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Summary
Here are the key developments from the past few hours:
- The UK prime minister is self-isolating after being informed of contact with a Covid-positive MP. Boris Johnson is showing no symptoms but is following NHS guidelines and self-isolating for two weeks.
- The Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, has said that the country will follow in Slovakia’s footsteps by mass-testing its population to get out of lockdown in time for Christmas.
- The US has surpassed 11 million coronavirus cases today, meaning the country has recorded 1 million new cases in one week alone.
Updated
The US has surpassed 11 million coronavirus cases today meaning that the country has recorded 1 million new cases in one week alone.
On Saturday the US recorded 156,416 cases, marking the eleventh day in a row that the country had reported more than 100,000 daily cases.
Updated
Starmer calls for “national action plan” for vaccine distribution
The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called on Boris Johnson to enact a “comprehensive national action plan” for distributing the expected Covid vaccine.
In a letter to the prime minister, Starmer writes: “The challenge facing the country now is not just how we get control of the virus, but how we get ready for the vaccine. We are world leaders in vaccines, and I believe we should be aiming for a world-class programme for rolling it out.
“However, this will be a mammoth logistical operation, probably larger than we have seen since the second world war. If we are to get it right, then we must have a clear plan in place now.
“It should be a plan that harnesses all of the talents of the British people: our businesses, nurses, doctors, scientists and public servants.”
Starmer continues to say that the government should “consider supporting councils and local NHS services to refurbish community assets, such as town halls or sport centres, into local vaccine clinics” as part of the new programme.
He emphasises that the action plan must harness the talents of the British public for the new national vaccine programme. Following the announcement of a viable vaccine, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said that UK residents are likely to be among the first in the world to receive a jab.
Pfizer and BioNTech have announced that preliminary findings show that their vaccine can prevent more than 90% of people from contracting the virus.
The interim recommendations that determine who gets the vaccine once available are set up in terms of vulnerability. Currently, the list prioritises older adults in care homes and care workers first, followed by all those aged 80 and over, and health and social care workers.
Next in line are the over-75s, then the over-70s, and so on down the age groups, as more vaccine shots become available. But, Starmer has said that Labour is also calling for a plan into the interim criteria.
Saying they want a system that guarantees “equitable access to the vaccine no matter where you live”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care told the Guardian: “The rollout of a Covid-19 vaccine will be delivered by the NHS which has vast experience delivering widespread vaccination programmes, and an enormous amount of planning has taken place to ensure our health service stands ready to deploy.
“This includes putting in place logistical expertise, transport, PPE and an expanded workforce to ensure we can deploy vaccines rapidly once they have met robust standards on safety and effectiveness and been approved by the medicines regulator. We have also provided GP practices with an additional £150m to support them over the coming months.
“We will follow independent advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisations on which groups should be prioritised to receive a vaccine, and will publish further details on our deployment plans in due course.”
Starmer’s letter comes ahead of the visit to Oxford vaccine labs on Monday with the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds.
Updated
Boris Johnson has posted on Twitter confirming his self-isolation.
Today I was notified by NHS Test and Trace that I must self-isolate as I have been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 15, 2020
I have no symptoms, but am following the rules and will be working from No10 as I continue to lead the government’s pandemic response.
Updated
The Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, has said that the country will follow in Slovakia’s footsteps by mass testing its population.
Austria is currently set to close schools and shops on Tuesday as it toughens its lockdown measures until 6 December. Kurz said that the fast but less reliable antigen tests could help reopen the country faster in time for Christmas.
Updated
From that Thursday meeting when Boris Johnson met the Ashfield MP Lee Anderson.
Updated
Ashfield MP Lee Anderson, who met the PM on Thursday, updated his constituents on Facebook:
Isolating. On Friday I lost my sense of taste at the same time my wife had a bad headache.
I had no cough, no fever and felt well. We both had a test on Saturday and the result came in Sunday morning. My wife and I both tested positive.
I feel absolutely fine and my biggest concern is my wife who is in the shielded group. But we are both feeling good.
Updated
This will be the second time that the PM will have to self-isolate after contracting the virus in March.
Updated
Boris Johnson intends to continue speaking to the country during his self-isolation period. No 10 is set to speak with the parliamentary authorities to discuss what options are available for the PM to take part remotely in some parliamentary business.
Updated
A spokesman for No 10 has said:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been told to self-isolate through the NHS track and trace app after coming into contact with someone who tested positive.
No 10 confirm that the PM met with a small group of MPs in Downing Street on Thursday morning including the MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson. Anderson later developed symptoms for the virus and has now tested positive.
Updated
Reuters reports that Boris Johnson is “well” and “does not have any symptoms of Covid-19.”
Updated
UK prime minister to self-isolate after positive case reported
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been told to self-isolate through the NHS track and trace app after coming into contact with someone who tested positive, 10 Downing Street confirms.
Updated
Summary
Here are the key developments from the past few hours:
- The UK reported 24,962 new Covid cases on Sunday, down by 1,898 from Saturday’s 26,860.
- Italy has reported 546 Covid-related deaths, up from 544 the day before, the health ministry said on Sunday. The country also registered 33,979 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, down from 37,255 on Saturday.
- Professor Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech has said that the impact of the jab will appear by next summer, with normality expected by the winter - contingent on a high vaccination rate.
- In a statement on Sunday, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, declared “the general mobilisation of the nation and the government” after health authorities announced the highest ever number of daily cases in the country.
- India is expected to fly doctors in from other regions of the country to double its testing capacity in an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus in the capital New Delhi.
- The prime minister of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Ambrose Dlamini, has tested positive for Covid-19 but is asymptomatic.
- France reports 302 deaths and 27,228 new cases in the last 24-hours, according to the French health ministry website.
- WHO registers highest Covid-19 cases in one-day over the weekend, reports AFP. Saturday’s figures of 660,905 and Friday’s 645,410 both surpassed the previous set highest daily total of cases which was recorded at 614,013 on 7 November.
Updated
WHO registers highest Covid-19 cases in one-day over the weekend
Saturday’s figures of 660,905 and Friday’s 645,410 both surpassed the previous set highest daily total of cases which was recorded at 614,013 on November 7, according to AFP. Within Saturday’s new cases, the WHO’s Americas region registered a one-day record high of 269,225 new confirmed infections.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, warned on Friday that there was “a long way to go” in getting the virus under control globally.
He said: “The world cannot put all its eggs in one basket and neglect the many other tools at our disposal that ... are effective for bringing this virus under control”.
“The virus itself has not changed significantly, and nor have the measures needed to stop it.”
Whilst the director-general welcomes new developments into a finding and creating safe and effective vaccines, he urges member-states to continue with their health protocols as cases rise globally.
Updated
France reports 302 deaths and 27,228 new cases in the last 24-hours, according to the French health ministry website. The country has had in total 44,246 deaths and 1,981,827 confirmed cases since the beginning of the outbreak.
Updated
The prime minister of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Ambrose Dlamini, has tested positive for Covid-19.
In a statement published on Twitter he said he was asymptomatic and currently isolating in line with the government’s coronavirus protocols:
We should not tire of looking after one another and encouraging adherence to all health protocols at all times.
He stressed the importance of social distancing measures, especially as the country is projected to soon enter into its second-wave of the virus.
As of Sunday, Eswatini reported two new cases of the virus, adding to the cumulative total of 6095.
Government Press Statement: Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini tests positive for #COVID19. pic.twitter.com/HoqABtoRKh
— Eswatini Government (@EswatiniGovern1) November 15, 2020
Updated
India is expected to fly doctors in from other regions of the country to double its testing capacity in an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus in the capital New Delhi, reports Reuters.
Home minister Amit Shah said in a statement on Sunday that “hospital capacity and availability of other medical infrastructure should be ramped up considerably”.
Despite India’s daily increase in cases being under the 50,000 mark for more than a week, the city-state of Delhi has recorded over 7,000 cases a day over the past five days, which is a record level.
India’s health minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan, tweeted on Sunday: “Delhi has witnessed a huge surge in daily active cases which is likely to worsen over the next few weeks”.
He added that the country will employ retired doctors and conduct door-to-door surveys to ramp up tracking and combat the spread of the virus.
At the meeting convened by Hon'ble HM Sh @AmitShah Ji to review the worrying trajectory of #COVID19 situation in Delhi, it was decided that immediate remedial steps must be taken
— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) November 15, 2020
Delhi has witnessed a huge surge in daily active cases which is likely to worsen over next few weeks pic.twitter.com/EieUWZWsSZ
Updated
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, on Sunday declared “the general mobilisation of the nation and the government” after health authorities announced the highest ever number of daily cases in the country.
In the statement published by Iranian state media, Rouhani said: “I call on all governmental organisations and other forces and institutions to rush to the aid of the health ministry and health workers with all possible means.”
As the Middle East’s worst-hit country, health officials report 12,543 new infections in the past 24-hours, a record high for the country, and bring the total cases in the nation to 762,068. The health ministry has also reported, according to Reuters, 459 new deaths, which brings the overall death toll to 41, 493.
Updated
One of the scientists behind the expected Covid-19 vaccine has said that the impact of the jab will appear by next summer, with normality expected by the winter.
Prof Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech, said that it was “absolutely essential” to have a high vaccination rate before next autumn to ensure a return to normality during winter.
Provisional results from the jab were found to be more than 90% effective but safety and efficacy data continue to be collected.
Sahin told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show: “If everything continues to go well, we will start to deliver the vaccine end of this year, beginning next year.”
Updated
The UK reports 24,962 new Covid cases on Sunday, down from by 1,898 from Saturday’s 26,860. Daily deaths have also fallen to 168 from yesterday’s 462 number of deaths reported within 28 days of testing positive - marking the nation’s death toll as 51,934.
Updated
Hi, I’m Edna Mohamed. I’ll be taking over from my colleague Caroline for the next few hours. You can get in touch through Twitter or email me: edna.mohamed.casual@theguardian.com
Hi. That’s all from me, Caroline Davies. Once again, thank you for your time.
Italy has reported 546 COVID-related deaths, up from 544 the day before, the health ministry said on Sunday. The country also registered 33,979 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, down from 37,255 on Saturday. The northern region of Lombardy, centred on Italy’s financial capital Milan, remained the hardest hit area on Sunday, reporting 8,060 new cases against 8,129 on Saturday.
Iranian opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, who have been under house arrest for nearly a decade, have tested positive for Covid-19, an opposition website reported on Sunday.
Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard “were examined by a doctor at their home... and their general state of health is good,” added the Kaleme site, close to the former prime minister-turned-dissident,AFP reports.
Mousavi, now 79, along with Mehdi Karroubi, 83, were reformist candidates in the controversial election of 2009, which was won by hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They claimed the vote was rigged, triggering months of mass protests dubbed the “Green Movement”.
Hundreds of thousands took to the streets, particularly in the capital Tehran, in the biggest challenge to the system since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Mousavi and Karroubi were placed under house arrest without trial in early 2011, along with their wives.
Iran has been battling the Middle East’s deadliest novel coronavirus outbreak since February. It has recorded almost 41,500 deaths out of 762,000 cases, according to official figures considered to be underestimated, even by Iranian officials.
Summary
Here are some key developments from the last few hours:
- The global death toll climbed above 1.3 million and more than 53 million have been infected worldwide by Covid-19, as the virus runs rampant through America and Europe.
- Young and previously healthy people with ongoing symptoms of Covid-19 are showing signs of damage to multiple organs four months after the initial infection, a study suggests.
- A further nine people with Covid-19 have died in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has said.The death toll recorded by the department now stands at 855.
- Germans should brace for another 4-5 months of severe measures to halt the rise in coronavirus infections and should not expect the current rules to be eased quickly, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told weekly Bild am Sonntag.
- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 16,947 to 790,503, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The reported death toll rose by 107 to 12,485.
- Ten Covid-19 patients were killed and others were in critical condition after fire broke out in an intensive care unit in northeast Romania on Saturday, a hospital spokesperson said. The fire occurred in the early evening in the intensive care of the hospital in the town of Piatra Neamt. It was under control an hour later by the emergency services.
- Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has finished treatment for COVID-19 but will undergo follow-up checks, the North African country’s presidency said
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UN food agency warned 2021 will be worse than 2020. The head of the World Food Program says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the U.N. agency a spotlight and megaphone to warn world leaders that next year is going to be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.”
- North Dakota has become the 35th US state to require face coverings be worn in public, as governors across the country grapple with a surge in coronavirus infections that threatens to swamp their healthcare systems. North Dakota joined 38 other states this month in reporting record daily jumps in new cases, 17 others with record deaths and 25 others with a record number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals, according to a Reuters tally.
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Mexico passes 1m cases. Mexico has registered more than 1 million total coronavirus cases and nearly 100,000 test-confirmed deaths, though officials agree the number is probably much higher. Health Director General Ricardo Cortés Alcalá said late Saturday the number of confirmed cases had reached 1,003,253, with at least 98,259 deaths from Covid-19.
A member of the International Monetary Fund mission in Argentina has tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the team to isolate and conduct next week’s meetings online, the IMF said in a statement on Sunday.
The mission arrived in Argentina last week to discuss a new financing program with officials of the South American nation, which is battling a tenacious outbreak of coronavirus that has further slammed its already ailing economy, Reuters reports.
The IMF said in the statement that each member of team that arrived from Washington, as well as local staff, was tested for the virus on Saturday, according to Argentine protocols. Only one tested positive, but all would take another test as a precaution.
Young and previously healthy people with ongoing symptoms of Covid-19 are showing signs of damage to multiple organs four months after the initial infection, a study suggests, writes Linda Geddes.
The findings are a step towards unpicking the physical underpinnings and developing treatments for some of the strange and extensive symptoms experienced by people with “long Covid”, which is thought to affect more than 60,000 people in the UK. Fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and pain are among the most frequently reported effects.
On Sunday the NHS announced it would launch a network of more than 40 long Covid specialist clinics where doctors, nurses and therapists will assess patients’ physical and psychological symptoms.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has finished treatment for COVID-19 but will undergo follow-up checks, the North African country’s presidency said on Sunday.
Tebboune, 75, was flown to a German hospital 19 days ago after he tested positive for coronavirus
A further nine people with Covid-19 have died in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has said.
The death toll recorded by the department now stands at 855. There were also another 472 confirmed cases of the virus recorded in the last 24-hour reporting period.
A total of 46,831 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Northern Ireland since the pandemic began.
In Northern Ireland, Stormont’s health minister has said he is likely to be asking for further coronavirus restrictions before the scheduled reopening of the hospitality sector.
Robin Swann’s remarks raise the prospect of more executive discord in the near future, following a week when the coalition administration was consumed with in-fighting over its pandemic response, PA Media reports.
After four days of acrimonious exchanges, a majority of ministers finally backed a proposal that saw the region’s four-week circuit-break lockdown extended by one week followed by a phased reopening of hospitality businesses.
Swann had wanted a comprehensive two-week extension of the lockdown and said he only voted for the compromise deal as ministers had “run out of time” and a failure to strike a deal would have resulted in all the restrictions on hospitality lapsing by default on Friday night.
He told the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme, “I’m disappointed, I’m embarrassed and ashamed that it took us to Thursday to actually come up with this compromise agreement, that doesn’t go in my opinion far enough.”
The minister has made clear he will be asking for changes to the current plans before they are fully rolled out.
Here is the Guardian report on claims from the scientist behind the first potential Covid-19 vaccine to clear interim clinical trials that the jab could reduce transmission of the disease perhaps by 50%, resulting in a “dramatic” reduction in cases.
One of France’s best-known authors, Alexandre Jardin, has vowed that writers will bail out rebel bookshop owners fined for opening in defiance of a nationwide coronavirus lockdown.
Jardin, who wrote bestselling romance novels Le Zebre and Fanfan, told France’s Europe 1 radio that Didier van Cauwelaert, winner of the Prix Goncourt, France’s top literary prize for his 1994 novel Un Aller Simple, would begin the revolt by offering to cover any penalty imposed on a bookshop in the city of Cannes.
“The next bookshop will be me, and the next somebody else,” he said, according to the AFP news agency, declaring that “no state has the moral right to close bookshops”.
France’s literature lovers are fuming over the closure of bookstores, along with all other outlets selling “non-essential” goods or services, for the second time this year.
A handful of bookshops have openly flouted the shutdown, backed by writers, literary critics and tens of thousands of bookworms who argue that books are essential to wellbeing.
Romanian officials will check all intensive care units after a fire killed 10 people at a hospital treating coronavirus patients, the country’s leaders have said.
The fire broke out on Saturday in a room at the intensive care unit of the Piatra Neamt county hospital in northeastern Romania and spread to an adjoining room.
Six intubated Covid-19 patients were injured and were transferred to another hospital, Reuters reports.
The doctor on call, who sustained severe burns as he tried to rescue the patients from the flames was flown to a specialised hospital in Belgium early on Sunday.
The government said public health inspectors and the agency for emergency situations would check the conditions under which medical equipment was operating in all intensive care units from Monday.
Prosecutors said an investigation was underway into what triggered the fire.
Professor Wendy Barclay, a member of the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said on Sunday that there was a “worry” that mutations of Covid-19 could mean vaccines “won’t work quite so well as we’d hope them to”.
Mutations in the virus have triggered the cull of millions of farmed mink in Denmark over fears the genetic change might undermine the effectiveness of vaccines.
Barclay, of Imperial College London, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “The worry would be that if these mutations that are arising naturally in people, or in animals and then the virus coming back into people from animals, if they are affecting the way that antibodies can see the virus, maybe the vaccines which we’re generating now won’t work quite so well as we’d hope them to on the virus, as the virus continues to evolve.”
But she continued this “doesn’t mean that vaccines won’t work at all”, adding that a jab which is “very adaptable and fast responding” could be the best option.
Coronavirus has killed at least 1,313,471 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP on Sunday.
At least 54,001,750 cases of have been registered. Of these, at least 34,599,700 are now considered recovered.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organisation (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.
Over Saturday, 9,246 new deaths and 607,998 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 1,351 fatalities, followed by Brazil with 921 and Mexico with 635.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 245,614 deaths from 10,905,598 cases. At least 4,148,444 people have been declared recovered, AFP reported.
According to the AFP tally, After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 165,658 deaths from 5,848,959 cases, India with 129,635 deaths from 8,814,579 cases, Mexico with 98,259 deaths from 1,003,253 cases, and the United Kingdom with 51,766 from 1,344,356 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to population is Belgium with 123 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Peru with 107, Spain 87, Argentina 78.
China - excluding Hong Kong and Macau - has to date declared 86,338 cases, including 4,634 deaths and 81,319 recoveries.
Latin America and the Caribbean together have 423,176 deaths from 12,023,640 cases, Europe 334,968 deaths from 14,432,068 infections, and the United States and Canada 256,487 from 11,195,957 cases.
Asia has reported 181,799 deaths from 11,440,026 cases, the Middle East 68,991 deaths from 2,913,735 cases, Africa 47,109 deaths from 1,966,317 cases, and Oceania 941 deaths from 30,008 cases.
Here’s a round-up of the key measures in place in parts of Europe.
Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech, which has announced promising preliminary results of its coronavirus vaccine with Pfizer, said the companies did not see any serious side effects of the jab.
He said the “key side effects” seen so far were a mild to moderate pain in the injection site for a few days, while some of the participants had a mild to moderate fever for a similar period.
“We did not see any other serious side effects which would result in pausing or halting of the study” he told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.
“We have now safety data for a proportion of the subjects for more than two months, and we are continuing to collect data for more than two years, to not only see the short and mid-term side effect profile but also the long-term side effect profile.
“But so far the safety profile appears to be absolutely benign.”
Sahin said that more data needed to be generated to find out if immunisation against coronavirus was required each year.
The Czech Republic has reported a further decline in the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths from daily highs seen in early November.
But the country remains among the hardest hit in Europe during this second wave of the pandemic.
Health ministry data showed 4,199 new cases were reported on Saturday, down by more than 3,500 from the same day a week earlier, amid tough lockdown measures, with 132 new fatalities, which includes revisions to previous days.
The total number of cases in the country of 10.7 million since the start of the pandemic now stands at 458,229. The death toll stands at 6,058, a tenfold increase since late September.
German minister predicts further 4-5 months of severe restrictions
Germans should brace for another 4-5 months of severe measures to halt the rise in coronavirus infections and should not expect the current rules to be eased quickly, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told weekly Bild am Sonntag.
“We’re not out of the woods yet”, he said referring to infection numbers. “We cannot afford a yo-yo shutdown with the economy constantly opening and closing.”
Germany has imposed a set of measures dubbed a “lockdown light” to rein in the second wave of the pandemic that the country is seeing in common with much of the rest of Europe, Reuters reports.
While restaurants are closed, schools and shops so far remain open. Data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday that the number of confirmed cases in Germany increased by 16,947 to 790,503. Weekend figures tend to be lower as not all data is reported by local authorities.
Altmaier said Germany should be wary of relaxing restrictions too quickly. “If we don’t want days with 50,000 new infections, as was the case in France a few weeks ago, we must see through this and not constantly speculate about which measures can be relaxed again,” he told Bild am Sonntag.
“All countries that lifted their restrictions too early have so far paid a high price in terms of human lives lost.”
His comments echoed those of other leading German policy makers. Among others, Health Minister Jens Spahn said at an online event of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party on Saturday that hard weeks, possibly even months, lie ahead.
Updated
Indonesia has reported 4,106 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, taking the total number to 467,113, data from the country’s COVID-19 task force showed.
It recorded 63 COVID-19 deaths, taking the number of fatalities to 15,211. As of Sunday, 391,991 people have recovered from the virus in Indonesia
The Covid-19 rate of growth across the UK “is slowing”, Professor Sir Ian Diamond the UK’s national statistician has said. The head of the Office for National Statistics told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday show:
Diamond, said that cases had increased in the East Midlands, West Midlands and the South East in the last week.
“In England, we have huge regional variation. We have seen in the North West, the North East and in Yorkshire steady increases, although they have tended to flatten off in recent weeks a little.
We have now seen increases in the last week in the East Midlands, West Midlands, and the South East.
And rates are lower, although slightly increasing, in the rest of the country.”
He added:
“The good news is - yes - we are seeing a slow down in the rate of growth.
That means we’re still increasing and we are now in England at 1.25 per 1,000. That means that one in 85 people in England, we believe, have the virus.
In Wales, a little less at one in 100, in Scotland one in 135 and Northern Ireland one in 105.
So yes we are continuing to increase the numbers, but the rate of growth is slowing.”
Greece limits public gatherings and closes primary schools
Greek police on Sunday announced a ban on public gatherings of four or more people as hospitals were overwhelmed with coronavirus cases, ahead of the annual anniversary of a 1973 anti-junta uprising.
Greece on Saturday said it would shut primary schools, kindergartens and daycare centres as virus-related deaths crossed a thousand, AFP reports.
The anti-junta demonstration is a treasured anniversary for many Greeks, and more than 30,000 people demonstrated in Athens and other major cities last year under a heavy police presence.
At least 24 people were killed in the 1973 crackdown, an event generally considered to have broken the junta’s grip on power and helped the restoration of democracy.
This year, however, all public gatherings of four or more people would be banned from 6 am on Sunday to 9 pm on Wednesday to stem the spread of coronavirus police said in a statement.
Fines of 5,000 euros will be issued to legal entities like political parties and 3,000 euros for individuals who organise gatherings, while those participating will be fined 300 euros.
Authorities on Saturday reported 2,835 new coronavirus cases, taking the total to 72,510, and 38 new deaths, raising the toll to 1,035.
Updated
It is being called the “great reversal”. After decades of progress, the international goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 is in jeopardy, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has warned, as developing countries battling the coronavirus sacrifice their health and education systems to pay western and Chinese creditors, Jamie Doward reports.
“We need a comprehensive new plan that recognises the need for some countries to restructure and reduce debt,” Brown told the Observer. Ahead of a key G20 meeting next weekend, the former prime minister is calling for a global solution if an imminent child mortality crisis is to be averted.
His warning comes against a backdrop of rising poverty and reversals in child health. Data from the Johns Hopkins Medical School shows that an additional 6,000 children could die every day from preventable causes as the pandemic weakens health systems and disrupts routine services.
But the ability of many developing countries to tackle Covid-19 is severely limited by their debt obligations. With little financial support flowing from the IMF and the World Bank, some governments face a stark choice between repaying creditors or funding crucial public services.
It is predicted that African countries will pay out more than $10bn to creditors this year and next year alone. More than half will go to City asset management firms, like BlackRock, which employs former UK chancellor George Osborne on £650,000 a year, and Fidelity Investments.
Russia reported a daily increase of 22,572 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, taking the national tally to 1,925,825. Authorities also reported 352 Covid-19 related deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 33,186.
Hi. Thanks Helen. Caroline Davies here. I will be taking over the live blog for the next few hours. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, from a sunny Sydney evening. My colleague Caroline Davies will be bringing you the latest for the next while - from a rainy London morning.
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
-
The global death toll climbed above 1.3 million and more than 53 million have been infected worldwide by Covid-19, as the virus runs rampant through America and Europe.
- Ten Covid-19 patients were killed and others were in critical condition after fire broke out in an intensive care unit in northeast Romania on Saturday, a hospital spokesperson said. The fire occurred in the early evening in the intensive care of the hospital in the town of Piatra Neamt. It was under control an hour later by the emergency services.
- UN food agency warned 2021 will be worse than 2020. The head of the World Food Program says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the U.N. agency a spotlight and megaphone to warn world leaders that next year is going to be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.”
-
North Dakota has become the 35th US state to require face coverings be worn in public, as governors across the country grapple with a surge in coronavirus infections that threatens to swamp their healthcare systems. North Dakota joined 38 other states this month in reporting record daily jumps in new cases, 17 others with record deaths and 25 others with a record number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals, according to a Reuters tally.
- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 16,947 to 790,503, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The reported death toll rose by 107 to 12,485.
- Mexico passes 1m cases. Mexico has registered more than 1 million total coronavirus cases and nearly 100,000 test-confirmed deaths, though officials agree the number is probably much higher. Health Director General Ricardo Cortés Alcalá said late Saturday the number of confirmed cases had reached 1,003,253, with at least 98,259 deaths from Covid-19.
- South Korea reported 208 new coronavirus cases as of Saturday midnight, marking the eight straight day of triple-digit increases, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Sunday. That was slightly higher than the previous day’s 205 new infections and the highest since early September. Of the cases, 176 were domestically transmitted and 32 imported. Nearly 70% of the locally transmitted cases were from Seoul and Gyeonggi province, a densely populated area near the capital.
- In Australia, the state of Victoria again recorded no new cases and no new deaths for the 16th consecutive day. Victoria’s death toll from coronavirus remains at 819, while the total number of deaths from Covid-19 in Australia is 907. Australia’s two other most populous states, NSW and Queensland, also recorded no new locally-acquired Covid-19 cases.
- Ten people have died after a fire broke out in a Covid-19 intensive care ward in Romania, as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into events. The blaze, which was “most likely triggered by a short circuit”, spread through the ward at Piatra Neamt Regional Emergency hospital on Saturday afternoon, critically injuring seven people.
- 462 more people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the U.K, raising the official death toll to 51,766. This number is up from 376 on Friday, government data shows. In Bristol, police made 14 arrests after protesters defied a ban on an anti-lockdown rally. One of the arrested men was Jeremy Corbyn’s brother, vision appears to show.
- Record high case numbers were recorded in Russia and Ukraine. Russia reported 22,702 new infections and 391 deaths. Ukraine registered 12,524 new cases. Poland recorded a record new 548 deaths and 25,571 cases. The record number of deaths takes Poland’s toll above 10,000.
- Iran has announced strict new lockdown restrictions from next Saturday., after recording 452 deaths, a near record. President Hassan Rouhani said non-essential businesses and services will be shut and cars will not be allowed to leave or enter Tehran and 100 other towns and cities
-
Lebanon has started a new two-week lockdown after coronavirus infections crossed the 100,000 mark. Beirut’s roads were largely empty and police checkpoints were set up at several locations.
- Greece and Austria have set out plans to tighten lockdown restrictions. Austria is planning to impose a full lockdown from Tuesday. Greece has announced the closure of nurseries and primary schools until the end of November as its death toll surpassed 1,000.
France’s veteran leftwing agitator, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is preparing once again to sally forth against his enemies on the right after announcing that he is standing in the 2022 presidential elections, the third time he has mounted a challenge to lead the country.
The leader of France Unbowed (La France Insoumise, or LFI) promised last week he would put his name forward if 150,000 French citizens signed a petition supporting him. Within days, he had comfortably hit his target, and the signatures are still pouring in.
With 18 months to go until the next presidential election, polls suggest it is likely to be a repeat of the last one in 2017; a run-off between the current centrist leader, President Emmanuel Macron, and the far right’s Marine Le Pen.
There is just one problem. How does a self-confessed political rabble-rouser, who admits his modus operandi is to ramp up the rhetoric, find the right tone in the time of the coronavirus crisis?
“The Covid-19 situation makes our job very difficult because we are in opposition and we do oppose the way the health crisis has been handled, but we cannot be the ones organising more disorganisation. We cannot be pushing people to disobey and create chaos. We just can’t do that,” Mélenchon told the Observer:
If you stand on the cliff at Land’s End with your back to the sea and the majesty of England stretching ahead of you, the first thing you see is a theme park. It’s not the most promising introduction to the country. But my friend Ed and I had our sights set well beyond the expensive ice-cream and Arthur’s Quest experience. We had them fixed 874 miles away – on John o’Groats.
Many midlife adventures spark into life in the pub after one too many pints and a chaser of bravado. Ours, however, was a direct reaction to the foreshortened horizons of the pandemic. What better way to shake off the shackles of lockdown than a self-supported, two-week biking and camping trek over the length of the country? “Well …” my wife laughed, “how about staying in a luxury hotel?” She makes a persuasive case, but months of staring at the same four walls had made me yearn for widescreen panoramas and the freedom of the open road.
You can, of course, set off at any time of year, but it makes sense to do the ride when: (a) it’s dry and warm, and (b) the midges are dormant. The best months, therefore, are May and June. So it was far from ideal that we chose September when (a) it was wet and cold, and (b) the midges were in full-on illegal rave mode:
It’s the 17-year stalwart of daytime British TV, famous for revealing the hidden potential of dilapidated properties and the rapacious profits of the punters bold enough to buy them at auction. Now, Homes Under the Hammer is being credited with fuelling a new boom in the property market, as auctioneers report a sharp increase in sales and bidders – particularly for family homes – during the pandemic.
Savills says it has sold property worth more than £240m at auction this year, almost 40% higher than the same period in 2019, while last week Auction House announced it had sold £65m worth of property in October alone, a new record. Auctioneer John Pye Property said the total value of properties it sold between May and October this year was 126% higher than that achieved during the same period last year. The number of bidders at its auctions also rose by 52%.
Since March, property auctions have been taking place online, making them seem more “accessible” to first-time bidders who are fans of Homes Under the Hammer and have more time on their hands during lockdown. “Going to some of the big metropolitan auctions can be quite intimidating,” said Charles Lovell, head of Auction House Robinson & Hall. Now, he says, “anybody can just log on and watch the auction … That can draw them into considering auction as a means of purchasing a property.”
Normally his firm successfully auctions off about 81% of the properties on its books – during lockdown, the figure is nearer 96%. “I think there’s only one property we offered which didn’t sell.”
Calls to the UK’s largest domestic abuse helpline are rising “week on week” as new figures reveal that almost 50 suspected killings may have occurred during the first lockdown.
The charity Refuge, which runs the National Domestic Abuse helpline, said it was “very concerned” by the continuing upward trend in demand for its services, with England a little over a week into its second lockdown.
Separate data from Counting Dead Women, a project that records the killing of women by men in the UK, identified 35 murders, with another 12 strongly suspected cases between 23 March and the start of July, when Covid restrictions were largely lifted.
The rate of killings, conspicuously steep in the opening period of the first lockdown, gradually lowers to levels similar to those recorded in previous years:
Here is the full story on the new cases in South Australia:
UN food agency warns 2021 will be worse than 2020
The head of the World Food Program says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the U.N. agency a spotlight and megaphone to warn world leaders that next year is going to be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.”
David Beasley said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Norwegian Nobel Committee was looking at the work the agency does every day in conflicts, disasters and refugee camps, often putting staffers’ lives at risk to feed millions of hungry people -- but also to send “a message to the world that it’s getting worse out there ... (and) that our hardest work is yet to come.”
“It was so timely because we’ve been fighting to get above the choir,” Beasley said of last month’s award, pointing to the news being dominated by the U.S. elections and the Covid-19 pandemic, and the difficulty of getting global attention focused on “the travesty that we’re facing around the world.”
“So this was really a gift from above,” Beasley said, recalling the surprise and delight of WFP’s 20,000 staffers worldwide, and his own shock at being interrupted during a meeting in Niger in Africa’s Sahel region with the news.
Epidemiologist after epidemiologist warns that we must modify our “behaviours” if we are to counter the pandemic. Quite when it became obligatory for this horde of “experts” to pluralise the word is not known, but I do wish they would desist. And given their track record during coronavirus, with certain honourable exceptions, how many would dare to admit their profession if they were to be asked at a party what they did for a living? They’d be far better off saying they were an actuary.
Talking of Covid-19, I’m pleased to see that Boris Johnson has abandoned his roadmaps and moonshots and gone for a bit of sporting lingo instead. Announcing the potential arrival of a vaccine, he said: “I just don’t want people to run away with the idea that this development is necessarily a home run, a slam dunk, a shot to the back of the net.” Though maybe, given the number of times he’s shot himself in the foot during the crisis, perhaps he should have omitted that last bit.
Not to be outdone, Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, offered this: It’s like “getting to the end of the play-off final, it’s gone to penalties. The first player goes up and scores the goal. You haven’t won the cup yet, but what it does tell you is that the goalkeeper can be beaten.” Rather nifty analogy that, Prof Van-Tam.
And to finish, a curse on the head of the “expert” who said that we shouldn’t treat the vaccine as a “magic silver bullet”:
More now on the cases in South Australia:
The three new cases of locally acquired Covid-19 were diagnosed in South Australia after a worker from a quarantine hotel infected family members, AAP reports.
South Australia has three new cases of locally-acquired Covid-19 after a worker from a quarantine hotel infected family members.
An 80-year-old woman was diagnosed on Saturday after she went to Adelaide’s Lyell McEwin Hospital hospital for a test, Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier told reporters.
A woman in her 50s and man in his 60s were later tested and on Sunday also found to be infected.
“One of those people works in our medi-hotels,” Prof Spurrier said.
“This is where we are considering the source to be.”
Prof Spurrier said the infected trio has a very large family and four relatives are showing symptoms with test results expected later in the day.
Contact tracing is also under way for about 90 staff and patients at the hospital who may have come into contact with the 80-year-old woman.
Prof Spurrier said the woman also visited Parafield Plaza Supermarket in Adelaide’s north while infectious
She urged any person who develops symptoms to immediately report for testing.
All staff working at SA’s quarantine hotels will now be required to undertake virus testing every seven days.
“It’s obvious that this is the highest risk in Australia right now is this risk of importation (of the virus) in our quarantine hotels,” Prof Spurrier said.
The new rule includes police, nurses, concierge, cleaners and security guards.
A 30-year-old man who recently returned from overseas was also diagnosed while in hotel quarantine.
There are now 19 active Covid-19 cases in SA.
Hundreds of millions of Indians in north India woke up on Sunday to toxic air following Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, after many revellers defied bans on using firecrackers to celebrate, Reuters reports.
The capital New Delhi was blanked with a thick haze, with the average pollution level in the capital over 9 times what is considered safe by the World Health Organization.
Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had banned use and sale of firecrackers ahead of Diwali, but the policy has been difficult to implement.
Residents in the capital let off huge amounts of fireworks to celebrate the festival well into the early hours of Sunday morning.
The city’s air pollution typically worsens in October and November due to farmers burning agricultural waste, along with coal-fired power plants in surrounding states, traffic fumes and windless days.
The raging coronavirus epidemic, with more than 400,000 confirmed cases in the city of 20 million, has also heightened alarm over the health hazard posed by the choking smog, with doctors warning of a sharp increase in respiratory illnesses.
Updated
Here are some more photos of the digital pact-signing ceremony, by the Guardian’s Mike Bowers, who tells me that at one point, “the host, Vietnam, pretended to pass the signed agreement to the secretariat on the screen”:
Australia enters world's biggest trade pact
Australia is entering into the biggest trade agreement ever, a 15-nation partnership that accounts for nearly a third of global output, AAP reports.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Trade Minister Simon Birmingham will sign the regional comprehensive economic partnership on Sunday, an agreement that covers around 30 per cent of the world’s population.
“This is a huge accomplishment,” Senator Birmingham told reporters in Canberra.
“This is an incredibly important agreement in terms of the timing ... we see huge pressures globally on the trading system and of course pressures Australia faces too.”
Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, New Zealand and the 10 members of ASEAN will be part of the deal.
Business groups saw the trade agreement as critical for Australia’s recovery from the Covid-19 recession.
“Australians need jobs and selling more of our world class products and services to the world is one of the best ways we can create them,” Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said.
“Our success over the last 30 years has been built on trade and investment with Asia. This agreement will help lock in a new wave of growth and new jobs just when we need it most.”
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the agreement will put Australia and the Asia Pacific region at the forefront of modern trade rules.
“While the FTA gives limited new market access to individual markets, the uniform rules for trading in the region will support regional supply chains and improve the international competitiveness of Australian companies,” he said.
South Australia confirms three new coronavirus cases
South Australia has three new cases of locally acquired Covid-19 after a worker from a quarantine hotel infected family members.
An 80-year-old woman was diagnosed on Saturday and a woman in her 50s and man in his 60s were diagnosed on Sunday, Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier told reporters.
“One of those people works in our medi-hotels,” Prof Spurrier said.
“This is where we consider the source to be.”
Contact tracing is underway.
Updated
10 Covid patients die in Romania hospital fire
Ten Covid-19 patients were killed and others were in critical condition after fire broke out in an intensive care unit in northeast Romania on Saturday, a hospital spokesperson said.
AFP: The fire occurred in the early evening in the intensive care of the hospital in the town of Piatra Neamt. It was under control an hour later by the emergency services.
“Ten people have been declared dead and seven people are in critical condition,” including a doctor, said hospital spokeswoman Irina Popa.
Eight of the victims died in the flames and two others were pronounced dead following their evacuation.
The doctor on duty, who tried to help the victims, suffered second and third degree burns to 80 percent of his body, the rescue service said.
The cause of the blaze was unclear and the prosecutor general opened an enquiry into the tragedy. The health ministry suggested the fire could have been caused by an electrical short circuit.
The local prefect set up a crisis cell and Health Minister Nelu Tataru was expected to visit the scene.
Largely spared during when the first wave of the coronavirus hit Europe, Romania has in recent weekly seen mounting numbers of cases and hospitalisations.
On Saturday it reported 129 new virus fatalities, bringing total deaths to 8,813 since the start of the pandemic.
The country of 19 million residents is one of the poorest in the European Union and ill-equipped to deal with a spike in hospital cases.
Its dilapidated health system suffers from a severe shortage of doctors, especially in small towns.
It was the deadliest fire in Romania since October 2015, when a pyrotechnics display caused a blaze at a Bucharest nightclub which left 64 people dead.
Is there coronavirus news from your part of the world that you think we may have missed?
Get in touch with me on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports that authorities in Sweden are currently investigating 150 cases of a recurrence of coronavirus, although, the paper reports, “there are many indications that even those who fall ill a second time have some protection”. Patients who contract the virus a second time may be less contagious and suffer a less severe illness, according to Sweden’s public health agency.
In case you missed this earlier in the week:
New infections and hospital admissions have surged in Sweden as the country battles a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic that officials had hoped its light-touch, anti-lockdown approach would mitigate.
“We consider the situation extremely serious,” the director of health and medical care services for Stockholm, Björn Eriksson, told the state broadcaster SVT this week. “We can expect noticeably more people needing hospital care over the coming weeks.”
Swedish hospitals were treating 1,004 patients for Covid-19, SVT said, an increase of 60% over the previous week’s 627. Data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control suggests the rise in recent weeks may be Europe’s fastest:
Updated
More than 2.6 million Cambodians have turned to microfinance because of limited access to traditional banking, AFP reports.
But in poor countries with little regulatory oversight, the practice has come under fire for predatory tactics including targeting rural villages where residents have limited financial acumen.
In Cambodia where the average yearly income is a meagre $1,700, borrowers in 2019 racked up a total debt of $10bn to microfinance lenders.
This puts the kingdom at an average loan of $3,804 per person – the highest amount in the world, according to local rights group Licadho.
A lack of enforcement also has illegal lenders offering “throat-slittingly high” interest rates of up to 30% over a year, says Licadho’s Am Sam Ath.
The informal lending industry has long been a complicated issue for the kingdom, he explains, with Cambodians turning to licensed microfinance institutions to repay private lenders only to find themselves trapped in a cycle of debt to more lenders.
“With the Covid pandemic and floods in the rural areas, people face double the trouble, with more difficulties over debts,” he says.
While Cambodia itself has recorded only around 300 coronavirus cases, the pandemic has seen tens of thousands of migrant workers return from Thailand as jobs have dried up, putting families living paycheque-to-paycheque under strain.
Updated
Germany confirms 16,947 cases in 24 hours
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 16,947 to 790,503, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday.
The reported death toll rose by 107 to 12,485.
Australia’s federal health minister, Greg Hunt, is anticipating Australians will willingly adopt a coronavirus vaccine without having to make it compulsory.
He said the immunisation of children is at record levels, while there has been a large take-up of the flu vaccine even during pandemic lockdowns.
Addressing reporters in Canberra on Sunday, he said it was not the government’s plan to make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory at the moment.
“I’m not going to suddenly rule things out,” he said.
“But what I expect on the basis of the way Australians have adopted the flu vaccine, the range of national immunisation program vaccines, is they will probably be vaccinated in record numbers on an entirely voluntary basis.”
Hunt announced Australia will be part of a new international regulatory partnership for Covid-19 vaccines, which will share research and information.
The five-country Access Consortium is made up of Australia, the UK, Canada, Switzerland and Singapore.
“The news on vaccines continue to be positive,” Hunt said.
“We are cautious and that is why we have struck this international regulatory partnership.”
Deputy secretary of the Health Products Regulation Group, John Skerritt, said the ability to work with like-minded countries will give Australia greater assurances as the products are rolled out.
Updated
North Dakota becomes 35th US state to require face coverings in public
North Dakota has become the 35th US state to require face coverings be worn in public, as governors across the country grapple with a surge in coronavirus infections that threatens to swamp their healthcare systems.
North Dakota joined 38 other states this month in reporting record daily jumps in new cases, 17 others with record deaths and 25 others with a record number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals, according to a Reuters tally.
“Our situation has changed, and we must change with it,” North Dakota’s Republican Governor Doug Burgum said in a statement late on Friday.
The mask order, similar to other state mandates, requires face coverings to be worn in most indoor public places and “in outdoor business and public settings when it is not possible to maintain physical distancing.”
Burgum also ordered restaurants and bars to limit diners to 50% of capacity and to close by 10 pm, a move several other governors have made, citing data that links late-night gatherings to increased spread of the virus.
Updated
Greg Hunt has clarified that foreign business people and actors will not be subjected to the “Australians first” approach to international arrivals as Australia struggles to clear a backlog of people seeking to come home.
The health minister suggested that “national interest” exemptions would continue to apply, clarifying that investors will not be barred by the rule that prevents large numbers of international students coming ahead of 36,500 Australians still seeking to return.
On Friday Scott Morrison revealed Australia’s chief health advisers had concluded alternatives to hotel quarantine are not currently considered safe, despite saying in October he wanted to develop “innovative” alternatives.
The prospect of Australia increasing the cap of 6,000 arrivals a week will now depend on increasing hotel capacity, including when Melbourne resumes arrivals, and approving low-risk countries for quarantine-free travel, following the New Zealand model:
Encouraging the public to visit bars and restaurants and then closing down such venues when Covid-19 cases spike is not a “sensible way to run the epidemic”, a British government scientific adviser has said.
Prof John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), urged a long-term strategy when it comes to balancing the economy and the pandemic.
Current national lockdown measures in England mean venues such as pubs, bars and restaurants have been forced to close but are expected to be allowed to reopen when the restrictions lift:
A record methamphetamine shipment seized in Hong Kong last month was bound for Melbourne, with Australia’s lucrative drug market considered even more attractive for organised crime groups as Covid-19 creates supply issues.
A half-tonne shipment detected on 29 October – the largest ice haul ever uncovered in Hong Kong – was bound for an address in Melbourne’s outer suburbs, according to shipping records seen by Guardian Australia.
It is believed the ice was manufactured by Mexican drug cartels, before being shipped via Vietnam and South Korea.
The circuitous route prompted Hong Kong officials to search the container, which contained more than 1,000 bags of tiling plaster. Inside some bags were packages of methamphetamine.
No arrests have been made regarding the seizure, Hong Kong and Australian authorities confirmed:
In Australia, nine overseas travellers in New South Wales hotel quarantine have been diagnosed with Covid-19 as authorities detect more virus traces in sewage, AAP reports.
There are 72 active coronavirus cases across the state with health officials warning the public to remain vigilant.
“With the weather becoming warmer and people starting to attend more social gatherings, NSW Health is calling on the community to maintain the Covid-safe behaviours,” a spokesman said on Sunday.
“Although there have been no locally acquired cases in NSW in recent days, now is not the time to drop our guard.”
Members of the public are reminded to keep practising physical distancing and good hand hygiene, and get tested and isolate if they feel unwell.
No locally acquired cases were diagnosed in NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm Saturday.
Authorities are urging testing for symptomatic people in parts of west and northwest Sydney after traces of coronavirus were found in sewerage systems.
“The catchment takes sewage from approximately 180,000 people,” NSW Health said of one network.
The traces were found in samples taken on Thursday from a waste water network which services parts of suburbs including Leppington, Catherine Field, West Hoxton, Hoxton Park, Edmondson Park, Prestons and Miller.
Traces were also found in a separate sewerage system, servicing 120,000 people in an area covering Quakers Hill, Bella Vista, Kellyville and Baulkham Hills.
“While detection of the virus in sewage samples could reflect the presence of older cases of Covid-19 diagnosed in these areas, NSW Health is concerned there could be other active cases,” a statement read.
Updated
As I live and blog, someone has written Trump 2020 in the skies of Sydney, Australia.
It is ironic, given that the US president has failed to manage the pandemic in his own country to the degree that it has reported world record case numbers for the fourth day in a row – and will soon have lost a quarter of a million people to the disease – while in Australia, multiple states are going days without a single new case.
Or maybe it’s a metaphor:
Trump 2020 appeared in the sky over Sydney today.
— Mike Duffy (@mikeduffynews) November 15, 2020
It soon became difficult to read and eventually, incomprehensible.
Then just disappeared altogether. #performanceart #sydney pic.twitter.com/wUa8jhUHwR
Updated
A Victorian pub has turned away the state’s chief officer after he failed to book ahead.
The Bright Brewery posted on Facebook that it did not have space to seat him, due to its reduced capacity under coronavirus restrictions – and that next time, he should make a booking:
Proving that literally all of Melbourne is in Bright this weekend, we had to turn away the Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, twice today!
Pictured here with our long-time bar staffer Wayne, Mr Sutton was a great sport when our staff explained that under his own COVID-restrictions, we unfortunately did not have the space to seat him.
We’re sorry you couldn’t, in Premier Dan Andrews’ words, “Get On The Beers” with us, Brett - but we hope to see you again once restrictions ease!
So the lesson is: it doesn’t matter who you are - if you’re planning to come and visit us, please book ahead! That includes you, Mr Sutton!
Sutton’s deputy, Allen Cheng, poked fun at his boss on Twitter, too:
Sorry Brett, I'm not changing the rules just so you can get on the beers today... @VictorianCHO (but when you get a table, drink responsibly)https://t.co/67QgbB3P00
— Allen Cheng (@peripatetical) November 14, 2020
Western Australia warns prime minister over relaxing borders
Western Australia has warned it won’t hesitate to slam its border shut again if the Morrison government relaxes restrictions on international travellers.
AAP: It comes as hundreds of people continue to stream into the state after its Covid-19 hard border closure was relaxed on Saturday.
“It was lovely to see families being reunited yesterday after eight or so months apart,” premier Mark McGowan told reporters on Sunday.
“You could see the emotion as mothers greeted daughters, grandparents greeted their grandchildren.
“It is a relief we were able to do that in a very safe way.”
Police reported few delays on Saturday as 2,287 people crossed into WA by air and road. Another 10 domestic flights with 1,000 passengers are expected to arrive in the state on Sunday.
Four new virus cases were diagnosed in hotel quarantine in the 24 hours to Sunday morning. All four are Australians returning from overseas.
“International arrivals of Australians are clearly the biggest risk to the state,” McGowan said.
“If we open up to overseas countries and allow people in without quarantining that would be a mistake.
“If the commonwealth government does something different or risky, we’ll put up harder border arrangements with the other states overnight.”
Updated
The Victorian government has committed $5.3bn towards building 12,000 social housing homes throughout Melbourne and regional areas.
The package, to be included in the state’s 2020/21 budget released on 24 November, will deliver 9,300 new homes, as well as the replacement of 1,100 existing public housing units.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said 2,000 of the new homes would be for people living with mental illness, while 2,900 new affordable and low-cost homes would be built to help low-to-moderate income earners live closer to work.
There would also be 1,000 dwellings to support Indigenous Victorians and another 1,000 to support victims of family violence, the Victorian premier said.
The program would also create about 10,000 jobs a year over the next four years, with the first 6,000 dwellings expected to completed within 18 months, he said:
Australia’s triumph in reining in Covid-19 while infections spiral up in many parts of the world is making the country a “victim of our own success,” as Australians overseas want to come home, a cabinet minister said on Sunday.
Reuters: Australia closed its borders in March to all but citizens and residents, and the government has kept entries capped and put those allowed into the country in a two-week mandatory quarantine.
“With what’s happening with COVID-19 in other parts of the world, we’re almost becoming a victim of our own success here in Australia, with more people wanting to come back,” Education Minister Dan Tehan told Sky News television on Sunday.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that with a growing number of Australians wanting to return, there are not enough quarantine facilities for others, such as thousands of international students.
“Within the existing caps, priority has to be given to returning Australians,” Tehan said on Sunday.
He said, however, that states and territories have been asked to submit plans for a safe return of international students. With foreign students contributing A$35bn ($25bn) a year to the Australian economy, Canberra had hoped to slowly allow their return in 2021.
Australia has recorded about 27,700 infections of the new coronavirus and 907 Covid-19 deaths, a fraction of what many other developed nations have seen, thanks to an impressive early response and strict measures that included sending Melbourne, the country’s second-largest city, into months-long lockdown.
Updated
Mexico passes 1m cases
Mexico has registered more than 1 million total coronavirus cases and nearly 100,000 test-confirmed deaths, though officials agree the number is probably much higher.
Health Director General Ricardo Cortés Alcalá said late Saturday the number of confirmed cases had reached 1,003,253, with at least 98,259 deaths from Covid-19.
How did Mexico get here? By marching resolutely, even defiantly, against many internationally accepted practices in pandemic management, from face mask wearing, to lockdowns, testing and contact tracing.
What is more, officials in Mexico claim science is on their side. Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell says any wider testing would be “a waste of time, effort and money.” Face masks, López-Gatell says, “are an auxiliary measure to prevent spreading the virus. They do not protect us, but they are useful for protecting other people.”
Updated
No flights, no planes, no crew, no fares – November! Late autumn is, even on easyJet’s standard aviation calendar, quite the worst time of any year, but 2020 has been something else.
On Tuesday, the airline unveils its annual results from what it can only hope are the depths of the Covid-19 abyss. A trading update last month warned on much of the misery – losses of up to £845m, not counting “non-headline items” such as a £145m bad bet on fuel hedging, and the immediate £120m cost of laying off about a third of its staff. The cash burn of around £50m a week over summer “compared favourably” with the previous three months, it said:
Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Saturday he “most likely” has a moderate case of Covid-19, as he continued to question the accuracy of the tests.
“Am getting wildly different results from different labs, but most likely I have a moderate case of covid. My symptoms are that of a minor cold, which is no surprise, since a coronavirus is a type of cold,” Musk wrote in a tweet.
Am getting wildly different results from different labs, but most likely I have a moderate case of covid. My symptoms are that of a minor cold, which is no surprise, since a coronavirus is a type of cold.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2020
South Korea reports 208 new Covid-19 cases, 8th day of triple-digit rises
South Korea reported 208 new coronavirus cases as of Saturday midnight, marking the eight straight day of triple-digit increases, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Sunday.
That was slightly higher than the previous day’s 205 new infections and the highest since early September.
Of the cases, 176 were domestically transmitted and 32 imported. Nearly 70% of the locally transmitted cases were from Seoul and Gyeonggi province, a densely populated area near the capital.
On Saturday, President Moon Jae-in urged authorities and local governments to raise their awareness of the spread of the coronavirus, reinforcing thorough supervision of safety guidelines such as mandatory mask wearing.
South Korea began fining people who fail to wear masks in public on Friday, as the nation’s daily infections continued to creep higher.
The latest tally takes the country’s total infections to 28,546, with 493 deaths, according to the KDCA.
More now on Australia’s success in handling the pandemic:
When the premier of Queensland held her regular Covid-19 update on Friday she couldn’t help letting a smile creep across her face.
“Now, here’s a good one,” Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters. “I think all Queenslanders are going to be happy about it.”
She went on to announce that Brisbane’s Suncorp stadium would host a capacity 52,500 crowd for the forthcoming State of Origin rugby league decider against New South Wales next week.
“The cauldron can be filled to 100% capacity,” she said.
In the midst of the pandemic, the idea of responsible leaders encouraging citizens to gather in large crowds to sit or stand shoulder to shoulder with strangers might seem to be a case of extreme recklessness.
But in Australia, where the Covid-19 pandemic has largely been controlled after months of lockdowns, border closures and strict limits on gatherings, moments like these are becoming more and more common.
Last month, footage from a packed nightclub in Western Australia went viral, offering a surreal image of pre-Covid normality even as countries in the northern hemisphere began to return to lockdowns amid surging case numbers. In Sydney, about 40,000 fans were present for the rugby league grand final last month.
The country has reason to be bullish about its successes. On Friday, Australia recorded no new cases of the virus for the fifth day in a row. In Victoria, where a second-wave spike of the virus forced Melbourne into a months-long lockdown and left hundreds dead, Friday marked the 14th day in a row with no new cases.
The closely watched downward trend of the virus has even sparked a new phrase, the “donut day”, meaning a day with no new Covid-19 infections, which has become synonymous with the country’s success in tackling the pandemic:
Australian state of New South Wales reports no new cases
In case you missed this earlier, Australia’s most populous state – New South Wales – has also recorded no new cases in the last 24 hours.
The state has reported nine cases in overseas travellers in hotel quarantine, which brings the total in NSW to 4,306 cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
NSW conducted 17,226 tests reported, a slight increase on the prior day.
The state’s health authorities are warning residents not to drop their guard.
With the weather becoming warmer and people starting to attend more social gatherings, NSW Health is calling on the community to maintain the COVID safe behaviours that have been key to stopping the spread of the virus. Though there have been no locally acquired cases in NSW in recent days, now is not the time to drop our guard. Everyone needs to continue to be alert to the ongoing risk of transmission of COVID-19, to keep practising physical distancing and good hand hygiene, and most importantly to get tested and isolate if they feel unwell.
Australian state of Victoria marks 16 days with no new infections
The state of Victoria again recorded no new cases and no new deaths for the 16th consecutive day. Victoria’s death toll from coronavirus remains at 819, while the total number of deaths from Covid-19 in Australia is 907.
Victoria has just three active coronavirus cases.
Deputy Chief Health Officer Allan Cheng on Saturday described Victoria’s more than two weeks with no new cases as “about as good as it can get”, AAP reports.
“What we’re still concerned about ... is that there may still be the potential for hidden trains of transmission out there; obviously that chance is decreasing as time goes on,” he said.
“And then obviously the potential for an incursion of cases from outside, from New Zealand or NSW.”
The final step of easing restrictions is a week away – starting on 22 November.
From then, people will be allowed to visit a home and public gatherings will grow to 50 people outdoors, while the cap on weddings and funerals will be increased to 100 and organised contact sports will resume for all ages.
The state of South Australia will re-open its border with Victoria on December 1, while New South Wales will open it’s border with the state earlier on November 23.
There will be no requirement for travellers to quarantine in hotels or at home.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you global updates – including a fair bit of Australian news.
As always, it would be great to hear from you – find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan or email me: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
The US has again broken the world record for a number of cases confirmed by one country in 24 hours, with 177,000 new infections and 1.138 deaths added for Friday, 13 November, according to Johns Hopkins university (these are the most recent case data).
A note that Johns Hopkins appears to have revised its earlier case total for Friday down from 184,000.
In the Australian state of Victoria, which had one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, there have been 16 days in a row without a single new locally acquired coronavirus infection.
Here is a summary of the global developments from the last few hours:
- The global death toll climbed above 1.3 million and more than 53 million have been infected worldwide by Covid-19, as the virus runs rampant through America and Europe.
- In Australia, the news is much better. The state of Victoria again recorded no new cases and no new deaths for the 16th consecutive day. Victoria’s death toll from coronavirus remains at 819, while the total number of deaths from Covid-19 in Australia is 907. Australia’s two other most populous states, NSW and Queensland, also recorded no new locally-acquired Covid-19 cases.
- Ten people have died after a fire broke out in a Covid-19 intensive care ward in Romania, as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into events. The blaze, which was “most likely triggered by a short circuit”, spread through the ward at Piatra Neamt Regional Emergency hospital on Saturday afternoon, critically injuring seven people.
- 462 more people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the U.K, raising the official death toll to 51,766. This number is up from 376 on Friday, government data shows. In Bristol, police made 14 arrests after protesters defied a ban on an anti-lockdown rally. One of the arrested men was Jeremy Corbyn’s brother, vision appears to show.
- Record high case numbers were recorded in Russia and Ukraine. Russia reported 22,702 new infections and 391 deaths. Ukraine registered 12,524 new cases. Poland recorded a record new 548 deaths and 25,571 cases. The record number of deaths takes Poland’s toll above 10,000.
- Iran has announced strict new lockdown restrictions from next Saturday., after recording 452 deaths, a near record. President Hassan Rouhani said non-essential businesses and services will be shut and cars will not be allowed to leave or enter Tehran and 100 other towns and cities
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Lebanon has started a new two-week lockdown after coronavirus infections crossed the 100,000 mark. Beirut’s roads were largely empty and police checkpoints were set up at several locations.
- Greece and Austria have set out plans to tighten lockdown restrictions. Austria is planning to impose a full lockdown from Tuesday. Greece has announced the closure of nurseries and primary schools until the end of November as its death toll surpassed 1,000.
Updated
