the continent. The agency said:
While many countries are now testing mild and asymptomatic cases, which has resulted in increased case reports, there is a true resurgence in cases in several countries as a result of physical distancing measures being relaxed.
The Stockholm-based agency said that the Covid-19 pandemic continued to “pose a major public health threat”, in spite of a recent decline in cases. Since the relaxation of movement restrictions and other measures, the spread of the virus had resumed, it said.“Further increases in the incidence of Covid-19, and associated hospitalisations and deaths, can be mitigated if sufficient control measures are reinstalled or reinforced in a timely manner,” the agency said.
Countries that are now observing an increase in cases, after having lifted their control measures following a temporary improvement in the epidemiological situation, should consider re-instating selected measures through a phased, step-wise and sustainable approach.
For those countries seeing an increase “the risk of further escalation of COVID-19 is high.” If those countries fail to implement or reinforce restrictions, the risk was “very high,” it warned.The agency conceded that as the pandemic wears on “it is natural for people to become fatigued and reduce compliance with public health measures.”
Risk communication efforts should be tailored to changes in the local situation and continuous messaging is needed to remind the population that the SARS-CoV-2 virus will remain in circulation within the community and that they should take everyday measures to reduce potential exposure, such as practising cough and respiratory etiquette, physical distancing and hand hygiene, wearing face masks, reducing the number of contacts and staying home when ill.
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 from around the world for the next few hours.
Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
The World Health Organization insisted Monday there was still hope of conquering the coronavirus pandemic despite the suffering behind the looming landmarks of 750,000 deaths and 20 million cases.
With both figures expected to be reached within days, the WHO stressed it was never too late to take action to suppress the COVID-19 crisis that has gripped the planet.
“This week we’ll reach 20 million registered cases of COVID-19 and 750,000 deaths,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.
“Behind these statistics is a great deal of pain and suffering. Every life lost matters. I know many of you are grieving and that this is a difficult moment for the world.
“But I want to be clear: there are green shoots of hope and... it’s never too late to turn the outbreak around.”
- Nearly 20 million cases of coronavirus have been officially confirmed around the world, with the World Health Organisation saying that the number is likely to be reached this week. According to a tally of official statistics kept by Johns Hopkins University, 19,947,467 cases had been recorded by about 9pm GMT on Monday, with 732,650 deaths so far from the pandemic.
- The United States reported 5,023,649 cases of the coronavirus, an increase of 48,690 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 558 to 161,842.
- The European Union’s health agency has called on states seeing an increase in cases of coronavirus to reinstate control measures, as it warned of a “true resurgence” or “risk of further escalation of Covid-19” in several countries.
- Concern is growing that a resurgence of coronavirus in Europe will lead to a “second wave” of uncoordinated border restrictions. In a letter, the European commission warns that “while we must ensure that the EU is ready for possible resurgences of Covid-19 cases ... we should at the same time avoid a second wave of uncoordinated actions at the internal borders of the EU.”
- Greece is “formally” in the midst of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the country’s top infectious disease experts said, adding: “We can say that Greece has formally entered a second wave of the epidemic. This is the point that we could win or lose the battle.”
- Wearing a face mask became compulsory on dozens of busy Paris shopping streets and in other popular parts of the city from 8am on Monday as coronavirus numbers continued to rise in and around the French capital.
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Authorities in Iran shut down a newspaper after it published remarks by an expert who cast doubt on official coronavirus figures, claiming they only account for 5% of the real toll. Meanwhile, 189 more people died from Covid-19 and 2,132 more people had tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said.
- There is a huge gap between funds needed to fight the coronavirus and funds committed worldwide, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said. Tedros said that ACT accelerator, an initiative established to develop and distribute tools to counter the spread of the pandemic, had received just one tenth of the funding it needed.
Updated
