We are closing this blog now but you can stay up to date on all of the latest news on our new blog below.
Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments over the last few hours:
- EU trade chief Hogan quits over Ireland Covid-19 ‘golfgate’ controversy. Phil Hogan has quit as the EU’s trade commissioner after days of pressure over allegations he breached Covid-19 guidelines during a trip to his native Ireland, saying it had become clear the controversy was a distraction from his work.
- France reports 5,429 new coronavirus infections, new post-lockdown high. The French health ministry has registered 5,429 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, a new post-lockdown high and a level of new infections not seen since the height of the epidemic in early April.
- Gaza coronavirus lockdown extended by 72 hours after infections spread. Gaza will remain in lockdown at least until Sunday, health officials said after reporting two deaths and 26 Covid-19 cases in the first public outbreak of the coronavirus in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
- Italy recorded its highest daily tally in coronavirus infections since May when the country was still in lockdown. A further 1,367 cases brought the total to 262,540. Despite the surge in infections, the government insists there are no plans for a new lockdown.
- Croatia reported its highest number of daily cases amid the summer tourism season. New cases have risen since Croatia opened its borders to tourists for the summer, hitting more than 200 daily in late August and a record 358 on Wednesday. The government said it still hopes to tackle the crisis without curfews if people would “obey the rules and act responsibly”.
- Russia is preparing to approve a second vaccine against Covid-19. Early-stage clinical trials on the vaccine, developed by the Vector virology institute in Siberia, would be completed by the end of September. Western experts have been sceptical about Russia’s approval of Sputnik V, warning against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory steps have been taken.
- Lebanon could ‘lose control’ of its coronavirus outbreak, the caretaker prime minister warned. Hassan Diab said that if cases continued to rise greatly, as they have in the wake of the Beirut explosion, “we will lose control of this epidemic”.
That’s all from me Jessica Murray, I’m now handing over to my colleagues in Australia.
Updated
Smoke from deforestation-related fires in the Brazilian Amazon last year hospitalised more than 2,000 people and led to a “significant negative impact on public health” in the region, researchers have said.
With similar serious fires expected this year, on top of a deadly Covid-19 pandemic, heavily hospitalisations are likely to be repeated, “potentially collapsing” an already overburdened health system in the region, they said in a report.
“We are watching a situation similar, or even worse, than last year,” said Ane Alencar, director of science at IPAM, the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, one of the institutions behind the study.
More than 4,500 square kilometres of Amazon land deforested this year or cleared but not burned last year could be set on fire during this year’s dry season, which normally runs from July to September, according to the new study.
In July, the Amazon region saw a 28% increase in fires compared to the same period last year, it said.
Miguel Lago, executive director of IEPS, Brazil’s Institute for Health Policy Studies, called the north of Brazil the largest area of “clinic deserts” - areas of limited healthcare availability - in the country.
The Amazonian region around Manaus, for instance, has only 8.8 intensive care hospital beds per 100,000 people, below the Brazilian health ministry’s recommendation of 10 beds, Lago said.
The Amazon has seen the worst outbreak of Covid-19 in Brazil, itself one of the countries most heavily impacted by the virus.
“We have a very fragile health system in the Amazon, that has had a hard time facing the pandemic. So the coincidence of fires and the pandemic is very, very bad,” Lago said.
More needs to be done to limit forest fires in the region this year, with the healthcare system already struggling to deal with coronavirus cases, he said.
“We should be doing everything we can to avoid hospitalisation - and in this case fires are totally avoidable,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Gaza coronavirus lockdown extended by 72 hours after infections spread
Gaza will remain in lockdown at least until Sunday, health officials said after reporting two deaths and 26 Covid-19 cases in the first public outbreak of the coronavirus in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
As of two days ago, when the first four cases were discovered in a refugee camp in the 360 square-kilometre territory, and a 48-hour lockdown was imposed, there had been no infections outside border quarantine facilities for new arrivals.
But by late on Wednesday, health officials said 26 people in several locations had tested positive for Covid-19 and two patients had died - a sign the world pandemic had penetrated Gaza’s forced isolation.
The 40-kilometre-long territory run by Hamas Islamists is sealed off from the outside world by Israeli walls, watchtowers and gunboats along 90% of its border and coastline, and by Egypt along a narrow strip to the south.
Both countries impose tight restrictions on movement in and out of Gaza, citing security concerns over Hamas, which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Israel and the United States.
The new infections added to concerns among local and international health organisations about Gaza’s potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely populated refugee camps and limited hospital capacity.
The UK and US governments are in talks to introduce an “air bridge” between London and New York to enable travellers to sidestep quarantine, The Telegraph has reported.
Ministers are studying plans for regional air bridges that would enable business and other travellers to come to Britain from “low-risk” areas such as New York City within countries that are “red listed” because of their continued overall high coronavirus rates, the report said.
Brazil reported 47,161 new cases of Covid-19 and 1,086 deaths in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.
Brazil has registered 3,717,156 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll from Covid-19 has risen to 117,666, according to ministry data, in the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak outside the United States
Brazil has asked Chinese authorities to provide results of laboratory tests that detected traces of Covid-19 on chicken wings exported by the South American country, according to a statement sent to Reuters by Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry.
The request was made during a meeting in the city of Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, where Brazilian agriculture attachés met local health and trade officials on Tuesday, the statement said.
In response, according to the statement, the Chinese participants said the results are being kept by health authorities of Guangdong, who did not participate in the meeting.
The Brazilians said they would continue to liaise with China’s municipal, provincial and central governments to obtain the lab reports as well as other relevant information pertaining to the case.
The contamination claim concerns chicken wings produced at a Brazilian poultry plant. Aurora, the company which operates the facility in Southern Brazil, voluntarily suspended poultry exports to China effective 20 August pending more clarifications regarding the alleged contamination.
According to the Brazilian government, Chinese officials at the meeting said three samples had tested positive for Covid-19: one taken from the chicken wings, and two from the packaging of products coming from Aurora’s plant in the town of Xaxim.
“The health authorities in Shenzhen were unable to say whether the findings concerned only the detection of the virus’ genetic material or the active virus, nor were they able to provide further information about the alleged finding,” the statement said.
The alleged contamination led the Philippines to impose a temporary ban on poultry meat imports from Brazil while Hong Kong halted chicken imports from Aurora’s Xaxim facility.
The rapid pace of Covid-19 vaccine development and scant information about the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine review process are leading to concerns, the American Medical Association (AMA) said.
In a letter, the AMA urged the FDA to ensure transparency in the vaccine development process and keep physicians informed of the agency’s plan for review of potential vaccine candidates.
Vaccine hesitancy among the public appears to be reaching unprecedented levels due to a number of factors including significant spread of misinformation through channels such as social media, according to the AMA.
In April, the US government initiated Operation Warp Speed and has so far invested billions to secure doses of potential vaccines from across the world.
Warp Speed aims to expedite development of a vaccine and therapies to treat Covid-19, and the emphasis on speed has provoked public anxiety about the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines.
Earlier this month, Russia became the first country to grant regulatory approval to a Covid-19 vaccine after less than two months of human testing. However, experts have warned against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory steps have been taken.
In August, top US infectious disease official Anthony Fauci said the FDA was not cutting corners on safety in its review of vaccine candidates for Covid-19.
The traditional end-of-summer commuter crush appears unlikely to materialise in the UK next week as companies and staff shun the office and embrace remote working, prompting a warning from the country’s leading business body about the future of firms that rely on passing trade.
Hundreds of thousands of mostly white-collar workers are expected to continue working from home, in some cases permanently, despite the reopening of schools in England over the next fortnight.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which represents 190,000 firms, has called on businesses and the government to strike a balance to ensure outlets in sparsely populated city centres do not face oblivion.
The CBI’s deputy director general, Josh Hardie, said:
Remote working has been a real success for many firms and employees, and none of the many benefits should be lost,” said the.
But there has also been a knock-on effect to our town and city centres, where many businesses dependent on passing trade face an uphill battle just to survive.
Both the government and business have a role to play in supporting more people back to the workplace safely and securely. Things won’t return to how businesses operated pre-Covid-19, nor should they. But there is a middle ground to find as the economy reopens.
As many as 30 teenagers in the UK who took a holiday to the Greek island of Zante may have contracted coronavirus, health officials have said.
At least 11 of a group of 18- and 19-year-olds in Plymouth have tested positive for Covid-19 and some had been for a night out in the Devon city since their return from their holiday.
The council’s public health director, Ruth Harrell, said her team was working alongside the national systems to contact and trace the young people thought to have been affected.
“We know that some of these young people had no symptoms, and so carried on as normal, including a night out in Plymouth’s bars and restaurants, until they became aware of the risk,” she said. “That means more people could be infected.
Updated
EU trade chief Hogan quits over Ireland Covid-19 'golfgate' controversy
Phil Hogan has quit as the EU’s trade commissioner after days of pressure over allegations he breached Covid-19 guidelines during a trip to his native Ireland, saying it had become clear the controversy was a distraction from his work.
The forced exit of a heavyweight from the bloc’s executive will be a credibility blow for the team led by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen for less than a year.
The Commission will play a key role in pushing across the line a €750bn recovery fund for EU economies hammered by the coronavirus crisis, and Hogan himself had been making headway in fraught trade talks with the United States.
Hogan said in a statement:
It was becoming increasingly clear that the controversy concerning my recent visit to Ireland was becoming a distraction from my work as an EU Commissioner and would undermine my work in the key months ahead.
I deeply regret that my trip to Ireland - the country that I have been so proud to represent as a public servant for most of my adult life - caused such concern, unease and upset.
Hogan attended a golf dinner last week that outraged the Irish public and led to the resignation of an Irish minister and the disciplining of several lawmakers. He had insisted on Tuesday that he adhered to all rules during the trip.
Updated
Canada’s National Research Council (NRC) has ended its partnership for a coronavirus vaccine with CanSino Biologics, saying the Chinese company lacks the authority to ship the vaccine at this time.
CanSino in May had agreed to bring its vaccine candidate to Canada for testing through a partnership with the (NRC).
Because of the delay, NRC “has since moved on to focus our team and facilities on other partners,” the organisation said in a statement to Reuters.
“The process is not clear to the NRC, but CanSino does not have the authority to ship the vaccine at this time,” said NRC in its statement.
Earlier, CanSino cited bureaucratic indecision as the reason behind the failure for its vaccine partnership in Canada, the Globe and Mail reported, quoting the company’s chief executive officer.
Decisions in China on whether to send the vaccine to Canada were “caught in the bureaucracy”, and some divisions of the Chinese government were not clear if the vaccine should “go to global trials or how to handle it”, chairman and CEO of CanSino Biologics, Dr Xuefeng Yu, told the Globe and Mail in an interview.
NRC said its agreement with CanSino had been reviewed by the company’s Chinese government collaborators.
After the agreement was signed, the Chinese government changed the process required to ship vaccines to other countries.
CanSino’s vaccine candidate is one of the few being tested in a late-stage study, as companies race to develop a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19.
It is based on a modified version of a common cold virus called adenovirus type 5 that was first developed by a Canadian researcher, Frank Graham.
CanSino’s Yu is a former Sanofi Canada executive. The company had previously worked with NRC on an Ebola vaccine based on the same technology, and with other Canadian researchers on an experimental tuberculosis vaccine.
Quebec-based Medicago is the only Canadian company with an experimental vaccine in human trials, with several other projects in earlier stages of development. The federal government recently announced deals to buy vaccine doses from Moderna and Pfizer.
A hurried evacuation of a half million Texas and Louisiana residents ahead of Hurricane Laura has clogged highways, while Covid-19 precautions slowed public transportation for evacuees who needed it and complicated temporary housing arrangements.
The storm strengthened and is forecast to bring 145 mile (233km) per hour winds to the Texas/Louisiana border near midnight on Wednesday.
Warnings for an “unsurvivable storm surge” and “catastrophic damage” led officials in each state to call for residents to flee inland.
Local officials advised residents with personal vehicles to take them. For those boarding buses out of the area temperature checks were required. Evacuees were being assigned to far-flung hotels to avoid large groups at shelters.
In Galveston County, Texas, which ordered a mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas on Tuesday, buses brought residents inland, but capped the number on each at 15 to 20 people because of the pandemic, said county official Zach Davidson.
Officials also arranged for ambulances for those diagnosed with Covid-19.
“We have stressed to people, when you’re building your hurricane kit, put in a mask, hand sanitiser, gloves,” he said.
Texas state officials were directing those fleeing the storm to hotels in Dallas and elsewhere after an Austin intake centre was overwhelmed with requests for housing overnight.
Evacuee Veronica Carresco was carting a full complement of antiseptics on the way to Midland, Texas. “We’re just being cautious. Masks, Lysol, hand sanitiser - we’re doing all of it,” she said.
Large-scale evacuations could increase Covid-19 cases in evacuees’ origin and destination counties, according to a study by Columbia University and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
It advised evacuees to be assigned to areas with low virus activity and encouraged them to follow social distancing guidelines and to wear masks and protective gear.
Texas and Louisiana were both hot spots for the pandemic earlier this year, but new case trends have since declined.
Peru has begun registering volunteers for clinical trials of a Chinese vaccine against the coronavirus.
Six thousand volunteers, who must be aged between 18 and 75 and not have contracted the virus, will be recruited by Cayetano Heredia and San Marcos universities via a dedicated website.
“The universities will select 3,000 volunteers each,” San Marcos rector Orestes Cachay told reporters.
The vaccine, being developed by Chinese company Sinopharm, will be administered by injection.
According to Peruvian researchers in charge of the clinical trials, two strains of the virus - the Wuhan strain and Beijing strain - and a placebo will be randomly given to volunteers.
“A technical team from China will arrive in the coming days, totalling 38 people, to implement the operational part of the project,” Cachay told TV channel N.
The trial is expected to last until December
President Martin Vizcarra announced last week the country would participate in clinical trials of vaccines being developed in China, Britain, the United States and Germany.
Peru, with a population of 33 million, has the third-highest number of deaths from the pandemic in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico. Per capita, it has the region’s highest death rate, with 843.5 deaths per million inhabitants.
More than 28,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the country, which has registered more than 600,000 infections so far.
Moderna said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine induced immune responses in older adults similar to those in younger participants, offering hope it will be effective in people considered to be at high risk for severe complications from the virus.
The company is one of the leading contenders in the race to develop a vaccine against the virus that has killed more than 820,000 people worldwide.
Its candidate, mRNA-1273, is already in late-stage human trials testing its ability to safely prevent infection.
Moderna said the immune responses in those aged between ages 56 and 70, above age 70 and those 18 to 55-years-old were similar.
Health officials have been concerned about whether vaccine candidates would work in older people, whose immune systems typically do not respond as strongly to vaccines.
The company has so far enrolled over 13,000 participants in its late-stage study. About 18% of the total participants are Black, Latino, Native American or Alaska Native, groups that have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, and are often under represented in clinical trials.
Dr Jacqueline Miller, Moderna’s head of infectious disease development, said the company plans to post weekly updates on enrolment of Black and Latino trial subjects on its website.
Pfizer told Reuters last week that 19% of the 11,000 subjects already enrolled in its vaccine trial are Black or Latino.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention narrowed its guidance for who should get tested for Covid-19 this week, saying those who were exposed but are not symptomatic may not need to be tested.
That is a reversal from its previous recommendation, which said testing is recommended for all close contact of people diagnosed with Covid-19.
US government health officials said the guidelines should not be interpreted as “inhibiting public health.”
They said the new guidelines were a collaboration between the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the two other agencies.
The Trump administration has been criticised for its handling of testing for Covid-19, with many states falling short of the volume of tests needed to contain the virus.
It has also been criticised for wielding too heavy a hand with the CDC on previous guidelines such as for schools reopening.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the move looked political. “This is not science. It’s politics,” he tweeted.
The CDC reversed its guidance to say that people in close contact with a COVID-positive person don't need to get tested.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 26, 2020
This is not science. It’s politics. Politics that are dangerous to public health.
It's indefensible.
Updated
France reports 5,429 new coronavirus infections, new post-lockdown high
The French health ministry has registered 5,429 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, a new post-lockdown high and a level of new infections not seen since the height of the epidemic in early April.
The daily figure has topped 4,000 several times in recent days, ahead of the 1 September return to school for millions of pupils.
The French public must act in “a spirit of responsibility” to limit the surge in new cases, prime minister Jean Castex said on France Inter radio Wednesday morning.
“The state has its share of responsiblity... but everyone has to feel like it’s their job to fight the pandemic,” Castex added
The total number of people infected with the virus in France now stands at 253,587.
On Monday, German health authorities labelled the Île-de-France region including capital Paris and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region around Mediterranean port city Marseille “risk zones” for the virus.
Anyone travelling to Germany from the two regions must submit to a Covid-19 test and quarantine themselves while awaiting the result.
The health ministry said figures for the cumulative death toll and for Covid-19 hospitalisations for Wednesday were not available yet due to a technical glitch.
On Tuesday, the ministry reported the cumulative number of deaths had risen by 16 to 30,544 and it said 4,600 people were in hospital with Covid-19, including 410 in intensive care.
Updated
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be running the coronavirus live blog for the next few hours.
Please do get in touch if you have any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
Qatar has decided to reopen all mosques across the country for daily and Friday prayers from 1 September a statement by the supreme committee for crisis management announced on Wednesday.
The statement said this would be part of the fourth and final phase of a plan that started on 15 June, aimed at gradually lifting coronavirus restrictions.
Summary
- Italy recorded its highest daily tally in coronavirus infections since May when the country was still in lockdown. A further 1,367 cases brought the total to 262,540. Despite the surge in infections, the government insists there are no plans for a new lockdown.
- Croatia reported its highest number of daily cases amid the summer tourism season. New cases have risen since Croatia opened its borders to tourists for the summer, hitting more than 200 daily in late August and a record 358 on Wednesday. The government said it still hopes to tackle the crisis without curfews if people would “obey the rules and act responsibly”.
- Russia is preparing to approve a second vaccine against Covid-19. Early-stage clinical trials on the vaccine, developed by the Vector virology institute in Siberia, would be completed by the end of September. Western experts have been sceptical about Russia’s approval of Sputnik V, warning against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory steps have been taken.
- Germany will stop mandatory tests for travellers from high-risk areas and require them to quarantine for at least five days instead as it focuses its testing strategy on people with symptoms or possible exposure to patients with Covid-19. The change in strategy is partly down to Germany’s labs reaching the limits of their capacities.
- The World Economic Forum has postponed its upcoming annual meeting in Davos until summer next year. Organisers said experts advised it would not be safe for the forum to go ahead as planned in January amid the pandemic.
- Belgium revised down its Covid-19 death toll, just as it was about to pass the milestone of 10,000 fatalities. Health authorities reviewed figures from care homes in Flanders and found some Covid-19 deaths not reported as such, some recorded twice and some not caused by coronavirus. The net effect is a reduction of 121, bringing the tally to 9,878.
- The French prime minister said life must return to some kind of normality whilst avoiding another nationwide lockdown. Jean Castex said his government wanted to ensure the French could return to school, get back to work and enjoy a social life “as normally as possible”. He added face masks would remain central to the government’s strategy after a surge in the rate of coronavirus infections in recent weeks.
- Kenya extended a nationwide curfew for 30 days as coronavirus cases rose in areas outside the capital. The president Uhuru Kenyatta also ordered bars and nightclubs shut for another 30 days, but increased the number of people allowed to attend weddings, funerals and other events.
- Ukraine has imposed a temporary ban on most foreigners from entering the country until 28 September. Lockdown measures have also been extended until the end of October to contain a recent surge in coronavirus cases.
- Lebanon could ‘lose control’ of its coronavirus outbreak, the caretaker prime minister warned. Hassan Diab said that if cases continued to rise greatly, as they have in the wake of the Beirut explosion, “we will lose control of this epidemic”.
- Myanmar ordered all schools to close after reporting a record daily rise in new coronavirus infections. The authorities are trying to tackle a resurgence of the virus - with 70 new cases recorded on Wednesday - following weeks without confirmed domestic transmission.
- Iran’s death toll exceeded 21,000 as cases continue to rise. Another 119 infections took the tally to 21,020, prompting the government to urge people to “avoid unnecessary trips”.
- A 61-year-old man died in Gaza after contracting the virus, as Palestinian authorities clamped down on an outbreak in the enclave. It was the first death among the general population since an infected woman died at a quarantine centre in March.
That’s it from me, Lucy Campbell, ‘til tomorrow. Thank you so much, as ever, to everybody who got in touch throughout the day and sent through tips - your contributions are greatly appreciated!
Norway has said it will impose a 10-day quarantine on all people arriving from Germany and Liechtenstein from 29 August due to rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in those countries.
Similar restrictions will also be imposed on those coming from two additional regions in Sweden, the Norwegian foreign ministry said in a statement.
To try to prevent a domestic resurgence of the coronavirus, Norway quarantines all travellers from countries with more than 20 confirmed new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population during the past two weeks.
It also advices against travel to those nations. With its latest additions, Norway will be restricting travel from most European countries, including France, Britain, Spain, Poland and Switzerland.
It still allows quarantine-free travel from EU countries Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland and the Baltic states as well as some parts of Denmark and Sweden.
Portugal’s government has reported a public deficit of 8.3 billion euros between January and July this year, over 17 times higher compared to the same period last year, due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Total revenues fell 10.5% and tax revenues dropped 14.6% as a consequence of a “contraction of the economic activity”, the finance ministry said in a statement, adding expenditures grew 6.9% due to, among other things, subsidies for the unemployment and ill people.
The ministry said:
Budget execution highlights the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy and public services following the adoption of mitigation policy measures.
The outbreak is set to leave long-lasting scars on Portugal’s tourism-dependent economy, with the central bank expecting it to contract 9.5% this year.
Last year, the country reported 2.2% growth and a budget surplus of 0.2% of gross domestic product.
Germany has issued a travel warnings for Andorra and Gibraltar due to rising coronavirus infections, the foreign ministry in Berlin said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministry said it was also warning against unnecessary tourist trips to Saint Martin and Guadeloupe as well as Aruba and Saint Maarten.
Spain reported another 3,594 coronavirus cases on Wednesday as it struggled to contain a second wave of contagion that hit a peak of some 8,000 cases last Friday.
The country has registered the largest number of cases in western Europe since the pandemic began six months ago and the biggest resurgence after lifting one of the continent’s strictest lockdowns against the spread of Covid-19.
The latest daily increase was below the roughly 4,000 cases recorded a day earlier, according to updated health ministry data, and brought the cumulative total to 419,849. Seven more deaths were recorded, pushing the overall toll to 28,971. Daily numbers can still be retroactively updated.
Accounting for 1,513 cases, the Madrid capital region was by far the hardest hit. Separate data from regional authorities showed several municipalities with more than 700 cases per 100,000 people - more than seven times the national average for the past week.
While officials have advised residents in some areas to stay at home, the Madrid region’s deputy leader said there were no plans to request a localised state of emergency under new powers granted by the central government.
Ignacio Aguado told a news conference:
Generally speaking I’m not in favour of more lockdowns, of repeating the steps from March and April...That ended in economic ruin.
He also hit out at the central government’s lack of a strategy to safely reopen schools, accusing the education ministry of leaving local authorities to fend for themselves.
In the absence of national guidelines, Spain’s 17 regions have been left to develop their own plans, frustrating parents and teachers and prompting students to call for three days of strikes in September.
Student union leader Coral Latorre told state broadcaster TVE:
We’re here to demand that the ministry of education does something, because we’re pulling our hair out here to see they’ve done absolutely nothing over the past five months.
Italy hits new record in daily cases since May
Italy reported 1,367 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, its highest daily tally since May when the country was still in lockdown, bringing the total number to 262,540.
Authorities have also registered the highest number of tests: 93,529, almost 20,000 more than Tuesday and a record since the beginning of the pandemic.
Thirteen more people have died with the virus in the last 24 hours, and the death toll now stands at 35,458.
Despite the surge in infections, the government insists there are no plans for a new lockdown.
Health authorities are particularly concerned about a cluster that emerged in the Sardinian ‘Billionaire’ nightclub, owned by former Formula 1 team boss and Italian businessman, Flavio Briatore, who has been hospitalised in Milan after contracting coronavirus.
More than 60 people tested positive for Covid-19 at Billionaire’s, as authorities are struggling to find and test thousands of customers who have been at the Briatore’s nightclub in the last weeks.
Updated
The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has said his government will provide as much as C$2 billion to help students safely return to schools as the country prepares for a return to classes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our children must be safe in the classroom. That’s non-negotiable ,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Announcing the funding at a school gymnasium in north Toronto, Trudeau emphasised the importance of a safe reopening and said the funding could be used for distance learning and disinfectants.
Parents and staff are anxious about what the school year may hold. As a dad—and a former teacher— I get that. We all want what’s best for our kids, including a good education. School matters.
The billions in funding is a rare step by the federal government into education, a provincial jurisdiction, underscoring the unprecedented nature of school reopening.
The announcement also comes weeks, if not days, before schools across the country welcome back students, raising questions about the timing of the federal government’s plans. Trudeau has faced accusations from political rivals in recent days that he is looking to buy political points ahead of parliament’s return and a possible election.
While Canada has seen a relatively low growth rate in new coronavirus cases throughout the summer, experts fear a rushed or ill-planned return to school could reverse the success in reining in the virus.
As school boards across the country scramble to finalise their return strategies, many have been forced to amend their plans in response to fears from parents and educators. A number of boards across the country have announced they will delay the start of school, stagger the return of students and make masks mandatory for all grade levels.
Updated
The UK’s second-busiest airport, Gatwick, announced 600 job cuts because of the collapse in demand due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The airport, south of London, said the losses, which represent nearly a quarter of its workforce, come as August passenger numbers plunged 80% compared with last year.
Chief executive Stewart Wingate said:
If anyone is any doubt about the devastating impact Covid-19 has had on the aviation and travel industry, then today’s news ... is a stark reminder.
We are in ongoing talks with [UK] government to see what sector-specific support can be put in place for the industry at this time.
The slump amid the global pandemic has forced Gatwick to operate from just one of its two terminals, and the airport is operating at 20% of capacity. More than 75% of staff are on furlough.
Wingate promised management would try to safeguard as many jobs as possible and said restructuring would lead to a “fitter and stronger organisation”.
In late July, Heathrow - the country’s busiest airport - announced a pre-tax loss of £1.1 billion in the first six months of 2020.
Revenues halved year-on-year while passenger numbers fell 96% in the second quarter, as air travel came to a virtual standstill due to lockdowns around the world.
The airport, which directly employs 7,000 staff, began voluntary redundancies and reduced its management by a third. It also cut operating costs by at least £300 million and cancelled or paused over £650 million in projects.
Romanian theatres and cinemas could reopen from 1 September with social distancing restrictions and protective masks, while the return of indoor restaurants depends on the number of new coronavirus cases in each region, the president said on Wednesday.
Romania has been reporting just over 1,000 new cases per day since late July, bringing confirmed cases to 81,646 since the pandemic reached the country in late February.
Some 3,421 people have died, and Romania has extended a state of alert until the middle of September. Indoor restaurants, cinemas and theatres have been closed since March.
“There are two sectors where I feel it is important that activity resumes, as much as possible under safe conditions,” the president Klaus Iohannis told reporters.
After 1 Sepember, indoor restaurants could open taking into account the epidemiological conditions in each town.
Iohannis added the government would decide the conditions on Thursday.
Romanian schools will reopen on 14 September on a case-by-case basis, with towns affected by the pandemic likely to hold classes online.
The European Union state will hold a local election on 27 September, with a parliamentary election likely in December.
Croatia reports record daily rise in infections amid summer tourist season
Croatia has recorded its highest number of daily coronavirus infections as a tricky summer tourism season brings a resurgence of Covid-19 to the Adriatic country.
The nation of 4.2 million braved the first few months of the pandemic without strict lockdown measures, recording fewer than 100 cases daily for several months and then almost no new infections by mid-May.
But new cases have risen since Croatia opened its borders to tourists for the summer season, hitting more than 200 daily in late August and a record 358 on Wednesday.
In recent days, countries such as the UK and Germany have imposed quarantines and other measures for travellers returning from parts of Croatia, while Italy blamed a new cluster of the virus on tourists coming back from the Balkan country.
The government said on Wednesday it still hopes to tackle the crisis without curfews.
“The only option not to impose complete lockdown is to obey the rules and act responsibly,” said Davor Bozinovic, head of the national Covid-19 response team.
Around a third of the new cases were detected along Croatia’s southern coast, where the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic and idyllic islands are a huge tourist draw.
The government admits it has taken risks in an effort to save tourism, which accounts for a fifth of the economy.
“It was, let’s be completely frank, a clear political goal of the Croatian government for the tourism season to be as good at it can be in these circumstances,” prime minister Andrej Plenković said last week.
In July, tourist arrivals were slightly under half of last year’s figure, a rate officials hailed as “excellent” under the circumstances.
In total, the authorities have reported 8,800 infections and 174 deaths from the respiratory disease since February.
Updated
Russia prepares to approve second vaccine
Russia is preparing to approve a second vaccine against Covid-19 in late September or early October, the Russian deputy prime minister, Tatiana Golikova, said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a televised government meeting, Golikova told the president, Vladimir Putin, that early-stage clinical trials on the vaccine, developed by the Vector virology institute in Siberia, would be completed by the end of September.
“As of today there have been no complications among those vaccinated in the first and second stages of testing,” she said.
Earlier this month, Russia became the first country to grant regulatory approval to a Covid-19 vaccine after less than two months of human testing.
The vaccine, called “Sputnik V” in homage to the world’s first satellite launched by the Soviet Union, has been hailed as safe and effective by Russian authorities. But western experts have been sceptical about Russia’s approval of Sputnik V, warning against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory steps have been taken.
RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, said on Wednesday the final phase of clinical trials on Sputnik V were beginning.
It said 40,000 people would take part in the final trials and that similar trials would also be carried out in five other countries. Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, said residents of the Russian capital could apply to take part in the trials.
These final trials, carried out on a large number of people, are normally considered essential precursors for a vaccine to receive regulatory approval.
Updated
That’s all from me, Caroline Davies. Handing back to my colleague Lucy Campbell now.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, appears to have employed the services of a celebrity personal trainer after admitting he needed to lose weight after contracting Covid-19.
Harry Jameson, who describes himself as an “elite performance coach”, was snapped running alongside Johnson in central London by a photographer from London’s Evening Standard newspaper today.
A UK government source told the Evening Standard: “Yes, he has engaged a personal trainer. I can confirm it is Harry Jameson. It’s because he is really serious about getting fit, as anyone who has seen him over the past couple of months knows. Boris is raring to go.”
Johnson spoke publicly last month about his wish to get into better shape, and admitted that being overweight probably played a factor in the severity of his illness.
He was admitted to intensive care at St Thomas’ hospital in London in April and received oxygen as he fought the virus.
Updated
Germany will stop mandatory tests for travellers from high-risk areas and require them to quarantine for at least five days instead as it focuses its testing strategy on people with symptoms or possible exposure to Covid-19 patients, the country’s health minister said today.
Jens Spahn said that over the summer vacation period the number of virus tests performed in Germany nearly doubled to 900,000 a week, in part to identify people who caught the virus during trips abroad, the Associated Press agency reports.
People coming home from coronavirus risk areas were offered free tests at airports, train stations and highway stops, allowing them to cut short the required two-week quarantine if their result came back negative.
But now, travellers returning from high-risk areas, which include most countries outside the European Union and some regions inside the bloc, will be required to go into mandatory quarantines for at least five days before taking a test, which may no longer be free unless ordered by a doctor.
The change in the country’s testing strategy is also due to Germany’s labs reaching the limits of their capacities, Spahn said.
With the end of the vacation period … this risk is going down again, Spahn told reporters in Berlin. We have to focus more on patients with symptoms and those who had contact with Covid patients.
Spahn did not say when the testing strategy would change, but it is likely the decision will be made at a meeting on Thursday between chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors.
Updated
Hi. Caroline Davies here, taking over the blog for a short while. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
Annual meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos delayed until summer 2021
The World Economic Forum has decided to postpone its upcoming annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, out of caution amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The meeting, originally scheduled for January 2021, will be rescheduled to “early next summer”, according to organisers.
Adrian Monck, managing director of public engagement at the Forum, said in a press release:
The decision was not taken easily, since the need for global leaders to come together to design a common recovery path and shape the ‘Great Reset’ in the post-Covid-19 era is so urgent.
However, the advice from experts is what we cannot do so safely in January.
Davos rescheduled to early next summer pic.twitter.com/ZkqGZBd94E
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) August 26, 2020
Updated
Belgium death toll revised down
Belgium has revised down its Covid-19 death toll, just as it was about to pass the milestone of 10,000 fatalities.
Health authorities reviewed figures from care homes in the northern region of Flanders and found some Covid-19 deaths not reported as such, some recorded twice and some not caused by coronavirus. The net effect is a reduction of 121.
The revision brought the total fatalities to 9,878 by Wednesday. Otherwise, it would have been 9,999.
The UK government lowered England’s death toll by more than 5,000 two weeks ago after the government adopted a new method of counting fatalities.
Belgium’s Covid-19 deaths per capita are among the highest in the world and it reports a higher proportion of fatalities in care homes than other countries, including when the disease is suspected but not confirmed.
The Belgian Covid-19 taskforce spokesman and virologist Steven Van Gucht told Reuters TV the country had been hit hard.
“But if you compare Belgium with, for example, the United Kingdom or Spain you see they were actually hit even worse,” he said, adding this was reflected in “excess” mortality rates.
The number of new cases in Belgium has risen steadily from a low of about 80 per day in early July to an average of 490 for the week of 16-22 August, although numbers had been falling for 10 days.
Van Gucht said about a fifth of new infections appeared to have been caught on summer holidays. A new challenge would come from reopening schools and a public tiring of measures among the strictest in Europe.
This is a matter of prevention … This is really to avoid a problem that will only come in a few weeks or a few months.
Updated
French PM says life must return to some kind of normality
France will not let its guard down against a still-virulent coronavirus but life must return to some kind of normality, the prime minister said on Wednesday, as a senior adviser to the government warned of a second wave in November.
Jean Castex, the prime minister, said his government wanted to ensure the French could return to school, get back to work and enjoy a social life “as normally as possible”.
Face masks would remain central to the government’s strategy after a surge in the rate of coronavirus infections in recent weeks, he said. Castex told France Inter radio:
The worst thing of all would be that we sink because we did not get things moving amid a social and economic crisis.
France has the seventh-highest Covid-19 death toll in the world, with 30,544 fatalities.
It reported 3,304 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, below last week’s daily highs but much higher than after the president, Emmanuel Macron, initially eased a nationwide lockdown.
Pupils in France aged 11 and over must wear masks when they return to school on 1 September and masks will be provided for free to those with health risks or from impoverished families.
The country has also made it mandatory to wear a mask in workplaces from next week to counter the rise in infections as employees return from their summer holidays.
Countries across Europe are grappling with how reboot their economies and get the daily lives of citizens as close to normal as possible without accelerating the spread of the virus.
Underlining the delicate balancing act, the head of the scientific council advising France’s government said a second wave of the coronavirus could hit in November.
“We may have to toughen measures again,” said Castex, who said local lockdowns would be imposed if needed.
The government’s delayed €100bn ($118.07bn) recovery plan will be unveiled on 3 September, he added.
Updated
Kenya’s president has extended a nationwide curfew for 30 days, saying coronavirus cases were rising in areas outside the capital.
In a televised address, Uhuru Kenyatta also ordered bars and nightclubs shut for another 30 days - but increased the number of people allowed to attend weddings, funerals and other events.
He said infections were slowing in Nairobi and the port and tourism hub of Mombasa.
He said:
This crisis has however began to percolate to the counties. The new frontier of this invisible enemy is increasingly shifting to the counties and to our rural areas.
At present Kenya has 33,016 cases of coronavirus, 564 deaths and 19,296 recoveries.
It will be mandatory for pupils to wear face masks in communal areas of secondary schools in England in places with local lockdowns, the UK education minister Gavin Williamson said on Wednesday in a government U-turn on enforcing their use.
After failing to persuade schools to bring back all students before the summer, the prime minister Boris Johnson is keen to make sure the reopening now happens as he urges people to get back to some kind of normality after the coronavirus lockdown.
Ministers had ruled out the need for pupils to wear masks in corridors despite updated advice from the World Health Organization at the weekend, but Wednesday’s move shifted that stance.
Williamson told Sky News:
There are some areas of the country where we have had to do local lockdowns and we think it is right in those few areas that in secondary schools, in communal areas, that youngsters do wear face coverings.
On a school visit, Johnson later told students:
The risk to your health is not from Covid ... the greatest risk you face now is of continuing to be out of school.
That is why in the next week, in the succeeding days, we must have every pupil back in school in the way that you’ve come back to school.
Headteachers in other areas will also have the discretion to recommend using masks in their schools for students aged between 11 and 18.
It is the latest U-turn by Johnson’s government which has come under fire for its handling of the pandemic and after a debacle this month when an algorithm-based system saw swathes of pupils awarded lower-than-expected exam grades.
The change on stance on masks also marks the latest occasion when Johnson has followed the devolved Scottish government in revising pandemic rules, after changes to the grading of exams and enforcing face coverings in shops.
Huw Merriman, chairman of parliament’s transport select committee and a member of Johnson’s party, said it felt like the government was making it up as it went along.
He told BBC Radio:
It’s time we stopped hiding behind the science, which keeps changing, and we focus on the fact that we are in charge.
Williamson, who apologised after the exam grade problems, said the shift on masks had come following the change in WHO advice.
You can follow more updates on the situation in the UK over on our UK coronavirus live blog:
Updated
Ukraine has imposed a temporary ban on most foreigners from entering the country until 28 September and extended lockdown measures until the end of October to contain a recent surge in coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.
Speaking at a televised cabinet meeting, the prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, also said the government would need to take a decision on Thursday on whether to ban major public events in September.
Updated
The city of Berlin has banned demonstrations planned for this weekend to oppose measures imposed to stem the coronavirus pandemic, after organisers of a rally earlier this month failed to ensure marchers wore masks and kept their distance.
Andreas Geisel, the Berlin interior senator, said the authorities had to strike a balance between the right to freedom of assembly and the need to protect people against infection. He said:
We are still in the middle of a pandemic with rising infection figures.
Germany has managed to keep the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths relatively low compared with some other large European countries, but the number of new daily cases has been rising steadily since early July and has accelerated in recent weeks.
About 20,000 people, included libertarians, constitutional loyalists, far-right supporters and anti-vaccination activists, marched in the capital on 1 August.
Geisel said the organisers of that protest had deliberately broken the rules they had previously accepted in talks with police, including the wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing.
“Such behaviour is not acceptable. The state cannot be given the runaround,” he said, adding he did not want Berlin to be a stage for conspiracy theorists and rightwing extremists.
If crowds still gather despite the ban, the police will intervene, he said.
🔴 Berlin verbietet #Corona-#Demonstrationen. Innensenator Andreas Geisel: „Das ist keine Entscheidung gegen die Versammlungsfreiheit, sondern eine Entscheidung für den Infektionsschutz". #b2908
— Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport (@derInnensenator) August 26, 2020
ℹ️ https://t.co/BAkG59LT2v
Updated
Lebanon could 'lose control' of coronavirus outbreak, says Diab
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, said the country was at risk of losing its control over its coronavirus outbreak after a surge in the number of cases in the wake of the massive explosion in Beirut on 4 August.
“The number of cases is increasing greatly, and if this continues, we will lose control of this epidemic,” Diab was cited as saying in a statement issued by the supreme defence council.
Lebanon registered 525 new Covid-19 infections and 12 deaths on Tuesday. The country experienced a rise in infections following the catastrophic explosion in the capital city at the start of the month.
Cases doubled in the two weeks following the blast, as infections spread in hospitals where victims were being treated, medics say.
The government imposed a partial lockdown last Friday to help combat community spread. But the shutdown, which includes a curfew from 6pm to 6am, still allows for clearing rubble, making repairs and giving out aid in neighbourhoods damaged by the explosion. The airport will remain open, with travellers having to take PCR tests before boarding and on arriving in the country.
The health minister for Lebanon’s caretaker government, Hamad Hassan, who also spoke to the council, said the tally of cases was concerning. Hassan added that hospital capacity needed to be increased to help combat the rise in cases, the official said.
Updated
Myanmar to closes all schools after highest daily rise in infections
Myanmar ordered all schools to close after reporting 70 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, its biggest daily rise, as authorities try to tackle a resurgence of the virus following weeks without confirmed domestic transmission.
All but one of the new cases announced on Wednesday were in the western state of Rakhine, found in nine different locations, each linked to an outbreak in the state capital, Sittwe, where a lockdown and curfew were imposed last week.
Myanmar’s outbreaks has been relatively small compared with other countries in the region, with six deaths and 574 infections in total, but an increase in Covid-19 cases by nearly 35% in just over a week is causing some concern.
“We have called all the schools and instructed them to close from tomorrow,” Ko Layy Win, director general of the country’s department of basic education, told Reuters.
The central committee of Covid decided to do that since the local transmission in the country is high.
One of Wednesday’s cases was in the biggest city Yangon, in an individual seeking medical clearance to travel.
The virus resurfaced in Myanmar on 16 August after a month without community transmission, with the majority of those cases in Sittwe.
Sittwe is also home to crowded camps where about 100,000 Rohingya Muslims have been confined since violence erupted in 2012. Rohingya mostly face strict curbs on freedom of movement and access to healthcare.
Myanmar has restricted internet access in much of the region on security grounds. Humanitarian workers have urged the authorities to restore it at higher speeds to ensure reliable health information is available.
Among the 179 domestic infections since early last week, authorities have detected a mutation thought to be more contagious than previously seen in Myanmar.
To keep Covid-19 at bay, Myanmar has since late March closed its borders to all but returning citizens, who are required to undergo quarantine.
Updated
Sweden has withdrawn its advice against unnecessary travel to the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania.
Sweden earlier withdrew advice against unnecessary trips to Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Croatia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Switzerland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, the Vatican and Austria.
The foreign ministry in a statement on its website extended its advice against travel to other EU and Schengen countries and Britain until 9 September, and to the rest of the world until 15 November.
Rising numbers of confirmed cases in some countries are fuelling fears of a resurgence in the spread of Covid-19.
Updated
Germany’s foreign ministry is extending its travel warning for countries outside Europe until 14 September due to continued concern about the coronavirus, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday.
The warning had been due to expire at the end of August.
Statement Bundesgesundheitsminister @jensspahn zu #Corona-Teststrategie #coronavirus https://t.co/iScb2EzsI8
— phoenix (@phoenix_de) August 26, 2020
Germany also wants to intensify its monitoring of returning travellers to make sure they are abiding by quarantine rules, health minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday, after data showed more than 40% of new infections were contracted overseas.
Spahn said:
At a time when the number of new infections in Germany is low it is important to prevent that the virus is spread in the country through returning travellers.
Updated
Iran's death toll exceeds 21,000 as cases continue to rise
Iran’s death toll from coronavirus rose by 119 to 21,020, the health ministry’s spokeswoman told state TV on Wednesday, with the total number of identified cases rising to 365,606.
Sima Sadat Lari said that 2,243 new cases were identified in the past 24 hours in Iran, rising from 2,213 a day earlier. Lari said:
Unfortunately we have been facing a surge in coronavirus infections in recent weeks. I urge everyone to avoid unnecessary trips.
Iran’s top health officials have appealed to Iranians to avoid travelling during the Shia Muslim religious holiday of Ashura later this week to avoid the risk of a fresh surge of infections.
Ashura is the 10th day of the lunar month of Muharram when, according to Islamic tradition, Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed, was killed in battle in 680.
But despite warnings by the authorities against travelling, state media reported heavy traffic on roads leading to the Caspian coast in northern Iran, a favourite destination during holidays.
Updated
A 61-year-old man has died in the Gaza Strip after contracting the coronavirus, Palestinian authorities said on Wednesday as they clamped down on an outbreak in the enclave.
The man had suffered previous illnesses and had been on a respirator, the health ministry said. It was the first death among the general population since an infected woman died at a quarantine centre in March.
Health officials said nine more cases were discovered on Wednesday. Six of them were in the isolated Maghazi refugee camp where a first four cases had been confirmed on Monday, prompting Gaza’s Hamas authorities to impose a full lockdown.
The three other cases were in northern Gaza Strip, indicating the virus has begun to spread into different areas of the enclave of 2 million people.
The outbreak outside Maghazi remains slow but it cemented concerns by local and international health organisations over the territory’s potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely populated refugee camps and limited hospital capacity.
With local authorities maintaining a lockdown in all cities, people were instructed to stay home at all times and to wear face masks if, in cases of extreme necessity, they had to go out.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which helps over half of Gaza’s population, said it was looking into alternative plans to continue health, education and food services to beneficiaries should the lockdown be extended.
Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA spokesman in Gaza, said clinics remained open but physical presence was prohibited, instead staffers were providing medical consultation over the phone and some medication was delivered to patients at home.
Abus Hasna said:
We are in constant consultation with the health ministry and we are also in discussion over the implementation of our own alternative plans in order to ensure the continuation of delivering services to refugees.
Monday’s cases were uncovered after a woman traveled to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where she tested positive, the Gaza health ministry said.
A ministry spokesman urged everyone who might have visited a supermarket outside a hospital in central Gaza to quarantine themselves and report to medics immediately.
Updated
Good morning from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be steering you through all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next eight hours. As always, please feel free to get in touch to share news tips and stories with me as I work - your thoughts are always welcome!
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Thanks all from me for today. I’m handing over the reins to Lucy Campbell, who will keep you updated throughout the day.
Iran’s death toll from Covid-19 rose by 119 to 21,020, the health ministry’s spokeswoman told state TV on Wednesday. That takes the total number of identified Iranian cases to 365,606.
Sima Sadat Lari said that 2,243 new cases were identified in the past 24 hours in Iran, rising from 2,213 a day earlier, Reuters reports.
Melania Trump has offered her condolences to the loved ones of the more than 178,000 Americans who have now died from the virus and the millions more who have been infected, Lauren Gambino reports.
Updated
The Philippines has reported 5,277 new Covid infections, the highest daily increase in 12 days, and a further 99 deaths.
The country’s health ministry said the total number of confirmed cases had risen to 202,361, more than 60% of which were reported in the past month, while deaths had increased to 3,137.
The Philippines has the largest number of Covid-19 cases in south-east Asia.
Updated
The German government has agreed to pump another €10bn into its Covid-hit economy, prolonging a short-time work scheme and freezing insolvency rules.
Short-time work saves jobs by allowing employers to reduce the employees’ hours but keeps them in work. That programme had been due to expire in March 2021 and will now be extended until the end of next year.
Bridging aid for small and mid-sized companies will now be extended until the end of this year too.
The latest €10bn pledge comes on top of a massive stimulus package, worth more than €130bn, which Angela Merkel’s government hope will help the economy return to growth.
The German economy contracted at its steepest rate on record in the second quarter and the government is desperate to mitigate the effects of the pandemic as much as possible, especially in the run-up to elections in the autumn of 2021.
Finance minister Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, told public broadcaster ZDF the measures could cost up to €10bn next year.
“The goal now is to stabilise the economy,” said Scholz. “The fact that we acted fast and big has resulted in Germany weathering the crisis much better than other (countries).”
The parties also agreed to prolong measures aimed at staving off bankruptcies by allowing firms in financial trouble due to the pandemic to delay filing for insolvency until the end of the year.
Updated
The French arts and culture sectors, which have been hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis, will get €2bn (£1.8bn) in aid as part of the government’s economic recovery package, the French prime minister, Jean Castex, said on Wednesday.
The government’s €100bn economic recovery programme will be unveiled on 3 September.
In July, the UK government pledged £1.57bn to support the arts.
Updated
The former president of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, has tested positive for Covid-19, as the tourist-dependent island nation reports a pick-up in cases since reopening its borders last month.
“I have tested positive for Covid-19. May Almighty Allah bless me and all other sick people with a speedy recovery and good health,” Gayoom said in a tweet on Tuesday night.
قل لن يصيبنا إلا ما كتب الله لنا. I have tested positive for Covid-19. May Almighty Allah bless me and all other sick people with a speedy recovery and good health! Aameen!
— Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (@maumoonagayoom) August 25, 2020
The 81-year-old former president was one of Asia’s longest serving leaders, having ruled the Maldives for 30 years.
Reuters said a source from Gayoom’s family told the news agency that the former autocrat was tested for Covid-19 following a medical consultation on Tuesday morning, after he developed a fever on Monday night.
The source said Gayoom is doing well and is expected to be admitted to the newly built Dharumavantha hospital in the capital, Malé.
Heavily reliant on foreign tourism, the Indian Ocean archipelago lifted a lockdown in the capital in June and opened up its borders for tourists in July.
Since the end of the lockdown in June, the number of Covid-19 cases in the Maldives has tripled, while deaths have risen from five to 28.
The Maldives Health Protection Agency has confirmed a total of 7,047 Covid-19 cases in the country, out of which 2,580 cases are active.
Just over 5,000 tourists visited the Maldives in the month to 15 August, according to Maldives Immigration, a fraction of last year’s monthly average of more than 100,000.
Updated
Germany reports another rise in new infections
There were 1,576 new Covid infections in Germany over the last 24 hours – up from 1,278 the day before, Der Spiegel reports, citing figures from the Robert Koch Institute.
On Saturday, 2,034 cases were reported in Germany, the first time since the end of April that there have been more than 2,000 infections in one day.
So far, 9,280 people have died in Germany from coronavirus while about 210,600 people have recovered from it.
Updated
This is Ben Doherty in Sydney, signing off. My delightful colleague Helen Pidd, in sunny Manchester, will be your guide for the next few hours. Thanks all for your comments and correspondence today.
Be well, all of you, and look after each other.
Nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Saint Teresa, wear masks and face shields as precaution against the coronavirus as they distribute food to poor and homeless people in Kolkata, India. Wednesday marks the birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Mother Teresa. India’s Covid cases have surpassed 3.2m.
Updated
This is a fascinating piece from Associated Press. With winter ending in the southern hemisphere – ergo soon to begin in the north - it has emerged that measures to counter Covid-19 have dramatically slowed the spread of influenza. But that success is not guaranteed for countries about to enter their colder months.
(PS I can confirm winter is ending in the southern hemisphere. Gloriously sunny out my window in Sydney, but here am I, inside still …)
Winter is ending in the southern hemisphere and country after country – South Africa, Australia, Argentina – have had a surprise: their steps against Covid-19 also apparently blocked the flu.
But there’s no guarantee the northern hemisphere will avoid twin epidemics as its own flu season looms while the coronavirus still rages.
“This could be one of the worst seasons we’ve had from a public health perspective with Covid and flu coming together. But it also could be one of the best flu seasons we’ve had,” Dr Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
US health officials are pushing Americans to get vaccinated against the flu in record numbers this autumn, so hospitals aren’t overwhelmed with a “duelling twindemic”.
“It’s also becoming clear that wearing masks, avoiding crowds and keeping your distance are protections that are not specific for Covid. They’re going to work for any respiratory virus,” Redfield said.
The evidence: ordinarily, South Africa sees widespread influenza during the southern hemisphere’s winter months of May through August. This year, testing tracked by the country’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases is finding almost none: something unprecedented.
School closures, limited public gatherings and calls to wear masks and wash hands have knocked down the flu, said Dr Cheryl Cohen, head of the institute’s respiratory programme.
“That not only meant lives saved from flu’s annual toll, but it freed up our hospitals capacity to treat Covid-19 patients,” Cohen added.
In Australia, the national health department reported just 36 laboratory-confirmed flu-associated deaths from January to mid-August, compared to more than 480 during the same period last year.
The most likely and the biggest contributor is social distancing, said Dr Robert Booy, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Sydney.
The coronavirus is blamed for about 24m infections and more than 810,000 deaths globally in the first eight months of this year.
A normal flu year could have the world’s hospitals dealing with several million more severe illnesses on top of the Covid-19 crush.
Back in February and March, as the worldwide spread of the new virus was just being recognized, many countries throughout the southern hemisphere girded for a double whammy. Even as they locked down to fight the coronavirus, they made a huge push for more last-minute flu vaccinations.
“We gave many more flu vaccinations, like four times more,” said Jaco Havenga, a pharmacist who works at Mays Chemist, a pharmacy in a Johannesburg suburb.
Some countries’ lockdowns were more effective than others at stemming spread of the coronavirus.
So why would flu have dropped even if Covid-19 still was on the rise?
“Clearly the vigilance required to be successful against Covid is really high,” said CDC’s Redfield.
“This virus is one of the most infectious viruses that we’ve seen. That’s in part because 40% of people with Covid-19 show no symptoms yet can spread infection,” he said.
Flu hasn’t disappeared, a World Health Organization report cautioned earlier this month. While globally, influenza activity was reported at lower levels than expected for this time of year, it found sporadic cases are being reported.
Plus, some people who had the flu in southern countries might just have hunkered down at home and not seen a doctor as the coronavirus was widespread, WHO added.
But international influenza experts say keeping schools closed children typically drive flu’s spread and strict mask and distancing rules clearly helped.
“We don’t have definitive proof, but the logical explanation is what they’re doing to try to control the spread of (the coronavirus) is actually doing a really, really good job against the flu as well,” said Richard Webby of St Jude Children’s Research hospital, who is part of a WHO committee that tracks flu evolution.
In contrast, the US and Europe didn’t impose coronavirus rules nearly as restrictive as some of their southern neighbours and in many cases are reopening schools and relaxing distancing rules even as Covid-19 still is being transmitted and the cooler months that favour influenza’s spread are fast approaching.
So the US CDC is urging record flu vaccinations, preferably by October. Redfield’s goal is for at least 65% of adults to be vaccinated, usually only about half are.
The US expects more than 190m doses of flu vaccine, about 20m more than last year. States are being encouraged to try drive-thru flu shots and other creative ideas to get people vaccinated while avoiding crowds.
In an unusual move, Massachusetts has mandated flu vaccination for all students from elementary to college this year. Typically only some health care workers face employment mandates for flu vaccine.
In the UK, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, is likewise urging widespread flu vaccination.
The flu vaccine only protects against influenza: it will not lessen the chances of contracting the coronavirus. Vaccines against Covid-19 are still being trialled.
But for coronavirus protection, Redfield urges vigilance about wearing masks, keeping your distance, avoiding crowds and washing your hands.
Countries where flu season is ending are watching to see if the northern hemisphere heeds their lessons learned.
“It could be very scary we honestly don’t know,” Booy, the Sydney infectious diseases expert, said. “But if you’re going to get the two infections at the same time, you could be in big trouble.”
Updated
India records 60,000-plus cases for eighth day running
India’s rampant Covid-19 outbreak continues to spread across the country.
The country recorded more than 60,000 cases the novel coronavirus for the eighth day in a row on Wednesday, as total cases crossed 3.2 million, data from the federal health ministry shows.
The world’s second-most populous country is third behind the United States and Brazil in terms of total caseload, and has recorded the world’s highest single-day caseload consistently since earlier this month.
Deaths in the last 24 hours stood at 1,059, taking the total number of fatalities from the infection to 59,449.
Updated
Shares in Asia Pacific retreated from all-time highs on Wednesday as investors took a pause amid some mixed economic data.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged down 0.1% after hitting its highest since mid-2018 on Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei was off 0.1%. In Sydney, the ASX200 was down 0.9% and the Kospi in Seoul was off 0.25%. Shanghai has lost 1.1% and Hong Kong is in the red by 0.15%.
Tai Hui, JP Morgan Asset M anagement’s chief market strategist in Asia, identified the lack of refent central bank announcements as a possible reason why markets had stalled, a point that highlights the extent to which intervention has been responsible for the soaring markets.
If you look at the macro numbers, a lot of the improvement in Q2 seems to be slowing down in momentum. Central banks and governments are not really announcing anything new, and so markets are in a bit of a sideways move at this point in time.
As the world scrambles to create a vaccine for Covid-19, a reminder of what vaccines can do. Quite simply, they can change the world...
Africa has been declared free of polio today.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) August 25, 2020
This historic milestone fills me with hope and optimism.
We can achieve so much when we work together as a global community. pic.twitter.com/jAcUW0DPfR
A summary of coronavirus developments today:
Global cases have surged passed 23.8m, with more than 818,000 deaths from the virus.
- Rates of transmission are easing in many parts of the world, the World Health Organisation has suggested. Governments have been ramping up efforts to contain the disease, which has claimed the lives of almost 814,000 people and infected at least 23 million since late last year. WHO data said fatality and infection rates were easing in most regions, notably in the hard-hit Americas, except Southeast Asia and the eastern Mediterranean.
- Residents in the capital of Xinjiang are being forced to take traditional Chinese medicine, being handcuffed to buildings and ordered to stay inside for weeks as part of a harsh range of measures to tackle coronavirus, according to posts online. Urumqi, the capital of the semi-autonomous region known for its draconian security measures, has been in a “wartime state” of lockdown for more than a month after a cluster of cases emerged in July, when the outbreak had been mostly contained elsewhere in China.
- South Korea has ordered doctors in Seoul to return to work on Wednesday as they began a three-day strike in protest against several government proposals, including one to boost the number of doctors to deal with health crises like the coronavirus. Trainee doctors have been staging ongoing walkouts, and thousands of additional doctors were due to stage a three-day strike starting on Wednesday. South Korea is battling one of its worst outbreaks of the coronavirus, with 320 new cases reported in the 24 hours to midnight Tuesday.
- UK prime minister Boris Johnson drops advice against face mask use in English schools. Pupils in England will no longer be advised against using face masks in schools after prime minister Boris Johnson made an 11th-hour U-turn days before students head back to the classroom.
- The number of Americans newly diagnosed with the coronavirus is falling. About 43,000 new cases are being reported daily across the country, down 21% from early August, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Experts credit the development at least partly to increased wearing of masks, even as the outbreak continues to claim nearly 1,000 lives in the US each day.
-
Turkey recorded its highest number of new coronavirus cases since mid-June. Another 1,502 infections were confirmed on Tuesday, according to government data, taking the official tally over 261,000.
- India reported the highest number of new coronavirus cases globally for the 18th straight day. Infections rocketed by another 1.5 million since the start of August, taking India’s total to around 3.1 million, more than in the US and Brazil. The rate of new cases in the country is increasing rapidly, climbing by 60,975 in the latest 24-hour period, according to the federal health ministry.
- Gaza entered a 48-hour lockdown after the first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the general population. Four cases of coronavirus were confirmed in a single family in a refugee camp, the first in Gaza that did not involve people quarantined in border facilities after crossing over from Egypt and Israel. Health authorities in the Hamas Islamist-run territory of 2 million people are concerned over the potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely populated refugee camps and limited hospital facilities in dealing with an outbreak.
- Two European patients were confirmed to have been reinfected with coronavirus, raising concerns about immunity. Regional public broadcasters said a patient in the Netherlands and another in Belgium had also been reinfected. It follows a report this week by researchers in Hong Kong about a man there who had been reinfected four and a half months after recovering.
- The German economy contracted by a record 9.7% in the second quarter, the sharpest decline since Germany began to record quarterly GDP calculations in 1970. The government has extended by a year, a scheme topping up the pay of workers who have lost hours because of the pandemic.
Australia will boost defence spending by AU$1b (US$716.80m) to upgrade military facilities and offer additional paid employment to army reservists, as Canberra seeks to soften the economic blow of Covid-19.
In a fresh round of stimulus, prime minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday promised greater spending on defence in a bid to grow the country’s military and support 4,000 jobs.
“Today is again about the JobMaker plan, doing everything we can as we grow out of the Covid-19 recession to ensure that we keep Australians in jobs, and we keep businesses in business,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.
While Australia has reported far fewer cases of COVID-19 compared to other developed countries, restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the virus have had a devastating impact on the country’s economy, which will slip into a recession for the first time in three decades.
Australia has so far promised to spend about A$260 billion in stimulus to support its ailing economy.
The additional defence spending will also assist Australia with its commitment to grow defence spending to more than 2% of GDP, a key demand of US President Donald Trump who has accused allies of not pulling their weight.
Updated
We mentioned earlier that in Germany, the government has extended for a further year a scheme to top up the pay of workers who have lost hours.
New figures are now out on the country’s Covid infections:
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,576 to 236,429, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday.
The reported death toll rose by three to 9,280, the tally showed.
Residents in the capital of Xinjiang are being forced to take traditional Chinese medicine, being handcuffed to buildings and ordered to stay inside for weeks as part of a harsh range of measures to tackle coronavirus, according to posts online.
Urumqi, the capital of the semi-autonomous region known for its draconian security measures, has been in a “wartime state” of lockdown for more than a month after a cluster of cases emerged in July, when the outbreak had been mostly contained elsewhere in China.
Since Friday, internet users have flooded social media platforms with complaints about overly harsh measures and extended quarantine at home or in designated locations, even as cases have gone down. The city, which had documented more than 531 cases by mid-August, has not reported any new cases in eight consecutive days.
Australia’s federation has come under unique strain during the global coronavirus pandemic.
While, by and large, the eight states and territories have co-operated well to combat the pandemic, border closures between states are now causing significant tensions.
Before this year, the last time Australia’s states and territories shut their borders to each other was during the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1919 and 1920.
The situation is particularly acute on the border between the country’s two most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria. Much of that border is the Murray River, and riverine communities spanning the border have been effectively cut in half, keeping children from schools, employees from their workplaces, and perhaps most critically, doctors and nurses from hospitals.
We’ve spoken a great deal today about potential vaccines undergoing trials around the world. The trials at Oxford University are considered, perhaps, the furthest progressed in the world. And there is hope - all is hope at this stage - that there might be something definitive by the end of the year.
Health editor Sarah Boseley reports:
Trials of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine may have gathered enough data to show whether it works and is safe by the end of the year – but it will then need to go through the regulatory process, scientists say.
Prof Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said it is “just possible” that there may be enough clinical trial data on Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine to put before the regulators this year.
Prof Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, has said a vaccine may not be ready until next winter. Pollard suggested they were hoping to go faster.
“I think that Chris Whitty is quite rightly being cautious, that it could take as long as that to first of all demonstrate a vaccine works and is safe and then to go through the processes of regulators looking at that very carefully to make sure everything’s been done correctly,” Pollard told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
South Korea orders doctors back to work
South Korea has ordered doctors in Seoul to return to work on Wednesday as they began a three-day strike in protest of several government proposals, including one to boost the number of doctors to deal with health crises like the coronavirus.
Trainee doctors have been staging ongoing walkouts, and thousands of additional doctors were due to stage a three-day strike starting on Wednesday.
The strikes come as South Korea battles one of its worst outbreaks of the coronavirus, with 320 new cases reported in the 24 hours to midnight Tuesday, the latest in more than a week and a half of triple-digit increases.
The walkouts on Wednesday forced South Korea’s five major general hospitals to limit their hours and delay scheduled surgeries, Yonhap news agency reported.
Earlier in the week, the doctors reached an agreement with the government to continue to handle coronavirus patients, but failed to find a compromise on the broader issues.
“The government now has no choice but to take necessary legal actions such as an order to open business to not put the citizens’ lives and safety in danger,” health minister Park Neung-hoo said in a briefing. “We urge all trainee and fellow doctors to immediately return to work.”
He said the Korean Medical Association (KMA) and the Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA) had rejected several of the government’s offers.
In a statement, KMA said the medical community was always open to all possibilities in talks with the government, and that the doctors did not want to have to strike.
“We sincerely do want to return,” the statement said. “We ask you citizens to listen to our voice so that we can meet our patients as soon as possible.”
KMA and KIRA members have said they oppose government plans to boost the number of medical students over several years, establish public medical schools, allow government insurance to cover more oriental medicine, and introduce more telemedicine options.
The government said its goal to increase the number of medical students by 4,000 over the next 10 years is necessary to better prepare for public health crises like the coronavirus pandemic.
Student doctors, however, said the plan would unnecessarily flood an already competitive market, and that the extra funding would be better spent improving the salaries of existing trainees, which would encourage them to move out of Seoul to rural areas where more health professionals are needed.
Updated
A German scheme that tops up pay for workers who lost work hours because of the coronavirus pandemic has been extended by another year to stave off mass job losses.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition of conservatives and centre-left Social Democrats agreed on Tuesday to allow the programme to run for 24 months for any firm that applies by the end of the year.
It also resolved to extend financial assistance to small businesses until the end of the year and relax insolvency laws in an effort to avoid cascading bankruptcies.
The shorter-hours programme, known as Kurzarbeit, sees the German government cover around two-thirds of workers’ wages when employers slash their hours to save costs.
The scheme was widely used during the 2008-09 financial crisis and credited with saving tens of thousands of jobs.
The programme is one of the main tools used by Berlin to shield Europe’s top economy from the pandemic-induced downturn, accounting for a key part of the government’s trillion-euro (US$1.1 trillion) coronavirus support package.
At the height of the coronavirus lockdowns in April, some 6.8m Germans received money through the scheme, the federal employment agency said.
To ease access to the programme, ministers reduced the requirements that companies need to meet in order to qualify for assistance.
German giants like Lufthansa, Volkswagen and BMW are among the many firms to have tapped into the scheme.
Before the pandemic, German unemployment hovered at a record-low level of around five percent. It has since risen to 6.4 percent. And after years of balanced budgets, the German government has said it plans to borrow around 218 billion euros this year to help pay for its pandemic response.
Other European economies, including France and Britain, introduced similar short-time working programmes to battle the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Updated
Staying in the neighbourhood.... Eleanor Ainge Roy reports from New Zealand:
New Zealand’s director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says there are five new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, and significant spread has now been identified at a Mt Roskill church, which is being treated as a “mini-cluster”.
Contact tracing is now underway for anyone who attended weddings or services at the church.
The minister of health Chris Hipkins said the government had distributed 3 million masks to low socio-economic areas ahead of them becoming mandatory on public transport at midnight Sunday.
Masks would also need to be worn in ubers and taxis. The government is also encouraging people to “make their own masks”.
Auckland’s level 3 lockdown ends on Sunday.
There are 134 active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand, all being held in quarantine facilities or hospitals.
Updated
Update from Australia... Victoria continues to be the largest source of new infections
26/08/2020 10:15am
— COVID-19 Australia (@COVID_Australia) August 26, 2020
🇦🇺 Total 25,203🔺150*
🔬Tests 5.81m ↑ 20k*
🔍Inv 578
👨👩👧👦 Community 4,516
🔴Deaths 549🔺24
🔵Vent 23
🟣ICU 42
🟡Hospital 644
🟠Active 3,876🔻2*
🟢Recovered 19,815 ↑ 1*
VIC🔺149
QLD🔺1*
Mexico’s health ministry has reported 4,916 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection on Tuesday, and 650 additional fatalities.
The new figures bring the total in the country to 568,621 confirmed cases and 61,450 deaths.
But the government has consistently said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Victoria, in southern Australia, is the site of that country’s most serious outbreak. The city of Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest, remains under a severe lockdown, including a citywide curfew and a five kilometre limit on any essential travel.
A parliamentary inquiry in that state has heard more than 50 inmates and corrections staff have contracted Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said 23 adult prisoners and six staff have tested positive.
Another 19 juvenile inmates, five young people on community supervision orders and four prison staff had also tested positive.
All new prisoners are now tested and required to spend 14 days in protective quarantine.
#COVID19VicData for 26 August, 2020.
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) August 25, 2020
149 new cases detected in Victoria yesterday. Sadly we report 24 lives lost - condolences to all those affected.
More information will be available later today. pic.twitter.com/xSrk67Q1AP
Australia has announced it will join the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy and Norway in supporting the Gavi COVAX Facility Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC) to help Pacific and southeast Asian countries access safe and affordable Covid-19 vaccines.
The COVAX AMC is designed to secure Covid-19 vaccines - when one exists - for all countries, not just those that can afford to purchase or manufacture vaccines themselves.
Australia is contributing AU$80m (US$57m) the country’s foreign minister Marise Payne announced.
The AMC is designed to address the acute phase of the pandemic, providing doses for up to 20 percent of countries’ populations in its first phase, ensuring that health care workers and vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, have access.
Pacific countries eligible for COVAX AMC support include Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati. Eligible countries from Southeast Asia are Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, The Philippines and Vietnam.
Chair of the Pacific Friends of Global Health Board, Professor Brendan Crabb, said a global vehicle designed to ensure that the poorest don’t miss out on access to a Covid vaccine was vital.
Vaccines are not magic force shields for individuals, none of us are safe until everyone’s safe. In that way, vaccinating all those in our region is essential, not just to protect those in need who deserve rich country support but it is also in our own enlightened self interest.
It is important also to note that in low-income settings, Covid-19 is likely to cause far more suffering from other diseases than from Covid-19 itself. Health systems just can’t can’t cope. We know that deaths from malaria, TB and HIV have already been increasing due to the diversion of testing and workforce attention to Covid-19 in countries such as PNG.
There is currently no vaccine for Covid-19. See posts passim today about developments around the world in human trials.
We mentioned earlier the Cambridge University vaccine trials. Oxford, too, is conducting human trials of its potential vaccine.
In Australia, the University of Queensland has begun early trials of a potential Covid-19 vaccine on hamsters, yielding “positive indications” about its possible effectiveness in humans.
The findings from the pre-clinical trials have been reported to the International Society for Vaccines by project co-leader and UQ Associate Professor Keith Chappell.
“The neutralising immune response created by our molecular clamp vaccine in animal models was better than the average level of antibodies found in patients who have recovered from Covid-19,” Chappell said in a statement on Wednesday.
In the hamsters trial, the potential vaccine – when combined with MF59 technology developed by Seqirus, a unit of Australian biotechnology group CSL – provided protection against virus replication and reduced lung inflammation following exposure to the virus.
“It also induces a strong T-cell response and showed strong results when it came to data relating to manufacturability,” Chappell said.
While the World Health Organisation says Covid transmission rates are easing across much of the world, they are continuing to escalate in places like India - 18 straight record days of infections, more than 67,000 new cases in the past 24 hours - and southeast Asia. In the US, nearly 1000 people are still dying every day from the virus.
As the world continues to search for an end to this crippling global pandemic, The Guardian’s health editor Sarah Boseley examines six of the most promising candidates for a way out.
US stock markets closed higher on Tuesday night on hopes that the first formal contact between the US and China over their trade agreement would lead to an easing of tension between the superpowers.
The broad-based S&P500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq both closed a new highs, although Asia Pacific markets are expected to be more mixed with Sydney seen opening down 0.6%.
Eurozone shares -0.1%
— Shane Oliver (@ShaneOliverAMP) August 25, 2020
US shares +0.4% with reports China and US reiterated commitment to the Phase One trade deal
US 10 yr yld +3bp to 0.68%
Oil +1.8% to $43.4
Gold -0.04% to $1929.4
Iron ore -2.4% to $121.5
ASX futures -0.6%$A 0.7194 with $US index -0.3%
It comes despite more desperate corporate news as American Airlines said it would lay off around 19,000 workers on 1 October if US lawmakers fail to vote through new support for the limping sector.
Earlier, Australian airline Qantas had said it would cut almost 2,500 more jobs on top of 6,000 already announced, while Finnair said it would slash 1,000 posts.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for prevention efforts against the novel coronavirus and a typhoon, state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday.
An enlarged meeting of the politburo of the Workers Party took place amid a pandemic that is putting additional pressure on the North Korean economy, battered by recent border closures and flood damage.
The meeting assessed “some defects in the state emergency anti-epidemic work for checking the inroads of the malignant virus”, KCNA said in a statement.
North Korea has not reported any confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, but Kim said last month that the virus “could be said to have entered” the country and imposed a lockdown after a man was reported to have symptoms. Later test results on the man were inconclusive, according to the World Health Organisation.
Kim had this month lifted a three-week lockdown in the city of Kaesong after a suspected case of the coronavirus there.
The meeting discussed state emergency measures on preventing crop damage and casualties from Typhoon Bavi, which is expected to hit the country within days, KCNA reported. Heavy rain and flooding have raised concern about food supplies in the isolated country.
The ruling party had said it will hold a congress next year to decide a new five-year plan, after a party meeting noted serious delays in improving the national economy and living standards.
The University of Cambridge is aiming to start clinical trials of its possible coronavirus vaccine in the autumn after it received £1.9m (US$2.5m) in funding from the British government, the university said on Wednesday.
The scientists behind the vaccine said their approach, which uses genetic sequences of all known coronaviruses to hone the immune response, could help avoid the adverse effects of a hyper-inflammatory immune response.
“We’re looking for chinks in its armour, crucial pieces of the virus that we can use to construct the vaccine to direct the immune response in the right direction,” Jonathan Heeney, head of the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics at the University of Cambridge, said.
“Ultimately we aim to make a vaccine that will not only protect from SARS-CoV-2, but also other related coronaviruses that may spill over from animals to humans.”
No vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus which causes COVID-19 has yet been proven clinically effective, though 30 that use a range of technologies are in human trials already.
The Cambridge candidate, DIOS-CoVax2, is DNA based. Computer-generated antigen structures are encoded by synthetic genes, which can then re-programme the body’s immune system to produce antibodies against the coronavirus.
“This could be a major breakthrough in being able to give a future vaccine to huge numbers of people across the world,” said Saul Faust, Director of the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility.
This DNA vector method has been shown to be safe and effective at stimulating an immune response in other pathogens in early stage trials, the university said.
Although it is operating at a later timetable than some other vaccine candidates, the DIOS-CoVax2 shot would not need to be stored at cold temperatures and could be delivered without needles, possibly making the widespread distribution of the vaccine easier.
Updated
Sweden’s Public Health Agency says a faulty test kit had returned some 3,700 false positive results, an error discovered by two laboratories during routine quality controls.
On Tuesday, the agency said the PCR kits, which test for an ongoing Covid-19 infection, were made in China by the company BGI Genomics and had been distributed worldwide.
In Sweden, the kits were used by people conducting at-home tests between period March and August, the agency said.
Mostly, “people who had mild symptoms or who didn’t feel any symptoms at the time of the test received false positive results,” the agency said in a statement.
It added that it would contact those affected this week, as well as adjusting Sweden’s official number of cases.
“The faulty test kit has been reported to the Swedish Medical Products Agency. It has been exported by China to many other countries,” the agency said, adding that it has “informed relevant authorities in Europe and the WHO”.
Sweden on Tuesday said it had 86,891 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and 5,814 deaths.
Transmission easing in many parts of the world, says WHO
The World Health Organisation has suggested the pace of Covid-19 transmission is easing in many parts of the world.
Governments have been ramping up efforts to contain the disease, which has claimed the lives of almost 814,000 people and infected at least 23 million since late last year.
WHO data said fatality and infection rates were easing in most regions, notably in the hard-hit Americas, except Southeast Asia and the eastern Mediterranean.
In Africa, WHO regional director Matshidiso Moeti said new cases were declining after the continent passed “what seems to have been a peak”.
But Health Minister Zweli Mkhize of hard-hit South Africa warned that “our biggest worry is whether in fact this is the first surge and there might be another one”, pointing to the latest developments in Spain.
One of the worst affected countries in Europe, Spain is to use 2,000 soldiers trained in tracking to help regions identify those who have been exposed to infected people.
“We can’t let the pandemic once again take control of our lives... we must take control and halt this second curve,” prime minister Pedro Sanchez said.
Although fatality rates have been falling, the WHO said it recorded more than 1.7 million new coronavirus cases and some 39,000 new deaths in the week to August 23.
That represented however a five-percent decrease in new cases globally and a 12-percent drop in new deaths compared with the week before.
Good morning/afternoon/evening, wherever these words find you. My name’s Ben Doherty, I’m in Sydney, helming The Guardian’s rolling coverage of the global coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Correspondence and comments welcome: you can reach me by email ben.doherty@theguardian.com or on twitter @BenDohertyCorro.
A summary of recent developments:
- UK prime minister Boris Johnson drops advice against face mask use in English schools. Pupils in England will no longer be advised against using face masks in schools after prime minister Boris Johnson made an 11th-hour U-turn days before students head back to the classroom.
- The number of Americans newly diagnosed with the coronavirus is falling. About 43,000 new cases are being reported daily across the country, down 21% from early August, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Experts credit the development at least partly to increased wearing of masks, even as the outbreak continues to claim nearly 1,000 lives in the US each day.
-
Turkey recorded its highest number of new coronavirus cases since mid-June. Another 1,502 infections were confirmed on Tuesday, according to government data, taking the official tally over 261,000.
- India reported the highest number of new coronavirus cases globally for the 18th straight day. Infections rocketed by another 1.5 million since the start of August, taking India’s total to around 3.1 million, more than in the US and Brazil. The rate of new cases in the country is increasing rapidly, climbing by 60,975 in the latest 24-hour period, according to the federal health ministry.
- Gaza entered a 48-hour lockdown after the first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the general population. Four cases of coronavirus were confirmed in a single family in a refugee camp, the first in Gaza that did not involve people quarantined in border facilities after crossing over from Egypt and Israel. Health authorities in the Hamas Islamist-run territory of 2 million people are concerned over the potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely populated refugee camps and limited hospital facilities in dealing with an outbreak.
- Two European patients were confirmed to have been reinfected with coronavirus, raising concerns about immunity. Regional public broadcasters said a patient in the Netherlands and another in Belgium had also been reinfected. It follows a report this week by researchers in Hong Kong about a man there who had been reinfected four and a half months after recovering.
- The German economy contracted by a record 9.7% in the second quarter, the sharpest decline since Germany began to record quarterly GDP calculations in 1970. The statistics office said it came as consumer spending (10.9% down), company investments (19.6% down) and exports (20.3% down) all collapsed at the height of the pandemic.
