Face coverings will be made mandatory in shops in England from 24 July as part of efforts to reduce the spread of coronavirus, after weeks of mixed messages from the government on their use.
Members of the public will be forced to cover their nose and mouth when they go shopping, with exemptions for children under 11 and those with certain disabilities, or risk a £100 fine – which will be reduced to £50 if it is paid within 14 days. Police officers have warned the requirement will be “nigh-on impossible” to enforce.
It came as health secretary Matt Hancock said Leicester's local lockdown would be reviewed on Thursday, but warned the number of infections in the city area was "still well above the rest of the country".
Please allow the live blog a moment to load...
Michael Gove photographed in Pret without a face mask, despite telling public it is 'good sense'
Michael Gove is under fire for failing to wear a face covering while shopping – two days after telling the public it is “good sense” to do so, deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports.
On Sunday, the cabinet office minister told TV viewers: “It is basic good manners, courtesy and consideration to wear a face mask if, for example, you are in a shop.”
Yet, on Tuesday, he was photographed in a branch of Pret a Manger without a mask, even as his cabinet colleague Liz Truss’s face was covered up as she bought her breakfast.
A professor of public health said Mr Gove’s behaviour was “very destructive” to what was already “very confused” government messaging.
Most Americans adopted face-coverings after government recommendation
Most Americans wore cloth face-coverings after the government recommended their use in April, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a publication released on Tuesday.
CDC researchers analyzed data from more than 800 adults in two internet surveys in April and May who reported going outdoors in the past week.
Data published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report showed that within days of the first national recommendation, 61.9 per cent people reported using cloth face-coverings when they left home. This number rose to 76.4 per cent a month later.
The use of cloth masks rose in May across socio-demographic groups. The largest increases were among non-Hispanic White people (54.3 per cent to 75.1 per cent), people older than 65 years (36.6 per cent to 79.2 per cent), and those living in the Midwest (43.7 per cent to 73.8 per cent).
High rates of use were reported at both time points among Black Americans (74.4 per cent to 82.3 per cent), persons of races other than White, Black, Hispanic or Latino (70.8% to 77.3%), people aged 18â29 years (70.1 per cent to 74.9 per cent) and 30â39 years (73.9 per cent to 84.4 per cent), and residents of the Northeast (76.9 per cent to 87.0 per cent).
While more research is needed to understand why some people still do not wear cloth masks, the CDC said public health authorities should continue communicating the importance of covering the mouth and nose.
Hong Kong Disneyland to close again just one month after opening amid coronavirus spike
The Disney corporation is set to close its Hong Kong theme park yet again after the province’s government banned all gatherings of more than four people following a spike in coronavirus cases, Vincent Wood reports.
The park announced it would be shuttering temporarily from Wednesday morning - a move that comes 28 days after the tourist attraction cautiously reopened with social distancing measures in place.
“As required by the government and health authorities in line with prevention efforts taking place across Hong Kong, Hong Kong Disneyland Park will temporarily close from July 15, 2020”, Disney said in a statement.
Hong Kong’s latest round of coronavirus restrictions - which include limiting the number of people who can gather in public to four and the closure of businesses including gyms, arcades and amusement parks - were introduced on Monday.
Admitting that the measures were more restrictive than those seen during the city’s last two spikes in cases, Chief Executive Carrie Lam told a news conference on Monday: "Unless we have an effective vaccine which can be widely used in the community, we may need to co-exist with the virus for a period of time,".
Trump ‘stands by his actions’ over telling people to inject disinfectants, press secretary says
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said Donald Trump “stands by the actions and steps he’s taken”, when challenged about whether he had made mistakes, Oliver O'Connell reports.
CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta asked: “Hasn’t the president made mistakes? He suggested at one point that Americans inject themselves with disinfectants - that sort of thing.”
The question was asked in following an initial query as to whether the White House was briefing against Dr Anthony Fauci by leaking “opposition research” to reporters and that he had made mistakes during the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Acosta continued: “Why not send out these notes to reporters, about what Dr Fauci said in the past, with your names on it? They were sent out by a White House official. The president has said he doesn’t trust anonymous sources, and yet you were sending out these notes to reporters, anonymously.”
Nearly 1,000 US immigration detention centre employees test positive for Covid-19
Nearly 1000 employees of companies contracted to run immigration detention centres in the US have tested positive for coronavirus, Louise Hall reports.
According to congressional testimony given by company executives, over 930 people employed by private contractors that run immigration detention centres have tested positive for the disease as of Monday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reported 45 cases of Covid-19 among direct staff at detention facilities, however, a large proportion of the employees working at privately run centres are employed by private contractors.
Four companies that detain immigrants on contract with ICE including: CoreCivic, The GEO Group, Management & Training Corp, and LaSalle Corrections, have reported at least 930 infections in total between them, in response to questions from lawmakers.
More than 3,000 immigrants in ICE custody have tested positive for Covid-19 at the agency’s centres across the country since the outbreak began, leading to the deaths of two people who were detained.
Turkey's daily cases drop below 1,000 for first time since early June
Daily new cases of the novel coronavirus in Turkey dropped below 1,000 for the first time since 11 June, health minister Fahrettin Koca has announced, with 992 cases identified.
Mr Koca said the total number of Covid-19 cases now stood at 214,993, while the death toll rose by 20 on Tuesday to 5,402.
Daily cases hit a low of 786 on June 2 but more than doubled to 1,592 two weeks later after Ankara eased measures against the spread of the virus.
Blackburn with Darwen announces emergency lockdown measures
Blackburn with Darwen has introduced extra lockdown measures including a limit on the number of people allowed to visit a household after a rise in Covid-19 cases.
The Lancashire authority’s director of public health Dominic Harrison announced the new measures on Tuesday, to be followed for the next month with the aim of avoiding a local lockdown.
The restrictions include a limit of two people from the same household allowed to visit another home.
Banksy shares video of new coronavirus-themed art
Banksy has unveiled new coronavirus-related artwork in a London Underground train carriage.
The artist shared a new video on his Instagram account on Tuesday, showing the art being made, Clémence Michallon reports.
Captioned “If you don’t mask – you don’t get”, the clip features a person (presumably the elusive street artist) donning a white boiler suit, goggles, gloves, an orange vest, and a protective mask before hopping on a Circle Line train.
The outfit resembles that of TFL workers tasked with deep cleaning Tube carriages during the coronavirus pandemic – a fact made clear by the inclusion, at the beginning of Banksy’s video, of an excerpt from a news clip about deep cleaning operations.
England's coronavirus death toll nears 45,000
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said 44,968 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Sunday - up by 138 from 44,830 the previous day.
The figures do not include all deaths involving Covid-19 across the UK, which are thought to have passed 55,500.
The DHSC also said that in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 398 lab-confirmed UK cases.
Overall, a total of 291,373 cases have been confirmed.
Doctor says Swiss restaurants must not rely on plastic visors
The top doctor in the Swiss mountain region that includes St. Moritz and Davos told restaurants on Tuesday not to rely on plastic visors to protect their employees from Covid-19 infections, saying they "create a false sense of security".
The warning, from the Grisons canton bordering Italy and Austria, raises questions about the reopening strategies of some restaurants, hotels and other tourist-dependent businesses.
In Germany some states allow visors for service workers, while others require face masks. Swiss restaurants don't require all workers to wear protective facial coverings, though some have adopted them.
The Grisons cantonal doctor, Marina Jamnicki, said face masks for restaurant staff who cannot keep 1.5m (4.9ft) distance from others were a better solution than transparent plastic shields secured by a headband.
"An analysis of the cases and the path in which the disease spread shows plastic visors being used in gastronomy don't offer sufficient protection," her office said.
"People who wore visors got infected."
Man killed by police after dispute over wearing mask in shops
A man was fatally shot by a sheriff's deputy in Michigan after stabbing another man who had challenged him about not wearing a mask at a grocery shop, police said.
The shooting occurred in Eaton County, southwest of Lansing, about 30 minutes after the stabbing outside a Quality Dairy store, state police Lt Brian Oleksyk said.
A sheriff's deputy spotted the man's vehicle and shot him when he tried to attack her with his knife, Oleksyk said.
The 43-year-old man died at a hospital.
The man had earlier stabbed a 77-year-old man outside the Quality Dairy when he was confronted about not wearing a mask.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer has ordered people to wear masks in stores to reduce the risk of the coronavirus.
The older man was in stable condition at a hospital, Mr Oleksyk said.
WHO working to ensure vulnerable Latin American nations receive 'subsidised' coronavirus vaccine
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is working to ensure vulnerable Latin American nations receive a "subsidised" vaccine at an "affordable" price once it is available, WHO's regional director for the Americas, Carissa Etienne, has announced.
The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Latin America on Monday surpassed the north American figure for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to a Reuters count.
US airlines carried 89% fewer passengers in May
US airlines carried 89 per cent fewer passengers in May compared with last year, a massive decline that is still better than a historic low in April amid the coronavirus pandemic, the US Transportation Department has announced.
The 20 largest US airlines carried 7.9 million passengers in May down from 74.8 million passengers in May 2019.
Still, the airlines carried more than twice as many passengers in May than in April, when passenger traffic fell 96 per cent, up from 3 million passengers on all US airlines in April.
International US traffic fell 98 per cent in May to 182,000 passengers, down from 9.9 million.
Afghanistan faces coronavirus 'catastrophe'
Afghanistan faces "catastrophe" as growing Covid-19 cases stretch a health infrastructure already severely weakened by decades of war, the Afghan Red Crescent Society has said.
Some 34,740 coronavirus cases and 1,062 deaths from the respiratory pandemic have been officially reported in Afghanistan, according to government figures.
"Afghanistan is on the edge of potential health, social and economic catastrophes caused by Covid-19 as the disease places a crippling burden on one of the 10 most fragile states in the world," the Red Crescent Society said in a statement.
"The real toll of the pandemic on the Afghan population is expected to be much higher and remains under-reported due to limited testing and weak health systems," it added.
Doctor warns Swiss restaurants not to rely on plastic visors
The top doctor in the Swiss mountain region that includes St Moritz and Davos told restaurants on Tuesday not to rely on plastic visors to protect their employees from Covid-19 infections, saying they "create a false sense of security".
The warning, from the Grisons canton bordering Italy and Austria, raises questions about the reopening strategies of some restaurants, hotels and other tourist-dependent businesses.
In Germany some states allow visors for service workers, while others require face masks. Swiss restaurants don't require all workers to wear protective facial coverings, though some have adopted them.
The Grisons cantonal doctor, Marina Jamnicki, said face masks for restaurant staff who cannot keep 1.5m (4.9ft) distance from others were a better solution than transparent plastic shields secured by a headband.
"An analysis of the cases and the path in which the disease spread shows plastic visors being used in gastronomy don't offer sufficient protection," her office said.
"People who wore visors got infected."
Mother passed coronavirus to baby in womb, study suggests
Babies may be able to contract coronavirus in the womb, doctors in France say.
A study reports the case of a pregnant woman with Covid-19 passing it on to her baby via the placenta.
Previous studies have suggested transmission of the virus may occur in the period immediately before and after birth.
But it is unclear whether this takes place via the placenta, a cervical route or as a result of environmental exposure.
Now researchers have reported a case that suggests transmission in the womb may be possible.
A pregnant 23-year-old was admitted to hospital in March with a fever and severe cough, and tested positive for Covid-19.
Three days later her baby was born by caesarean. Tests one hour after birth, then again three and 18 days later, showed positive results for the presence of the virus.
Further tests on the newborn's blood and fluid taken from the lungs revealed Covid-19 infection.
More tests showed the virus had spread from the mother's blood into the placenta, where it replicated and caused inflammation.
Researchers found the baby presented with neurological symptoms associated with infection by the virus, similar to those reported in adult patients.
Neuroimaging analyses indicated white matter injury, which the authors speculate can be caused by vascular inflammation induced by Sars-CoV-2 infection.
Both mother and child recovered from the infection and were later discharged from hospital.
Man killed by police after dispute over wearing mask in shops
A man was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy in Michigan after stabbing another man who had challenged him about not wearing a mask at a grocery shop, police said.
The shooting occurred in Eaton County, southwest of Lansing, about 30 minutes after the stabbing outside a Quality Dairy store, state police Lt Brian Oleksyk said.
A sheriff's deputy spotted the man's vehicle and shot him when he tried to attack her with his knife, Oleksyk said.
The 43-year-old man died at a hospital.
The man had earlier stabbed a 77-year-old man outside the Quality Dairy when he was confronted about not wearing a mask.
Gov Gretchen Whitmer has ordered people to wear masks in stores to reduce the risk of the coronavirus.
The older man was in stable condition at a hospital, Mr Oleksyk said.
Leicester cases ‘still well above’ rest of UK as government prepares to review lockdown
The number of Covid-19 cases in Leicester remains too high, health secretary Matt Hancock has warned, as government officials prepare to review the city’s current lockdown measures, Samuel Lovett reports.
Restrictions were tightened across the East Midlands city on Monday 29 June following a spike in infections, with all non-essential shops and schools closed as part of the government’s “whack-a-mole” strategy for dealing with localised outbreaks.
The city’s seven-day infection count has since fallen from 159.1 cases per 100,000 people to 119.9, according to the most recently available data, but Mr Hancock has said the number of positive cases in Leicester remains “well above” the rest of the UK.
The Independent reported last week that the government has yet to devise a concrete strategy for Leicester’s route out of its lockdown, amid uncertainty over whether the tightening of restrictions has actually proved effective in combating the local outbreak.
Now, the health secretary has said government officials will assess the last 14 days’ worth of data to determine whether it is safe to reopen the city, adding that the review will be made on Thursday.
Working conditions could be leaving people exposed to coronavirus, the mayor of Greater Manchester has warned as he called for more data from government on infections.
In a joint press conference with Steve Rotheram, metro mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Andy Burnham called on the government to work in partnership with local authorities by providing more information on those who have tested positive for Covid-19.
He said a high number of cases in Rochdale could be linked to a warehousing operation which had been the “focus of some extra work with regards to testing”.
“I think what we have seen through this is some of the lowest paid jobs have some working conditions which are, I'm afraid, leaving people exposed to picking up the virus,” Mr Burnham said.
“That seems to be the common theme in some of the communities.”
Deliberately keeping the middle seat empty on flights could almost halve the risk of catching coronavirus, a new study has claimed.
The “rough” calculations in the research paper were made using recent findings from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, with several previous studies looking at disease transmission on flights.
Our deputy travel editor, Helen Coffey, has the full story below:
