Le Monde reports 32% of outbreaks in France found in schools or universities; Victoria ends curfew
- Regular ‘circuit breaker’ lockdowns ‘could help control Covid’
- Minister refuses to guarantee students will be home for Christmas
- Boris Johnson faces revolt over forcing through Covid measures
- Australia: ‘We should not pretend everybody is suffering equally’
- See all our coronavirus coverage
The Welsh government has imposed a fresh local lockdown in three more counties.
Neath Port Talbot, Torfaen and Vale of Glamorgan will have tighter restrictions from 6pm on Monday.
This is not a regional lockdown - this is a series of local restrictions in each local authority area to respond to a specific rise in cases in each area, which have distinct and unique chains of transmission.
“In some places, such as Caerphilly and Newport, we have seen really positive falls in response and we hope they can begin to be relaxed if they continue.
Hundreds of people have been protesting in Madrid against partial lockdown measures imposed on parts of the region, mainly in densely populated low-income neighbourhoods, to curb a surge in coronavirus cases.
Since 21 September some 850,000 people have been confined to their neighbourhoods and unable to leave except for work, school or medical reasons, although they are able to move freely within their own areas.
Vallecas. La gente trabajadora defendiendo la sanidad pública, defendiendo el bien común frente a los beneficios privados de un 1%, defendiendo su barrio, defendiendo la salud y la justicia social... defendiendo la patria, porque la patria es todo eso y no un montón de banderas. pic.twitter.com/dOZmHkzqBV
A member of the British government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) and a key long term scientific adviser, Jeremy Farrar, has called for further lockdown restrictions.
The director of the Welcome Trust, a funder of scientific research in the UK, used an article for the Sunday Times, to call for further reductions on contact between households, reducing or possibly closing pubs, restaurants, gyms and non-essential shop.
Anyone suggesting there are easy political decisions or possible to open society & economy & control epidemic is doing a great disservice.
Accept there is a choice in this.But is an urgent choice, leave it a few days or weeks & situation much harder. With good chance of vaccine & drugs within 6mths I favour stronger, further restrictions now,keep schools open, suppress transmission & save lives. Others may disagree
The number of new coronavirus infections in the Netherlands hit a daily record of 2,995 on Sunday, data released by health authorities showed.
Coronavirus infections in the country have reached record levels almost every day since mid-September. The previous high of 2,777 was reported on Friday, and the total number of reported cases passed 100,000 earlier last week.
Dr William Hanage, professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard, argues in a damning new column that the UK is “ignoring most of these hard lessons” of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
Hanage accuses the government of “opting for half-measures in the face of a virulent second wave”. He goes on:
The government has repeatedly minimised the threat of coronavirus. At the same time, it has lost control of its testing system during the most crucial moment since the initial surge of coronavirus cases, when greater demand for testing could have been easily foreseen. This is a disaster: England has been effectively blinded to where and how the virus is spreading.
Related: Britain's failure to learn the hard lessons of its first Covid surge is a disaster | William Hanage
In Brazil, Reuters reports that a new surge of coronavirus cases in the city of Manaus has dashed hopes that herd immunity had brought the virus under control there.
When deaths plummeted in June, public health experts wonder if “so many residents had caught the virus that it had run out of new people to infect”, the report says.
Authorities warned Manaus residents they were ignoring the virus and risked a second wave of contagion by not wearing masks, packing into bars and attending parties. They shut down Manaus’ river beachfront where raves were being held.
Manaus mayor Arthur Virgilio blamed rightwing President Jair Bolsonaro, who has minimised the gravity of the pandemic, for encouraging a return to normal life and work instead of waiting for a vaccine to be developed.
This is Archie Bland, covering for Ben Quinn while he grabs some lunch.
Here’s a clip of the UK’s culture secretary Oliver Dowden talking about the role of student lockdowns at universities (see 9:47am).
The solemn Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, which annually sees Israeli life grind to a halt, is about to begin in a nation already under a sweeping coronavirus lockdown.
The more secular-minded can be seen riding bikes or even picnicking on deserted highways, reports the AP. The holiday begins at sundown on Sunday.
Families are counting down the days to moving into new homes in a Hong Kong estate that had been used as a Covid-19 quarantine centre in what had become a lightning rod for discontent, the South China Morning Post reports.
They included LN Siu, her husband and daughter, who were overjoyed when they were finally allocated a public housing flat at the Chun Yeung estate in Hong Kong last December. They had been waiting eight years.
Romanians go to the polls on Sunday to choose mayors and local councillors, but a Covid-19 surge is threatening to hit the first electoral test after years of political turbulence with a high abstention rate.
Nationwide, the east European country of almost 19 million people has 43,000 seats to fill in the single-round election seen as a test ahead of national polls in December.
An issue with England’s Covid-19 smartphone app, launched to curb the spread of the virus, which meant it could not accept around a third of test results has been resolved, the government has insisted today.
However, different concerns are now being flagged up by users who are raising concerns on Twitter that they have been getting notifications from the app about having been potentially exposed to someone with the virus, but they then receive no further instructions to self-isolate.
@NHSCOVID19app I received a notification this morning to say potential exposure to COVID-19, yet when I clicked the notification it took me to the app with no information whatsoever. What do I do now and what does this mean?!
Got a notification from the @NHSCOVID19app in the early hours saying there was a potential covid exposure. Open the app to find literally no information whatsoever. Won’t link to NHS tests and now this. Does it actually work?
As Canada faces a second wave of Covid-19, authorities in the hardest-hit province of Quebec have been explaining how it is taking a different form.
The virus is spreading in regions outside the former epicentre of Montreal, reports the Globe and Mail, and it is spreading mainly in the community, rather than in long-term care homes. Like other countries, the spread is also more among young adults, not the elderly.
One of the British government’s scientific advisers has said repeated “mini lockdowns” could be effective as a tool to bring Covid-19 cases under control.
The suggestion from Prof John Edmunds, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), comes amid growing evidence the virus’s prevalence is growing among older, more vulnerable people.
A circuit breaker, or mini-lockdown can be used to reset the clock. The idea would be to bring the incidence back to what it was a few weeks earlier. You replace two weeks of exponential growth with two weeks of a decline in cases.
This can have a big effect on the total number of cases, particularly if it is implemented shortly after the epidemic starts to grow.
Related: Covid’s second coming: how did Britain get back in this mess?
The situation in Morocco will worsen over winter as the flu season overlaps, according to the director of epidemiology at the Health Ministry, who said many hospitals and test sites for Covid-19 are expected to reach capacity.
Mohamed Lyoubi, added during a webinar that the situation will also affect the ability of health authorities to carry out case investigations and ensure contact follow-up and monitoring of patients treated at home.
The British government wants university students to be able to return home for Christmas, a minister has said, as a focus builds up on the plight of thousands of students who are already isolating amid Covid-19 outbreaks.
“I very much want students to be able to go home at Christmas,” culture minister Oliver Dowden told Sky News.
In France, where a doctors’ leader has warned that the latest wave of the pandemic could “overwhelm” the country amid exhaustion on the part of health workers, Le Monde reports that a third of the new clusters are in schools and universities.
The latest figures from health officials indicate that 32% of the 899 clusters under investigation concern schools and universities.
Indonesia reported 3,874 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, bringing the total number of cases to 275,213, official data from the Covid-19 task force showed.
The southeast Asian country also reported 78 new deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 10,386.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which is funded by several countries and philanthropic donors, has given an update on its progress towards developing a Covid-19 vaccine.
CEPI has so far raised $1.4bn of $2.1bn to support #COVID19 vaccine R&D
Additional funds are needed to invest in further candidates to increase our chances of finding a safe and effective vaccine ▶️ https://t.co/J4b6gLGh8V pic.twitter.com/i56B9u1H3T
Russia’s daily tally of new coronavirus cases hit its highest level since June 20 on Sunday at 7,867, bringing its total to 1,151,438, the country’s coronavirus task force reported.
In Moscow alone, there were 2,016 new cases, exceeding the 2,000 mark for the first time since June 2. There were 99 deaths, taking Russia’s official coronavirus death toll to 20,324.
Anti lockdown activists in the UK today are reeling today after police broke up a protest in central London when thousands of people defied their advice and demonstrated against restrictions, mass vaccinations, mandatory wearing of face masks and other coronavirus rules.
Sixteen arrests were made, according to the police, who also say that and nine officers were injured.
Related: Lockdowners v libertarians: Britain’s coronavirus divide
The Czech Republic reported 1,985 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday and nine related deaths, health ministry data showed.
That was roughly a third lower than Friday’s infection count, but fewer tests are done on weekends, according to Reuters.
Boris Johnson is facing a massive parliamentary revolt over the way he is imposing Covid-19 restrictions on the British people without first consulting MPs – amid new signs that confidence in his leadership is collapsing in the Conservative party and across the country.
An extraordinary cross-party backlash against Johnson’s “rule by diktat” from Downing Street was taking shape last night – ahead of a key vote on Wednesday – as a new poll by Opinium for the Observer showed Labour has overtaken the Tories for the first time since Keir Starmer became leader in April.
Almost half of British companies have warned that their Brexit preparations have been hit by the pandemic, as business leaders demanded a last-minute compromise to reach a trade deal and avert chaos at the border.
As a crucial week of talks begins, more than three-quarters of businesses (77%) said they wanted a deal to be agreed, according to a survey by the Confederation of British Industry. Only 4% of businesses said they preferred a no-deal outcome. Support for a deal rises to 86% among distribution companies and 83% of manufacturers.
Related: Firms plead for Brexit deal as coronavirus leaves industry reeling
New Yorkers are looking forward this weekend to the prospect of eating inside a restaurant for the first time in six months as the city plans to allow for interior dining from Wednesday.
restaurants can seat customers inside at 25% capacity, the latest relaxation in the quarantine rules imposed on New York after the coronavirus struck.
My colleague in London, Ben Quinn, will be taking over this blog shortly. In the meantime here is a catch up of the biggest recent developments.
PA: University students in the UK must be allowed to return home to their families at Christmas, Labour has said, amid fears that coronavirus outbreaks could keep young people in halls when term ends.
Thousands of students are currently confined to their rooms following a surge in cases at institutions including Glasgow, Manchester Metropolitan and Edinburgh Napier.
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg, and federal health minister Greg Hunt, have welcomed Victoria’s easing of restrictions but also suggested they’d like it to go further.
It will be important that more be done in the weeks ahead to safely ease more restrictions.
We note that at similar case levels NSW was fundamentally open while remaining Covidsafe due to a world class contact tracing facility.
A Key West team is expected to enforce a new mandate allowing people to go maskless outdoors if they are 6ft apart – an impossible task among partygoers. This feature from Jessica Glenza in Key West, Florida.
Key West code enforcement officer Paul Navarro was halfway through his shift and beginning to see signs of trouble. The crowds on lower Duval Street swelled just after 9pm, and social distancing quickly became impossible on the sidewalks.
In the UK: Dentists face a “tsunami” of untreated tooth decay because children have been kept away from dental surgeries during lockdown.
Half of parents in the UK said their children had missed a check-up since March, according to an Opinium survey for the Association of Dental Groups (ADG), which represents practices across the country.
Related: Dentists fear a ‘tsunami’ of post-lockdown tooth decay
Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham hopes a travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand can be put in place by the end of the year.
But he says “first and foremost” Australian states must open up to one another as great progress is being made.
For Victorians looking to make sense of the new changes coming in tomorrow, here’s a handy explainer.
Victoria will now base its decisions about public health restrictions on case numbers, rather than aspirational dates, the premier said. This could mean the state would take its next step towards lifting restrictions as early as 19 October, with an aim for a “Covid-normal Christmas”, premier Daniel Andrews said.
Related: Melbourne stage 4 restrictions and Covid lockdown rules explained
Before the coronavirus outbreak, there was a sense that western Sydney – despite its challenges – was on the up. With a booming population, it had become the third-biggest economy in Australia, trailing only the Sydney CBD and Melbourne.
And with an international airport on the way and plenty of infrastructure spending by the state government, there was optimism it would continue to generate jobs and economic growth.
Related: From boom to despair: Sydney's west to suffer Covid symptoms 'for generations'
India recorded 88,600 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, taking the country’s official toll to just under 6 million (5,992,532), according to the country’s official figures. Deaths increased by 1,124 to 94,503.
India has the world’s second-highest number of cases, behind the US, and the third-highest number of deaths.
AFP: With the coronavirus crisis putting a chill on travel, European airlines are reducing fares to attract passengers and fill the planes that are still flying.
Travel restrictions adopted by many countries to stem the spread of the disease have clobbered airlines, bringing air traffic to a near halt in the spring. And while traffic picked up during the summer, it is now falling off again.
As Victoria reaches the end of its second wave of the coronavirus, the focus is now on ensuring a third wave doesn’t hit as Australia heads into summer.
Guardian Australia spoke to leading epidemiologists about the lessons learned from other countries, particularly in Europe, that are experiencing a resurgence in cases.
Related: What Australia needs to do to avoid a third Covid wave
Asked about any changes to be made to Victoria’s contact-tracing system (which has faced criticism) since officials visited New South Wales, Andrews said both sides learned from each other but the biggest outcome was that NSW would be adopting Victoria’s IT system.
As Andrews’ press conference draws to an end, catch up on the global developments with our wrap here.
Related: Global report: Colombia and Argentina pass major milestones as Covid grips Americas
Q: Premier, on Friday you testified at the hotel quarantine inquiry, leading national cabinet, you had no expectation of defence force support at the hotel quarantine scheme, yet on July 27th, you responded: “We utilise private security, we will also utilise members of Victoria police and I’m very grateful to the prime minister for his offer of support from the Australian defence force.” Why did you mislead the inquiry?
Andrews: Well, I didn’t, because you omitted a very important word – extensive support. I had no expectation whatsoever of extensive support coming to us from the ADF. That is what I took away from the national cabinet meeting in very plain and clear terms. I fully acknowledge that there would be, in my judgment, a very different arrangement in New South Wales. I detailed why that was the case yesterday.
Asked about the resignation of health minister Jenny Mikakos, Andrews says he’s spoken to many colleagues in the past 48 hours.
“No one is happy to see someone who is an incredibly hard-working member of the team go. When you make a decision you can’t serve in the cabinet, you can’t serve in the cabinet. You need to tender your resignation. That’s what happened.”
Some questions now for the newly minted acting health minister Martin Foley is being asked about elective surgeries.
Q: How quickly are Melbourne hospitals going to be able to get up to the 75% elective surgery?
Someone might need to fill me in here on the apparent influence held by Melbourne’s indoor dance community.
Q: The indoor sporting arrangements for the dance community which is very vocal, have pointed out that young children are not a risk and carrying out current classes for schooling. Can they carry out classes for children?
Get your magnifying glass out. Second step changes. #COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/KcX7iIoGoj
On the 127,000 people returning to work:
Questions now.
Andrews explaining the new exercise allowances. If you’re at work, you can go for a walk or a run etc within 5km as long as you have your permit on you.
Virus reproduction rates are falling about 20% every five or six days, says Professor Allen Cheng, who is going through the modelling driving the restrictions and changes to those restrictions.
“These models are really best at describing or exploring ‘what if’ scenarios without actually having to live them,” he says. For example:
Chief health officer Brett Sutton is up now.
“Today’s numbers are a little bit of an illustration around why that decision was recommended by my public health team and why I have accepted and supported discontinuation of the curfew,” Sutton says.
The much-maligned nighttime curfew is over from tomorrow morning.
In its place they are introducing a new fine of almost $5,000 for any unlawful indoor or outdoor gatherings.
Some extremely hopeful news for Victorians.
The third and final steps of the roadmap will no longer be held to the announced dates, Andrews has announced.
Statement on Melbourne moving to the Second Step towards COVID Normal: pic.twitter.com/S1ARzY9R2M
More:
As each and every Melburnian knows only too well, our target today was to get to a rolling 14 day average of between 30 and 50 cases. The fact that we are at 22.1 cases over that 14 day period as a rolling average means that this strategy is working. It is more than working. We are ahead of schedule, we have made more progress than we hoped to make at this point in time. Now, that is something we can all be pleased about it but it doesn’t mean this is over.
Andrews now to run through changes coming into effect tonight:
Andrews is urging testing, testing, testing.
More statistics:
Andrews is up now. He’s saying there are just 399 active cases, and it’s the first time that number has dropped below 400 since 14 June.
“I’m not only proud of the Victorian community, I am deeply grateful for the amazing work, the sacrifice, the pain that they have enjoyed and will need to endure for a bit longer. In order to defeat this second wave. And then open up and stay open.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is about to address media. I’ll bring you updates here.
AFP: France will face a months-long coronavirus epidemic that will overwhelm its health system if something does not change, one of the country’s top medical figures warned Sunday.
“The second wave is arriving faster than we thought,” Patrick Bouet, head of the National Council of the Order of Doctors, told the weekly Journal du Dimanche.
Reuters: Mexico’s confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 726,431 on Saturday, according to updated data from the health ministry, along with a reported death toll of 76,243.
Authorities reported 5,573 new cases along with 399 deaths on Friday, but the true figures are likely significantly higher due to little testing.
In Australia, Victorians don’t want to see a premature lifting of restrictions in the Australian state if it means rules will have to be tightened again in the near future, according to leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt.
Bandt, who represents the seat of Melbourne, told the ABC’s Insiders it had been a tough period for everyone during the second wave but the state government needed to be cautious as it considered easing the current rules:
"We will move in the Senate to stop the cuts to JobKeeper. We are not in a position in Australia at the moment to be pushed off that financial cliff, especially in Melbourne," says @AdamBandt.#Insiders #auspol pic.twitter.com/AD15o0GTnT
Traces of the Covid-19 virus have been detected in raw sewage across Sydney as part of new research that could provide another tool in the fight against the pandemic, NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant says.
She said the sewage testing program undertaken by NSW Health and Sydney Water started in July could show where the virus had been and provide early warning in places without known or recent cases.
Reuters: Mainland China reported 14 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, compared with 15 cases announced a day earlier, the national health authority has said.
The National Health Commission said in a statement that all the new cases were imported infections involving travellers from abroad. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed Covid-19 patients, fell to 26 from 30 a day earlier.
In the 24 hours to 8pm last night, there were no new cases reported in NSW, including hotel quarantine. The past week has seen just a handful of community transmissions.
The last time NSW recorded zero cases was 10 June.
NSW Health thanks the community for all they have done towards reducing Covid-19 numbers, and continues to ask people to remain vigilant and come forward for testing immediately if symptoms like a runny nose, scratchy throat, cough or fever appear.
This is particularly important with the start of school holidays and increased movement of people around the state.”
Queensland, Australia, has reported just one new case – a person in hotel quarantine.
In Hong Kong, health authorities have reported just one case on Saturday, a traveler who arrived from Bahrain. The city has been battling a third wave of infections with increased social restrictions which have just started to ease in recent weeks.
On Friday the chief executive, Carrie Lam, said Hong Kong had “basically contained” the third wave of the virus.
Sydney’s annual Sculpture By the Sea exhibition has been postponed due to Covid restrictions, the director David Hanley has announced.
“Due to current public health orders limiting mass outdoor gatherings, our 2020 event will not be going ahead as planned,” said Handley.
Still in Middletown, Pennsylvania, Trump says Americans were “coming together until we got hit with the plague from China”, claiming he was getting phone calls from “hardcore radical Democrats” wanting to work with the Trump administration.
The US saved “millions of lives” by doing what they did, Trump says. He doesn’t specify what but usually this claim is about closing the borders to China (they didn’t).
Donald Trump is currently addressing a rally in Pennsylvania. He’s started by railing against “leftwing justices” on the supreme court who, he says, will “will cripple police departments, protect sanctuary cities” and end the death penalty for “even the most depraved mass murderers”.
There’s a reference to “Sleepy Joe” and more baseless claims about problems/corruption with ballots, some crowd chanting of “USA” and “four more years”.
The Trump Superspreader Tour 2020 has come tonight to Middletown, Pennsylvania. Follow for a video thread. pic.twitter.com/DuFiM5cAR8
If the slogan of 2020 is “We’re all in this together”, perhaps it should come with an asterisk: *except for those with less, who are hurting more.
Covid-19 hasn’t torn through Australia as it has the United States, Brazil, India and much of Europe, but the economic impact has exposed gaping inequities in almost every facet of our lives.
Related: 'We should not pretend everybody is suffering equally': Covid hits Australia's poor the hardest
Covid-19 has had far-reaching impacts all around the world – including on how defence forces operate.
Australia’s defence minister, Linda Reynolds, announced today that an Australian maritime patrol aircraft would operate out of Kadena air base in Japan and help enforce UN security council sanctions on North Korea.
Victoria’s daily update is in.
In the last 240hour period there were 16 new cases of Covid-19 reported, as well as two fatalities.
#COVID19VicData: Yesterday there were 16 new cases & the loss of 2 lives reported. The 14 day rolling average is down & number of cases with unknown source stable as we move toward COVID Normal. Info: https://t.co/eTputEZdhs#COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/hdGLBeWZST
First, a catch up from AAP on the latest developments in the Australian state of Victoria.
Victoria has woken up with a new health minister but Melburnians’ minds are on what freedoms are about to return to their restricted lives.
I am disappointed that my integrity has sought to be undermined.
I am deeply sorry for the situation that Victorians find themselves in.
Hello and welcome to this coronavirus live blog with me, Helen Davidson.
Global deaths are nearing 1 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Currently they stand at 990,977, with the United States recording around 20% of fatalities worldwide (204,446). Brazil is the second-worst affected country (140,537), with India in third (93,379).
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