Loos for Storyhouse’s Halloween drive-in screenings were just over Welsh side of the line
Drive-in cinemagoers in Chester were almost caught short after it emerged anyone using the toilets, located across the Welsh border, would be breaking coronavirus lockdown laws.
Ticket-holders for the Storyhouse’s Moonlight Drive Halloween showings could breathe a sigh of relief on Friday, after the cinema confirmed it had found a way out of the tight spot.
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Indonesia reported 4,070 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, taking the total number of cases to 385,980, official data from the country’s Covid-19 taskforce shows.
It also reported 128 new deaths, taking the total to 13,205, and 4,119 people recovered from the virus on Saturday, bringing the total to 309,219.
Wales’ firebreak lockdown should bring the R value - the number of people each coronavirus case infects - below one, health minister Vaughan Gething has said.
Gething told BBC Breakfast the 17-day period would be followed by a set of national measures to control the spread of Covid-19.
Continue reading...How is America faring after four years of Donald Trump? Which way will voters turn? US authors including Richard Powers, Ocean Vuong and Kiley Reid share their hopes and fears
An exception meant for freelancers sees a roaring lunch trade, and No 10 doesn’t seem too bothered
“A table for six? No, sir, that is against the Covid-19 restrictions … unless you promise that your party will discuss business, not pleasure.”
Some of London’s fanciest restaurants have discovered a loophole in the tier-2 coronavirus lockdowns restrictions designed to prevent households from mixing and thereby slow the spread of the virus.
Continue reading...Victoria records seven new Covid-19 cases, four in Preston, with five in NSW and four in WA
Hope for further significant easing of coronavirus restrictions in Victoria on Sunday are in doubt as an outbreak in Melbourne’s northern suburbs grows.
Victoria recorded seven new cases on Saturday, six linked to known outbreaks, prompting the government to order all staff and students from two schools in north-east Melbourne to immediately get tested for Covid-19.
Continue reading...Some of my friends think I’m mad but we need to know people my age can go out safely again
There’s a 50% chance that this week I was injected with a vaccine designed to protect me from Covid-19. If not, I got the saltwater placebo instead. I won’t know until the study ends in 13 months, which is a shame. It would be nice to walk the streets without looking balefully around me at young people not wearing masks and thinking: I’m 75, this virus kills people my age.
It killed my chum Mike Pentelow, who was having a lot of fun in his retirement, writing books with titles such as A Pub Crawl Through History, and Mike was a year younger than me. Perhaps he’s the reason I volunteered to be a guinea pig for one of the companies working on a vaccine.
Continue reading...MV Sofrana Surville barred from docking after officials in New Zealand said crew members on departing cargo ship might have new strain
Queensland health officials are working to determine the strain of Covid-19 infecting the crew of a cargo ship anchored off the Australian state’s Sunshine Coast.
The MV Sofrana Surville was blocked from docking in Brisbane after New Zealand warned it could be carrying a new strain of the virus.
Continue reading...Good journalists know balanced reporting is not as simple as providing both sides of the story. You have to squash falsehoods
Like the families of 1.14 million people worldwide, our family has lost people we love to Covid-19. They are people who would not have died were it not for this deadly, hyper-contagious virus. We are in a global pandemic that is at least 15 times more fatal than seasonal influenza.
When people argue otherwise it puts more lives at risk; more families will mourn. Covid-19 conspiracies are dangerous. In New Zealand those conspiracies were driven by arguments against lockdowns and misinformation about the seriousness of the virus.
Continue reading...The World Health Organization has warned of a ‘critical juncture’ of the pandemic, particularly in the northern hemisphere, and urged heads of state to take action to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
European leaders have increased restrictions as cases have continued rising. Wales has started a two-week ‘firebreak’ lockdown and Portugal’s parliament has passed a law making the wearing of masks mandatory in many outdoor situations
Continue reading...Joe Biden said he would not shut down the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic during a campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware, reinforcing his answers during Thursday's presidential debate.
Donald Trump had claimed Biden would force a nationwide lockdown if he became president, but the Democratic nominee has repeatedly said he does not believe that will be necessary to get the virus under control
And now for a semi-regular feature when I’m blogging, entitled Fun With Polls and basically just a read-off of the averages from fivethirtyeight.com but nonetheless it paints a picture, less than two weeks out from election day.
Herewith, the current scores on the doors in the battleground states, both the ones everyone always thinks of and some – Georgia, Iowa, Texas – which really shouldn’t be close but with this Republican in the White House, are:
What you said about Texas, don’t worry about Texas. Texas is with us. [Democrats] want to take away your guns, your oil and your God. OK, that’s what they want. They want to take away your second amendment. They want to take away fracking and oil. They don’t care. They want to take it away they want to go to the Green New Deal. That’s not for Texas. Texas is not going to be losing the guns, and they’re not going to be losing their oil and they’re not going to be losing their religion or their God.
Following up the post below, Reuters has an eye-catching line about early voting and what it might say about turnout:
More than 50m Americans have cast ballots in the presidential election with 11 days to go, a pace that could lead to the highest turnout in more than a century, according to data from the US Elections Project.
The eye-popping figure is a sign of intense interest in the contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, as well as Americans’ desire to reduce their risk of exposure to Covid-19, which has killed more than 221,000 people across the US.
Grrr....I'm getting emails from orgs cheering 50 million #earlyvote without saying where these data are coming from. All I ask for this free site is attribution. If you want to show appreciation, please donate to this charitable @UF election science fund https://t.co/xtN28Mq9Nn
The Attorney General has to act. He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast, he’s got to appoint somebody, this is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election, and by the way we’re doing very well, we’re gonna win the election, we’re doing very well, if you look at all of what’s happening and all of the people that come in and don’t come in, you take a look all around the country and with Texas early voting. Those are our votes and we were doing well in Texas. I mean, I just got to report we’re doing great in Texas, but we’re doing great all over, but forget that, this has to be done early. So the attorney general has to act.
Continue reading...A study says coronavirus is on course to claim 511,000 by 28 February as cases surge in many states, particularly upper midwest
The United States on Friday was approaching a record for the number of new daily coronavirus cases, as a new study warned that the pandemic is set to cause half a million American deaths by February.
Covid-19 is on course to ravage states across the nation throughout the coming winter and more than 511,000 lives could be lost by 28 February next year, modeling led by scientists from the University of Washington found.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Contract staff deemed essential workers as firm’s own employees work from home
Facebook moderators working for one of the company’s Dublin-based contractors are being forced to go into the office, even as Ireland returns to its highest tier of Covid lockdown, after their employer categorised them as “essential workers”.
Staff with personal shielding requirements are exempt from the order, but those with high-risk family members at home have been told by the contractor, CPL, that they are still required in the office.
Continue reading...Roman Prymula photographed leaving Prague restaurant that appeared to be illicitly open
The Czech Republic’s health minister is set to lose his job after visiting a Prague restaurant in what appeared to be a breach of emergency coronavirus regulations he had put forward in an effort to win the country’s increasingly desperate battle against coronavirus.
Roman Prymula, an epidemiologist and the main architect of the Czech regulations, was photographed on Wednesday night by the tabloid Blesk leaving the establishment, which appeared to be illicitly open to high-profile guests, hours after a fresh lockdown was imposed to combat the country’s soaring caseload.
Continue reading...Experts explain the best way to wash masks, how to handle them – and how to prevent ‘maskne’
We hook them on to our faces, laugh, sneeze and sputter into them, then crumple them into our bags or pockets only to retrieve them and do it all again. Yet despite official advice that we should be wearing a fresh face covering each time we enter an enclosed public space, a YouGov poll revealed many people are going several wears between washes – and 15% of Brits don’t wash their reusable masks at all. Similarly, more than half of those opting for disposable masks are rewearing them – 7% of them indefinitely so.
Face coverings are designed to catch the respiratory droplets we emit from our mouths and noses, but given that they’re our own respiratory droplets, is this really so bad? We examine the evidence.
Continue reading...Joe Biden and Donald Trump have gone head-to-head for the final time before the US election on 3 November in the final television debate, helped by a mute button on the candidates’ microphones that prevented interruptions.
Squaring off in Nashville, Biden had to field aggressive questioning about his son’s business dealings and when Trump compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, the challenger branded his opponent 'one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history'. Here is a look back at the key moments
Donald Trump and Joe Biden have clashed over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic during the final presidential debate. While Trump says a vaccine will be available within weeks, Biden questioned the veracity of Trump's claims after the president's previous predictions the pandemic would end by Easter. The pandemic has killed more than 220,000 Americans and infected millions more, including the president
Pedro Sanchez stops short of curfew; Belgium bans fans from sports matches; remdesivir approved by FDA for US
More than half a million people in the US could die from Covid-19 by the end of February next year, but around 130,000 of those lives could be saved if everybody were to wear masks, according to estimates from a modelling study.
The estimates, from a study by researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, show that with few effective Covid-19 treatment options and no vaccines yet available, the U.S. faces “a continued COVID-19 public health challenge through the winter”.
Large, populous states such as California, Texas and Florida will likely face particularly high levels of illness, deaths and demands on hospital resources, the study found.
US president Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 221,000 Americans so far, has become the top election issue for him and Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Polls have shown that Americans trust Biden more than Trump to handle the crisis.
Filming in Venice of Mission Impossible 7 with Tom Cruise has been temporarily suspended due to a suspected case of Covid among the film crew.
Officially, a reason has not yet been given by the film’s production company, but, according to Italian media reports, the over 100 extras were told there was a suspected case of Covid-19 among the Americans and that, as a result, filming would be postponed to a later date.
Continue reading...Antiviral treatment is first to treat coronavirus approved by FDA; France extends curfew; Study finds between 130,000 and 210,000 US deaths could have been avoided. Follow the latest
Australia’s Victoria state - the epicentre of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak - on Friday reported that active coronavirus cases have fallen to a four-month low, paving the way for an acceleration in the easing of social distancing curbs, Reuters reports.
The nation’s second-most populous state, which recorded just one new infection in the past 24 hours, said there are now 100 active cases - the lowest since 19 June.
“This is a good number. This is a very clear sign that the strategy is working,” Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters in Melbourne.
The active infections are a relief to state authorities amid heightened fears of a fresh cluster after a case in a school in Melbourne’s northern suburbs prompted authorities to order 800 people to self-isolate.
However, with new case numbers in single digits for nine consecutive days, Andrews is expected to announce on Sunday an accelerated timetable for easing restrictions in a boost to Australia’s ailing economy.
Melbourne’s roughly 5 million residents were granted more freedom to move about on Monday after a months-long lockdown, but public gatherings remain tightly limited and retailers and restaurants must operate only on take-away or delivery orders.
Australia has recorded just over 27,400 Covid-19 infections, far fewer than many other developed countries. Victoria accounts for more than 90% of the 905 deaths nationally.
Mexico’s health ministry reported on Thursday 6,612 additional cases of the novel coronavirus and 479 more deaths in the country, bringing the official number of cases to 874,171 and the death toll to 87,894.
Health officials have said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Today’s meeting between federal, state and territory leaders will focus on removing social and border restrictions to jumpstart the economy. Follow live
On the bonuses that aren’t blingy watches.
In just the year to June, Australia Post paid $1.95 million in bonuses to 35 of its executives earning over $520,000 a year. That’s 648 Cartier watches - or 162 times the total Cartier watch spend. (Or about 27,850 Casio watches...) https://t.co/S8mmcqJmhh
We will probably be in a bit of a news lull while national cabinet is meeting and the US presidential election debate is on in about 25 minutes.
You can follow the debate in our other live blog here.
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