Category Archives: Coronavirus

Coronavirus live news: US nears 10m cases as global infections pass 50m

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US currently has 9.62m confirmed Covid cases; pandemic expert says half positive cases not being identified; economic fallout makes prospect of third world war ‘a risk’. Follow the latest updates

New Zealand and the Cook Islands are set to open a ‘travel bubble’ between the two countries, with NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern confirming officials from her government would visit the South Pacific archipelago later this week.

“While I don’t wish to put any time-frames on a potential travel bubble, it is my aim and hope that this can resume as soon as is safely possible, and this on-the-ground visit by officials to the Cook Islands is the next step in that process.

US President-elect Joe Biden’s healthcare advisers have held talks with drugmaker executives on the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed program to accelerate development of a possible Covid-19 treatment, a Biden spokesman said on Sunday.

Reuters reports that under the Trump administration, Operation Warp Speed has struck deals with several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for effective treatments for the disease amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

The US Covid-19 death toll stands at over 237,000, with more than 9.9 million cases now reported in the country since the outbreak began, according to a Reuters tally.

“As we previously said in September, because President-Elect Joe Biden is absolutely committed to helping develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible, campaign medical advisers have received briefings from companies working to produce vaccines in order to be informed about the process,” Biden’s spokesman Andrew Bates said in an emailed statement.

Biden’s advisers met with companies that have Covid-19 vaccines or therapies in late-stage clinical trials in September and October, Bloomberg News had reported earlier.
The report added that the meeting was aimed at gathering information about the development, manufacturing and distribution of shots to ward off the novel coronavirus and therapies to treat the sick.

Biden has vowed to “listen to the science”, with his coronavirus plan calling for scaling up testing and contact tracing and promising to appoint a “supply commander” to oversee supply lines of critical equipment.

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Covid set back attitudes to public transport by two decades, says RAC

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Most Britons see their car as more important now and would not choose greener alternative

The pandemic has put back attitudes to driving versus public transport by two decades, with almost two-thirds of UK car owners now considering their vehicle essential, research has found.

A clear majority would now refuse to switch to a greener alternative even if better trains or buses were available, according to the RAC. The research for its annual Report on Motoring found reluctance to use public transport was now at its highest for 18 years.

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Global coronavirus cases pass 50m with US worst affected country

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US close to 10m cases, with India second on 8.5m cases, followed by Brazil and Russia

The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 50 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which showed that the US, India and Brazil have the highest figures.

A total of 50,052,204 infections had been reported around the world by Sunday evening.

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UK scientists seek mutant Covid samples from Danish mink farms

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Tests will investigate whether virus evades antibodies from recovered patients and those in vaccine trials

Scientists in the UK are working to secure samples of a mutant form of coronavirus that arose in Danish mink farms and spread into humans, prompting ministers to ban non-UK citizens arriving from Denmark.

Danish health authorities raised the alarm over the mutant virus last week and announced a cull of the nation’s 17 million mink as the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) in Copenhagen warned of potentially “serious consequences” for vaccines if it was allowed to spread internationally.

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Coronavirus live news: world war a risk in wake of pandemic, says UK defence chief; 16,017 new infections in Germany

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Economic fallout of pandemic makes prospect of third world war ‘a risk’; Covid-related deaths in France exceeds 40,000 for the first time; number of cases in Germany increases by 16,017

Lovely reporting from my colleague Lorenzo Tondo in Roccafiorita in Sicily:

When the mayor of Roccafiorita received a phone call in October informing him that an employee in his office had tested positive for Covid-19, his heart sank.

When the phone rang, it was like lightning on a sunny day. With this second wave on its way, for a second I thought that we might actually be wiped off the map.

Related: 'Wiped off the map': tiny Italian villages cower from Covid threat

As Joe Biden announced he would name his own coronavirus taskforce on Monday, the US recorded its fourth consecutive record daily total of new Covid cases, close to 130,000.

“That plan will be built on a bedrock of science,” Biden said, promising to “spare no effort or commitment to turn this pandemic around.”

We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation. All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.

Related: US posts fourth consecutive daily Covid record as Joe Biden prepares taskforce

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US posts fourth consecutive daily Covid record as Joe Biden prepares taskforce

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President-elect Biden says ‘Plan will be to built on bedrock of science’ and promised ‘to spare no effort’ to fight pandemic

As President-elect Joe Biden announced that he would name his own coronavirus taskforce on Monday, the US recorded its fourth consecutive record daily total of new Covid cases, close to 130,000.

Related: Coronavirus live news: world war a risk in wake of pandemic, says UK defence chief; 16,017 new infections in Germany

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‘Wiped off the map’: tiny Italian villages cower from Covid threat

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Coronavirus potentially poses a threat to the very existence of places such as Roccafiorita in Sicily

When the mayor of Roccafiorita received a phone call in October informing him that an employee in his office had tested positive for Covid-19, his heart sank.

Set among the forests at the foot of Mount Kalfa, Roccafiorita is the smallest village in southern Italy. The average age of its 187 inhabitants is over 60. If Covid were to spread among the population, the village could disappear.

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How long Covid forced me to confront my past and my identity

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For years, I repressed thinking about three things that shaped my life and my body. But the fourth blow of coronavirus pushed it all out into the open

For six years now, I have been writing down three good things that have happened in my day, every day. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are. It could be having pastries in bed. Spotting a fox in the garden. Successfully descaling a kettle. I do not call this my gratitude journal, because I am not a motivational wellness blogger. But I have found it vital, in order to rewire my brain to focus on the things that have gone right. Left unattended, my thoughts have a tendency to slip into a downward spiral, to somewhere much darker.

I grew up in Italy, where there is a saying: “Non c’è due senza tre”, which roughly means “Good (or bad) things come in threes”. For most of my adult life, there have been three main issues that have preoccupied my thoughts when I’m lying in bed at night. I have guarded them preciously: I barely mention them, even to my closest friends. But, sometimes, repressing thoughts takes more effort than confronting them.

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Salud! Barcelona’s tiny local bodegas saved for posterity

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Protection move widely welcomed, but many traditional bars are struggling to pay their rents, especially under lockdown

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Barcelona council has come to the rescue of some of the city’s most emblematic and best-loved bars by adding them to the list of protected sites and buildings. However, thanks to Covid-19 restrictions, you won’t be able to get a drink in any of them for at least the next few weeks.

The city has added 11 bodegas to the list of 220 shops that are considered part of the city’s cultural heritage. The move has been widely welcomed, though it comes too late to save many small businesses, from toy and book shops to grocery and furniture stores, that were part of the fabric and essence of the city but were forced out by soaring rents. In most cases they have been replaced by chain stores.

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Inseparable for 44 years – the couple banned from touching because of Covid

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Trish Walker’s husband Chris is in a care home, and she has been allowed to speak to him for only an hour a day

They met on a blind date and married nine months later. For the next 44 years, Chris and Trish Walker were inseparable. Until the pandemic.

For the past eight months, Trish has not been allowed to touch her husband and has only been able to speak to him for just over an hour, even though he has already had – and recovered from – Covid-19.

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Could a Covid vaccine bring back normality?

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With test and trace a shambles, many are pinning their hopes on a jab. But experts warn more measures will be needed to vanquish the coronavirus

England is back in lockdown. It happened not a moment too soon. As of 2 November almost three-quarters of a million new cases have been officially counted since 21 September, when the government’s scientific advisory committee Sage advised lockdown. On that day, Britain had only had about 360,000 cases since Covid arrived. Now the figure is three times that. So many more cases mean it will take longer, and possibly require tougher social restrictions, to get numbers down by imposing lockdown than it would have in September, says James Naismith, head of the Rosalind Franklin Institute in Oxford.

Naismith calculates that we will have 500 deaths per day in two to three weeks because of the cases that occurred over the past week, compared with an average of 144 in the week ending 2 November. But it could be far worse. If we had done nothing for another two weeks, he says, we’d be looking at 1,000 deaths a day by Christmas – and more, if hospitals fill up and not everyone can get optimal treatment.

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Test and trace needs radical reform in England, health experts say

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Sir John Oldham suggests coronavirus lockdown will be futile unless system is overhauled

The government faces renewed calls for the central NHS test and trace system to be scrapped in favour of handing responsibility for contact tracing to local public health teams.

Weekly test and trace figures for England show it reached just under 60% of close contacts of people testing positive, the lowest since the service began. It comes as the Office for National Statistics indicated the steep rise in new infections was levelling off in England and stabilising at about 50,000 a day.

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Couples ‘heartbroken and exhausted’ as English weddings cancelled – again

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Couples alter weddings up to four times amid constantly changing Covid rules

They have had to reschedule the best day of their lives not once, twice or thrice – but four times. Now couples forced to alter their wedding plans repeatedly due to changing coronavirus measures have told of being left “heartbroken and exhausted”, amid a lack of government support for the wedding industry.

Under the regulations for England’s second national lockdown this week, weddings will not be permitted to take place except where one of those getting married is seriously ill and not expected to recover. These ceremonies will be limited to six people, leaving thousands more couples scrambling to rearrange their nuptials.

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Coronavirus live news: Italy begins nightly curfew; Victoria has eighth straight day of no cases

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US sees record 120,000 cases in a day as Texas edges towards 1m infections; New South Wales has one locally acquired case. Follow the updates

The UK’s first mass Covid testing trial in Liverpool risks being “an expensive mess that does more harm than good”, health experts said as it got under way on Friday.

My colleagues in the UK, Josh Halliday and Sarah Boseley, report that six new testing centres opened their doors to Liverpudlians at midday on Friday as part of the government’s Operation Moonshot drive to eventually test up to 10 million people a day.

The potential for harmful diversion of resources and public money is vast. Also of concern are the potential vested interests of commercial companies supplying new and as yet inadequately evaluated tests.

Related: Covid: Liverpool mass testing trial 'could do more harm than good'

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Coronavirus live news: UK reports 413 further deaths; White House chief of staff tests positive for Covid

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Latest UK figures show 24,957 new cases in 24 hours; Trump aide Mark Meadows has Covid-19; Poland registers record 27,875 new cases

Care home residents in England face a postcode lottery over visiting because ministers have abdicated responsibility to local officials, my colleague James Tapper reports.

Read the full story here:

Related: Care home residents face postcode lottery over face-to-face visits

The Queen has worn a face mask in public for the first time as she made a poignant pilgrimage to the grave of the Unknown Warrior to mark the centenary of his burial on Wednesday, PA media reports.

Following government regulations, the head of state adopted the covering when she visited the place of worship for a brief ceremony - her first public engagement in London since March.

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Lockdown: Met apologises for arrest threats to journalists covering protest

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Police showed ‘disregard of the the principles of a free media’, says Society of Editors

Scotland Yard has apologised after journalists and photographers covering an anti-lockdown protest were told to leave and threatened with arrest.

Journalists at the demonstration protesting the new national lockdown in England in Trafalgar Square on Thursday were reportedly told by officers they were not seen as essential workers and needed special permission from the Metropolitan police service (MPS) to be present.

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Travel to UK from Denmark to be banned amid worries over Covid in mink

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Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, understood to be concerned by new strain

All travel to the UK from Denmark is being banned amid mounting concern over an outbreak in the country of a mutation of coronavirus linked to mink, the Guardian understands.

Downing Street had already taken action to remove Denmark from the travel corridor, forcing arrivals to quarantine for two weeks from Friday at 4am.

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US again breaks daily Covid-19 record with 121,000 cases recorded Thursday

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Country surpassed record set on 30 October and hospitalizations and deaths have also begun to increase

The United States has broken its record for the highest number of new Covid-19 infections in a single day yet again, with more than 121,000 new cases recorded on Thursday.

As the country’s attention has been trained on the presidential election, the US has continued to break daily records for new Covid-19 cases. On Wednesday, the day after the election, the country saw more than 107,000 cases, the first time the US surpassed 100,000 new cases in a single day. Before that, the record was set on 30 October with just over 99,000 new cases.

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UK coronavirus live: estimated 618,700 people in England had Covid last week; Liverpool begins mass-testing

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Latest updates: ONS figures represent around 1.13% of population; Operation Moonshot trial launches in Liverpool on Friday

A coronavirus passport app promoted by the Olympian Zara Tindall has been reported to a health regulator over concerns it is mis-selling antibody tests.

The V-Health Passport was touted as a “game changer” to get sports fans back into stadiums and major events. It involves spectators getting a rapid antibody test prior to attending an event, with results uploaded on a health passport on an app.

In the advert, Zara and Mike Tindall were being told they don’t have the virus – you can’t say that. This could do harm, with people getting into sporting events with negative results while they are infectious.

I have no problem with the app, it’s the use of the app. A lot of health professionals have seen it with their head in their hands.

Some schools may be sending children home “too readily” amid the pandemic, the chief inspector of Ofsted has said.

Parents of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have been told that schools cannot accommodate their children due to Covid-19 risk assessments, according to Amanda Spielman.

And here, many parents haven’t made an active decision to keep their child at home – they’ve been told that schools can’t accommodate them. Because it’s too difficult, because Covid risk assessments won’t allow it. It’s deeply concerning and, understandably, many parents feel cut adrift.

For the children with SEND that have been able to get back into education, it hasn’t been plain sailing either. We’re hearing that many have suffered setbacks in their communication skills – probably down to having reduced social interaction for such a long time.

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