We’ve launched a new global coronavirus liveblog at the link below – head there for the latest:
South African track athlete Wayde van Niekerk, the world record holder and Olympic champion in the 400 metres, has tested positive to Covid-19.
He will now miss a training meet at Trieste, Italy, scheduled for Saturday, according to Italian media.
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said talks with the White House on a coronavirus aid bill were far from a deal on Friday, as federal unemployment benefits that have been an essential lifeline for millions of Americans expired.
Asked why she rejected a proposal from Republican President Donald Trump’s administration for a one-week extension of the $600 weekly jobless payment, Pelosi told reporters a short-term fix would be appropriate “if you are on a path” toward a deal.
“We’re not,” Pelosi told a news conference.
Negotiations were to continue on Saturday between White House officials and congressional Democrats, Reuters reported. Pelosi will host a meeting with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, an aide familiar with the planning said.
Pelosi, the nation’s top elected Democrat, said she thought Congress and the White House eventually would come together on legislation, although she gave no timetable.
Referring to the mounting cases and deaths from COVID-19, Pelosi said: “This is a freight train that is picking up steam. ... It must be stopped.”
In some of her toughest criticisms so far, she said that Republican delays on legislation and “distortions” about the pandemic “has caused death unnecessarily.”
White House officials took their own hard partisan line, accusing Democrats of refusing Trump’s proposals to extend the jobless benefit that expired on Friday and a moratorium on evictions that ended last week.
Peru extends state of emergency
Peru’s housing minister, Carlos Lozada, said on Friday the government will extend the country’s state of emergency and quarantine measures until 31 August after infections rose, according to Europa Press.
The ministry of health said on Thursday there were 6,809 new cases in the past 24 hours.
Peru has so far seen 407,492 people test positive to Covid-19, including 19,021 deaths.
Updated
Boris Johnson raises prospect of a second lockdown
Boris Johnson raised the threat of a new national lockdown as he paused new freedoms due this weekend amid fears any further reopening of the economy could trigger a full-blown resurgence of the coronavirus.
You can read a full report on Johnson’s comments and the UK government’s announcements by Peter Walker and Severin Carrell at the link below.
Researchers have raised fears that “systematic racism” in the provision of protective equipment was putting minority health workers at greater risk on Friday, as a study showed higher coronavirus infection rates among British and American medical staff.
The report, published in the Lancet Public Health journal, found that frontline healthcare workers were over three times more likely to test positive than the general population early in the pandemic, with the rate rising to five times for ethnic minority medical staff.
Researchers from the US looked at data from almost 100,000 healthcare workers in Britain and the United States taken from self-reported information on the Covid Symptoms Study smartphone app between 24 March and 23 April, according to Reuters.
They found that the prevalence of infection among frontline care workers was 2,747 per 100,000 app users, compared with 242 per 100,000 in the general community.
When they took into account the health workers’ greater access to testing, the researchers estimated that frontline medical workers were around 3.4 times more likely to test positive for Covid-19 than app users in the wider population.
After accounting for pre-existing medical conditions, researchers estimated that healthcare workers from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds were almost five times more likely to report a positive Covid-19 result than somebody from the general community.
The study also found that frontline healthcare workers who said they did not have sufficient protective equipment – like masks, gloves and gowns – were 1.3 times more likely to test positive than those who said they had the proper equipment.
Updated
Hello everyone. This is Luke Henriques-Gomes taking over from Nadeem Badshah.
The Australian state of Victoria is mulling further coronavirus restrictions after recording more than 1,300 new cases over the past two days.
As the crisis in Victoria worsened, it emerged that a growing number of doctors were in intensive care after contracting Covid-19, including an emergency doctor in his 30s and a GP in his 60s.
Meanwhile, St Basil’s, a Melbourne aged care home where several residents have died, has been evacuated because six replacement workers sent in under an emergency government takeover have also tested positive.
In New South Wales, 21 new cases were recorded on Friday. On Friday night, a grocery store at Leichhardt in Sydney, Harris Farm Markets, announced a customer had tested positive, but it will remain open following deep cleaning.
An exclusive members-only venue, the Australian Club, was also among the latest locations forced to close after being linked to a positive case.
Updated
Costa Rican doctors have begun giving free coronavirus tests to about 200 Nicaraguan migrants who have been stranded at the two countries’ border because the Nicaraguan government has demanded negative test results.
Clinica Biblica hospital in the capital of San Jose sent a mobile lab to the Penas Blancas border crossing.
“I thank God that finally we are going to be able to return to our country,” said one migrant.
Mexico’s president has said he will only wear a mask when the country eradicates corruption, a pledge made the day after Mexico surpassed the UK in total Covid-19 deaths.
Mexican president Amlo says he will wear mask 'when there is no corruption' https://t.co/U9XmWdezYz
— The Guardian (@guardian) July 31, 2020
Updated
Colombia, where lockdowns are planned to the end of August, passed 10,000 deaths from coronavirus on Friday, reaching 10,105.
The Andean country is expected to reach 300,000 total cases over the weekend.
Updated
Brazil's death toll surpasses 92,000
Brazil’s death toll has reached a total of 92,475, compared with 91,263 yesterday, according to the country’s health ministry.
The country has registered 2,662,485 confirmed cases of the virus, up from 2,610,102 yesterday.
Updated
Updated
Saturday’s UK edition of the Guardian front page.
Guardian front page, Saturday 1 August 2020 - PM: follow the rules or risk second major lockdown pic.twitter.com/OYFI6kl71a
— The Guardian (@guardian) July 31, 2020
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, shook hands with a crowd of cheering supporters packed shoulder to shoulder on a visit to the far south of the country on Friday, after revealing the night before that he is taking antibiotics for a lung infection.
Bolsonaro has previously tested positive three times for the coronavirus, but, according to one source, doctors accompanying him on the trip have not linked the lung infection to his recent bout with Covid-19.
Despite physical distancing guidelines, he has often come into close contact with supporters, attending rallies and working the rope line during public appearances.
On Friday, he said he would continue to leave Brasilia and travel “at least once a week”.
In a video Bolsonaro posted on Twitter, he showed his face briefly before donning a mask while greeting a raucous crowd in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. He later held up a small child.
Bolsonaro has also used his public appearances to tout the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which he credits for his recovery from Covid-19 despite a lack of scientific evidence.
Supporters cheered the president on Friday as he lifted a box of the drug over his head.
Updated
Small groups of pilgrims performed one of the final rites of the hajj pilgrimage on Friday as Muslims worldwide marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday amid the global pandemic.
The last days of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia coincide with the four-day Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, in which Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.
The pandemic has pushed millions of people around the world closer to the brink of poverty, making it harder for many to fulfil the religious tradition of purchasing livestock.
In Somalia, the price of meat has slightly increased. Abdishakur Dahir, a civil servant in Mogadishu, said that for the first time he would not be able to afford goat for Eid because of the impact of the virus on work.
“I could hardly buy food for my family,” Dahir said. “We are just surviving for now. Life is getting tougher by the day.”
In some parts of west Africa, the price of a ram has doubled. Livestock sellers, used to doing brisk business in the days before the holiday, said sales have dwindled and those who are buying can’t afford much.
It’s a tough market, Oumar Maiga, a livestock trader in Ivory Coast, said: “We are in a situation we’ve never seen in other years.”
The hajj pilgrimage has also been drastically affected by the virus. Last year, some 2.5 million pilgrims took part but this year as few as 1,000 pilgrims already residing in Saudi Arabia were allowed to perform the hajj.
The Saudi health ministry said there have been no cases of the Covid-19 illness among this year’s pilgrims. The government took numerous precautions, including testing pilgrims for the virus, monitoring their movement with electronic wristbands and requiring them to quarantine before and after the hajj. Pilgrims were selected after applying through an online portal, and all had to be between 20 and 50 years of age.
Updated
Tomorrow’s Times front page.
THE TIMES: PM slams brakes on easing of lockdown #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/07cnVy4rap
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 31, 2020
Saturday’s Financial Times front page.
FT WEEKEND: @BorisJohnson caps week of grim virus figures by calling halt on easing #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/kcZPqNpgm0
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 31, 2020
Here are a selection of the front pages of tomorrow’s UK newspapers dominated by the government’s new coronavirus measures, starting with the Telegraph.
TELEGRAPH: PM slams brakes on new Covid freedoms #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/ZmWs0O5Bsm
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 31, 2020
Updated
Updated
Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline have said they are in advanced discussions with the European Commission to supply up to 300 million doses of the drugmakers’ experimental Covid-19 vaccine.
The doses would be manufactured in European countries including France, Belgium, Germany and Italy.
Sanofi is leading the clinical development of the vaccine and expects to launch a pivotal trial by the end of this year.
Updated
Florida reported another record increase in Covid-19 deaths on Friday.
The state health department said Florida registered 257 fatalities, a record for the fourth straight day despite predictions that the midwest was becoming the worst affected area of the US.
The one-day loss of life in the state was roughly equivalent to the number of passengers on a single-aisle airplane.
Florida also reported 9,007 new cases, bringing its total infections to over 470,000, the second highest in the country behind California.
It is among at least 18 states where cases more than doubled in July, when almost 25,000 people in the US died from Covid-19.
Updated
A summary of today's developments
- The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Friday, with the total rising by 292,527. WHO warned the pandemic’s effects would be felt for decades as its emergency committee assessed the situation six months after sounding its top alarm over the outbreak.
- The death toll globally from coronavirus has surpassed 675,000, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker. The figure is now at 675,167, with the US having the most deaths at 152,074, followed by Brazil with 91,263.
- French health authorities reported 1,346 confirmed coronavirus infections, which took the total to 187,919. New cases are above 1,300 per day for the third day in a row, the highest since late April.
- Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, has told Congress he is “cautiously optimistic” that a “safe and effective” coronavirus vaccine will be available to the public by the end of 2020 during a hearing in Washington marked by testy exchanges between Fauci and senior Republicans loyal to Donald Trump.
- Peruvian authorities and the Pan American Health Organization are investigating whether the country failed to count 27,253 deaths caused by the coronavirus, a figure that could more than double the country’s official death toll from Covid-19.
- Greece announced another extension to the end of August of a controversial lockdown on its overcrowded migrant camps as infections in the country pick up. The lockdown on camps introduced in March will now be extended until 31 August “to prevent the emergence and dispersal of coronavirus cases”, the migration ministry said.
Updated
Updated
The Prince of Wales gave a ‘morale boost’ to health workers as he visited Caithness general hospital in the north of Scotland.
Staff at the hospital in Wick said they were thrilled to meet Charles, who is known as the Duke of Rothesay while in Scotland.
During his visit on Friday, Charles thanked staff for their “dedication and hard work throughout the Covid-19 pandemic”, according to NHS Highland.
Professor Boyd Robertson, chairman of the health board, said: “We were delighted to welcome His Royal Highness the Duke of Rothesay to Caithness general hospital.
“His Royal Highness spent time chatting with our staff to thank them for their efforts over the last few months and heard their experiences of working across a variety of health and social care roles during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“All of the staff that met him were delighted and it has given the entire team a morale boost after such a demanding and challenging period.
“I would like to thank His Royal Highness most sincerely for his visit to Caithness general hospital.”
Updated
WHO records record daily rise in coronavirus cases
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Friday, with the total rising by 292,527.
The biggest increases were from the United States, Brazil, India and South Africa, where deaths rose by a total of 6,812.
The previous WHO record for new cases was 284,196 on 24 July.
Deaths rose by 9,753 on 24 July, the second largest one-day increase ever.
Deaths have been averaging 5,200 a day in July, up from an average of 4,600 a day in June.
Updated
Updated
Northern Ireland could lead the way for spectators to return to football matches after a limited crowd attended the Irish Cup final in Belfast this evening.
Just 500 supporters attended the final clash at the National Stadium at Windsor Park in a season that was plunged into uncertainty by the coronavirus pandemic.
It was the first football match played in the United Kingdom since lockdown at which the players were cheered on by their own supporters.
Fans were reminded to physically distance as they arrived by stewards wearing personal protective equipment.
Updated
Global death toll surpasses 674,000
The death toll globally from coronavirus has surpassed 674,000, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker.
The figure is now at 674,038, with the US having the most deaths at 152,074, followed by Brazil with 91,263.
Updated
Donald Trump is on his way to Florida for an event with sheriffs, a round table on Covid response and storm preparedness and a fundraiser at a golf club in nearby Belleair.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis is on his way to meet the president to request authorisation for more troop assistance in the Covid-19 crisis, which is affecting the state badly.
It comes after it emerged that the US is no closer to an agreed national grand plan for tackling the Covid-19 outbreak that has killed more than 150,000 people in America and is still “raging out of control”.
After questioning the public health experts on the White House coronavirus taskforce, there is no change from what the special coronavirus House committee chairman James Clyburn said when he criticised the Trump administration, saying it had “still not developed and implemented a national strategy to protect the American people” after more than six months of the outbreak.
Updated
Families in the US trying to squeeze in a summer vacation before school starts better do some homework on Covid-19 restrictions before loading up the minivan.
The web of state and local quarantines is growing more tangled by the day: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have ordered visitors from a whopping 34 states to quarantine for 14 days.
Chicago and Washington DC, have each singled out travellers from about two dozen states. Other states have their own lists. Some have an option for visitors to get tested instead.
Kathy Kutrubes, owner of a travel agency in Boston, said: “Complicated doesn’t begin to describe it. I feel sorry for people.
“They just want to go to Cape Cod. They want to go to Vermont. I don’t know what to tell them. People are pretty much left on their own to figure out.”
The restrictions and maybe the confusion too are contributing to a sharp drop in travel, dealing a blow to a key industry.
Before the outbreak, Americans were expected to take 2.3 billion domestic trips this year, according to the US Travel Association.
But that is expected expected to drop about 30% to 1.6 billion, the lowest level since 1991. Normally nearly a third of domestic travel happens in the summer.
Abroad, a drop-off in tourism from US visitors and restrictions on crossing borders have also led many travel-related businesses to wonder if they will survive.
Updated
The Polish government is considering extra restrictions for the parts of the country with the most new coronavirus cases after the number rose by a record amount for the second successive day.
“Limits could cover certain counties, the ones that have the biggest problems when it comes to a rise in infections,” government spokesman Piotr Muller told a press conference without specifying the areas.
Of the new cases, 227 were in the Silesia region, where there has been an outbreak among coal miners.
Muller also said that restrictions were unlikely to be nationwide and that the government would explore imposing quarantine measures on travellers from certain countries also facing a rapid growth in new cases.
The health minister, Lukasz Szumowski, told private broadcaster Polsat News that new regulations could include an obligation in some counties to register weddings with authorities and inform them about who was attending.
Szumowski said he expected the number of new daily cases to remain around 500-600 during the coming week before starting to fall.
Updated
France registers more than 1,300 cases for third day in a row
French health authorities reported 1,346 new confirmed coronavirus infections on Friday, which took the total to 187,919.
New cases are above 1,300 per day for the third day in a row, the highest since late April.
The health ministry also said that the number of people in intensive care units due to the disease fell by a further 10 to 371.
On Thursday, that figure had increased by just one, which was the first daily increase after falling every day since 9 April.
In the past 24 hours, 11 people died from the virus infection, taking the total to 30,265. In the past three days the number of dead per day was 16, 15 and 14.
Updated
Updated
That’s all from me Caroline Davies . Thank you for your time
Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, has told the US Congress he is “cautiously optimistic” that a “safe and effective” coronavirus vaccine will be available to the public by the end of 2020 during a hearing in Washington marked by testy exchanges between Fauci and senior Republicans loyal to Donald Trump.
Fauci told US lawmakers on a House of Representatives subcommittee examining the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic that he was sceptical of fast-track vaccine efforts in Russia and China, suggesting the US would not need to depend on other countries for its own vaccine.
“We hope that by the time we get into late fall and early winter, we will have in fact a vaccine that we can say that would be safe and effective. One can never guarantee the safety or effectiveness unless you do the trial, but we are cautiously optimistic this will be successful,” Fauci said in prepared remarks.
He later added: “I do hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing the vaccine before they’re administering the vaccine to anyone. I do not believe that there will be vaccines so far ahead of us that we will have to depend on other countries to get us vaccines.”
Updated
The World Health Organization said today that coronavirus pandemic effects would be felt for decades as its emergency committee assessed the situation six months after sounding its top alarm over the outbreak, AFP reported.
The virus has killed nearly 675,000 people and infected at least 17.3 million since it emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.
WHO’s emergency committee, comprising 18 members and 12 advisers, was meeting on Friday for the fourth time over the Covid-19 crisis.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus opened the meeting saying:
It’s sobering to think that six months ago, when you recommended I declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), there were less than 100 cases and no deaths outside China.
The pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come.”
The committee can propose new recommendations or amend existing ones.
It has been sharply criticised for the length of time it took to declare an international emergency.
The United States, which accused the organisation of being too close to China, officially began its withdrawal from the organisation in July.
The agency has also been criticised for recommendations deemed late or contradictory, in particular on wearing masks, or the modes of transmission of the virus.
Tedros said:
Many scientific questions have been resolved; many remain to be answered.
Early results from serology studies are painting a consistent picture: most of the world’s people remain susceptible to this virus, even in areas that have experienced severe outbreaks.
Many countries that believed they were past the worst are now grappling with new outbreaks. Some that were less affected in the earliest weeks are now seeing escalating numbers of cases and deaths. And some that had large outbreaks have brought them under control.”
Although vaccine development is happening at record speed, we must learn to live with this virus, and we must fight it with the tools we have.
Updated
Peruvian authorities and the Pan American Health Organization are investigating whether the country failed to count 27,253 deaths caused by the coronavirus, a figure that could more than double the country’s official death toll from Covid-19, AP has reported.
Peru already has one of the world’s highest tolls from the disease. If a large number of the suspected cases are confirmed, Peru’s death toll could surpass those of larger countries such as Spain, France and Italy.
Health minister Pilar Mazzetti announced on Thursday night that thousands of death certificates list Covid-19 as one of several causes of death, but they were not included in the country’s official toll because the victims did not undergo a coronavirus test before dying.
She said that Peru had only listed 19,021 victims as dying from Covid-19 because international standards required both a death certificate listing coronavirus and a positive test for the disease in order for a death to be included in official statistics.
She described the new review as part of a process of updating and verifying the country’s death statistics but analysts said it appeared the government was responding to increasing public scepticism of the country’s figures on the disease.
Many Latin American countries are grappling with alleged undercounts of their Covid-19 death tolls, but Peru’s more than 27,000 possibly uncounted deaths appears to be one of the highest.
The nation of 32 million people confirmed its first case on 19 March and conducted very little testing in the first few months of the epidemic.
Opposition politicians have accused Presidente Martín Vizcarra of deliberately hiding the true toll of the disease in Peru, a charge he has rejected. He said last week that the arrival of the disease was “so abrupt that it generated chaos’’ and imprecise counting of the death toll.
Updated
Greece has announced another extension to the end of August of a controversial lockdown on its overcrowded migrant camps as infections in the country pick up.
The lockdown on camps introduced in March will now be extended until 31 August “to prevent the emergence and dispersal of coronavirus cases”, the migration ministry said in a statement.
Greece, with 203 Covid-19 deaths, has so far not been as badly hit as many other European countries – and there have been no deaths in the migrant camps, AFP reported.
But the presence of more than 26,000 asylum seekers on the five Aegean islands – in camps with capacity of under 6,100 – has caused major friction with local communities.
The reopening of Greek airports and borders to tourism, accompanied by the removal of lockdown restrictions for the general population, has led to an increase in cases.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest coronavirus developments:
- The Hong Kong government has postponed its upcoming elections for one year, citing the growing coronavirus outbreak in the city but sparking immediate accusations that the pandemic was being used as a pretext to suppress democracy. The city’s leader, chief executive Carrie Lam, announced on Friday she had invoked emergency regulations to delay the 6 September vote, saying it was the “hardest decision I have made in the past seven months”.
- UK prime minister Boris Johnson has reversed a decision to further relax lockdown restrictions in England from Saturday, as the chief medical officer says the country is “at the outer edge” of how far society can reopen with coronavirus. Speaking at a hastily arranged Downing Street press conference, the prime minister said he was pausing the reopening of leisure businesses, such as casinos and bowling alleys, and preventing beauty salons resuming close-up treatments, for at least two weeks.
- Germany has added three northern Spanish regions to its list of high-risk destinations, meaning anyone arriving from those areas will have to produce a negative coronavirus test or go into quarantine for 14 days. Germany’s foreign ministry said it had toughened up its warning against travel to the regions of Catalonia, Navarre and Aragon following a spike in Covid-19 cases there.
- Lithuania is to impose quarantine on arrivals from France starting Monday after a surge in coronavirus cases there.
- Some French cities are expected to introduce additional face mask requirements. From Friday in Orleans, in central France, masks will be required in open-air markets and after 9pm along the Loire river, where crowds of people have been gathering in the evenings. The mayors of Bayonne and the nearby Atlantic resort of Biarritz also announced face masks would be compulsory in their city centres starting next week.
- The US economy shrank by an annual rate of 32.9% between April and June, its sharpest contraction since the second world war, government figures revealed on Thursday.
- China recorded its highest daily total of new Covid-19 cases since early March, the vast majority of them in the north-western region of Xinjiang. Nationally there were 127 new cases, including four imported and 123 local transmissions. There were 112 in Xinjiang and 11 were in the eastern province of Liaoning.
- Vietnam has reported 45 new coronavirus infections in the city of Danang, marking the country’s biggest single-day jump in cases, as the health ministry sent more health experts to the central city in a bid to combat the outbreak.
Updated
Muslims, wearing protective masks as a precaution against infection from coronavirus today gathered for the Eid al-Adha prayer inside the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, recently converted back to a mosque, in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul.
India’s Bihar state is battling the twin treat of the coronavirus and devastating monsoon floods, AP reports.
The floods have swamped large parts of the densely populated state and displaced more than 300,000 people as of Friday.
Every year the state faces flooding by rivers originating in neighbouring Nepal that affects millions, but doctors and experts said the bigger worry this year is the rapidly spreading coronavirus.
So far, Bihar has recorded 48,197 cases including 282 deaths.
Thats a far lower death toll than other densely populated states that are witnessing a sharp rise in cases, but with experts warning of multiple peaks in India, Bihar could be facing an uphill task to halt the virus.
The World Health Organization recommends one doctor for at least 1,000 people, but in Bihar, the ratio is about one for every 17,000.
The state is also falling short on testing and has only recently increased daily testing capacity from 10,000 to over 14,000.
Lithuania to impose quarantine on arrivals from France
Lithuania said it will impose a two-week quarantine on travellers arriving from France starting Monday after a surge in coronavirus cases there, AFP reports.
The Baltic state’s chief epidemiologist Loreta Asokliene told reporters Friday that France is the latest addition to a Lithuanian list of countries that have seen at least 16 new confirmed coronavirus cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.
The updated “black list” requiring all incoming travellers, including Lithuanian citizens, to self-isolate for two weeks will include 12 EU member states as of Monday, she added.
The others are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden.
France’s seven-day average of new Covid-19 cases has risen above the 1,000 threshold for the first time since the first half of May, when it eased its lockdown.
French health authorities reported 1,377 additional confirmed cases of coronavirus on Thursday, one day after identifying 21 new clusters, bringing the total to 147.
People who had visited Italy accounted for more than a quarter of the first reported cases of the new coronavirus outside China, according to a new study that found most initial infections were linked to just three countries, AFP reports.
Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used publicly-available data to trace the early spread of Covid-19 to dozens of affected countries in the 11 weeks before the World Health Organisation declared it a pandemic.
They found that 27 percent of all the first reported cases were people with travel links to Italy, while 22 percent had been to China and 11 percent had travelled from Iran.
The study, which was published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases this week, found that overall three quarters of the first cases in affected countries were linked to recent travel.
Other initial cases were travellers from Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.
Researchers examined online reports from health ministries and other government agency websites, social media feeds, and press releases for information on first cases and early outbreaks.
Germany adds three Spanish regions to list of high-risk destinations
Germany has added three northern Spanish regions to its list of high-risk destinations, meaning anyone arriving from those areas will have to produce a negative coronavirus test or go into quarantine for 14 days.
Germany’s foreign ministry said it had toughened up its warning against travel to the regions of Catalonia, Navarre and Aragon following a spike in COVID-19 cases there.
The move comes after Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control added the three regions to its high-risk list.
“A mandatory quarantine can only be avoided through a negative COVID-19 test,” the ministry said.
The ministry had on Tuesday already advised against non-essential travel to the three regions but Friday’s tightened restrictions underline the growing alarm about returning holidaymakers bringing the virus back with them, AFP reports.
The affected regions include the tourist hotspots of Barcelona and the beaches of the Costa Brava.
Updated
Spain plunged into recession in the second quarter after its gross domestic product tumbled by 18.5% due to the pandemic, official figures showed on Friday.
In the first quarter, growth had fallen by 5.2%, the Institute of National Statistics said (INE). A recession is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of a contraction in GDP, AFP reports.
The first of estimate by INE is broadly in line with the forecast by the Bank of Spain which had seen a contraction in the economy of 16-22% for the period between April to June at the height of the lockdown when all non-essential activities were halted.
The restrictions imposed under the state of emergency, which began in mid-March, were only gradually lifted in May and June.
The business, transport and hotels sector were all badly hit, with a 40% drop compared with the first quarter.
And tourism, a pillar of the Spanish economy which accounts for 12% of GDP, suffered with a 60% drop in revenues compared the same period in 2019.
Updated
The Hong Kong government has postponed its upcoming elections for one year, citing the growing coronavirus outbreak in the city but sparking immediate accusations that the pandemic was being used as a pretext to suppress democracy.
The city’s leader, chief executive Carrie Lam, announced on Friday she had invoked emergency regulations to delay the 6 September vote, saying it was the “hardest decision I have made in the past seven months”.
Hong Kong is experiencing its worst outbreak of the pandemic, with more than 100 daily new cases – mostly community transmissions – and hospital Covid-19 wards at about 80% capacity. Lam said part of the government’s response to the virus was “a willingness to make hard choices”, however, she also suggested the social unrest and political instability had contributed to the delay.
“The Legco election is held once every four years and it’s a really tough decision to delay it but we want to ensure public safety and health, and we want to make sure the elections are held in an open fair and impartial manner,” Lam said.
She said the Chinese central government supported the decision.
The government’s consideration of a postponement was leaked earlier this week, and was labeled an “assault on fundamental freedoms” amid growing Beijing control over the semi-autonomous region, and coming a day after 12 pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from running.
The potential postponement has sparked fury from opposition and pro-democracy groups.
On Friday afternoon, a coalition of pro-democracy legislators accused the government of using the pandemic to delay an election they were looking like losing.
The group said they represented 60% of the population and “collectively and sternly oppose a postponement”.
More here:
Updated
Here is the Guardian’s report on Boris Johnson’s postponement of lockdown easing in England.
Thousands of demonstrators are expected to gather in Berlin at the weekend to protest against restrictions introduced to dampen the spread of coronavirus.
Under the umbrella title ‘End of the pandemic – the Day of Freedom’ diverse groups from the extreme left and right, including anti-vaxers, Holocaust deniers, and conspiracy theorists who believe the virus has been imposed by an elite in order to gain power, are due to hold dozens of individual protests across the German capital.
Police and lawmakers have urged participants to observe physical distancing rules and to wear face coverings, amid evidence that the frequency of the virus is increasing once again.
Among the demonstrators, one group has suggested ‘storming the Reichstag’, the German parliament building. Others have rejected the idea, arguing it could bring the entire demonstration into disrepute. Over 1500 police are expected to be on duty, with around 22,000 protesters due to take part from across Germany, according to Berlin’s interior ministry.
The main gathering is expected to take place at the Brandenburg Gate in the centre of Berlin, before participants march down the wide ‘17. Juni’ boulevard to the Victory column. Other protests are planned for elsewhere in the city.
The anti-coronavirus restriction demonstrators had been thought to be in decline since Germany began to gradually relaxed its lockdown rules, after reducing the number of active infections.
But parts of what is meanwhile being viewed an established scene, drawing in a range of interest groups, including followers of the elusive US group QAnon -an online conspiracy theory cult focused on the idea of a “deep state” dominance, one of whose heroes is US president Donald Trump, or the alliance ‘Querdenken’ (‘lateral thinking’) whose followers sport tin foil pendants and are against a coronavirus vaccine – have gained more traction the longer the pandemic has continued. Its sympathisers have used social media to gain support. This weekend’s events are supposed to mark the first time the various groups will actively, rather than accidentally, come together.
One of its figureheads, a celebrity vegan cook called Attila Hildmann, has been banned from speaking at the rally due to the defamatory, far-right rhetoric he has used at previous protests.
Nikolai Nerling, a prominent Holocaust denier, who broadcasts his views on YouTube, is expected to be present. The far-right NPD has also announced it will participate.
One of the protesters’ broad demands is for the German parliament to call new elections in September, a year ahead of schedule, so that voters have the opportunity to bring down what is referred to as the “corona emergency government” of chancellor Angela Merkel.
Updated
UK prime minister Boris Johnson has announced he will reverse a decision to relax a range of lockdown measures due to come into force in England on Saturday, including cancelling plans to allow a full range of beauty treatments.
The further easing of lockdown restrictions in England that were due on 1 August for higher risk settings, including allowing small wedding receptions and the reopening of bowling alleys, skating rinks and casinos, has been postponed for at least two weeks, he said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking during a media briefing in Downing Street, London, on coronavirus (COVID-19). Photograph: PA Video/PA
Indoor performances will not resume, pilots of crowds in sports centres will not take place, and wedding receptions of more than 30 people will not be permitted, he added.
His announcement follows that to tighten restrictions in parts of the north of England as part of targeted measures.
A new test powered by artificial intelligence (AI) could be capable of identifying coronavirus within one hour, according to new research.
Its developers say it can rapidly screen people arriving at hospitals for Covid-19 and accurately predict whether or not they have the disease, the Press Association reports.
The Curial AI test has been developed by a team at the University of Oxford and assesses data typically gathered from patients within the first hour of arriving in an emergency department - such as blood tests and vital signs - to determine the chance of a patient testing positive for Covid-19.
Testing for the virus currently involves the molecular analysis of a nose and throat swab, with results having a typical turnaround time of between 12 and 48 hours.
However, the Oxford team said their tool could deliver near-real-time predictions for a patient’s Covid-19 status.
In a study running since March, the researchers have tested the AI tool on data from 115,000 visits to A&E at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH).
Study lead Dr Andrew Soltan said the tool had accurately predicted a patient’s Covid-19 status in more than 90% of cases, and argued that it could be a useful tool for the NHS. He added that the researchers now hope to carry out real-world trials of the technology.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said today that the government will postpone highly anticipated legislative elections, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the semi-autonomous Chinese city, AP reports.
The Hong Kong government is invoking an emergency regulations ordinance in delaying the elections. Lam said the government has the support of the Chinese government in making the decision.
Hong Kong has seen a surge in infections since the beginning of July.
The postponement is a setback for the opposition, which was hoping to capitalise on disenchantment with the current pro-Beijing majority to make gains.
Pro-democracy lawmakers have accused the government of using the outbreak as an excuse to delay the elections.
In India, a vendor sprays sanitiser as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus on ‘rakhis’ (sacred thread) at his shop ahead of the annual Hindu festival ‘Raksha Bandhan’, in Hyderabad
The Raksha Bandhan festival is marked by a simple ceremony in which sisters tie sacred threads known as ‘rakhi’ on their brothers’ wrists as a prayer for their prosperity and happiness.
A vendor sprays sanitizer as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus on ‘rakhis’ (sacred thread) at his shop ahead of the annual Hindu festival ‘Raksha Bandhan’, in Hyderabad on July 31, 2020. - Photograph: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images
Japan has signed a deal to secure 120m doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine, the German pharmaceutical group BioNTech, which is developing the drug with US pharma giant Pfizer, said today.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, with BioNTech saying the terms were based on the timing of the delivery and volume of doses, AFP reports.
But an agreement announced recently between the labs and the US put the price of 100m doses of the potential vaccine at almost $2bn.
First deliveries to Japan are planned for the first half of 2021, added the Mainz-based company.
More than 200 candidate vaccines are being developed around the world with roughly two dozen at the stage of clinical trials with human volunteers.
Updated
In Texas, hurricane season means preparing for one natural disaster in the middle of another, Erum Salam reports from Houston.
On a recent weekend in Houston, hundreds of people thronged a local Home Depot, buying plywood, bags of sand and gallons of water. They were getting supplies – not for a quarantine DIY project – but rather purchasing materials to protect their homes during hurricane season.
It is a yearly ritual in Texas, but 2020 is different. Not only is America facing an unusually active hurricane season – Texas has been hit once already – but the coronavirus pandemic looms over the state’s preparations.
Covid-19 definitely presents a challenge. Hurricane shelters need good ventilation, and to be able to enforce social distancing.
Updated
Portugal’s economy contracted 14.1% in the second quarter from the first three months of this year as it imposed lockdowns to slow the spread of coronavirus, the national statistics agency said today.
With gross domestic product having fallen by 3.8% in the first three months of this year, Portugal has met the technical definition for a recession of two consecutive quarters of a drop in quarter-on-quarter GDP, AFP reports.
“Reflecting the economic impact of the pandemic, the Portuguese Gross Domestic Product (GDP) registered a strong contraction in the second quarter of 2020,” Statistics Portugal said in a statement.
It said domestic demand, both in private consumption and investment, were the main drivers of the drop in GDP.
Portugal is also heavily dependent upon tourism, and Statistics Portugal pointed out that “non-residents tourism (was) almost … interrupted” by the restrictions on international travel and lockdowns.
Portugal’s government expects a 6.9% drop in GDP for the entire year, while the central bank sees a fall of 9.5%.
Updated
Hi. Caroline Davies here. I am going to be running the blog for the next few hours. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
France cases rise by 54% in a week
France’s health authorities have confirmed a “marked increase” in the number of coronavirus cases of 54% across the mainland – excluding overseas territories – in a week.
The increase covered all age groups, but Public Santé France, the public health authority, said the rise was particularly worrying in those aged between 20 and 30. There was also an increase in the number of patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19, and the figures for those requiring intensive care went up by one - the first time the figure has increased in 16 weeks.
As France prepared for a heatwave, people were urged to keep their masks on despite temperatures expected to reach 41C in areas.
The number of new cases in the previous 24 hours was 1,377, only slightly fewer than the previous day, which was a record since May, and the number of clusters under investigation rose by 10 to 151. There were 16 deaths in hospital in the previous 24 hours, taking the total number of deaths in France attributed to the coronavirus to 30,254.
In its report for week 30 (20-26 July) Santé Publique France said the number of positive tests for coronavirus in France – including overseas departments – had risen for the third week in a row and called the increase “significant”. Just under 458,000 patients were tested and 6,407 found positive, an increase of 44% on the number of positive tests the previous week.
Of those tested, just under 440,000 were resident in mainland France, known as l’Hexagone, and 5,592 tested positive, an increase of 54% on the number of positive tests the previous week.
In short, the number of tests carried out increased by 27%, while the number of positive results increased by 54%.
It declared:
In week 30 the increase in new positive cases is much higher than the increase in the number of tests carried out.
More than half (51%) of those who tested positive showed no symptoms. Of those tested positive 69% were aged between 15 and 44 and of those the biggest increase was among 20- to 25-year-olds.
The R-number – the number of people one person with the virus will infect – rose from 1.35 to 1.42.
The increase in clusters was due to large family gatherings as well as public and private events.
Santé Publique France says the increase is due to the “drop in the systematic adoption of prevention measures (keeping a minimum 1-metre distance, not shaking hands and stopping embraces)”.
Updated
Vietnam records first Covid-19 death
A 70-year-old man has died after contracting Covid-19 in Vietnam, the first coronavirus-related death to be recorded in the country, which has been widely praised for its response to the pandemic.
Vietnam responded quickly to the outbreak in January and used extensive contact tracing and strict quarantine rules to prevent the spread of the virus. So far, the country of 96 million has recorded 509 cases.
Critical cases have been so rare over recent months, that they have been reported extensively by the media. The treatment and eventual recovery of a Scottish pilot, who spent 68 days on a ventilator, gripped the public.
The country was on the brink of recording 100 days without any locally transmitted cases when, last weekend, a cluster emerged in the central city Da Nang. Since then, infections have emerged in other cities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
In Da Nang, authorities are building a 1,000-bed field hospital to ease the burden on the city’s hospitals, four of which are under lockdown following a series of cases there. Meanwhile, more than 80,000 people who recently visited the city have been asked to quarantine at home so that the cluster of cases can be brought under control.
The 70-year-old man died on Friday, according to the official Vietnam News Agency. He appears to have contracted the virus in Da Nang.
Updated
Spain must focus on recovery after after registering an “unprecedented” collapse in second-quarter GDP, prime minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday ahead of a meeting with regional leaders, Reuters reports.
Reducing inequality between Spain’s regions must be a part of any eventual recovery, he said, adding that the worst moments of the crisis had now passed.
Philippines records 4,063 new coronavirus cases,
The Philippine health ministry on Friday confirmed 4,063 novel coronavirus infections, reporting the highest daily case increase in south-east Asia for a second straight day, Reuters reports.
In a bulletin, the ministry said the total number of confirmed infections have risen to 93,354, while deaths increased by 40 to 2,023.
Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte on Friday maintained coronavirus restrictions in the capital and some provinces for a further two weeks to try to control the spread of the virus.
Meanwhile, Indonesia reported2,040 new coronavirus infections on Friday and 73 additional deaths, according to data published on the country’s Covid-19 taskforce website.
This brought Indonesia’s total number of confirmed infections to 108,376 and deaths to 5,131.
Updated
Poland reports highest number of new daily coronavirus cases
Poland reported its highest number of new daily coronavirus cases since the global pandemic started for the second day in a row on Friday, with 657 new cases, Reuters reports, citing the health ministry.
The ministry reported seven new deaths, with a total of 45,688 reported coronavirus cases and 1,716 deaths.
Of the new cases, 227 were in the Silesia region, which has been grappling with an outbreak amongst miners.
Russia reported 5,482 new cases of coronavirus on Friday
Russia reported 5,482 new cases of coronavirus on Friday, according to a report by Reuters. The latest count pushes its national tally to 839,981, the world’s fourth largest caseload.
Officials said 161 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 13,963.
Updated
Police are ready to set up roadblocks, create diversions and close off sections of Bournemouth beach to prevent a repeat of last month’s chaotic scenes as a heatwave sweeps parts of the UK, reports Steven Morris and Simon Murphy.
They write:
With temperatures forecast to hit 33C in parts of southern England, some officers have been asked to work extended shifts and weekend leave has been cancelled for others as the emergency services and the local council brace themselves for another major influx of visitors.
The moves come as the prime minister, Boris Johnson, urged people not to lose focus and risk spreading Covid-19. He said on Thursday: “Broadly speaking, the only way to control coronavirus is if everybody collectively obeys the social distancing rules and works together to drive the virus down.
“What I’m saying to people is: don’t lose focus, don’t lose discipline, continue to observe those guidelines, and if you have symptoms, get a test.”
Germany reports 870 new coronavirus cases
Germany reported 870 more confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday, according to a tally from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.
Reuters reports that the total number of cases now stands at 208,698, while 9,141 deaths have been recorded
Hello, I’m Aamna taking over the blog for the next few hours. If you have any questions, you can email me (aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com) or tweet me (@aamnamohdin)
The governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, has warned that the Japanese capital could declare a state of emergency if the coronavirus outbreak continued to worsen, after new cases reached a record single-day high of 463 on Friday.
“If the situation worsens, Tokyo would have to think about issuing its own state of emergency,” Koike said, a day after she called on bars, restaurants and karaoke venues to close early, at 10pm, from Monday until the end of August. Those that comply will be eligible for a subsidy of ¥200,000 ($1,900).
“As we look to the long fight against the coronavirus, asking for complete business shutdowns is not realistic,” Koike said, according to the Nikkei business paper. The central and local governments do not have the legal power to enforce business closures or limit their opening hours, and have relied on bars, restaurants, clubs and other establishments to take action voluntarily.
Friday’s record number of new infections comes a day after Tokyo announced 367 new cases – another record. Infections have been rising in several parts of Japan since a nationwide state of emergency was lifted at the end of May, with a large number of cases traced to the city’s nightlife districts.
People in their 20s and 30s account for about 60% of infections, but the proportion of people aged 40 or older is increasing, the Nikkei said. Officials have noted that Tokyo health authorities are testing more people per day than during the earlier stages of the pandemic.
The number of infections in Tokyo now exceeds 12,000, more than half of which were reported this month. Japan’s total rose to 35,461 on Thursday, including 700 people from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined in Yokohama in February. The country’s death toll stands at 1,020.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest coronavirus developments:
- New restrictions have come into force in the north of England, including people not being able to mix with other households. The measures apply in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and East Lancashire after increase in cases. Households may go to hospitality, for instance bars and pubs, but new guidance will make clear that two households should not go to hospitality together.
- Some French cities are expected to introduce additional face mask requirements. From Friday in Orleans, in central France, masks will be required in open-air markets and after 9pm along the Loire river, where crowds of people have been gathering in the evenings. The mayors of Bayonne and the nearby Atlantic resort of Biarritz also announced face masks would be compulsory in their city centres starting next week.
- The US economy shrank by an annual rate of 32.9% between April and June, its sharpest contraction since the second world war, government figures revealed on Thursday.
- China recorded its highest daily total of new Covid-19 cases since early March, the vast majority of them in the north-western region of Xinjiang. Nationally there were 127 new cases, including four imported and 123 local transmissions. There were 112 in Xinjiang and 11 were in the eastern province of Liaoning.
- Vietnam has reported 45 new coronavirus infections in the city of Danang, marking the country’s biggest single-day jump in cases, as the health ministry sent more health experts to the central city in a bid to combat the outbreak.
- The Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, says restrictions in the capital Manila will remain until mid-August. He also announced free vaccines to combat a surge in infections that has overwhelmed health care workers and facilities.
- Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday he was taking antibiotics for an infection that left him feeling weak. Reuters reported that he was chuckling in an online video about “mould” in his lungs, having spent weeks in isolation after catching coronavirus. The president’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, tested positive on Thursday, according to a statement from the presidential palace.
- Mexico’s health ministry posted 639 new deaths from coronavirus on Thursday bring the country’s toll to 46,000, almost the same as the UK, which has the third-highest death toll worldwide from the pandemic.
- The Australian state of Victoria recorded its second worst day of the pandemic, with 627 new cases. The state is halfway through a six-week lockdown and the premier said health experts would be reviewing the data over the next two days to consider whether further restrictions may be needed.
- The World Health Organization has warned that spikes in coronavirus transmission in a number of countries were being driven by young people “letting down their guard”. “Young people are not invincible,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva on Thursday.
Updated
In the US, Donald Trump has said closing schools across the country was causing death. “Keeping them out of school and keeping work closed is causing death also,” he said. “Economic harm, but it’s causing death for different reasons, but death. Probably more death.”
After 150,000 coronavirus deaths in the country, Trump added the country “understands what it is dealing with now”, before pointing out leaders in countries like Australia and Japan were praised before a resurgence in Covid-19 cases. You can see the video below.
Some French cities to introduce more mask rules
A number of French cities will introduce additional face mask requirements from Friday (masks are already required in all enclosed public spaces nationwide, including public transport).
From Friday, masks will be required in open-air markets in Orleans, central France, and after 9:00 pm long the Loire river, where crowds of people have been gathering in the evenings.
In the Nord department adjacent to Belgium, the government’s top official said “reinforced measures” would be announced Friday, possibly making masks compulsory outdoors, in response to a surge in cases across the border.
The mayors of Bayonne and the nearby Atlantic resort of Biarritz also announced that face masks would be compulsory in their city centres starting next week. Biarritz will also ban access to its beaches at night to prevent parties being held there.
The mayor of Saint-Malo, whose walled city has drawn tens of thousands of French tourists who opted to stay in the country for the summer holidays, said masks were now mandatory inside the old city and on the ramparts for everyone aged 11 and over.
The UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, said “households gathering and not abiding by the social-distancing rules” was a reason for the stricter rules, announced late on Thursday evening, and that the move was in order to “keep the country safe”.
He said: “We take this action with a heavy heart but unfortunately it’s necessary because we’ve seen that households meeting up and a lack of social distancing is one of the causes of this rising rate of coronavirus and we’ll do whatever is necessary to keep the country safe.”
Press Association writes that the move comes as celebrations take place for the Muslim festival of Eid al Adha, which started on Thursday evening and continues over the weekend, and after the government reimposed quarantine measures for those arriving in the UK from Spain and Luxembourg.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, welcomed the measures, which he said would be reviewed on a weekly basis.
But the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, criticised the handling of the changes. He tweeted:“No one would argue with putting in place local action to reduce the transmission of coronavirus.”
“But announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter is a new low for the government’s communications during this crisis,” he said.
No one would argue with putting in place local action to reduce the transmission of coronavirus.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 30, 2020
But announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter is a new low for the government’s communications during this crisis.
The people of Greater Manchester now need urgent clarity and explanation from the government - and there must be proper support for those businesses and people affected by any lockdown.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 30, 2020
The household mixing restrictions will also apply in Leicester, which has seen the first so-called local lockdown since June, but other measures in the city will be eased. From Monday restaurants, cafes, bars and hairdressers can reopen - but leisure centres, gyms and pools will remain closed.
On Saturday, Luton will be brought in line with the rest of the country after “significant progress”.
Tens of thousands of people in the north of England are waking up to new restrictions that came into force at midnight on Thursday night (approximately 6 hours ago). The new requirements (below), will apply in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and East Lancashire after increase in cases. (Specifically: Greater Manchester, Pendle, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Blackburn with Darwen, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leicester City).
- People in the affected areas will not be permitted to mix with other households (apart from those in their support bubbles) in private homes or gardens.
- Some exemptions will be put in place, including for the vulnerable.
- The government will sign new regulations to make these changes legally enforceable.
- The regulations will give local authorities and police forces the powers to enforce these restrictions and more details on these will be set out when the regulations are published.
- Households may go to hospitality, for instance bars and pubs, but new guidance will make clear that two households should not go to hospitality together.
You can see the full details recently published on the Department of Health website and our full coverage of this story below.
Updated
I was struck by this amazing image of a marimonda monkey walking a tightrope in a Colombian wildlife park. It was taken during what’s described by Agence France-Press as “environmental enrichment training” at Bioparque Wakata in Jaime Duque park, in Briceno municipality near Bogota. The park itself is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but has created virtual programs to receive donations from the public to meet some economic demands and ensure the livelihood of the animals.
Here are a couple of other photos from the parks’ programme.
Updated
Indonesian women attending Eid al-Adha prayers maintain social distancing in the East Java city of Surabaya.
Updated
US economy shrinks massively in second quarter
In case you missed it, the US economy shrank by an annual rate of 32.9% between April and June, its sharpest contraction since the second world war, government figures revealed on Thursday.
The record-setting quarterly fall in economic growth compared to the same time last year came as another 1.43 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, a second week of rises after a four-month decline.
The annualised figure is the largest drop in quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) – the broadest measure of the economy – since records began in 1945. Economists expect the rate to improve sharply later this year but the outlook has been clouded by the recent rise in infections across the US.
The news came as Germany, Europe’s largest economy, also recorded a dramatic slump in economic growth, contracting by 10.1% between April and June, the biggest decline since 1970. The news triggered a sell-off in US and European markets.
You can read our full coverage below:
Updated
Global cases exceed 17.2m
Global coronavirus cases stand at 17,219,767, according to the Johns Hopkins university tracker, with 671,00 deaths.
The top five countries with the most infections are:
- United States – 4,487,987
- Brazil – 2,610,102
- India – 1,582,028
- Russia – 832,993
- South Africa –482,169
The five countries with the most deaths are:
- United States – 152,040
- Brazil – 91,263
- United Kingdom –46,084 (it has 303,910 cases)
- Mexico – 46,000 (it has 408,449 cases)
- Italy – 35,132
China has recorded its highest daily total of new Covid-19 cases since early March, the vast majority of them in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
On Thursday health authorities confirmed 127 new cases, including four imported and 123 local transmissions. There were 112 in Xinjiang and 11 were in the province of Liaoning.
Separately authorities also reported 11 new asymptomatic cases.
China is reporting daily rises in cases, with 105 reported on Wednesday, 101 on Tuesday, and 68 on Monday.
The major outbreak is in Xinjiang, where strict anti-virus measures have been in place in the capital Urumqi for over a week, including the suspension of most public transport and flights, and controls on the entry and exit of people at housing compounds in some districts.
However experts have sounded the alarm over the risk to people detained in China’s secretive re-education camps. Clusters of infections have been recorded in the capital, Urumqi, and the city of Kashgar about 300km away, and there are fears that the community transmission could see the virus enter the camps by infected employees.
The Liaoning outbreak is centred on the capital city, Dalian, but has spread to other cities and provinces in recent days. State media reported more than 17,500 medics had been mobilised to run almost 2,700 testing sites across the city. By midnight Tuesday about 3.53m samples had been collected, CCTV reported.
Vietnam reports 45 new cases in Danang
Vietnam has reported 45 new coronavirus infections in the city of Danang, marking the country’s biggest single-day jump in cases, as the health ministry sent more health experts to the central city in a bid to combat the outbreak.
Reuters reports that the new patients, aged between 27 and 87, are linked to three hospitals and two clinics in Danang, a tourism hot spot where Vietnam last week detected its first locally transmitted infections in more than three months, the ministry said in a statement.
Vietnam started mass coronavirus testing in the capital Hanoi, banned gatherings in its economic hub and urged tens of thousands of domestic travellers to report to authorities on Thursday, as the country scrambled to contain the new spread of the virus.
The ministry overnight sent a special task force of health experts, along with more than 1,000 health workers, to Danang to help handle the deteriorating situation there.
The newly confirmed cases in Danang have brought up the total number of cases in Vietnam to 509, with no deaths.
Updated
Philippines extends Manila restrictions
The Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, says restrictions in the capital Manila will remain until mid-August. He also announced free vaccines to combat a surge in infections that has overwhelmed health care workers and facilities.
“My plea is to endure some more. Many have been infected,” Duterte said in a televised address.
The capital region and provinces south of it have been under general community quarantine, limiting movement of elderly and children, and the capacity of business establishments.
Duterte promised free vaccines, prioritising first the poor and then the middle class, police and military personnel. The Philippines will be given precedence by China in vaccine distribution, he said.
Brazil's Bolsonaro on antibiotics for infection
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday he was taking antibiotics for an infection that left him feeling weak. Reuters reported that he was chuckling in an online video about “mould” in his lungs, having spent weeks in isolation after catching coronavirus.
“I just did a blood test. I was feeling kind of weak yesterday. They found a bit of infection also. Now I’m on antibiotics,” Bolsonaro said in a livestream video, without elaborating on the infection.
“After 20 days indoors, I have other problems. I have mould in my lungs,” he said, referring to nearly three weeks he spent at the official presidential residence.
He tested positive for the coronavirus on 7 July and then negative last Saturday. His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, tested positive on Thursday, according to a statement from the presidential palace.
Science and Technology Minister Marcos Pontes also said he had tested positive for the virus, making him the fifth cabinet minister diagnosed publicly.
Bolsonaro said he would go ahead with his visit to southern Rio Grande do Sul state on Friday.
Mexico's official death toll rises to 46,000
Mexico’s health ministry posted 639 new deaths from coronavirus on Thursday bring the country’s toll to 46,000, almost the same as the United Kingdom which has the third-highest death toll worldwide from the pandemic.
Total confirmed infections in Mexico stand at 416,179 cases, up 7,730, according to the ministry’s official count.
Japan does not need to reimpose state of emergency – government
Japan does not need to reimpose a state of emergency chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said on Friday, reiterating the government’s stance amid a surge in new infections across the country.
Suga said the current trend in infections was different from that in March and April.
Japan reported a record high for new cases for the second day in a row on Thursday with at least 1,274 cases, including a record 367 in Tokyo.
Just to give you a bit of context on the scale of this Australian outbreak, the country’s previous highest daily total of new cases was 460, on 28 March. The graph below shows the huge uptick in cases in July, almost entirely driven by what is going on in Victoria.
Just while I’m still on Australia, the country’s second most populous state, New South Wales, has recorded 21 new cases in the past 24 hours. I believe that’s the biggest number since April, but will check that as soon as I can. Only two of the 21 new cases in the state, are returned travellers in hotel quarantine.
There are significant concerns over these growing cases, including six in today’s figures from the Apollo restaurant in the city’s inner east suburb of Potts Point. There are now 19 cases associated with this cluster.
The Victorian state figure of 627 is the second highest number in the course of this pandemic, behind yesterday when there were 723 new cases.
He’s now talking about the 6-week lockdown, which passed its half-way mark on Wednesday. He says public health experts will spend the next two days looking at the trends until now, and that he will have more to say after that on where the state sits with its outbreak.
“It may well be the case ... that we need to take further steps to pull this up,” he says.
He asks for people not so speculate about what the next steps are, but says Victoria could not open up again with infection numbers as they are at the moment.
He says the state’s current reproduction or R rate, is around 1 or just under.
You can find our full coverage of this story on our Australian live blog.
Updated
Andrews says there were more than 130 people who were not at home when they should have been self-isolating. More than 100 cases have been returned to Victoria police. He says it’s not acceptable to have the virus and not be isolating at home.
This has been a recurring theme of the past few days’ press conferences. The police will be dealing with those who have not been self-isolating when directed to do so.
Updated
Australian state of Victoria reports 627 new cases
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has begun his daily update on the state’s coronavirus outbreak. He confirms 627 new cases and 8 more deaths. Deaths include people in their 50s, 70s, 80s. Four of the deaths are linked to aged care facilities, which have been particularly hard hit by this outbreak. Some 928 cases have now been linked to aged care.
Updated
We are expecting a news conference from Australia shortly, from the premier of the state of Victoria, Daniel Andrews. The capital, Melbourne, is in the grip of a serious coronavirus outbreak and is more than half way through a 6-week lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. But yesterday Andrews announced its biggest number of daily new cases in the state so far – 723 – and another substantial number is expected today, according to local media. We’ll take you to that as soon as he is speaking.
Iran’s government has ignored repeated requests from senior prison officials for help in containing coronavirus in the country’s overcrowded jails, according to Amnesty International.
The rights group said it reviewed copies of four letters to the health ministry signed by officials at Iran’s Prisons Organisation, “raising the alarm over serious shortages of protective equipment, disinfectant products, and essential medical devices”.
The ministry “failed to respond, and Iran’s prisons remain catastrophically unequipped for outbreaks,” Amnesty said in a statement.
Iran has been battling to contain the Middle East’s deadliest novel coronavirus outbreak since announcing its first cases on 19 February . Authorities have confirmed over 16,000 deaths from coronavirus.
Amnesty said the head of the health care office at the Prisons Organisation had first submitted a letter to the health ministry requesting help on 29 February, before follow-up letters were sent in March, May, June and July.
The March letter had requested disinfectant products and protective equipment to last three months, including 1m litres of surface disinfectant and 5.4m Amnesty said.
“These official letters provide damning evidence of the government’s appalling failure to protect prisoners,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Amnesty said the letters “stand in stark contrast” to public statements by the advisor to the head of the judiciary, Asghar Jahangir, who has lauded Iran’s “exemplary” initiatives to protect prisoners from the pandemic.
The rights group said it had “received distressing reports of prisoners displaying COVID-19 symptoms being neglected for days, even when they have pre-existing heart and lung problems, diabetes or asthma.”
“When their conditions worsen, many are merely quarantined in a separate section in the prison or placed in solitary confinement, without access to adequate health care,” the rights group alleged.
Since March, more than 100,000 detainees in Iran have been granted temporary release or sentence remissions to help limit infections in prisons.
But a UN group of experts said this month that released inmates were now being returned to prison, despite a second wave of the virus in the country.
French cities tighten virus rules
Face masks may need to be worn more widely in a number of French cities as cases continue to rise (masks are already required in all enclosed public spaces nationwide, including public transport).
In the Nord department adjacent to Belgium, the government’s top official said “reinforced measures” would be announced Friday, possibly making masks compulsory outdoors, in response to a surge in cases across the border.
The mayor of Saint-Malo, whose walled city has drawn tens of thousands of French tourists who opted to stay in the country for the summer holidays, said masks were now mandatory inside the old city and on the ramparts for everyone aged 11 and over.
“Masks are essential protection for limiting the virus’s spread,” Mayor Gilles Lurton said, after health authorities said the Ille-et-Vilaine region had 44 new cases on Wednesday alone.
Starting on Friday, masks will be required in open-air markets in Orleans, central France, and after 9:00 pm long the Loire river, where crowds of people have been gathering in the evenings.
The mayors of Bayonne and the nearby Atlantic resort of Biarritz also announced that face masks would be compulsory in their city centres starting next week. Biarritz will also ban access to its beaches at night to prevent parties being held there.
While far below the peak of crisis, the “R” rate of viral transmission – one of the key measures of how fast the virus is spreading – has risen to 1.3 nationwide. That means 10 infected people are infecting 13 others on average.
Spanish official says country not in second wave
Spain’s health ministry’s emergencies coordinator, Fernando Simon, says the country is not experiencing a second wave of the virus, despite a fresh surge in infections in the country.
“I don’t know if there will be second waves in the future. This does not look to me to be it. If it was, we would be in a very different situation that we are now,” he told a news conference.
“There is no exact definition, here or anywhere else. What we could define as a second wave would be when we have widespread, uncontrolled community transmission ... right now that is not the situation in Spain.”
There were 1,229 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total to 285,430, according to health ministry data.
The average daily count is more than 1,900 cases per day over the past seven days - a figure which has more than tripled in two weeks, prompting Spain’s autonomous regions to step up measures.
Britain, France and Germany have all advised against travel to certain parts of Spain, in a major blow to the country’s tourism sector.
Updated
WHO warns some Covid-19 spikes driving by young people
The World Health Organization has warned that spikes in coronavirus transmission in a number of countries were being driven by young people “letting down their guard”.
“Young people are not invincible,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva on Thursday.
He lamented that a major challenge in trying to rein in the novel coronavirus was “convincing younger people of this risk”.
He said there was evidence that “spikes of cases in some countries are being driven in part by younger people letting down their guard during the northern hemisphere summer.”
WHO ‘s technical lead for Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove lamented in particular that nightclubs in a number of places had become “amplifiers” of transmission.
We call on young people to take precautionary measures: #handhygiene, physical distance, wear a mask, stay home if you’re feeling unwell, avoid crowded places & mass gatherings, to protect yourselves & others from #COVID19. Play it safe & help end this pandemic. pic.twitter.com/5U7eQi1BZj
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) July 30, 2020
Just a quick note on the way the new restrictions in England were introduced ... the Health Secretary said on Twitter just hours before the new measures come into force: “We take this action with a heavy heart, but we can see increasing rates of covid across Europe and are determined to do whatever is necessary to keep people safe.”
4/4 We take this action with a heavy heart, but we can see increasing rates of covid across Europe and are determined to do whatever is neccessary to keep people safe.
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) July 30, 2020
The opposition Labour leader, Keir Starmer, criticised the abrupt nature of the new rules, saying that “announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter is a new low for the government’s communications during this crisis”.
While acknowledging “no one would argue with putting in place local action to reduce the transmission of coronavirus” he criticised the government’s lack of communication, and argued a press conference should have been organised for the announcement.
With regards to Leicester City, which you may remember had restrictions in place beyond many other places in England, in the country’s first local lockdown, the health department said:
“While social gathering restrictions remain in place in Leicester City, the area will benefit from the lifting of restrictions that took place on 4 July in England, and all local restrictions currently in place in the neighbouring borough of Oadby and Wigston will end.
“It means from Monday 3 August restaurants, cafes, bars and hairdressers in Leicester City can get back to business but leisure centres, gyms and pools will remain closed. In addition, cinemas and museums will open and religious ceremonies will be able to take place.”
You can see our full story on the new restrictions below:
Updated
New restrictions introduced in parts of northern England
Parts of the north of England have had a new face ban on indoor meetings between households introduced in the past half hour. The new measures apply to Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and East Lancashire after increase in cases. (Specifically: Greater Manchester, Pendle, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, Blackburn with Darwen, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leicester City).
The new measures mean:
- People in the affected areas will not be permitted to mix with other households (apart from those in their support bubbles) in private homes or gardens.
- Some exemptions will be put in place, including for the vulnerable.
- The government will sign new regulations to make these changes legally enforceable.
- The regulations will give local authorities and police forces the powers to enforce these restrictions and more details on these will be set out when the regulations are published.
- Households may go to hospitality, for instance bars and pubs, but new guidance will make clear that two households should not go to hospitality together.
You can see the full details recently published on the Department of Health website. It says the measures were brought in because of an increasing trend in the number of cases per 100,000 people in the areas. Data suggested transmission among households was a key infection pathway in the area, the ministry said.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the continuing coronavirus pandemic, with me, Alison Rourke.
England has reintroduced lockdown measures over large areas of the north of the country, after a surge in cases the country’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, says have been caused largely by people “not abiding to social distancing”. On Thursday night he said from midnight people from different households in Greater Manchester, parts of East Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Leicester would not be able to meet each other indoors.
Other European countries are also tightening restrictions. After a surge in infections, Iceland reduced the numbers on gatherings. France and Spain recorded their highest case levels in weeks, prompting several French cities to impose face mask requirements. Spain has already seen a number of localised restrictions introduced to control the virus.
The World Health Organization has delivered another stark warning to young people that they were not “invincible” and at risk of catching Covid-19. It warned that spikes in coronavirus transmission in a number of countries were being driven by young people “letting down their guard”.
In other developments:
- The US economy suffered its worst quarter since the second world war as GDP shrunk at an annualised rate of 32.9%. The government figures, revealed on Thursday, showed more signs of the pandemic’s heavy toll on the country’s economy.
- Spain recorded its highest daily increase in the number of coronavirus cases since lockdown was lifted on 21 June. On Thursday, 1,229 new infections were reported, topping 1,000 for the second day in a row.
- France ruled out a “catastrophic” second national lockdown despite a rise in coronavirus infections. The prime minister Jean Castex said the priority was still prevention, as a second national lockdown would be catastrophic, both socially and economically.
- Japan recorded a record high for new cases for the second day in a row. At least 1,274 cases were reported on Thursday, including a record 367 in Tokyo, where officials are considering issuing its own version of a state of emergency depending on the number of cases in the coming days.
- Brazil recorded 57,837 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, as well as 1,129 deaths, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. Brazil has registered more than 2.6 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 91,263, according to ministry data.
- Libya’s internationally recognised government in Tripoli will impose a full lockdown in areas of the country it controls following a sharp rise in coronavirus cases.
Updated
