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Here’s a quick recap of the latest developments:
- Chaos and fury as UK PM Boris Johnson forces curbs on Greater Manchester. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester in England, accused the government of playing a “game of poker with people’s lives” after Johnson imposed the toughest Covid restrictions on the region without agreeing a support package for businesses and low-paid workers.
- Lombardy curfew aims to curb Covid hospital admissions rise. Authorities in Lombardy have been given the green light to impose a curfew as the Italian region hardest hit in the coronavirus first wave braces itself for a surge in hospital admissions.
- Belgium postpones non-essential hospital work to deal with Covid-19 surge. The country will need to postpone all non-essential hospital procedures to deal with a surge in Covid-19 infections, the health minister Frank Vandenbroucke said, days after warning of a Covid “tsunami” hitting the country.
- UK to spend £30m on trials infecting young people to hasten Covid vaccine. More than £30m of UK government money is to fund the world’s first Covid-19 “challenge trials”, in which healthy young volunteers are intentionally infected with the virus to hasten the development of a vaccine.
- Berlin’s municipal government has made it compulsory to wear masks at markets, in queues and on 10 busy shopping streets, but stopped short of imposing another lockdown to curb a new wave of infections in the German capital. The mayor, Michael Müller, urged the capital’s residents to comply with the new rules, which also included limits on parties, to avoid shutting down public life again.
- Bulgaria will make wearing face masks obligatory in all outdoor spaces from Thursday, as coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours hit a new record. The health minister Kostadin Angelov said the new measure, which will remain in place until the end of November, would help slow the spread of the virus by about 30% and prevent the health system being overwhelmed.
The White House and Democrats in the US congress have moved closer to agreement on a new coronavirus relief package, as president Donald Trump said he was willing to accept a large aid bill despite opposition from his own Republican party.
With just two weeks to go until the US presidential election, Trump signaled a willingness to go along with more than $2.2tn in new Covid-19 relief, as Democrats had been pushing for months.
“I want to do it even bigger than the Democrats,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News, as talks between Democrat Nancy Pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin continued with the goal of getting something to pass Congress before 3 November.
Pelosi, speaking to reporters after a mid-afternoon call with Mnuchin, was asked about prospects for a legislative package by the end of this week.
“I hope so. That’s the plan,” she said.
The White House has proposed $1.8tn in coronavirus relief, while Pelosi is pushing for $2.2tn.
Earlier on Tuesday, Pelosi told Bloomberg TV: “I’m optimistic, because I do think we have ... a shared value that finally they want to crush the virus. Hopefully by the end of the day today, we’ll know where we all are.”
Mexico is doubling down on its public health message to avoid big crowds and avert a second wave of coronavirus infections as annual festivities approach.
The upcoming Day of the Dead traditionally draws hundreds of thousands of people nationwide.
The 1-2 November Day of the Dead celebration blends Catholic rituals and the pre-Hispanic belief that the dead return once a year from the underworld as cemeteries, public gardens and houses light up in the bright, orange colour of planted marigold.
Authorities have said cemeteries will remain closed and the government of Mexico City, the country’s largest metropolis, warned that tighter coronavirus curbs may be on their way as hospitalisations rise in the sprawling capital.
From a public health standpoint, Mexico’s cemeteries “become areas of high risk for contagion” during the annual celebration, deputy health minister Hugo López-Gatell said. “The recommendation is to avoid crowds.”
Another “high risk opportunity” for infections is the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe on 12 December, said López-Gatell, as annually upwards of 3 million pilgrims flock to the Catholic basilica in Mexico City to honour the nation’s patron saint.
Both festivities, along with Christmas, come as the weather is turning colder and authorities fear an uptick in contagion.
Netflix has reported fewer paid subscribers in the third quarter as streaming competition increased and live sports returned to television.
The company said it added 2.2 million paid subscribers globally during the quarter that ended 30 September compared with analysts’ estimates of 3.4 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Shares of Netflix, one of the biggest gainers this year as people stayed home amid the pandemic, dropped nearly 6% to $494 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
Netflix had warned investors that a sudden surge in new sign-ups would fade in the latter half of the year as Covid-19 restrictions eased.
The pandemic sparked new interest in the service as people around the world were told to stay at home, cinemas went dark and sports leagues cancelled live games.
Updated
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester in England, accused the government of playing a “game of poker with people’s lives” after Boris Johnson imposed the toughest Covid restrictions on the region without agreeing a support package for businesses and low-paid workers.
After a chaotic day of negotiations, the 10-day standoff between Downing Street and Greater Manchester’s leaders came to an acrimonious end despite the two sides being just £5m apart, or the equivalent of £1.78 for each resident.
In a televised statement, Burnham warned that local people faced “a winter of real hardship”. He accused ministers of bullying the region into accepting less than their £65m final request for support for businesses and said that walking away from the talks amounted to a “deliberate act of levelling down”.
The prime minister confirmed that tier 3 measures would be imposed on 2.8 million people in the region from midnight on Thursday, closing pubs and a swathe of the hospitality sector. It means one in 10 people in England – nearly 6 million – will be under the strictest measures. These are the first curbs to be imposed unilaterally, however.
Officials in California, home to Walt Disney’s Disneyland, said large theme parks cannot reopen until a county’s Covid-19 risk level drops to the lowest tier of “minimal” spread.
Disneyland unions earlier had asked the state to let the resort, located in Anaheim, in Orange County, open when the county reached “moderate” spread.
AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine trial in the US is expected to resume as early as this week after the US food and drug administration (FDA) completed its review of a serious illness, sources told Reuters.
AstraZeneca’s large, late-stage US trial has been on hold since 6 September, after a participant in the company’s UK trial fell ill with what was suspected to be a rare spinal inflammatory disorder called transverse myelitis.
The sources, who were briefed on the matter but asked to remain anonymous, said they have been told the trial could resume later this week.
It was unclear how the FDA would characterise the illness, they said.
The agency is requiring researchers conducting the trial to add information about the incident to consent forms signed by study participants, according to one of the sources.
UK regulatory officials previously reviewed the illness and determined there was “insufficient evidence to say for certain” that it was or was not related to the vaccine.
It permitted the trial to resume enrolling participants in the UK, according to a draft of the updated consent form shared with Reuters.
Regulators in Brazil, India and South Africa also previously allowed AstraZeneca to resume its vaccine trials there.
AstraZeneca, which is developing the vaccine with Oxford University researchers, had been seen as a frontrunner in the race to produce a vaccine for Covid-19 until its trials were put on hold to investigate the illness.
Early data from large-scale trials in the US of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are expected some time next month.
An AstraZeneca spokeswoman said: “We cannot comment on a pending FDA decision.”
Updated
France again reported more than 20,000 new confirmed coronavirus infections in a day, a total of 20,468, after the daily tally dipped to 13,243 on Monday.
Last week, France saw five days with more than 20,000 new cases per day and two days with more than 30,000.
The case total now stands at 930,745 and looks set to jump above the 1 million mark before the end of this week if the trend continues.
The health ministry also reported 262 new deaths, including 100 from retirement homes over multiple days, pushing the cumulative death toll to 33,885.
The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 rose by 797 to 12,458, the biggest single-day increase since early April. The number of people in intensive care rose by 78 to 2,177.
Hungarian justice minister Judit Varga announced she has tested positive for Covid-19 and has mild respiratory symptoms.
“As of today, I am in quarantine at home with my family, I work from home and will not attend the government meeting,” Varga said.
Meanwhile Bulgarian president Rumen Radev will have to self-isolate pending a coronavirus test after coming into contact late last week with a top military officer who later tested positive for Covid-19.
Radev travelled to Estonia on Monday but cut short his visit and returned on Tuesday evening, showing reporters at Sofia airport a negative result of a Covid-19 test he took during his trip.
However, health minister Kostadin Angelov said Radev had must self-isolate as a precaution following his contact with the commander of the Bulgarian air force on Friday.
It was not clear when Radev would undergo another Covid-19 test or how long he would have to remain under quarantine, but the president said he was symptom-free. Radev said:
Since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, I have been in constant contact with thousands of people across the country, but I am strictly abiding by all health measures and have not had any problems, nor do I have one right now.
I am in a perfect physical condition, without any symptoms of infection.
Updated
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Summary
- The UK prime minister Boris Johnson confirmed tier 3 restrictions will be imposed on Greater Manchester after talks with local leaders broke down. The failure to reach a deal concerned the amount the government was willing to offer the region in financial support, which local leaders said was insufficient for the poorest in their communities to cope with the stricter restrictions. At a news conference, Johnson refused to specify how much support the region will get, after the government’s initial offer of £60m was revised down from midday to £22m. It’s unclear if the £60m offer remains on the table and it’s understood that government and local leaders continue negotiations for an additional support package.
- Belgium will need to postpone all non-essential hospital procedures to deal with a surge in Covid-19 infections and hospital admissions. It comes days after the health minister Frank Vandenbroucke warned of a Covid “tsunami” hitting the country. The number of patients in intensive care units, which stood at 446 on Tuesday, is doubling every eight to nine days.
- Bulgaria will make wearing face masks obligatory in all outdoor spaces from Thursday, as coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours hit a new record. The health minister Kostadin Angelov said the new measure, which will remain in place until the end of November, along with social distancing and frequent disinfection, would slow the spread of the virus by about 30% and help prevent the health system being overwhelmed.
- Italy’s southern Campania region plans to introduce a night-time curfew from this weekend in an effort to tackle a surge in Covid-19 cases. The move follows a similar decision taken on Monday by the northern region of Lombardy following a rise in hospital admissions. The Campania governor Vincenzo De Luca said he planned to introduce an 11pm curfew from this weekend.
- Berlin’s municipal government has made it compulsory to wear masks at markets, in queues and on 10 busy shopping streets, but stopped short of imposing another lockdown to curb a new wave of infections in the German capital. The mayor, Michael Müller, urged the capital’s residents to comply with the new rules, which also included limits on parties, to avoid shutting down public life again.
- Residents in the Bavarian district of Berchtesgadener Land went back into lockdown, the first area in Germany to do so since April. Germany put the municipality under lockdown from 2pm today, as the picturesque Alpine region becomes the country’s main coronavirus hotspot. Schools, nurseries and restaurants will remain closed from today and after 2pm residents were not allowed to leave their homes unless they have a strong reason to do so, such as work commitments, groceries shopping or outdoor exercise.
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Iran reported a record high in daily coronavirus cases. With 5,039 new infections registered in the last 24 hours, the health minister Saeed Namaki appealed for more public and government support to enforce restrictions aimed at stemming a third wave of infections, including the wearing of masks.
- The UK government is to spend £30m on the world’s first Covid-19 “challenge trials”, in which healthy young volunteers are deliberately infected with the virus in the hope of accelerating the development of a vaccine.
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Russia reported a record high 16,319 new cases of coronavirus, including 4,999 in the capital Moscow, taking the national tally to 1,431,635.
- In Spain, the government of the northern region of Navarre announced that a two-week lockdown will come into effect from Thursday in a bid to slow a massive surge in Covid-19 cases in the area. People will only be allowed in and out of Navarre for work, university studies, to care for relatives, or for emergencies. Bars, cafes and restaurants will be closed. Shops will remain open but will need to operate at 40% capacity and close by 9pm. Navarre’s confinement is more stringent than the one imposed on the Madrid region by the central government.
- Turkey’s daily number of new coronavirus cases surpassed 2,000 on Monday, reaching levels last seen in early May when restrictions on businesses and households were in place.
The UK prime minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday he would impose tougher lockdown restrictions on the Greater Manchester region in the north of England despite failing to reach a deal on funding support with local leaders.
The UK - the worst-hit European nation during the Covid-19 pandemic with nearly 44,000 related deaths - is now experiencing a second wave of the virus, recording 21,331 new cases and 241 deaths on Tuesday.
Johnson is resisting pressure for a second national lockdown and is instead pursuing a localised strategy of imposing three tiers of increasingly stringent restrictions in virus hotspots in England.
The plan has been resisted by leaders in the north, where tougher restrictions have been in place since July. In the end, the argument concerned the amount of money the government was willing to offer in financial support, which local leaders said was insufficient for the poorest in their communities to cope with the stricter restrictions.
After ten days of tough and sometimes acrimonious negotiations, Johnson unilaterally imposed top tier restrictions - which include greater restrictions on household mixing, the forced closure of pubs which do not serve food, and an advisory not to travel in or out of the region - without the explicit agreement of local leaders.
Johnson told a news conference the restrictions would take affect on Friday, he said that to wait any longer to act would put Manchester’s NHS and residents at risk.
Earlier, Manchester’s Labour mayor Andy Burnham told a news conference that the government had failed to meet the minimum amount needed by the region to protect its poorest, and that it was ministers who had walked away from talks.
At no point today, were we offered enough to protect the poorest people in our communities through the punishing reality of the winter to come.
The city will receive £22m in support - around £8 per capita and significantly less than the £60m originally offered. It is understood that government and local leaders remain in negotiations for an additional support package.
Belgium postpones non-essential hospital work to deal with Covid-19 surge
Belgium will need to postpone all non-essential hospital procedures to deal with a surge in Covid-19 infections, the health minister Frank Vandenbroucke told lawmakers on Tuesday, days after warning of a Covid “tsunami” hitting the country.
The nation of 11 million people had 816 new Covid-19 infections per 100,000 residents over the past week, according to official figures, second only to the Czech Republic in Europe, and has lost 10,443 people to the disease, among the world’s highest per capita fatality rates.
Health authorities decided on Monday to test only patients with symptoms and hospitals are now admitting half the numbers of patients as during the peak of the first wave in April. But the number of patients in intensive care units, which stood at 446 on Tuesday, is doubling every eight to nine days.
Martial Moonen, head of internal medicine at Liege’s Citadel Hospital, told Reuters staff were stretched to the limit.
There is really a significant shortage, which is linked not only to absences, but also to illnesses and burnout.
Yves Van Laethem, a senior virologist who speaks regularly at national Covid-19 briefings, told newspaper La Derniere Heure that Belgium may need to return to full lockdown if there is no reversal of the surge in infections and hospital admissions.
All cafes and restaurants closed from Monday, but there are question marks over the effectiveness of such measures. Experts have said half of Belgians were not respecting social distancing rules in September.
Updated
Bulgaria makes masks mandatory outdoors as daily cases hit new record
Bulgaria will make wearing face masks obligatory in all outdoor spaces from Thursday, as coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours hit a new record, its health minister said on Tuesday.
Kostadin Angelov said wearing protective masks, along with social distancing and frequent disinfection, will slow the spread of the virus by about 30% and help prevent the health system being overwhelmed.
We expect the rate of infections to decrease if people observe the measures strictly. Our main aim is to decrease the number of infected Bulgarians, so that fewer people would have to go to hospital and fewer would die in hospital.
Bulgaria reported 1,024 new infections on Tuesday, the highest since the first cases were reported in March. The Balkan country of 7 million people now has 30,527 confirmed cases including 1,008 deaths.
Angelov said the new measure, also aimed at protecting medical staff, would remain in place until the end of November. Some 71 doctors, nurses and orderlies tested positive in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,622 people, data showed.
Updated
The Czech government may have to tighten its anti-coronavirus measures further as numbers of new cases have not ebbed and the health system is getting close its capacity, the health minister, Roman Prymula, said on Tuesday.
The Czech Republic has reported the highest numbers of infections in Europe in the past days relative to population.
Active cases reached 105,541 in the nation of 10.7 million as of Monday and the number of patients currently hospitalised with Covid-19 has more than tripled this month to 3,721.
Deaths have also soared to 1,513, an increase of 407 over the past week.
Hospitals have been cutting regular activities to make more beds and personnel available for the surging numbers of patients.
Prymula told parliament:
I would very much plead for the already implemented measures to be respected, because we can see that they aren’t, which means that we will have to propose tougher measures at the government. We don’t have much time.
He was not specific but other ministers have in the past days suggested some version of a lockdown could be on the cards if the situation does not improve.
The government has called an extraordinary session on the situation for Wednesday morning.
Prymula said that the peak of the pressure on hospitals should come in early November.
He said that could mean a need of 9,000-11,000 regular beds with oxygen, and 1,500-3,000 beds at intensive-care units for patients with Covid-19.
As of Tuesday, there were 7,670 vacant regular beds and 963 ICU beds in Czech hospitals, according to data collected by the state’s Institute of Health Information and Statistics (UZIS), but most of those were not in wards for coronavirus patients.
Prymula said the government was buying an extra 500 lung ventilators used for the most serious cases and 1,200 machines for oxygen therapy given to less seriously ill patients.
The government has ordered bars and restaurants to close except for takeout orders, and schools have moved to distance learning. Sport and fitness clubs, theatres and cinemas had already shut, but shops have remained open.
People are obliged to wear face masks inside public buildings and in public transport. From Wednesday, that will apply also to outside areas in populated places.
Updated
Italy has reported on Tuesday 10,874 new coronavirus cases, 1,536 more than Monday. There were 89 new deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 36,705. The total number of cases is now up to 434,449, as the country brings in curfews in two regions.
On Monday, authorities in Lombardy have been given the green light to impose a curfew which will run from 11pm until 5am and is expected to begin on Thursday and be in place until 13 November.
On Tuesday, Campania governor Vincenzo De Luca said he has
planned to introduce a night-time curfew from this weekend (see 1.52pm.). De Luca said he has spoken to the interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, and that she has agreed to send 100 soldiers which will be used to help control the territory and enforce Covid rules.
Coronavirus cases in Campania are rising rapidly, as hospitals in the southern regions are bracing themselves.
Compared with better equipped hospitals in the richer north, there are fears that those in the south will struggle to cope with an escalation in cases. The health system in the south has been blighted by cost-cutting, and more than 40 hospitals have closed in recent years.
The mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, said Campania risked returning to a rigid lockdown because the virus was “out of control”.
“We have just 15 intensive care beds left,” he told state broadcaster RAI in a radio interview on Tuesday.
Updated
The UK government has recorded another 21,330 coronavirus cases – the highest daily total, my colleague Andrew Sparrow reports, excluding a day when the numbers were inflated by the addition of past cases. A further 241 deaths were confirmed, the highest daily figure reported since 258 deaths were reported on 5 June, but there is often a delay in the reporting of deaths over a weekend.
More on the UK coronavirus and politics live blog:
Berlin’s municipal government has made it compulsory to wear masks at markets, in queues and on 10 busy shopping streets, but stopped short of imposing another lockdown to curb a new wave of infections in the German capital.
Berlin’s incidence of the virus has risen to 87.9 cases per 100,000 residents over a seven-day rolling period, almost double the national average of 45.4, the latest figures from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.
The mayor, Michael Müller, urged the capital’s residents to comply with the new rules, which also included limits on parties, to avoid shutting down public life again.
We are in a worrying situation, and beyond a lockdown, politicians no longer have many options to adopt measures that prevent exactly that from happening.
The news from Berlin came as residents in the Bavarian district of Berchtesgadener Land went back into lockdown on Tuesday, the first area in Germany to do so since April.
While Germany’s infection rates are lower than in much of Europe, they have been accelerating and hit a daily record of 7,830 on Saturday, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Saturday to curb social contacts and keep travel to a minimum.
Federal and state governments have been unable to agree on tougher measures to contain a second wave. Courts in several regions have, meanwhile, overturned bans on hotel stays for visitors from infection hotspots.
Updated
Pope Francis wore a mask for the first time at a public function on Tuesday when he and other religious leaders attended a prayer service for peace around the world.
The pope wore a white mask during the service at the Rome Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Previously he wore masks only in a car taking him to his weekly audiences in the Vatican.
He had come in for criticism, particularly on social media, for not wearing a mask at his general audiences and sometimes coming in relatively close contact with visitors.
Francis, 83, attended the service with other Christian leaders in the basilica, including the Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians.
Simultaneously, in other locations in Rome, Jews were praying in the city’s synagogue and Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu and Muslim leaders also prayed for peace.
The event took place as the number of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus has risen steadily in Italy in the past few weeks.
There has also been a relatively small rise in cases in the Vatican, where four members of the Swiss Guards, the elite and colourfully dressed corps that protects the pope, have also tested positive.
The annual event was started by the late Pope John Paul and Rome’s Catholic Community of Sant’ Egido in 1986. It was scaled down this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The pope took off his mask while he read his address, as did other leaders when they spoke, but put it back on when he finished speaking.
The pope had part of one lung removed during an illness when he was a young man in his native Argentina. He sometimes breathes heavily after climbing steps.
Updated
The US health regulator’s criteria for allowing emergency use of a vaccine and plans to monitor its safety after a regulatory go-ahead, are among the topics to be discussed at a closely watched meeting scheduled for Thursday.
Details posted on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website showed the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has formulated plans to monitor safety and effectiveness of a vaccine even after the FDA allows for its emergency use.
The FDA panel would make recommendations at the end of the meeting, according to the agenda, but did not specify details.
According to Reuters, the agenda also showed no specific application for a vaccine’s emergency use would be discussed at the meeting. The agency previously said it would hold multiple meetings in the future to discuss emergency use of a particular vaccine.
Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca could provide early analyses of late-stage trials of their experimental vaccines this month or the next, following which regulators will consider regulatory authorisation.
The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they would be presenting at the meeting.
The FDA earlier this month told vaccine developers it wants at least two months of safety data before authorising emergency use, a requirement that likely pushes any US vaccine availability past the 3 November presidential election.
The meeting, which is open to the public for comments, is another example of steps health regulators are taking to assuage public distrust related to vaccines, that are being developed at unprecedented speed.
There are no approved vaccines, except two in Russia that are yet to finish phase 3 clinical testing.
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The Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has asked the popular influencer and fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni and her husband, the singer Fedez, who have a combined audience of over 36 million, to persuade young people to wear masks in an effort to tackle a surge in Covid-19 cases.
“Yesterday we received a very unexpected call,” said Fedez in a story on Instagram.
We were contacted by the prime minister, who asked my wife and me for help. He asked us to convince people, especially young people, to use masks.
A few months ago, Chiara Ferragni, the most popular Italian influencer, with almost 22 million followers on Instagram, and her husband, Fedez – who has more than 11 million followers – had launched a fundraiser, managing to raise €4m to be allocated to intensive care units, which were struggling at the time with patients with Covid-19.
‘’We are in a very delicate situation and Italy absolutely cannot afford a new lockdown,’’ added Fedez.
The destiny and future of Italy is in the hands of each of us. With a simple gesture, we will be able to avoid one of the worst scenarios we have experienced in recent months. Please, guys, wear a mask.
Updated
Iran’s health minister appealed on Tuesday for more public and government support to enforce restrictions aimed at stemming a third wave of coronavirus infections as new cases set a daily record of 5,039, Reuters reports.
“Everyone should know that I, as health minister, cannot bring this epidemic situation under control alone, and a lot more [help] is required,” Saeed Namaki said in remarks quoted by the semi-official news agency ISNA.
“It was announced that anyone without a mask would be fined, but I saw … that 40% of the people on the bus did not wear masks. Can an infection be controlled in this way?” Namaki said.
Mask-wearing became mandatory in public in Tehran, capital of the country hardest hit by Covid-19 in the Middle East, on 10 October and officials said violators would be fined.
Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV that 322 people had died from the disease in the previous 24 hours, after a record death toll of 337 set on Monday.
The latest figures brought the official death toll to 31,034, and pushed the national total of cases to 539,670 since the start of the global pandemic in March.
Updated
More than 2.5million person-years of life have been lost to coronavirus in the US alone, according to a new analysis that reveals the grim toll the pandemic has so far inflicted on the country.
Stephen Elledge, a professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard University used national life expectancy figures and records of Covid-related deaths from the US Centres for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) to work out the amount of life lost in the US outbreak until the first week of October.
His calculations show that 2,572,102 person-years of life were lost through 194,087 deaths, with the virus cutting short people’s lives by an average of 13.93 years for men and 12.45 years for women.
The findings point to what Elledge, a Breakthrough prize winner, calls “a profound loss of life” due to Covid-19 in the US. “This is an astounding cost and surprising given the apparent public misperception that Covid-19 is a disease that disproportionately impacts the elderly and is somehow of less concern to the rest of society,” he writes in the paper, which has yet to be peer reviewed.
Based on projections that as many as 400,000 deaths will occur in the US by February 2021, even a conservative estimate leads to between four and five million person-years of life lost by that time. So far, the virus has infected more than 8 million in the US and killed more than 220,000.
“Covid-19 has wiped out millions of years of productive, active, and happy existence,” Elledge writes in the report.
One must also consider the indirect costs of these lost person-years in the form of emotional and economic tolls these absences impose on the families, friends and co-workers of those lost. Who among us would not cherish another 5 years together with a father, mother, son, daughter or close friend? The full impact of Covid-19 will emerge over time and it is certain to be enormous.
The Spanish region of Catalonia ordered on Tuesday that rents be cut by half for businesses such as bars and restaurants that have been told to close due to the pandemic, if no prior agreement has been reached between tenants and landlords, Reuters reports.
The decree, approved by the regional government, seeks to help businesses, including bingo halls, casinos and beauty salons, which have been shut across the region since Friday for at least 15 days amid a surge in coronavirus cases.
Catalonia is, after Madrid, the second-worst hit region in Spain.
The decree states that if in one month tenants have not reached an agreement with landlords to reduce their monthly rent, it will automatically be lowered by 50% from the day the tenant notified his or her desire to negotiate, Catalan government spokeswoman Meritxell Budo told reporters.
The discount would apply only for as long as the business is obliged to stay closed due to the health crisis.
“The goal is to avoid the closure of businesses, the loss of jobs, and legal battles,” Budo said, adding that the government did not rule out eventually helping landlords affected by the rent cuts.
Businesses that remain open but were forced to reduce their allowed occupancy will have their rents cut by the same percentage that they had to curb their capacity, such as 50% for gyms and 70% for shops.
The regional government also approved on Tuesday 40 million euros in grants to businesses forced to shut, as well as guarantees of 20 million euros.
Botswana’s economy will rebound and grow 7.7% in 2021 from a 8.9% contraction forecast this year, on the back of improved sentiment in the global diamond industry, the finance minister said on Tuesday.
The country’s economy shrank by 24% in the second quarter of 2020 as coronavirus lockdowns at home and abroad slowed domestic economic activity and severely constrained diamond sales, Reuters reports. Buyers of the precious gem were locked out of the capital Gaborone, where they come to purchase diamonds from De Beers.
Mining is the sparsely populated southern African country’s biggest revenue earner and accounts for just under 20% of total gross domestic product.
“Recent months have seen a robust recovery in the international diamond industry, which will hopefully underpin strong growth in Botswana next year and help to boost exports and fiscal revenues,” the finance minister, Thapelo Matsheka, said during a World Bank online meeting held late on Monday.
“Based on these developments, we are forecasting a GDP growth rate of 7.7% in 2021,” Matsheka told the World Bank vice-president for eastern and southern Africa, Hafez Ghanem, during the meeting.
Global firm De Beers, which gets about 70% of its supply from Botswana, said last week it had seen a 57% jump in sales to $467 million at its September “Sight” – when selected buyers come to view and purchase goods already priced by De Beers. The firm cited higher retail orders ahead of the holiday season.
Updated
Italy's Campania region to impose nightly curfew as cases surge
Italy’s southern Campania region plans to introduce a night-time curfew from this weekend in an effort to tackle a surge in Covid-19 cases, the regional chief, Vincenzo De Luca, said on Tuesday.
The move follows a similar decision on Monday by the northern region of Lombardy.
“We are set to ask for a stop to all activities and people’s movements from 11pm,” De Luca told reporters in Naples.
The central government will have to approve the request, but it is not expected to refuse. Unlike when the epidemic first struck in March, the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, is looking to give towns and regions more leeway to decide their own curbs as new cases flare around the country.
De Luca has already ordered the closure of all schools in his region until the end of October as local officials warn that Campania’s health system risked being overwhelmed.
Campania, centred on Naples, escaped the initial wave of the epidemic largely unscathed, but has seen daily infections rise steadily over the past month and now has the second most cases out of Italy’s 20 regions. Lombardy remains the worst hit.
The mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, said Campania risked returning to a rigid lockdown because the virus was “out of control”.
“We have just 15 intensive care beds left,” he told state broadcaster RAI in a radio interview on Tuesday.
"Ci sono stati errori molto gravi da parte della Regione. Siamo all'autogestione dell'epidemia.I contatti non vengono tracciati. Se non parliamo di ciò andremo in #lockdown in #Campania. Rimasti 15 posti in terapia intensiva"
— Rai Radio1 (@Radio1Rai) October 20, 2020
📻@demagistris a #Radioanchiohttps://t.co/EA20NzLhtO
Updated
More than £30m of UK government money is to fund the world’s first Covid-19 “challenge trials”, in which healthy young volunteers are deliberately infected with the virus in the hope of accelerating the development of a vaccine.
The Guardian’s science correspondent Natalie Grover reports.
The government said on Tuesday it will invest £33.6m in the trials in partnership with Imperial College London, laboratory and trial services company hVIVO and the Royal Free London NHS foundation trust.
If approved by regulators and an ethics committee, the studies will start in January with results expected by May 2021, the government said.
Reuters reports that using controlled doses of virus, the aim of the research team “will initially be to discover the smallest amount of virus it takes to cause Covid-19 infection in small groups of healthy young people, aged between 18 and 30”, who are at the lowest risk of harm, the scientists leading the studies said in a briefing.
Up to 90 volunteers could be involved at the initial stages, they said, and virus to be used will be manufactured in labs at London’s Great Ormond Street hospital.
Chris Chiu, an Imperial College scientist on the team, said the experiments would rapidly increase understanding of Covid-19 and the Sars-CoV2 virus that causes it, as well as hastening development of potential new treatments and vaccines.
Critics of human challenge trials say deliberately infecting someone with a potentially deadly disease for which there is currently no effective treatment is unethical.
The UK business secretary, Alok Sharma, said the trials would be carefully controlled and marked an important next step in building understanding of the virus and accelerating vaccine development.
Chiu said the plan for initial studies – which are aimed at assessing how much virus it takes to infect someone with Covid-19 – is to immediately treat volunteers with the Gilead antiviral drug remdesivir as soon as they are infected.
He said that while studies have show remdesivir has little or no effect on severe Covid-19 cases, his team has a “strong belief” that it will be an effective treatment if given in the very earliest stages of infection.
A spokeswoman for the World Health Organization said there are “very important ethical considerations” when approaching such human challenge trials. She told reporters in Geneva:
What is critical is that if people are considering this, it must be overseen by an ethics committee and the volunteers must have full consent. And they must select the volunteers in order to minimise their risk.
Chiu said his team’s “number one priority is the safety of the volunteers”.
No study is completely risk free, but [we] will be working hard to ensure we make the risks as low as we possibly can.
The UK’s hVIVO, a unit of pharmaceutical services company Open Orphan, said last week it was carrying out preliminary work for the trials.
Updated
The Polish parliament postponed an emergency debate on Tuesday on new rules to boost the number of medics available to treat Covid-19 cases, as Poland reported its second steepest daily rise in the number of cases since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party wants to launch financial incentives for doctors treating Covid-19 patients and make hiring physicians more flexible. It also wants to make wearing face masks in public legally binding, amid reports that courts have been striking down fines issued by the police, citing faulty legislation.
However, opposition centrists said the new rules could force women doctors to join Covid-19 teams shortly after giving birth, and appealed to PiS to clarify the conditions under which medics would be required to work.
Poland reported 9,291 new infections on Tuesday, the second highest daily figure after last Saturday’s 9,622 cases.
Doctors have urged PiS to provide more support for the healthcare system after local media reports of patients dying when ambulances couldn’t find a hospital to admit them.
An emergency parliamentary sitting was postponed until Wednesday after the opposition objected to being shown draft legislation only late on Monday.
“It was impossible for responsible opposition to prepare sufficiently,” said Cezary Tomczyk, who heads the parliamentary caucus of the biggest opposition party, Civic Coalition.
The opposition says PiS wasted time in the summer focusing on a presidential election campaign ahead of a 12 July ballot instead of preparing for a second wave of the pandemic.
PiS accuses the opposition of politicising efforts to tackle the virus. “If you can’t help, at least don’t hamper,” the health minister Adam Niedzielski tweeted in response to the opposition’s motion to delay the parliamentary discussion.
Jeśli nie możesz pomóc to chociaż nie przeszkadzaj. Politykierstwo wygrało dziś ze zdrowiem.
— Adam Niedzielski (@a_niedzielski) October 20, 2020
The country of 38 million people has now recorded 192,539 confirmed coronavirus cases and 3,721 deaths.
The health ministry said that as of Tuesday patients with Covid-19 occupied 8,962 hospital beds and were using 725 ventilators, up from 8,375 and 672 respectively a day earlier.
Updated
The Spanish government is also considering several possible strict measures including curfews in a bid to tackle a new wave of coronavirus, the health minister, Salvador Illa, said on Tuesday.
Imposing a curfew in Madrid and possibly beyond would require invoking the state of emergency, Illa told reporters on Tuesday.
He added that any state of emergency lasting more than two weeks would require the support of some opposition parties.
Updated
The Spanish government has agreed on Tuesday a €5.79bn draft plan to help the job market recover from the coronavirus crisis, spokeswoman Maria Jesus Montero told a news conference.
The government will include the plan in next year’s budget to be debated and approved in the coming weeks in parliament, Montero said following a weekly cabinet meeting.
Updated
Rapid outbound Covid-19 testing for passengers has been launched at London’s Heathrow airport, designed to return results in an hour, in an effort to reopen restricted routes and boost traffic for airlines.
The tests, which cost £80, were launched on Tuesday in conjunction with the airport, IAG’s British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Cathay Pacific, initially for flights to Hong Kong, where incoming passengers must be able to show proof of a negative test.
“[Testing] is a key part of the solution for getting travel moving again. There’s a lot of support to make sure that we can get these things up and running, and moving quickly,” said David Evans, joint chief executive of medical travel firm Collinson, which is running the tests with airport services company Swissport.
The firms have also set up an inbound testing facility at Heathrow, though it is yet to be approved for use by the government.
The UK is looking at ways to reduce the 14-day quarantine period which applies to some arriving passengers, using a mix of Covid-19 testing and self-isolation. A taskforce looking at the issue will report back in November.
“I think the government’s been too slow to listen to the evolving medical evidence,” Evans told Reuters.
Collinson use a so-called “LAMP” test that can produce results in around about 60 minutes, much faster than the PCR tests in use which can take more than a day to be processed in labs.
Evans said he expected outbound testing to be rolled out for Italy and other European destinations that require pre-departure tests in the coming days and weeks.
As with security screening when it came in … this will be something that we’re going to be living with for the next six to twelve months, and perhaps beyond.
Updated
The number of people registered as unemployed in Portugal leaped 36% in September from a year ago, with the tourism-dependent Algarve region suffering the hardest blow as the coronavirus pandemic wiped out thousands of seasonal jobs, data showed on Tuesday.
The total of those officially without a job rose to around 410,000 people, meaning more than 100,000 jobs have been lost across the nation since September 2019, the Institute for Employment and Vocational Training said.
In the southern Algarve, famous for its beaches and golf courses, the number of registered jobless rose 157% to 21,310 last month from a year ago.
The tourism industry contributed 14.6% to gross domestic product in 2018, according to the latest official data, and helped drive recovery from a severe debt crisis in 2010-14.
The government expects the unemployment rate, which had gradually fallen to record lows during the recovery, to rise to 8.7% this year due to the pandemic, but experts say the actual jobless level would be much higher as the official rate does not include those who stopped looking for jobs.
Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million people, has recorded a comparatively low 101,860 cumulative coronavirus cases and 2,198 deaths. But, like in most European countries, the number of infections has risen again in recent weeks.
On Friday, Portugal hit 2,608 cases, the highest single-day figure since the pandemic started, although testing has also increased. A set of new, tougher measures to contain the disease came into force last week.
Updated
Iran reports record new daily cases
Iran’s health ministry on Tuesday reported 5,039 new coronavirus infections in the previous 24 hours, the highest ever daily tally, pushing the national total to 539,670.
Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV that 322 people had died in the previous 24 hours, bringing the official Covid-19 death toll to 31,034 in Iran, one of the worst-hit countries in the Middle East.
Singapore plans to roll out rapid Covid-19 tests for events such as weddings and business conferences as the city-state looks to further reopen its economy, its health ministry said on Tuesday.
Governments around the world are turning to so-called antigen tests that can deliver results in minutes but are less accurate than the standard molecular polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which have suffered shortages in some places and outstripped manufacturers’ production capacity.
Singapore had one of the highest coronavirus caseloads in Asia earlier this year due to outbreaks in crowded migrant worker dormitories but in recent weeks has seen daily infections fall dramatically to the low single digits.
The health ministry said it will from now until the end of the year identify events that will require rapid tests for entry, adding they will likely include business or sports events, wedding receptions and live performances.
Currently, up to 100 people are permitted to attend weddings and religious events.
Up to 3% of individuals may falsely test positive using antigen tests, the ministry said, adding that this “inconvenience has to be weighed against the need to open up society and the economy”.
Singapore currently has tight social distancing restrictions limiting groups to five people in public. Authorities said on Tuesday they hope to raise this to eight in the coming weeks if cases stay low.
Singapore also said it plans to make the use of its contact-tracing app and physical token compulsory to enter many venues in coming months, as it looks to expand use of a technology that has stoked some privacy worries.
The city-state has sought to allay such fears by stressing its bluetooth-powered devices store data locally for no more than 25 days and do not have internet or cellular connectivity.
Updated
Russia reports record high in daily infections
Russia recorded a record high 16,319 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, including 4,999 in the capital Moscow, taking the national tally to 1,431,635. Authorities reported a further 269 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 24,635.
Updated
In case you missed it, and are in need of some midday joy, here is the viral video of a doctor in India on Covid-19 duty, clad in full PPE and dancing to a Bollywood song to cheer up patients at a hospital in Assam. Dr Arup Senapati, a surgeon who works at Silchar Medical College, is winning a lot of praise on the internet for his efforts.
Meet my #COVID duty colleague Dr Arup Senapati an ENT surgeon at Silchar medical college Assam .
— Dr Syed Faizan Ahmad (@drsfaizanahmad) October 18, 2020
Dancing infront of COVID patients to make them feel happy #COVID19 #Assam pic.twitter.com/rhviYPISwO
Swiss health authorities reported 3,008 new coronavirus infections in a day on Tuesday as hospitalisations continued to mount. Switzerland’s public health agency reported a total of 86,167 confirmed cases in Switzerland and tiny neighbouring principality Liechtenstein. The death toll rose by eight to 1,845.
The UK government has presented Greater Manchester leaders with a deadline of 12pm on Tuesday (see 6.13am) – that’s less than 40 minutes to go – to agree to take their region into tier 3 coronavirus restrictions.
With the clock ticking, my colleagues Josh Halliday and Helen Pidd recap how events have unfolded over the past 11 days.
Updated
Greece has scrapped a plan to allow spectators back into sporting events, the prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s office said on Tuesday, as the country implements tougher restrictions to stem an increase in Covid-19 infections.
Greek authorities had initially decided to allow a restricted number of spectators into stadiums starting from 31 October, setting a limit equal to 10% of capacity, or 3,500 people.
“Conducting the games even with a few spectators … would send a wrong message to citizens,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement announcing the decision to drop the plan.
Greece registered 438 new Covid-19 infections on Monday, bringing its total tally of cases so far to 25,802, with 520 deaths, much lower than in many other European countries.
Updated
Good morning from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next eight hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
That’s all from me. My colleague Lucy Campbell will be picking up the reins shortly.
In Ethiopia, Reuters reports on the worst locust invasion for 25 years, which has damaged an estimated 200,000 hectares of land there since January, threatening food supplies. A single square kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people – and the livelihoods of millions.
The swarms are part of a once-in-a-lifetime series that have plagued east Africa and the Red Sea region since late 2019, with the coronavirus pandemic exacerbating the crisis this year by disrupting the FAO’s supply chain of pesticides and other equipment to fight them off.
“They never left for a week,” mother-of-10 Marima Wadisha told the agency. “We are left with an empty harvest, we tie our waist and cry day and night. How can (I) feed … my children like this?”
The World Bank has said the insects could cost east Africa and Yemen $8.5bn this year, and the FAO’s Ethiopia representative Fatouma Seid fears the pattern of destruction will be repeated next year.
“Infestation will continue into 2021. We are being re-invaded and the swarms will then go to Kenya,” she said.
Updated
Ukrainian health minister Maksym Stepanov said on Tuesday the number of coronavirus cases may rise to 8,000-10,000 a day in the coming weeks.
Ukraine reported a record 6,410 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday versus the previous record of 5,992 registered on Friday.
The daily tally rose above 5,000 in October, prompting the government to extend lockdown measures until the end of 2020.
Stepanov said Ukraine would introduce stricter lockdown restrictions if cases rise to 11,000-15,000 daily. He warned that the resources of the medical system would run out if the number of daily cases exceeds 20,000, Reuters reported.
Updated
In Spain, the government of the northern region of Navarre has announced that a two-week lockdown will come into effect from Thursday in a bid to slow a massive surge in Covid-19 cases in the area.
Spain recorded almost 38,000 new cases on Monday and has now logged almost 975,000 in total.
While the number of cases per 100,000 people across Spain is 312.2, the figure rises to 945.4 in Navarre.
Under the lockdown, people will only be allowed in and out of Navarre for work, university studies, to care for relatives, or for emergencies. Bars, cafes and restaurants will be closed. Shops will remain open but will need to operate at 40% capacity and close by 9pm.
Although far less strict than the national lockdown of the spring and early summer, Navarre’s confinement is more stringent than the one imposed on the Madrid region by the central government.
The lockdown in and around the capital, which has been the source of bitter arguments between the central and regional government, is due to expire this Saturday. The regional government is considering the introduction of a curfew.
Updated
Germany imposes local lockdown on Alpine hotspot
Germany is putting the Bavarian municipality of Berchtesgadener Land under lockdown from 2pm today, as the picturesque Alpine region becomes the country’s main coronavirus hotspot.
Schools, nurseries and restaurants will remain closed from today and after 2pm residents will not be allowed to leave their homes unless they have a strong reason to do so, such as work commitments, groceries shopping or outdoor exercise. The local lockdown is the first of its kind in Bavaria since April.
Berchtesgadener Land, a 320 sq mile region that is home to the Watzmann massif and a population of 100,000 people, is currently seeing the highest seven-day incidence of Covid-19 in Germany, with 272,8 new infections per 100,000 residents over the space of a week.
While the German government insists it will try to avoid a second nation-wide lockdown at all costs, some officials have in recent days proposed cordoning off regions to contain the spread of the virus. Lothar Wieler, the head of the German disease control agency, said last week that while cordoning off entire districts had seemed “unimaginable” to him nine months ago, he could now see federal states taking such a step.
Updated
In the UK, just over 59,000 deaths involving Covid-19 have now been registered.
Figures published on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics show that 53,863 deaths involving Covid-19 had occurred in England and Wales up to October 9, and had been registered by October 17.
Figures published last week by the National Records for Scotland showed that 4,301 deaths involving Covid-19 had been registered in Scotland up to October 11, while 915 deaths had occurred in Northern Ireland up to October 9 (and had been registered up to October 14), according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
Together, these figures mean that so far 59,079 deaths have been registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, including suspected cases.
In Spain, the Madrid region is evaluating whether a curfew would be needed to curb a new wave of coronavirus contagion in one of Europe’s hotspots, Reuters reported.
“The curfew would allow ... that at some hours there’s no mobility, like France has done for example,” the region’s top health official Enrique Ruiz Escudero said in an interview with Spanish news agency Europa Press.
French President Emmanuel Macron last week ordered a nightly curfew in Paris and eight other major cities. It runs from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Escudero said Madrid’s regional authorities do not have the prerogatives to enforce a curfew, adding that they would have to ask the central government to pass the measure.
Turkey’s daily number of new coronavirus cases surpassed 2,000 on Monday, reaching levels last seen in early May when restrictions on businesses and households were in place.
Reuters reports that data from the Health Ministry showed another 2,026 people with COVID-19 symptoms had been diagnosed, as Ankara continues to report only symptomatic cases, a move criticised by the opposition and medical experts.
There were 2,253 cases on May 6.
The total number of patients stood at 349,519 as of Monday, the data showed. Data also showed 75 people had died in the last 24 hours, also the highest daily level since early May, raising the total death toll to 9,371.
Turkey imposed weekend lockdowns, restricted intercity travel and closed restaurants and cafes earlier this year to slow the spread of the virus. Almost all restrictions were lifted in June. The government has since enforced measures such as social distancing and wearing masks, and has imposed fines on those who break rules.
Updated
If you want to follow the latest developments in the UK as the deadline for a decision on a tier 3 lockdown in Manchester looms, Andrew Sparrow is up and running:
In the UK, Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, has said “there is light at the end of the tunnel” with regard to Britain getting a vaccine for Covid-19.
Asked when the UK could see a vaccine, he told the BBC:
I’m really quite optimistic. I think there is light at the end of the tunnel, in that there are so many trials of vaccines going on under very, very well-controlled conditions.”
“I would be surprised if some of those vaccine studies don’t report this side of Christmas … I think that that will be limited stocks of vaccine which are going to be available for the most high-risk people in the early part of next year.
“But of course there won’t be sufficient vaccine to roll out a full vaccination programme; we need to take it stepwise and be cautious.”
Updated
Philippines has lowest daily increase in four weeks
The Philippines’ health ministry on Tuesday recorded 1,640 new coronavirus infections, the lowest daily increase in infections in four weeks, and 17 additional deaths, Reuters reports.
In a bulletin, the ministry said total confirmed cases had increased to 360,775, while deaths had reached 6,690, the second highest tallies in south-east Asia behind Indonesia.
Updated
In England, business minister Nadhim Zahawi said £22m has been offered to Greater Manchester and warned that action is needed before intensive care units are overwhelmed – a claim denied by the city’s medical leaders.
Zahawi told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have been negotiating in good faith for 10 days with Andy Burnham and other local leaders in Greater Manchester. By the first week of November, if the trajectory continues at the rate it is at the moment, they will run out of ICU capacity in Greater Manchester.
“That is something we should both focus on, set politics aside. We have said to Andy and other local leaders that we will put £22m into help for Greater Manchester, £8 per capita.”
There would also be “additional support commensurate with what we have done in Liverpool city region and in Lancashire”.
Updated
Reuters has reported from Bangladesh on the effect of the pandemic on the country’s garment manufacturers, which have seen exports plummet during the pandemic.
In the financial year that ended in June, Bangladesh’s garment exports totaled $27.94bn, down 18% from the previous year.
There was a rebound of less than 1% in the July-September quarter, thanks to a surge in demand for knitwear items, which account for half of Bangladesh’s total garment exports …
Factory owner Azim, who supplies European and North American retailers, says he has been forced to cut one-in-five jobs.
“That’s the case for most of the factories,” he said. “Now the second wave has started. We don’t know what future holds for us.”
Updated
Global consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, which owns brands ranging from Airwick to Durex, says that its cleaning business has grown during coronavirus pandemic – but its sexual health products have fallen away.
RB says that sales of air fresheners and cleaning products are soaring as workers focus on improving their new home offices, PA Media reports. But it adds that social distancing has reduced sales of condoms and sexual health products, with bosses suggesting this could have a knock-on effect on its baby formula business next year with an expected fall in the global birth rate.
Updated
In Ireland, commentators have been responding to the news that the country will reverse its previous position and return to the tightest ‘level 5’ coronavirus restrictions.
In an editorial, the Irish Times writes:
Let there be no mistake: moving to a Level-5 lockdown is itself a failure, and a very costly one. The WHO has described lockdowns as a last resort which can have a “profound negative impact” on individuals and societies. Many people will lose their jobs. Companies will go out of business. Illnesses will go undiagnosed. These measures will disproportionately affect the disadvantaged, particularly those in poverty. The only bright spot in the announcement of a six-week shutdown was that schools would remain open, mitigating some of the worst effects of a lockdown for some of the most vulnerable among us.
The same paper’s Róisín Ingle writes:
In family WhatsApp groups (it can’t be just mine), people are posting anti-lockdown articles. And in newspapers (it can’t be just mine), anti-lockdown ads are being published.
There’s something in the air, infected droplets obviously, but also a sense as the mornings grow darker and we move into winter that we’ve gone to another level, one that’s not on any Government brochure: Level Whatever You’re Having Yourself.
While the country is in large part shutting down again, it will be doing so to less of an extent than it did before.
That’s not for a second to downplay the impact on businesses who will have to close their doors for a second time.
Many did it on the first occasion in the hope and expectation that it would be short-lived… but bitter history has shown us all that when it comes to dealing with Covid-19, there are no guarantees.
And in the Irish Examiner, Fergus Finlay writes:
Could we stop demanding more clarification? Could we stop blaming someone else, anyone else, because the protections they want us to adopt and observe aren’t spelled out in words of one syllable.
Every time we say “how come the kids are still in school but they can’t have friends over for a play date?” we know in our heart of hearts that it’s not actually as complicated as we’re pretending. It’s just inconvenient.
I don’t understand why, in the face of things we don’t like, we all pretend we’re too stupid to understand them. Because we’re not. Stubborn maybe, but certainly not stupid.
So maybe we could be just as stubborn in our determination to beat the virus.
Updated
The architect of Sweden’s controversial coronavirus policy of refraining from a mandated lockdown, state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, is interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He tells the BBC that people have changed their behaviour even if there is not a lockdown in place. “Really we have also changed a lot: the restaurants are run in a completely different way, we work from home a lot more, we travel very much less than we used to, and many things have changed in Sweden.”
Plans to open up further and allow larger gatherings were put on pause because of an increase in cases, he acknowledges, though he says that it is less dramatic than in other European countries. And he says the priority is to lessen restrictions for elderly people.
Controversially, he reiterates his view that the evidence for mask use in society is “very weak”.
“We don’t have a really good idea on where they should be used, to what extent and so on, and unfortunately a lot of the countries in Europe which have implemented masks have seen … big surges in the number of cases.”
Asked about criticism making an unfavourable comparison between Sweden’s death rate with its neighbours, he says: “This is not any kind of risk we took willingly or knowingly … to sacrifice the elderly …that is absolutely not true. The epidemic in Sweden was different than in many of our neighbouring countries.”
For a granular view of how Sweden’s approach has worked out, listen to this episode of Today in Focus from earlier in October:
Updated
Lombardy to impose curfew as hospitals brace for admissions surge
Authorities in Lombardy in Italy have been given the green light to impose a curfew as the region embraces itself for a surge in hospital admissions.
The curfew will run from 11pm to 5am, and is expected to be in place from Thursday. Medium and large shopping malls will close at weekends.
The measures in Lombardy, where coronavirus infections are surging again after the region was badly hit by the first wave of the pandemic, were requested after experts said admissions into intensive care units could leap to 600 by the end of the month from the current 113.
General hospital admissions are poised to rise to 4,000 from 1,136. A Covid hospital at a conference center in Milan, where new cases are growing at the fastest rate, has reopened.
Lombardy registered 1,687 new infections on Monday, the highest daily tally among Italy’s 20 regions.
Campania, in the south, was not far behind with 1,593 cases. Infections across Italy fell below 10,000 on Monday, however almost 50,000 fewer swab tests were carried out compared with Sunday.
Updated
A London-based company has secured a UK government contract worth up to £10m to intentionally infect healthy young volunteers with Covid-19 to hasten the development of a vaccine, science correspondent Natalie Grover reports.
So-called “challenge trials” have the potential to yield results more quickly than conventional vaccine field trials in which researchers must wait for participants to get infected in the real world. They can also be used to develop treatments and compare multiple vaccine candidates.
Natalie has also spoken to a number of volunteers for the trials, including 22-year-old student Seán McPartlin:
“Even if the long-term effects turn out to be even worse than what we suspect, I still think there are many volunteers – including myself – who would be willing to go ahead because the benefit could be possibly saving people’s lives.”
Updated
Burnham is talking about the effects of Manchester going into a tier 3 lockdown that “potentially lasts for months” and warns: “We are concerned now that if we go into a tier 3 lockdown that potentially lasts for months we are going to see a mental health crisis on top of a pandemic … I will make no apology for sticking up for people whose lives will be harmed by this.”
On the idea of elderly and vulnerable people shielding he says “all these things are part of the solution”. But he adds that he is worried about how tier 3 plans are developing, saying that he has been told that if tier 3 is to have a chance you have to close “lots of things” but that that has not been matched by a “fair financial framework for tier 3”.
He adds: “We are standing up not just for ourselves but for everywhere, because there is a very good chance that every part of England will find themselves in tier three over the coming winter.”
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Greater Manchester mayor to make support package proposal ahead of midday deadline
Good morning, this is Archie Bland taking over from Alison, and beginning in the UK with the mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham on the Today programme, responding to the government’s deadline of midday to strike a deal over moving to tier 3 Covid restrictions.
He begins by saying that “a late-night ultimatum briefed to the media was a slightly provocative move”. Then he says that he doesn’t wish to escalate tensions and that he will tell local leaders when they speak this morning that they should write to the government before the deadline proposing a figure that they think would be fair for government aid.
“I’m not going to get into those negotiations on air,” he tells the BBC. “But it is fair to recognise that if you put a place under restrictions as long as we’ve been under restrictions it grinds people down, it pushes businesses to the brink … this is not posturing, this commands the support of local MPs and council leaders.”
Updated
That’s it from me for now. I’m handing the blog to my colleague in the UK, Archie Bland.
Here's a summary of today's main stories so far
- In England, the strictest Covid restrictions will be imposed on nearly 3 million people across Greater Manchester if no deal is reached by midday on Tuesday, the government has said in a dramatic ultimatum. The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, warned northern leaders late on Monday night that if they fail to agree to pub closures and a ban on household mixing, the tier 3 measures will be brought in unilaterally.
- Ireland has announced a return to coronavirus lockdown. The prime minister, Micheal Martin, issued a nationwide “stay at home” order, but insisted schools would stay open. Measures coming into effect for six weeks from midnight on Wednesday will see all non-essential retail businesses close and bars and restaurants limited to takeaway or delivery service only. “Everyone in the country is being asked to stay at home,” Martin said in a televised national address.
- Wales is to go into a two-week “firebreak” lockdown, under which schools, shops, pubs and hotels will close and citizens will be told to stay at home. The government said it was needed to prevent thousands more deaths and the NHS becoming overwhelmed.
- Donald Trump has confirmed he will participate in final presidential debate on Thursday. Topics will include the coronavirus pandemic. Both Trump and Joe Biden will be subject to having their mics muted if they interrupt during certain designated two-minute speaking periods. It comes as Trump said Americans were “tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots” discuss Covid. The president once again attacked his top public health expert, using a call with campaign staff to call Anthony Fauci “a disaster” and to claim “people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots” discuss ways to combat the coronavirus.
- The World Health Organization has warned that quarantine failures are partly responsible for rising cases in the northern Hemisphere. The WHO’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan said the fact that self-isolation measures were not being enforced systematically was “a good part of the reason why we’re seeing such high numbers”.
- China has reported 19 new coronavirus cases for 19 October, up from 13 cases a day earlier, the health commission said on Tuesday. All of the new infections were imported. China also reported 24 new asymptomatic patients, compared with 33 a day earlier.
- In New Zealand, 11 international seamen in a Christchurch hotel have tested positive for Covid and 14 more cases are “under further investigation”, according to the ministry of health. Local media outlet Stuff reported that 440 fishermen from Russia and the Ukraine arrived on Friday and were isolating at the Sudima Hotel, near Christchurch airport. Stuff said:“On Tuesday afternoon, in response to questions from Stuff, a Ministry of Health spokeswoman said there were 11 positive cases at the facility and another 14 were ‘under further investigation’.”
Updated
Not surprisingly, coronavirus is on the front of many of the UK papers.
TELEGRAPH: Shielding is the answer, Manchester MPs insist #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/uDKBh1cLIF
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) October 19, 2020
I: UK heading to lockdown by ‘back door’ #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/GgbdhZoAOR
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) October 19, 2020
GUARDIAN: Wales orders ‘firebreak’ lockdown and leaves England going it alone #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/RFUNyTtuww
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) October 19, 2020
EXPRESS: Act now to save hidden victims of virus #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/DSaDNp8829
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) October 19, 2020
EXPRESS: Act now to save hidden victims of virus #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/DSaDNp8829
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) October 19, 2020
Greater Manchester has until noon on Tuesday to agree deal on restrictions
In England, the strictest Covid restrictions will be imposed on nearly 3 million people across Greater Manchester if no deal is reached by midday on Tuesday, the government has said in a dramatic ultimatum, write the Guardian’s Josh Halliday and Helen Pidd.
The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, warned northern leaders late on Monday night that if they fail to agree to pub closures and a ban on household mixing, the tier 3 measures will be brought in unilaterally.
He said he would have to “advise the prime minister that despite our best endeavours we’ve been unable to reach agreement.”
The statement, which came only hours after a government meeting with Greater Manchester leaders ended in chaos and confusion, makes it highly likely that tier 3 restrictions will be imposed on the region within 48 hours.
The high-stakes ultimatum was met with fury in Greater Manchester, where the Labour MP Andrew Gwynne accused the government of being “completely contemptuous” of the region, and council leaders said ministers had offered no compromise as they sought to close pubs, bars and other venues.
You can read our full story below:
India is at heart of global efforts to produce a Covid vaccine, writes the Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen.
As the largest global supplier of drugs and producer of 60% of the world’s vaccines, India has long been known as the “pharmacy of the world”.
Now, as the frenzied hunt for a Covid-19 vaccine gathers momentum, the country is playing an increasingly strategic and central role in the development, manufacturing – and, crucially, possible future distribution – of several possible Covid shots.
With more than 7.5 million cases and about 115,000 deaths, India is also one of the worst affected countries by the virus, second only to the US.
A deal has already been struck for the Serum Institute of India, based in the city of Pune, to produce 1bn doses of the the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, seen as the forerunner in the vaccine race. In anticipation of its success, it has already begun production of almost 2m samples of the vaccine and is carrying out phase 3 human clinical trials on thousands of patients spread across 15 Covid-19 hotspots in India.
This week, the Serum Institute of India said it was confident the AstraZeneca vaccine would be ready by December and would be licensed for distribution in India by March.
Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of the Serum institute of India, said he was “very optimistic” that more than one successful vaccine was imminent.
“A lot of the data that I have seen off-the-record in a lot of these vaccines is very promising and more than three to four vaccines will be successful very soon in the next year,” said Poonawalla.
The Serum Institute, which this week also began human trials on an intranasal Covid vaccine, is just one of the dozens of Indian companies in the running to produce the much-coveted vaccine, of which there are almost 200 different types being developed across the world.
You can read the full story below:
This is not coronavirus, of course, but may brighten your day.
My coffee art today is a cat letting off an atomic bomb pic.twitter.com/uCNJ8plZ5E
— Marty 🦘 (@smartyy) October 19, 2020
Trump confirms he will debate Biden, complains it's 'very unfair'
Back on the news that the presidential debate will go ahead on Thursday with mute buttons to ensure both Trump and Biden can finish their answers without interruption .... aboard Air Force One after his rally in Arizona, Trump confirmed he would take part.
“I’ll participate, I just think it’s very unfair,” Trump told reporters.
“I will participate but it’s very unfair that they changed the topics and it’s very unfair that again we have an anchor who’s totally biased.”
NBC journalist and White House correspondent Kristen Welker will moderate the debate and she selects the topics, according to Presidential Debate Commission. It’s website says:
Subject to possible changes because of news developments, the topics are as follows, not necessarily to be brought up in this order:
- Fighting Covid-19
- American Families
- Race in America
- Climate Change
- National Security
- Leadership
It will be held on Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee at 9pm Eastern Time and will run for 90 minutes without commercial interruption.
Updated
Still in New Zealand and Stuff reports that 440 fishermen from Russia and the Ukraine arrived on Friday and are isolating at the Sudima Hotel, near Christchurch Airport. The outlet says:
Stuff previously reported about 440 fishermen from Russia and Ukraine were due to arrive (in NZ) on two flights chartered by fishing companies – the first of which is thought to have touched down from Moscow via Singapore on Friday.
Many of the 237 people onboard have been isolating at the Sudima Hotel, near Christchurch Airport, since their arrival.
On Tuesday afternoon, in response to questions from Stuff, a Ministry of Health spokeswoman said there were 11 positive cases at the facility and another 14 were “under further investigation”.
The cases were all imported. They were detected as part of routine day three testing.
Earlier on Tuesday the health ministry had reported one new imported case and no new community cases.
The country had gone 22 days with no new Covid-19 cases in the community, until a port worker tested positive on Saturday.
Updated
New New Zealand cases in Christchurch hotel
The New Zealand Herald is reporting that 11 international sailors in a Christchurch hotel have tested positive for Covid – 14 more cases are “under further investigation”, according to the ministry of health.
“All are imported cases detected at routine day 3 testing. None involve cases in the community,” the ministry said, according to the Herald.
#BREAKING Health officials have confirmed 11 international seamen in a Christchurch hotel have tested positive for Covid — 14 more cases are 'under further investigation". https://t.co/huU1IMW9fj pic.twitter.com/UiXWm7nevj
— nzherald (@nzherald) October 20, 2020
Updated
Vietnam has been one of the most effective nations in reducing coronavirus infections, and deaths.
The southeast Asian country of 95 million people has reported just over 1,110 Covid-19 infections, and only 35 deaths. It has reported no locally transmitted infections for 47 days.
But the closure of economic growth is seen slowing down to 2% to 3% this year from an expansion of 7.02% last year due to the wider impact of the coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said on Tuesday.
Phuc said Vietnam’s first priority will continue to be containing the spread of Covid-19.
“We have done a good job in containing the virus, paving the way for reviving economic activities,” Phuc told a meeting of the National Assembly, the country’s lawmaking body.
In Germany, 6,868 new confirmed coronavirus cases were detected in the past 24 hours. The country has recorded 373,167 infections overall, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed.
The death toll from the virus rose by 47 to 9,836.
Like many countries in western Europe, Germany is battling a surging second wave of the coronavirus.
In Victoria, the Australian state hardest-hit by Covid-19, more than 200 people who went through hotel quarantine must be screened for HIV amid fears of cross-contamination from the incorrect use of blood glucose test devices.
Several such devices were used on multiple people in quarantine between 29 March and 20 August, necessitating screenings for blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis B and C and HIV.
It should be stressed the mistaken use of the devices carries a “very low clinical risk” according to the state’s premier, Dan Andrews.
Earlier I mentioned that President Trump had held a rally in Tucson, Arizona .... and he has tweeted a photo of the crowd. You can make your own mind up about social distancing in the video.
THANK YOU TUCSON, ARIZONA! Together, we are going to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!! pic.twitter.com/GYB2zG0f4H
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2020
Argentina becomes 5th country to record 1m cases
Argentina has become the fifth country with more than 1 million coronavirus cases, its Health Ministry said, after an acceleration of cases in the past few weeks.
There were 1,002,662 confirmed cases of the virus in the South American country by Monday night, the ministry said in a statement.
In the past 24 hours, there were 12,982 new cases reported and 451 deaths, it said.
The latest figures put it alongside the United States, India, Brazil and Russia, all with populations greatly exceeding Argentina’s 45 million people.
It means one in every 45 Argentinians have had the virus.
More than 26,000 people have died, giving the country fatality rate of about 2.7%, according to health ministry data.
The country ranks 15th in the world on deaths per 100,000 population, at 59.03, according to Johns Hopkins data. Peru (105.35), Brazil (73.36) and Chile (72.80) and Ecuador (72.5) top the rate of deaths per 100,000 in South America. By comparison the US’s rate is 67.14.
Argentina is also grappling with low levels of testing. But for those getting tested, more than 60% of recent tests are coming back positive, one of the world’s highest positivity rates.
Argentina’s borders remain closed to tourism, though domestic flights have resumed for people with government approval to travel for medical, family or work reasons.
Canada passes 200,000 cases
Canada’s total infections passed 200,000 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins data.
Ontario and Quebec, which account for around 60% of Canada’s 37.6 million people and just under 80% of the country’s reported Covid cases, have seen sharp increases in cases in recent weeks.
Both provinces have taken fresh measures to curb the spread of the virus.
Less-populated provinces, including Manitoba and Alberta, are also seeing worrying increases.
Canada’s chief medical officer, Dr Theresa Tam, said on Monday she was concerned the country will see an uptick in “severe impacts” of the virus in the coming weeks.
Canada announced on Monday that its border with the United States would remain closed until at least 21 November.
This is not directly coronavirus related, but both President Trump and Joe Biden will have their microphones muted for parts of their final debate on Thursday to allow each presidential candidate a block of uninterrupted time to speak. Hopefully this will garner some clear answers on coronavirus.
The 90-minute debate will be divided into six 15-minute segments, with each candidate granted two minutes to deliver uninterrupted remarks before proceeding to an open debate.
The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates on Monday announced that “in order to enforce this agreed upon rule, the only candidate whose microphone will be open during these two-minute periods is the candidate who has the floor under the rules”. Both mics will be unmuted for open discussion.
Updated
Next time you dine out with a friend, you may want to think carefully about where you sit in relation to your companion/s, reports Japan’s Asahi Shimbun.
It says simulations by the world’s fastest super computer suggest you will be more exposed to droplets when being spoken to if you sit side-by-side, rather than if you sit opposite your companion ... by a factor of five.
The study looked at three sitting scenarios: side-by-side, opposite and diagonally opposite. It did this by simulating the spread of droplets between four people sitting at two joined tables with one person talking to the person adjacent to them while looking at their face for about a minute. Each table measured 60cm square.
Sitting side-by-side gives diners the biggest chance of being in droplet range. The next was sitting opposite, but the best place to sit was diagonally opposite to minimise droplets.
Just applying that to my own scenario, I guess it also likely means that if you are dining out with someone from your own household and people from another household, it’s better for people you live with to be seated on the same side of the table, as you are less likely to transfer germs between households.
You can see the video simulation here.
Updated
China reports 19 cases, all imported
China has reported 19 new coronavirus cases for 19 October, up from 13 cases a day earlier, the health commission said on Tuesday. All of the new infections were imported. China also reported 24 new asymptomatic patients, compared with 33 a day earlier.
As of Monday, China had 85,704 confirmed coronavirus cases, the health authority said. The Covid-19 death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Updated
Mexico’s health ministry on Monday reported 3,699 additional cases of coronavirus and 171 more deaths in the country, bringing the official number of cases to 854,926 and the death toll to 86,338. Health officials have said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Some good news from Australia – the state of Victoria, which has been subject to some form of stay-at-home order for more than 100 days, has recorded only one new case of coronavirus on Tuesday. The other key part of today’s news is that the rolling 7-day average for metropolitan Melbourne is down to 6.4, which is very close to the average of five that had been set as one of the measures to lift restrictions further on the regions road towards a “Covid normal”.
Yesterday there was 1 new case & the loss of 0 lives reported. 1 other case, who has a Vic address, is quarantining interstate having returned from OS. In Melb, 14 day average and cases with unknown source are down from yesterday. https://t.co/eTputEZdhs pic.twitter.com/pNuSFOb32z
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) October 19, 2020
The neighbouring state of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous, has recorded two new locally acquired cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. Three people in hotel quarantine were also diagnosed with the virus.
You can stay up to date on all the news from Australia on our Guardian Australia live blog below:
Updated
Back on the European side of the Atlantic, and the Welsh government has mounted a staunch defence of the need for a nationwide lockdown as it announced “sharp and deep” measures, despite having the lowest rate of Covid-19 cases of the four UK nations.
The first minister, Mark Drakeford, insisted the two-week “firebreak” – under which schools, shops, pubs and hotels will close and citizens will be told to stay at home – was needed to prevent thousands more deaths and the NHS becoming overwhelmed.
The move means England is the only part of the UK not to bring in a form of national “circuit breaker”, even though it has been advised to do so by experts on the Sage committee, by teachers’ leaders, doctors and by the Labour party.
The new restrictions mean businesses including pubs, hotels, gyms, hairdressers and non-essential shops will have to close from Friday evening and will remain shut until 9 November. People will not be allowed to attend Halloween or Bonfire Night celebrations or travel around or to Wales for the half-term school holiday.
Trump holds rally in Arizona
Donald Trump has been holding another rally, this time in Arizona. I’ll bring you any salient coronavirus lines. So far he’s covered his standard lines. It comes after a day of further revelations over his continuing criticism of the US’s top epidemiologist, Dr Anthony Fauci.
Trump attacked Fauci using a call with campaign staff on Monday to deride him as “a disaster” and to claim “people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots” discuss ways to combat the coronavirus.
Fox News broadcast audio of Trump calling Fauci a “disaster” during a campaign call earlier today pic.twitter.com/aYaNzDr9uv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 19, 2020
The president spoke one day after CBS’s 60 Minutes aired an interview with Fauci, in which the 79-year-old said he was “absolutely not” surprised Trump recently contracted the coronavirus himself, because he was holding crowded events with minimal social distancing and use of masks in the days before he developed symptoms.
You can read our full story below:
Updated
Ireland announces six-week national lockdown
Ireland has become the first European Union country to to re-enter lockdown, with the Taoiseach (prime minister), Micheál Martin, issuing a nationwide “stay at home”.
Measures coming into effect for six weeks from midnight on Wednesday and will see all non-essential retail businesses close and bars and restaurants limited to takeaway service only.
Martin said Ireland’s latest restrictions were “probably Europe’s strictest regime” but that “further action is now required”.
“Everyone in the country is being asked to stay at home,” Martin said in a televised national address.
We as a people, are much stronger than we realise.
— Micheál Martin (@MichealMartinTD) October 19, 2020
We are more resilient than we can imagine.
These are the toughest of times, but the Irish people will persevere, and we will come through this, together.
Ar Scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine #COVID19 https://t.co/WF1jHfKqX8
Only essential workers will be “permitted to travel to work”, he said, and citizens will be allowed out to exercise only within 5km of home.
Schools and childcare facilities are to remain open “because we cannot and will not allow our children and young people’s futures to be another victim of this disease”.
A ban on visits between different households and indoor events will also be extended, although elite and professional level sports will be permitted to take place behind closed doors.
“If we pull together over the next six weeks, we will have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas in a meaningful way,” Martin said.
Health officials reported 1,031 new infections on Monday, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 50,993. The death toll remained unchanged at 1,852.
Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population is 261, less than Britain’s, France’s and Spain’s, and around the middle of Europe’s table. But Ireland’s health service has little spare capacity, especially for intensive care.
You can read our full story below, from Rory Carrol in Dublin:
Updated
WHO: failure to quarantine drives case numbers up
The World Health Organization’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, has linked soaring transmission rates in the northern hemisphere to the failure to quarantine people exposed to the virus.
He said if he could have one wish, it would be to ensure “every contact of a confirmed case is in quarantine for the appropriate period”.
“I do not believe that has occurred systematically, anywhere,” Ryan said, adding it was “a good part of the reason why we’re seeing such high numbers”.
Ryan said that about half of the 48 countries in the UN health agency’s European region had seen roughly 50% increases in cases within the past week – and hospitalisations and death rates were beginning to track those rises.
Some moderately good news is that the average age of sufferers was now much younger, treatment has improved and those infected may have been exposed to lower doses of the virus because of physical distancing and mask wearing.
Worldwide cases of the virus passed 40 million on Monday.
The WHO says 42 potential vaccines are now being tested on humans, of which 10 have reached the third and final stage. A further 156 are being worked on in laboratories with a view to human testing.
But the WHO’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said that while one or two trials may report data by the end of the year, most would start to do so in early 2021.
Updated
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Alison Rourke.
The World Health Organization’s emergencies director, Michael Ryan, has blamed soaring transmission rates in the northern hemisphere on a failure to enforce quarantines rigorously. He said the fact that self-isolation measures were not being enforced systematically was “a good part of the reason why we’re seeing such high numbers”.
It comes as Ireland announced a return to coronavirus lockdown, with the prime minister, Micheal Martin, issuing a nationwide “stay at home” order, but insisting schools will stay open. Measures coming into effect for six weeks from midnight on Wednesday will see all non-essential retail businesses close and bars and restaurants limited to takeaway or delivery service only. “Everyone in the country is being asked to stay at home,” Martin said in a televised national address.
In other coronavirus developments:
- Trump says Americans ‘tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots’ discuss Covid. President once again attacked his top public health expert, using a call with campaign staff to call Anthony Fauci “a disaster” and to claim “people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots” discuss ways to combat the coronavirus.
- Belgium closed bars and restaurants on Monday for a month and has reinforced a curfew. Hospitalisations have risen 100% in the last week.
- Wales is to go into a two-week “firebreak” lockdown, under which schools, shops, pubs and hotels will close and citizens will be told to stay at home. The government said it was needed to prevent thousands more deaths and the NHS becoming overwhelmed.
- Covid vaccine will not be available in UK until spring, says Vallance. A vaccine against coronavirus will not eradicate the disease or be widely available before the spring, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser has cautioned, following reports that a jab could be available as early as the new year.
- Iran on Monday announced 337 deaths from the coronavirus, a record high for a single day in the country hardest hit by the pandemic in the region.
- In Poland the government said the national stadium would double as a field hospital to help ease the strain on overwhelmed health facilities. Around half the country is now designated as a coronavirus “red zone”.
- Greater Manchester given midday deadline for tier 3 deal. The UK government has told Greater Manchester leaders that it will impose the country’s strictest coronavirus restrictions on nearly 3 million people if no deal is reached by midday on Tuesday, in a dramatic escalation of the standoff.
Updated
