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Wed 28 Oct 2020 19.54 EDTFirst published on Tue 27 Oct 2020 19.55 EDT
Key events
Emmanuel Macron orders France back into Covid-19 lockdown – video

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Key events

Summary

Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus development from across the globe.

  • French president Macron announces new nationwide lockdown to curb Covid-19 surge. France will go back into a nationwide lockdown this week in an effort to contain the Covid-19 epidemic that is again threatening to spiral out of control, Macron said in an address to the nation on Wednesday. The new measures - which come into force on Friday and will last until 1 December - will mean people have to stay in their homes except to buy essential goods, seek medical attention, or use their daily one-hour allocation of exercise. Restaurants, cafes and shops not selling essential goods will have to close down for at least the next two weeks.
  • Germany to go into circuit-break lockdown as coronavirus surges. Germany will impose an emergency month-long lockdown that includes the closure of restaurants, gyms and theatres to reverse a rise in coronavirus cases that risks overwhelming hospitals.
  • EU leaders urged to aid transfer of Covid patients between member states. The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has asked EU leaders to help Brussels map intensive care bed capacity to allow the transfer of coronavirus patients from overrun hospitals across Europe amid a rise in infection in every member state.

The Marshall Islands in the Pacific has confirmed its first Covid-19 cases - ending the archipelago’s status as one of the few nations in the world to remain virus free.

The Marshalls government has announced that two workers at a US army garrison on Kwajalein Atoll tested positive for coronavirus after arriving on a military flight from Hawaii on Tuesday.

It stressed that the pair – a 35-year-old woman and 46-year-old man – had no community contact during their time in the Marshalls.

“We can assure the public that these are strictly border cases and were discovered while these people were in quarantine, where they remain until this time,” chief secretary Kino Kabua said.

The Likiep Atoll coastline on the Marshall Islands. Photograph: Photofusion Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

The Marshalls, a group of islands and atolls about halfway between Australia and Hawaii, closed its borders in early March in a bid to keep out the virus.

Pacific island nations were swift to isolate themselves, despite the economic cost, amid fears their poor health infrastructure made them particularly vulnerable to the pandemic.

As a result, the remote island nations and territories of Kiribati, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu are believed to be still free of the virus.

The Solomon Islands lost its virus-free status in early October.

Since June, the Marshalls had eased restrictions slightly to allow in some people, mostly US military base workers, subject to a strict three-week quarantine at the Kwajalein garrison.

The two Americans who tested positive had returned negative swabs before departing Hawaii and were both asymptomatic, Kabua said.

She said the woman had previously had Covid-19 in late July and tests were being carried out to see if the case was historical, and not contagious - while the man had no history of infection.

Ebon Atoll mayor Marie Davis Milne, a frequent critic of border relaxation, said confirmation of Covid-19 was a blow for the nation of almost 80,000. She posted on social media:

What we were worried about has come true.

Now lives are going to be put on hold because a handful of people made the decisions they did for whatever reasons.

Life as we all knew it will be in limbo until further notice because of the choices of a few.

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Bayonne’s Top 14 match against Toulon on Friday was postponed by the LNR, the body that runs professional rugby in France, after several cases of Covid-19 were reported.

Tests carried out on Tuesday revealed “several positive cases” among the professional playing squad, Bayonne said, adding that those affected were immediately put in self-isolation.

This is the sixth match of the championship postponed because of Covid-19 cases.

Saturday’s game between Lyon and Montpellier is likely to be also called off after three Covid-19 cases in the Lyon squad, Le Progres reported.

“Yes, there are some cases and the official decision will be taken by the National Rugby League on Thursday,” Lyon president Yann Roubert confirmed to AFP.

Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa has authorised the import of raw materials from Chinese company Sinovac for the production of its Covid-19 vaccine.

Sao Paulo’s biomedical institute Butantan plans to produce the vaccine.

Five more Spanish regions, including Madrid, are closing their borders ahead of the All Saints’ Day long weekend to try to halt a surge in coronavirus infections.

Spanish families traditionally visit the graves of loved ones on the 1 November holiday to leave flowers. As this year’s holiday falls on a Sunday, Monday has been declared a holiday to create a three-day weekend.

About 6 million people travel to other parts of Spain during the All Saints’ Day holiday and as a result the regional government of Madrid plans to close the region’s borders from Friday until 2 November, said the head of the region’s government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

“We are aware that we must continue to reduce social contacts,” she told a joint news conference with the heads of the neighbouring regions of Castilla and León and Castilla-La Mancha who said they would shut their borders until 9 November, a bank holiday in Madrid.

Separately, the coastal regions of Murcia in the southeast and Andalusia in the southwest, popular destinations for residents of inland cities like Madrid during long weekends, said they would also shut their borders from Friday until 9 November.

The move means no one will be able to enter or leave the regions during this period except for essential reasons such as seeking medical care or going to work.

“The pandemic is growing exponentially,” said the leader of the northwestern Castilla and Leon region, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco. “We have to adopt measures, drastic measures which at the same time are proportional.”

Three of Spain’s 17 regions - Navarra, La Rioja and the Basque Country - have already closed their borders earlier this month.

Since exiting a strict national lockdown in June, coronavirus cases in Spain have soared, with thousands of infections diagnosed every day. Hospitalisations, though lower than their March-April peak, are also on the rise.

Spain last week became the first EU nation to surpass 1 million confirmed Covid-19 infections, with the virus claiming more than 35,000 lives.

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Coronavirus has swept through Milan’s prestigious La Scala opera house, with 18 singers and nine musicians testing positive for the disease, an official said.

All the members of the chorus were in quarantine along with the wind section of the orchestra, while the theatre awaited results from tests of other staff members.

“All rehearsals have been suspended,” Paolo Puglisi, a union representative at La Scala told reporters.

A military vehicle outside La Scala opera house in Milan, northern Italy. Photograph: Luca Bruno/AP

La Scala reopened in July after being shut for four months during Italy’s first wave of Covid-19.

This week, public performances were again suspended because of a government decree issued on Sunday that shut down theatres and cinemas across Italy in an effort to contain a resurgence of infections.

The closure order expires on 24 November and Puglisi said the musicians and singers had hoped the opera house would be in a position to stage its traditional performance marking the start of a new season on 7 December, a highlight of Italy’s cultural life.

Milan and the surrounding Lombardy region have been particularly hard hit by the virus, registering a record 7,558 new cases on Wednesday.

The next worst affected area in Italy was the neighbouring Piedmont region with 2,827 cases.

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The new lockdown measures in France will stay in place until 1 December, President Macron said.

He also said the situation would be reviewed in 15 days to see if shops could be reopened.

The lockdown will be eased once daily new infections fall back to about 5,000 per day, he added.

He concluded his speech by saying:

We have to hold firm, stand shoulder to shoulder, we can only rise if we remain united.

I count on each of you. I will be there, we will be there and we will get there all together. Vive la République and vive la France.

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France in nationwide lockdown from Friday, Macron announces

President Macron has imposed a new nationwide lockdown in France as Covid-19 cases surge.

The new measures echo the eight-week lockdown that France enforced in the spring, when hospitalisations and deaths caused by Covid-19 reached a peak.

Signed documents will once again be needed for people to leave home and moving between regions will no longer be possible. People can only leave the house to buy essential goods, seek medical attention, or use their daily one-hour allocation of exercise.

But unlike the previous lockdown, most schools are to remain open, Macron said, while universities will revert to online teaching and working from home will be generalised.

Visits to care homes will still be allowed, as will funerals, Macron said.

France has just reported 244 new deaths from coronavirus over the previous 24 hours and 36,437 new confirmed coronavirus cases, taking the total to 1,235,132.

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Macron said the country needs to protect its economy but a herd immunity strategy would lead to 400,000 excess deaths in France.

The health system won’t hold unless there is an economy to support it. Nothing is more important, however, than human life.

We could do nothing and accept herd immunity...short term it will mean triage of patients and 400,000 extra deaths

French president Macron: second wave of Covid-19 likely to be worse than first wave

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Covid-19 is circulating more quickly than forecast and new measures are needed.

He said it is predicted that by mid-November all intensive care beds will be filled with Covid-19 cases and that France needs a sudden “brutal brake” on the transmission of the virus so doctors don’t have to make choices between Covid cases and car accident cases, for example.

Efforts made were useful but not enough...The speed of the spread of virus has not been anticipated.

Difficult measures have been taken... but they are not enough to combat the second wave.

We are overwhelmed by a second wave, that will be harder and more fatal than the first.

"We have to admit, like our neighbours we are submerged by acceleration of the spread of the virus. We are all in Europe surprised by the speed of spread of the virus. We are overwhelmed by a second wave, that will be harder and more fatal than the first.

— Kim Willsher (@kimwillsher1) October 28, 2020
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Summary: second wave picks up pace

I’m handing over now to my colleague Jessica Murray, who will cover the Macron address. It’s been a day of worrying numbers all over Europe, and severe new measures in an attempt to bring the pandemic under control. Here’s a summary of the day’s main events.

The number of new cases recorded across Europe and beyond continued to grow, with new highs in cases or deaths in many countries, including Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal, Iran, and Russia.

AFP said that Tuesday’s daily toll of more than 500,000 infections was a new high - a figure that is likely to be overshadowed by Wednesday’s once the total is known.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen set out a raft of new measures. Her key coronavirus advisor Peter Piot said that the new resurgence in the virus had come back because “we kind of relaxed too much”.

France is set to announce tough new restrictions, with president Emmanuel Macron due to deliver a televised address shortly and speculation rife about a month-long lockdown.

Germany will impose an emergency month-long lockdown that includes the closure of restaurants, gyms and theatres to reverse a rise in coronavirus cases that risks overwhelming hospitals, chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Angela Merkel outlines new coronavirus restrictions for Germany – video

South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa went into self-isolation after a guest at a dinner he attended on Saturday tested positive. He is showing no symptoms, according to the government.

The death tolls in Canada and Turkey went past 10,000. In Argentina, it went past 30,000. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said: “This is going to be a tough winter”.

On that cheerless note, I’m off. Thanks for many hugely useful tips today and sorry if I missed your email.

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The French public is preparing for Emmanuel Macron’s address at 8pm local time (about 20 minutes from the timestamp on this post), in which he is expected to announce a raft of new measures to combat the spread of coronavirus.

With many doctors calling for a nationwide lockdown, France 24 reports damning comments from Frederic Valletoux, president of the French Hospital Federation:

The government didn’t take into account what the first wave was and didn’t learn all its lessons... this wave will be much more devastating for the hospital system. Hospitals won’t manage if we don’t take drastic measures.

Members of the public watching Macron give a previous address, in June. Photograph: Marc Piasecki/Getty Images

There is widespread speculation that Macron will decree a lockdown until the end of November. The measures are expected to be more flexible than earlier this year, when the French public faced some of the most draconian conditions in Europe. Still, they are still likely to be “unpopular”, a government official with knowledge of the measures told AFP.

The head of Macron’s LREM party, Stanislas Guerini, appeared to be preparing the ground for a shutdown when he told France 2 television that the country needed “strong measures, powerful measures... and probably at a national level”.

All will be clear when Macron speaks - we’ll be following it live.

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Death toll in Turkey goes past 10,000

Turkey has become the eighth country in Europe to record more than 10,000 deaths, with 77 new fatalities registered on Wednesday taking the total there to 10,027.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said Istanbul was now recording nearly half of Turkey’s new infections, describing the rise as “scary”.

“If we cannot control the virus in Istanbul, it will be hard to tackle,” he said, according to AFP.

While the WHO has praised Turkey’s early adoption of masks, it has also criticised the government for only counting “patients”, or cases where people display symptoms – which is likely to give a much lower count than the true total.

Turkey recorded 2,305 new “patients” on Wednesday and has counted nearly 370,000 since the crisis began.

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After Iran’s record daily death toll was announced earlier, the health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told the country in a televised address that Iran was “in a full-scale war with the coronavirus”.

“The main condition for overcoming this disease ... and challenge is seeing change in the beliefs and attitudes of every single person,” Lari said.

She said 27 of Iran’s 31 provinces were currently “red” – the highest risk level on the country’s colour-coded scale.

The country’s health minister, Saeed Namaki, told state television on Wednesday that daily tests were to be ramped up to “25,000 to 40,000 or even more”, without giving details.

Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei attends a meeting to discuss the coronavirus pandemic on Saturday. Photograph: Iranian Supreme Leader’S Office/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

As the health crisis deepens, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made a rare public meeting with the coronavirus taskforce on Saturday.

The country “must do everything” to reduce the number of deaths, Khamenei said.

Many other countries in the Middle East have also witnessed a surge in Covid-19 cases, AFP reports.

In neighbouring Iraq, a lockdown imposed early in the pandemic has been dropped for economic reasons, even as deaths have topped 11,000 out of 460,000 confirmed cases.

Jordan recorded its highest total on Tuesday, with more than 3,800 cases and 44 deaths, reaching a total of 668 dead out of 58,855 declared cases of Covid-19.

The kingdom has taken a series of measures to curb its second wave, including imposing a night-time curfew.

Saudi Arabia has been the worst-hit among the Arab countries in the Gulf, with more than 346,000 infections and 5,300 deaths.

In Israel and the Palestinian territories, more than 363,000 cases have been reported, with recent measures including lockdowns and partial curfews.

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