Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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.
After an asteroid encounter, scientists scrambled to minimize the loss of space rocks as the craft belched rubble
A Nasa spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week’s grab that it’s jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said on Friday.
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.
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.
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.
Sector calls for compromise to ensure UK researchers stay in Horizon Europe
The UK’s post-Brexit collaboration with European scientists hangs in the balance after it emerged that the EU offer of staying in the Horizon research programme could leave London with a £3bn deficit.
“The financial negotiations are not in a good position and the offer that the [European] commission has made to the UK is not appealing,” Vivienne Stern, the director of Universities UK International, told a Lords Brexit committee on Thursday.
The Indian state of West Bengal has reported its biggest daily tally of new Covid-19 infections as thousands of people thronged the streets for a major Hindu festival that began last week, Reuters reports.
India has seen a sharp drop in infections since a September peak, but experts have warned it could see a resurgence during Durga Puja this week, and Diwali, the festival of light, in mid-November.
Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia have all reported their highest one-day rise in cases, Reuters reports.
Croatia reported its biggest rise in daily new Covid-19 infections on Thursday with 1,563 new cases, nearly half of which were in Zagreb, where they more than doubled. The capital recorded a high of 705 new infections compared with the previous day’s 337 infections. So far, Croatia, a country of some 4 million people, has recorded 29,850 cases with 406 deaths. There are currently 7,380 active cases.
Women aged 50-60 are at greatest risk of developing “long Covid”, analysis suggests. Older age and experiencing five or more symptoms within the first week of illness were also associated with a heightened risk of lasting health problems.
The study, led by Dr Claire Steves and Prof Tim Spector at King’s College London, analysed data from 4,182 COVID Symptom Study app users who had been consistently logging their health and had tested positive for the virus.
Tens of thousands of deaths are now inevitable in a second wave of coronavirus infections sweeping across England because of the failure to contain the virus, a government scientific adviser has warned.
John Edmunds, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told MPs on Wednesday that without further measures England’s tiered Covid-19 strategy would lead to high numbers of new infections every day, putting the NHS under strain and driving up the death toll.
Four US states reported a record one-day increase in Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday including Wisconsin, a hotly contested state in the 3 November election, as infections keep rising across the Midwest and beyond.
Coronavirus deaths hit daily records in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, according to a Reuters analysis. Wisconsin also reported a record daily increase in new cases together with Illinois and Ohio, the analysis showed.
The US is likely to have enough safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines available to inoculate the most vulnerable Americans by the end of 2020, health and human services secretary Alex Azar said.
The US government is “cautiously optimistic” that one or two vaccines, likely from Pfizer or Moderna, will be available by the end of the year and can begin to be distributed to Americans, officials said during a news conference.
Spacecraft ‘kissed the surface’ in brief landing on asteroid 200m miles away from Earth in US-first mission
A Nasa spacecraft has successfully landed on an asteroid, dodging boulders the size of buildings, in order to collect a handful of cosmic rubble for analysis back on Earth.
The space agency team behind the Osiris-Rex project said preliminary data showed the sample collection went as planned and that the spacecraft had lifted off the surface of asteroid Bennu.
Prof Ravi Gupta’s career has informed HIV treatment and curative strategies in the UK and at the Africa Health Research Institute. His treatment of a London patient is, to date, only the second ever successful treatment of an HIV patient, where the person remains long-term virus free. Gupta talks to Sarah Boseley about how a career in HIV research is informing the testing and treatment for Covid-19 and what we can learn in any parallels between the two viruses
Still in New Zealand and Suff reports that 440 fishermen from Russia and the Ukraine arrived on Friday and are isolating at the Sudima Hotel, near Christchurch Airport. The outlet says:
Stuff previously reported about 440 fishermen from Russia and Ukraine were due to arrive (in NZ) on two flights chartered by fishing companies – the first of which is thought to have touched down from Moscow via Singapore on Friday.
Many of the 237 people onboard have been isolating at the Sudima Hotel, near Christchurch Airport, since their arrival.
The New Zealand Herald is reporting that 11 international sailors in a Christchurch hotel have tested positive for Covid – 14 more cases are “under further investigation”, according to the ministry of health.
“All are imported cases detected at routine day 3 testing. None involve cases in the community,” the ministry said, according to the Herald.
The UK prime minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday he would impose tougher lockdown restrictions on the Greater Manchester region in the north of England despite failing to reach a deal on funding support with local leaders.
Move is part of US space agency’s plan to establish a long-term human presence on the moon by 2030
With competition among Earth’s telecoms providers as fierce as ever, equipment maker Nokia has announced its expansion into a new market, winning a deal to install the first cellular network on the moon.
The Finnish equipment manufacturer said it was selected by Nasa to deploy an “ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened” wireless 4G network on the lunar surface, as part of the US space agency’s plan to establish a long-term human presence on the moon by 2030.
One of the three co-authors of a letter that calls for lockdowns to be abandoned in favour of herd immunity has appeared on a radio broadcast that previously featured multiple Holocaust deniers and antisemites.
Dr Martin Kulldorff of Harvard medical school appeared on the Richie Allen Show on 6 October to discuss the letter, described as the Great Barrington declaration, after the Massachusetts town where it was drawn up.
Malaysian health authorities reported 865 new coronavirus cases on Monday, raising the country’s total to 21,363. The Southeast Asian country, which imposed targeted lockdowns this month as infections surged, also recorded three new deaths, bringing its total number of fatalities to 190
In the UK, the government is still facing resistance over its attempt to move Greater Manchester into a tier 3 lockdown.
The mayor, Andy Burnham, has said he is willing to resolve the impasse but won’t “just roll over” at the sight of a cheque.
A new digital “health passport” is to be piloted by a small number of passengers flying from the UK to the US for the first time next week under plans for a global framework for Covid-safe air travel.
The CommonPass system, backed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is designed to create a common international standard for passengers to demonstrate they do not have coronavirus.
The winning essay in the Max Perutz science writing award 2020 was written by Sarah Taylor from the MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh
In May, PhD students who are funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) were invited to enter the Max Perutzscience writing award 2020 and to tell the general public “why your research matters”. From the many entries received, the 10 that made the shortlist covered diverse topics, including motor neurone disease, self-harm, babies’ experiences of pain, and bone loss resulting from space travel.
The essays were judged by the Observer’s Ian Tucker, the Science Museum’s Roger Highfield, Prof Fiona Watt from the MRC, Bristol University’s Andy Ridgeway and the journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed.
Austria has joined the likes of the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Malaysia in reporting a record daily number of coronavirus infections. It said today there have been 1,747 coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours.
The daily count has this month repeatedly exceeded the peak of 1,050 reached in March during the first wave of infections.
The mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, has said his brother has died after being admitted to intensive care with Covid-19.
Despite the efforts of all the staff @LivHospitals ICU my brother sadly died at 10.45 last night We want to thank the dedicated staff risking their lives for us.Thank you all for your messages of love and support Let’s stick together and support each other and win this battle❤️
10 mins ago my sister-in-law a Nursing Sister has told me my eldest brother her husband has got Covid-19 he is in the Royal @LivHospitals in the ICU in a very serious condition. Please watch the video, follow the rules & understand why we all need to fight the enemy #Covidhttps://t.co/pwlVALVuBF