Category Archives: Infectious Diseases

Coronavirus live news: India Covid-19 cases top 900,000 as 133m re-enter lockdown

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Restrictions imposed on Indian city of Bangalore and state of Bihar; Venezuela’s capital Caracas to go into a strict lockdown on Wednesday; Face masks mandatory in France; Follow the latest updates

AFP is reporting on Tokyo being on its highest coronavirus alert level after a rise in new cases - particularly in younger people, in nightlife areas and also in workplaces and in families - as experts said the rising infections were a clear “red flag”.

However, the move to a “red” alert does not mean the city will ask businesses to close or events to be postponed. Even during a national state of emergency in April, there was no “lockdown” in Japan of the type seen in Europe.

AP are also reporting on how virus restrictions in Australia are being reimposed, shutting businesses and curbing people’s social lives as communities try to curb a disease resurgence before it spins out of control.

Residents of Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, were warned today to comply with lockdown regulations or face tougher restrictions. Melbourne’s 5 million people and part of the city’s semi-rural surrounds are a week into a new, six-week lockdown to contain a new outbreak there.

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Australia’s Covid-19 face mask advice: can I reuse them, what’s the best to use and where to buy?

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The health department now recommends masks where community transmission of coronavirus is occurring and physical distancing is difficult. From washable cloth face masks to reusable ones and how to wear them, here’s what you need to know

  • Follow live news from around Australia
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    • Last week, the national cabinet updated its position on the use of face masks, deciding that people should wear them in locations where there is community transmission of the coronavirus and where social distancing is difficult.

    The announcement was a response to rising case numbers in Melbourne, which is now in the early stages of a six-week stage three lockdown.

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    Egypt: doctors targeted for highlighting Covid-19 working conditions

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    Overwhelmed staff detained by state security agency after voicing concerns about lack of PPE

    Overwhelmed and ill-equipped medical staff in Egypt are being threatened for speaking out about poor working conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic, with increasing numbers detained by a domestic security agency.

    Doctors recounted threats delivered via WhatsApp, official letters or in person. They said hospital managers and government officials told them failing to attend shifts, posting on social media or voicing objections would result in complaints to the National Security Agency, Egypt’s primary internal security body, which rights groups say has arrested multiple healthcare workers.

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    Coronavirus live news: India puts Bangalore back into lockdown; Hong Kong tightens social distancing

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    Global cases rise by 1m in five days; 5.4m Americans have lost their health insurance; 6,000 new cases in Russia

    Iran reports 179 new virus death as authorities announced a decision to once more shutter some businesses in the capital to contain the virus’ resurgence.

    The reimposition of restrictive measures comes after the government had progressively lifted them from April to reopen its sanctions-hit economy.

    Masks will become mandatory in all enclosed public spaces in France within the next few weeks, President Emmanuel Macron has said in a major Bastille Day interview.

    Masks were already obligatory on public transport and recommended in shops, with many store owners refusing to welcome customers not wearing them.

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    Coronavirus: what are the rules over face masks in English shops?

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    Exemptions, enforcement and business reaction to the news that coverings will be compulsory from 24 July

    With the government set to announce that wearing a face covering in shops and supermarkets will be mandatory in England from 24 July, here’s what you need to know about the new rules:

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    Does coronavirus spread in the air and how do we stay safe?

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    Some scientists believe there is growing evidence of airborne transmission of Covid-19

    Some scientists are warning there is growing evidence of airborne transmission of coronavirus. But how does it affect the actions we should take to stay safe?

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    NSW on ‘extra high alert’ for Covid-19 resurgence as hotel crackdown announced

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    Premier Gladys Berejiklian details stricter regime for pubs as cluster linked to the Crossroads Hotel grows to 30 cases

    New South Wales is on “extra high alert” for a widespread Covid-19 resurgence and will require so-called hygiene marshals to enforce social distancing at every pub in the state.

    The crackdown comes after patrons who visited a Sydney hotel at the centre of the state’s largest outbreak expressed concern over relaxed safety practices and the pub’s manager conceded more could have been done to record visitors’ contact details.

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    Baby boy infected with coronavirus in womb

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    French study is believed to be first such confirmed case but doctors say infant has made good recovery

    Doctors in France have reported what they believe to be the first proven case of Covid-19 being passed on from a pregnant woman to her baby in the womb.

    The newborn boy developed inflammation in the brain within days of being born, a condition brought on after the virus crossed the placenta and established an infection prior to birth. He has since made a good recovery.

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    Fauci sidelined as Trump’s White House steps up briefing campaign

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    The president says the scientist leading the US fight against the virus has ‘made a lot of mistakes’

    He is the US scientist who became the figurehead of attempts to combat the country’s coronavirus epidemic, described in some quarters as “America’s doctor”.

    Now Anthony Fauci appears sidelined by Donald Trump’s White House after repeatedly contradicting the president’s view about the effectiveness of the government response.

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    ‘Compelling’ evidence air pollution worsens coronavirus – study

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    Exclusive: best analysis to date indicates significant increases in infections, hospital admissions and deaths

    There is “compelling” evidence that air pollution significantly increases coronavirus infections, hospital admissions and deaths, according to the most detailed and comprehensive analysis to date.

    The research indicates that a small, single-unit increase in people’s long-term exposure to pollution particles raises infections and admissions by about 10% and deaths by 15%. The study took into account more than 20 other factors, including average population density, age, household size, occupation and obesity.

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    Victoria and Melbourne coronavirus cases by region: where are Covid-19 case numbers getting better and worse?

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    Guardian Australia analysis and map shows how the pattern of Covid-19 has changed throughout Melbourne. Live data updates will track it as the lockdown continues

    A Guardian Australia analysis of Victorian coronavirus cases shows that infections have been increasing in areas outside the locked-down postcodes, and that all significant growth areas are now contained within the wider Melbourne lockdown.

    Using data aggregated daily from the dashboard of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) here, we calculated the number of new cases a day for every local government area in Victoria.

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    Coronavirus live news: WHO reports record global cases as South Africa reinstates alcohol ban

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    Cases rise by over 230,000 worldwide in 24 hours; Florida cases increase by record total for a US state; Brazil cases near 2m. Follow the latest updates

    Mainland China reported eight new Covid-19 cases as of the end of 12 July, up from seven reported a day earlier, the Chinese national health authority said on Monday.

    The National Health Commission said in a statement that all of the new cases were imported infection involving travellers from overseas, the same as the seven cases a day earlier. The capital city of Beijing reported no new confirmed cases for the seventh consecutive day.

    The Commission also reported six new asymptomatic patients, those who are infected with the coronavirus but have no symptoms, compared with five a day earlier. China does not consider such patients as confirmed cases.

    Total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases for mainland China now stands at 83,602, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

    Hong Kong health authorities are continuing to battle its worst virus outbreak yet. It saw a rise in cases in March as people began returning from overseas, prompting increased social distancing measures and restrictions which had started to ease in recent weeks.

    On Sunday another 38 new cases were confirmed, including 30 local transmissions. Of the 30, 13 have an unknown source.

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    Coronavirus live: Colombia faces calls to put capital into total lockdown

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    Cases rise by over 230,000 worldwide in 24 hours; EU summit ‘may not agree Covid-19 recovery fund’; 130m ‘may go hungry in 2020 because of virus’

    An entire hospital in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state has been put in quarantine after 68% of its remaining staff tested positive, writes Analy Nuño in Guadalajara.

    Doctors and nurses at the Macedonio Benítez Fuentes hospital in the town of Juchitán de Zaragoza held protests last week, calling for a lockdown after 120 of their colleagues were put under isolation after positive tests.

    The hospital won’t close – we will still deal with urgent cases, and have already analysed our staffing requirements to attend to the community as our colleagues start to return to work.

    China has stepped up a travel warning to Australia, telling its citizens of a risk of being searched “arbitrarily” by law enforcement authorities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

    Tensions between the two countries have been escalating on various fronts after Beijing reacted with fury to calls for an independent investigation into the origins and spread of the pandemic, which first surfaced in central China last year.

    We urge Australia to change its course and stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way, or risk further damage to China-Australia relations.

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    30-year-old dies after attending ‘Covid party’ in Texas

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    Patient said: ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not’, according to health official

    A 30-year-old patient died after attending a ‘“Covid party”, believing the virus to be a hoax, a Texas medical official has said.

    “Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,’” said Dr Jane Appleby, the chief medical officer at Methodist hospital in San Antonio.

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    The Guardian view on Covid-19 worldwide: on the march

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    Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope

    “Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.

    It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.

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    Coronavirus report: India reports record spike as cases double in South Africa

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    Indian cases pass 800,000; Johannesburg struggles to find vital equipment; Texas warns ‘worst is yet to come’

    India reported a record spike in coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the national total to more than 800,000 and pushing several states to bring back lockdowns, despite the punitive economic cost.

    Now the world’s third-worst affected country by case load, it reported a spike of 27,114 cases on Saturday, although mortality rates have been lower than in other badly affected countries with confirmed death toll now 22,123.

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    Global ‘catastrophe’ looms as Covid-19 fuels inequality

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    Job losses, homelessness, school closures and acute hunger set to rise dramatically without urgent support, Christian Aid warns

    The pandemic has exposed and reinforced deep inequalities across the world, with the true extent yet to be seen, according to a major new report.

    The crisis in the poorest countries threatens to escalate into a catastrophe as job losses and food insecurity mount. “The economic, social and political impacts are only starting to unfold,” says Building Back with Justice: Dismantling Inequalities after Covid-19, to be published by Christian Aid later this month.

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    Coronavirus: global deaths tally over 560,000 – as it happened

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    This blog has closed – please keep following our live coverage here

    This blog has closed – thanks for following. Coverage continues at our latest coronavirus live blog.

    Good morning, good evening, hello, wherever you might be. This is Helen Davidson taking the reins of the blog for the next few hours. Thanks to my colleagues for their coverage.

    We’ll be starting a new blog shortly, but in the meantime here is some more news on the vaccine front.

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    Coronavirus Australia: Victoria reports 216 new Covid-19 cases and death of man in his 90s

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    Daniel Andrews says effects of lockdown won’t be reflected for weeks as NSW cases linked to Casula pub

    Victoria has recorded another 216 cases of coronavirus and one additional death, a man in his 90s, as the state tries to contain the second wave of the virus that returned Melbourne residents to lockdown.

    Thirty of the new cases are linked to known outbreaks and 186 are under investigation, with the state’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, saying it was becoming more difficult to quickly trace the source of new infections.

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    Why is Australia’s second biggest city back in coronavirus lockdown? – video explainer

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    Metropolitan Melbourne returned to lockdown on 8 July after Victoria recorded 191 new cases of coronavirus since the start of the week, which was at the time the highest daily increase since the pandemic began. 

    Guardian Australia’s Melissa Davey explains why the stage 3 stay-at-home orders were announced, how the latest lockdown has been met with a mixture of fury and acceptance, and whether this apparent second wave could have been avoided

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