Category Archives: Coronavirus outbreak

Coronavirus live news: UK at ‘critical point’ in pandemic as US nears 200,000 deaths

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England’s chief medical officer to warn of a ‘very challenging winter’; more than one in five Covid-19 deaths globally is in US; Lebanon sees record case rise. Follow the latest updates

The UK government has warned of six more months of “very difficult” lockdown restrictions, amid a continuing rise in infections, the Times reports this morning.

According to the paper, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, is expected to announce new movement curbs in the coming days, although there is said be a split among members of his cabinet over how extensive these should be, with the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is resisting a full shutdown of the hospitality sector.

The Times: Covid curbs will last for six months, No 10 warns pic.twitter.com/tLa5x8Deya

The UK is at a “critical moment” and if people fail to follow coronavirus rules “we’re going to end up back in situations we don’t want to be in,” a senior government minister warned in a broadcast interview this morning.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, told Sky News:

We’re certainly at a critical moment this morning.

It is clear we’re just a few weeks behind what we’re seeing elsewhere in Europe.

.@grantshapps says it's important the public adhere to the new social distancing rules as #COVID19 'hospital admissions are creeping up'.

The transport sec says "deaths haven't gone up as yet" but the govt is expecting it to do so like Spain.#KayBurley: https://t.co/smsK11yuT6 pic.twitter.com/tOodnaTlsB

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Coronavirus live news: Iran sees highest daily cases since June; US approaches 200,000 Covid deaths

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177 people died with Covid in Iran yesterday; Czech health minister quits as cases rise; more than one in five Covid deaths globally is in US

A federal judge in South Carolina has struck down a rule requiring mail-in absentee ballots to be signed by witnesses for the upcoming November election, citing the severity of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a ruling on Friday, US district court judge J. Michelle Childs ordered the state Election Commission to immediately inform voters about the removal of the requirement.

The latest Guardian editorial, on the UK facing its second wave of coronavirus:

The United Kingdom is facing a Covid calamity, and it is a situation that was made in Downing Street. Infections and hospital admissions are rising rapidly.

An exponentially growing epidemic is outpacing the rate at which the testing regime is expanding, meaning that it is not possible to properly track the spread of the disease.

Related: The Guardian view on the Covid crisis: Boris Johnson let it happen

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Children urged to strike against lack of action on climate emergency

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Schoolchildren to protest on Friday in first such action since coronavirus pandemic struck

Schoolchildren around the world are being urged to go on strike to protest against a lack of action on the climate crisis.

Children and their supporters are invited to take to the streets on Friday, if it is safe to do so, or to go online with their protests “in whatever way suits you best”, according to the organisers.

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Global report: US Covid deaths near 200,000 as UK ‘heads in wrong direction’

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Israeli protesters return despite lockdown; Australian state of Victoria reports fewest infections in three months; New Zealand eases restrictions

The US is nearing the stark milestone of 200,000 deaths, nine months after the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, as cases in the UK rose to a four-month high and Europe continued to see rising infections.

The number of deaths in the US, the highest in the world, stood at 199,509 on the Johns Hopkins University tracker on Monday morning, roughly a fifth of the global total. Nearly 6.8m of the world’s 30.1m infections are in the US.

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‘Quite a year’: couples on being separated by the Covid pandemic

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Guardian readers tell their stories of being kept apart by illness, work and closed borders

The coronavirus pandemic has lead to airport closures, cancelled flights, and some countries not allowing citizens to leave.

For couples used to being apart for short periods the restrictions have meant being apart for much longer. For those from different countries, they may have had to choose between visiting or caring for family and being together. Some have been kept apart by illness or essential work.

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Protests in Madrid over coronavirus lockdown measures

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Protesters call for regional president who blamed ‘way of life of immigrants’ for rise to resign

By midday on Sunday, the chants of “Unity!” and “Healthcare!” that echoed around a busy crossroads in north-east Madrid had given rise to a more specific demand: “Ayuso resign!”

On Friday, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Madrid region, announced that 850,000 people – many of them living in some of the poorest parts of the city and surrounding area – would be placed in partial lockdown from Monday in an attempt to arrest the second wave of the virus.

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BAME Britons still lack protection from Covid, says doctors’ chief

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More than a third of coronavirus intensive care patients are from ethnic minorities

A third of coronavirus patients in intensive care are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, prompting the head of the British Medical Association to warn that government inaction will be responsible for further disproportionate deaths.

Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA Council chair, was the first public figure to call for an inquiry into whether and why there was a disparity between BAME and white people in Britain in terms of how they were being affected by the pandemic, in April.

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‘We pick your food’: migrant workers speak out from Spain’s ‘Plastic Sea’

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In Almería’s vast farms, migrants pick food destined for UK supermarkets. But these ‘essential workers’ live in shantytowns and lack PPE as Covid cases soar

Photographs and drone footage by Ofelia de Pablo and Javier Zurita

It is the end of another day for Hassan, a migrant worker from Morocco who has spent the past 12 hours under a sweltering late summer sun harvesting vegetables in one of the vast greenhouses of Almería, southern Spain.

The vegetables he has dug from the red dirt are destined for dinner plates all over Europe. UK supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Lidl and Aldi all source fruit and vegetables from Almería. The tens of thousands of migrant workers working in the province are vital to the Spanish economy and pan-European food supply chains. Throughout the pandemic, they have held essential worker status, labouring in the fields while millions across the world sheltered inside.

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Coronavirus live news: India sees 92,000 new infections; China faces fifth wave, expert says

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India now has 5.4m cases; China fears winter infections; NZ records new cases

Covid-19 has spread around the planet, sending billions of people into lockdown as health services struggle to cope, Pablo Gutiérrez and Seán Clarke write. Find out where the virus has spread, and where it has been most deadly:

A clown juggled and acrobats launched themselves through the air above a stage in an open field in Seoul at the weekend as the audience watched from the safety of their cars, cocooned from the risk of coronavirus.

The annual circus – usually held in May – was pushed back twice this year because of the virus until organisers turned it into a drive-in event, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Cho Beong-hee, the manager of the Seoul Street Art Creation Centre, said:

The performing arts are very important even during a pandemic. So we came up with different ideas in trying to make this event happen and the drive-in option was chosen as it was deemed the safest idea.

I think watching performances in cars is great. I think it can be done in the future, with other performances like musicals.

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Can California’s tourism industry survive a year unlike any other?

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Attractions from Big Sur to Disneyland reel in the face of the pandemic and historic wildfires

Summers are always busy in Big Sur, the picturesque region in northern California known for towering forests that give way to sweeping cliffs and sandy beaches. But this summer has been unlike any other, as the state reckons with a global pandemic and historic wildfires.

Like many scenic small towns in California, Big Sur’s local economy relies heavily on the tourist traffic that sweeps through every summer. It seemed like the kind of place that could have been hit hard by a nosedive in tourism.

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Covid scepticism behind high Bolton infection rate, says local MP

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Exclusive: social media hashtag #thinkingforyourself bolsters residents refusing to follow rules

Covid scepticism in Bolton has led to it having the highest infection rate of coronavirus in the country, a local MP has said, as a #thinkingforyourself social media trend gains traction.

With 169 cases for every 100,000 people, the Greater Manchester town has the highest rate in England and has featured among the worst-hit areas in Europe. Health officials said infections had been doubling every four days.

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US airlines facing ‘Thelma and Louise’ moment as government aid set to expire

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Funding used to protect workers will expire on 30 September, and airlines have already announced huge layoffs

US airlines are facing what one leading analyst calls a “Thelma and Louise” moment as the industry approaches a government-funding deadline that could decide its future.

On 30 September a government aid packages used to protect workers expires, the airlines have already announced huge layoffs but what comes next could be even worse.

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‘We’re suddenly drowning in people’: Argentinians flock to Uruguay amid pandemic

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About 15,000 to 20,000 Argentinians are estimated to have moved to Uruguay since the pandemic began

Agustina Valls’ phone is ringing off the hook.

“It started as a trickle when the pandemic first hit Argentina, but now we’re getting over 20 calls a day,” she said from her office in Uruguay’s luxury beach resort of Punta Del Este.

Valls runs a thriving business guiding well-off Argentinians through the red tape of acquiring Uruguayan residence – a skill she learned arranging her own residency application after marrying a Uruguayan lawyer last October.

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Matt Hancock’s Covid cavalry is not yet on the horizon. We need a global approach now

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The UK has done well on building capacity. But only wide access to simple, effective tests will allow us to manage life under coronavirus

As the UK battles with the overwhelming demand for Covid-19 tests, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Friday that the country needs to come together to keep the infection levels down while we await the cavalry on the horizon.

The cavalry, he said, would come in the shape of the science that will bring a vaccine, effective treatments and the ability to undertake mass testing. Detecting cases, tracking contacts and containing the spread of infection remains our strongest weapon.

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Global preparation: how different countries planned for the second wave of Covid-19

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Lockdowns brought temporary relief to some but, everywhere, test and trace is key

The first wave of coronavirus swept through a world unprepared. Authorities struggled to test for the disease, and didn’t know how to slow the spread of Covid-19.

Lockdowns brought the virus under temporary control in some places, including the UK, buying a window for the revival of education and the economy, and time to prepare for future waves that epidemiologists said were almost inevitable.

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Another day not at the office: will working from home be 2020’s most radical change?

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During lockdown millions started WFH – and most of us don’t want to go back. In just a few months the landscape of work, family and city life has altered dramatically - but are all the changes positive?

There’s a man sitting at the first-floor window of the house that lies on the other side of my back fence. It’s early August, the weather is sweltering, and his window is wide open. He’s talking on a hands-free phone, laughing in that ingratiating manner that suggests a large payday is at stake. He speaks in a fashionable sales patter that sounds similar to real conversation, but crucially isn’t, and he’s practically broadcasting his pitch to the neighbourhood. WTF? I want to shout, but I already know the answer: WFH.

With the exception of Covid-19 itself, working from home has been the big story of 2020. I’ve been home-based for more than 20 years and for most of that time, before my neighbour began advertising his WFH status, I was a local exception, left to my own devices in tranquil isolation. No one was much interested in the emotional dynamics of my daily work regime. But since the lockdown emptied the nation’s offices, it’s become a national topic of conversation.

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Unholy row as leading London church axes musicians, ‘using Covid as a cover’

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St Martin-in-the-Fields jettisons ensembles to focus on in-house provision at a time when freelance performers ‘on their knees’

Ten London musical ensembles claim they have been “summarily dismissed” by one of the capital’s most prestigious churches in an “act of callous and unchristian behaviour”.

The orchestras and choirs have put on concerts regularly at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square for 30 years, paying a hire fee for the venue and commission on ticket sales.

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Experts call for stronger measures as UK daily coronavirus cases hit four-month high

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Official figures show 4,422 people tested positive in past 24 hours, the highest daily total since 8 May

Daily coronavirus cases in the UK have reached a four-month high for the second day in a row, the latest government figures show.

A total of 4,422 people have tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours – 100 more new cases than on Friday and the highest daily total since 8 May. A further 27 people died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus as of Saturday, bringing the UK toll to 41,759.

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Woman throws drink over Leo Varadkar as he gives Dublin interview

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Footage shows woman tossing liquid in white cup over tánaiste’s face in Merrion Park

A woman wearing a face mask was filmed throwing a drink over Leo Varadkar as he gave an interview in Dublin.

Footage shared on social media shows the woman, who was carrying a skateboard, walking over to where the tánaiste and a camera crew were standing in Merrion Park at about 3pm on Friday.

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Covid warnings ring out as Latin America bids to return to normality

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The region has seen some of the longest lockdowns in the world but experts are urging countries not to reopen too soon

The scene in Rio de Janeiro was as though much of 2020 had never happened.

The beaches at Ipanema and Copacabana heaved with visitors, the white sand obscured by bronzed bodies, sun loungers and parasols, as locals enjoyed the blistering 38C heat.

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