The UK has made a mistake in bringing back a rule meaning travellers from Spain must stay at home for 14 days, Madrid’s prime minister has said, arguing that much of the Mediterranean country has a lower coronavirus infection rate than the UK.
“The error, in my judgement, and hence the lack of alignment of the United Kingdom’s response, is based on considering the cumulative incidence of [the virus in] the entire country,” Mr Sanchez said in an interview with Telecinco television. The rebound in Covid-19 cases is focused in two regions, Catalonia and Aragon, he said, adding: “In most of Spain, the incidence [of the disease] is very much inferior to even the numbers registered in the United Kingdom.”
It comes as the head of the World Health Organisation warned the pandemic “continues to accelerate” with a doubling of cases over the last six weeks - with officials warning the risk was not of a second wave, but of a continuation of the first which continues to afflict the global population.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organisation’s director-general, said nearly 16 million cases have now been reported to the UN health agency, with more than 640,000 deaths worldwide. ”Covid-19 has changed our world,” he said on Monday. “It has brought people, communities and nations together — and driven them apart.”
Follow the latest updates
Quarantine policy an 'error', Spain's PM says
Britain's decision to quarantine travellers returning from Spain for 14-days was an "error", Spain's prime minister has said.
Pedro Sanchez pointed out that the upsurge in coronavirus cases is focused in two regions, Catalonia and Aragon, adding: "In most of Spain, the incidence is very much inferior to even the numbers registered in the United Kingdom."
Britons make up over a fifth of foreign visitors to Spain, which relies heavily on tourism, and Madrid has said the UK government gave it no warning that the quarantine move was coming last weekend.
Pandemic 'continues to escalate', head of WHO warns
The coronavirus pandemic "continues to accelerate," with a doubling of cases over the last six weeks, the head of the World Health Organisation has warned.
The WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said nearly 16 million cases have now been reported to the UN health agency, with more than 640,000 deaths worldwide.
Mr Tedros will convene WHO's emergency committee later this week, a procedural requirement six months after the agency's declaration of a public health emergency of international concern, made on 30 January for the coronavirus outbreak. The panel will advise him on the pandemic.
"Covid-19 has changed our world," he told reporters from WHO's Geneva headquarters on Monday. "It has brought people, communities and nations together — and driven them apart."
He cited some factors that have proven effective in some countries, including political leadership, education, increased testing and hygiene and physical distancing measures.
US coronavirus vaccine reaches final stage of testing with 30,000 volunteers in major study
One of the final steps of a major vaccine study in the US is now under way with the first of 30,000 planned volunteers receiving shots of the experimental dose, Louise Hall reports.
The vaccine, developed by National Institutes of Health and Moderna, is one of several candidates in the final stretch of the global race to find a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, which has claimed more than 648,000 lives worldwide.
The Moderna trials will be conducted blindly with two different groups of volunteers who are unaware if they’re receiving the real shot or a placebo.
They will receive two doses and then return to their normal lives where scientists will track which group experiences more infections.
“We’re optimistic, cautiously optimistic” that the vaccine will work and that “toward the end of the year” there will be data to prove it, Dr Stephen Hoge, president of Massachusetts-based Moderna, told a House subcommittee last week.
Government does not agree with Spanish PM's claims, minister says
The UK government does not agree with the claims made by Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, that Britain has miscalculated the data on the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Spain, a minister has said.
Mr Sanchez has called the UK government's decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on everyone arriving from Spain "unjust".
Local government minister Simon Clarke told BBC Breakfast: "We respectfully disagree with the Spanish government's position on this.
"We obviously continue to work closely with them and we wish them every success in managing this outbreak, but we've seen a very sharp increase in cases in Spain.
"A 75 per cent increase in cases reported between the middle of last week and the end of last week. That's why we took the action that we have.
"Clearly, you do have to make decisions on a country-wide basis. There is going to be internal transfer within Spain and it's important that we do our utmost to protect the public."
People will have to accept 'degree of uncertainty' when travelling abroad, government says
Simon Clarke said the UK government must reserve the right to take action to keep the British public safe during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He told the BBC: "The reality is people travelling abroad will have to accept that there is a degree of uncertainty.
"As the situation changes on the ground, we have to reserve the right to take action to keep the British public safe.
"That's what we've done in the case of Spain. I think we'd have faced equally, frankly, strong criticism from you this morning had we done anything else.
"If we'd failed to take these steps, we'd be accused of inaction in the face of a growing health crisis and therefore it is important to remember we're doing this because the balance of medical opinion is it's the right thing to do."
Ryanair won't cut Spain flights despite quarantine rules
Ryanair will not stop flying British tourists into Spain despite the government imposing a two-week quarantine on people returning from the Mediterranean nation after a flare up of coronavirus, Tim Wyatt reports.
The airline’s chief financial officer Neil Sorohan said the decision to remove Spain from the list of countries exempt from the UK’s quarantine was “regrettable” and “very disappointing”.
“We will continue to operate in and out of Spain as normal, but we are keeping our entire operation under consideration, we have to look at things as they evolve,” Mr Sorohan later told the BBC.
Ryanair had not noticed a significant numbers of travellers cancelling or rescheduling their flights during the weekend after the new quarantine rules were announced either, he said.
One of the company’s biggest competitors, holiday firm Tui, has said it will cancel all holidays from Britain to Spain until 9 August following the government’s announcement.
Vietnam suspends all flights to and from locked down city
Vietnam has suspended all flights to and from Danang for 15 days starting on Tuesday after at least 14 cases of the coronavirus were detected in the city, the government has announced.
The Southeast Asian country has also suspended all passenger bus and train services to and from the city, the government said in a statement.
The city, a tourism hot spot, had reintroduced social distancing measures over the weekend after the government confirmed the first domestically-transmitted cases of coronavirus in more than three months.
Most people don't trust UK government's advice on when it is safe to resume normal life, poll finds
More than half of the UK does not trust the government’s advice on when it is safe to return to work, school and leisure activities, a new poll suggests, Peter Stubley reports.
The survey by King’s College London and Ipsos Mori found that 52 per cent of British adults aged 16 to 75 were sceptical about the relaxation of lockdown.
It also showed that more people thought the coronavirus crisis had been handled badly in the UK (42 per cent) than believed it has been handled well (36 per cent).
However, a breakdown of the figures revealed a partisan divide in opinion, with Labour voters three times more likely than Conservative voters to believe the response was mismanaged.
Of those who thought the pandemic was handled badly, 70 per cent blamed the government and 65 per cent blamed Boris Johnson. More than half blamed fellow members of the public who were not following official guidance.
Five more countries added to quarantine exemption list
Five more countries have been added to the quarantine exemption list - Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
However, the government said anyone who arrived in England from these countries before Tuesday would still need to self-isolate.
Spain’s PM criticises UK’s decision to impose blanket quarantine as ‘error’
Spain’s prime minister has criticised the UK government’s sudden decision to impose a blanket quarantine to all regions of the country following a spike in coronavirus infections as an “error”, political correspondent Ashley Cowburn reports.
Despite intense lobbying from Madrid, the Foreign Office last night toughened its travel advice for the European country, extending its all but essential travel warning to the popular Balearic and Canary Islands.
The move brought the FCO advice into line with existing advice for mainland Spain and with No 10s unexpected decision to impose a 14-day mandatory quarantine requirement on people arriving from the whole of the country on Saturday evening.
Speaking to the Spanish television network, Telecinco, Pedro Sanchez pointed out that the upsurge in coronavirus cases is focused in two regions, Catalonia and Aragon, adding: "In most of Spain, the incidence is very much inferior to even the numbers registered in the United Kingdom."
Negligence behind rise in German coronavirus infections, health institute says
Negligence is behind a steady rise in new coronavirus infections in Germany, the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases has said, adding that it was unclear if the country was experiencing a second wave.
"The new developments in Germany make me very worried," Lothar Wieler said during his first news conference in weeks.
"The rise has to do with the fact that we have become negligent."
The number of daily new cases almost doubled on Tuesday to 633, and the RKI linked the increase to increased social contact at parties and in the workplace. It urged people not to flout social distancing rules.
Deaths where Covid-19 mentioned on death certificate fall to lowest number since mid-March
There were a total of 8,823 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week to 17 July, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 270 fewer than the five-year average of 9,093.
This is the fifth week in a row that deaths have been below the five-year average.
Of the deaths registered in the week to 17 July, 295 mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate - the lowest number of deaths involving Covid-19 since the week ending 20 March.
German advises against travel to virus-hit Spanish regions
Germany's foreign ministry has advised holidaymakers not to travel to several Spanish regions including Catalonia, home to Barcelona, that have seen coronavirus infection rates rise.
"We currently advise against unnecessary tourist trips to the autonomous communities of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre due to high infection numbers and local lockdowns," the ministry said on its website.
Spain's rise in Covid-19 cases has prompted most regions to impose rules for masks to be worn everywhere and, in several areas including Barcelona, calls for people to stay at home.
Over 56,400 deaths involving Covid-19 registered in UK
Just over 56,400 deaths involving Covid-19 have now been registered in the UK.
Figures published by the ONS show that 51,366 deaths involving Covid-19 had occurred in England and Wales up to 17 July, and had been registered by 25 July.
Figures published last week by the National Records for Scotland showed that 4,193 deaths involving Covid-19 had been registered in Scotland up to 19 July while 850 deaths had occurred in Northern Ireland up to 17 July (and had been registered up to 22 July) according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
Together, these figures mean that so far 56,409 deaths have been registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, including suspected cases.
New global trial on coronavirus vaccine announced by Pfizer & BioNTech
US drug maker Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech said an advanced trial has begun on a Covid-19 vaccine candidate that the firms hope to bring to market by the end of 2020, Matt Mathers reports.
The trial will include 30,000 participants from 120 sites across the globe, including regions hardest hit by the pandemic. If successful, the firms plan to apply for regulatory approval for the potential vaccine by October.
Pfizer and BioNTech hope to supply 100 million doses of the treatment – named BNT162b2 – by the end of 2020, rising to 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.
“The initiation of the Phase 2/3 trial is a major step forward in our progress toward providing a potential vaccine to help fight the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” the companies said in a statement on Monday.
“Many steps have been taken toward this important milestone and we would like to thank all those involved for their extraordinary commitment.”
Selfridges to cut 450 jobs as sales tumble due to pandemic
Selfridges has told staff it plans to cut 450 jobs as it warned annual sales are expected to be “significantly less” than last year due to the pandemic.
The upmarket retailer said it will reduce its total headcount by 14 per cent to cope with the impact of the virus and subsequent lockdown.
In a message to staff, group managing director Anne Pitcher warned the recovery will be “slow”, stressing 2020 will be “the toughest year we have experienced in our recent history”.
She said: “As you would expect at such a critical time, we have been carefully examining every aspect of our business - our structures, our costs, our ways of working - from top to bottom, leaving no stone unturned to ensure we are fit for purpose and the future.
“This has involved reviewing all non-essential expenses as well as pausing projects and initiatives where prudent to do so.
“The task ahead is significant and, as we look to reinvent retail and prepare to build back, we will need to go further.”
She added: “As a family business, the hardest decisions are the ones that affect our people, which is why it pains me to share news today of the toughest decision we have ever had to take that we will, very regrettably, need to make a 14% net reduction in our overall headcount, approximately 450 roles.”
Pandemic is 'one big wave', WHO says
The World Health Organisation has warned against complacency about new coronavirus transmission in the northern hemisphere this summer, saying the virus did not behave like influenza that tended to follow seasonal trends.
"People are still thinking about seasons. What we all need to get our heads around is this is a new virus and... this one is behaving differently," Margaret Harris told a virtual briefing in Geneva, urging vigilance in applying measures to slow transmission that is spreading via mass gatherings.
She also warned against thinking in terms of virus waves, saying: "It's going to be one big wave. It's going to go up and down a bit.
"The best thing is to flatten it and turn it into just something lapping at your feet."
China reports 68 new coronavirus cases
China reported 68 new coronavirus cases for 27 July, up for the fourth consecutive day, including two in Beijing, the country's health authority said on Tuesday.
China is battling the most aggressive return of Covid-19 in months, driven by infections in the far western region of Xinjiang and a separate flare-up in the northeast.
Of the new local infections for 27 July, 57 were in Xinjiang, according to a statement by the National Health Commission. That brings the total number of cases in the region's current outbreak to 235 since the first infection was reported on 16 July.
Xinjiang has yet to explain how patient zero, a 24-year-old woman who worked in a mall in its capital Urumqi, contracted the virus.
The northeastern province of Liaoning reported six new cases as of 27 July. The current outbreak in Liaoning, which began on 22 July, centred mostly on the port city of Dalian, east of Beijing. The first case in Dalian worked at a seafood processing company, and had not travelled out of the city in recent weeks.
To contain the spread of the virus, Xinjiang and Dalian have tested millions of people for Covid-19, but the coronavirus is already on the move.
Beijing reported two new infections, one linked to Dalian and the other imported. They were the first new cases in the Chinese capital for more than three weeks.
On Monday, the northeastern province of Jilin reported two new cases, its first infections since May. Both were staff at the Dalian seafood processing company, and had travelled back to Jilin from nearby Dalian about 10 days ago.
As of Monday, mainland China had 83,959 confirmed coronavirus cases, the health authority said. The Covid-19 death toll remained at 4,634.
Signs of second coronavirus wave in Europe, Boris Johnson says as he defends quarantine restrictions on Spain
Boris Johnson said there were signs of a second wave of coronavirus in Europe as he defended the government's decision to impose quarantine restrictions on Spain.
"What we have to do is take swift and decisive action where we think that the risks are starting to bubble up again," he said.
"Let's be absolutely clear about what's happening in Europe, amongst some of our European friends, I'm afraid you are starting to see in some places the signs of a second wave of the pandemic."
