Coronavirus live news: France records two-month high in new cases; Spain sees highest daily infections since June
Colombia’s former president Álvaro Uribe has tested positive for Covid-19, just a day after he was placed under house arrest as part of a witness tampering probe.
Uribe, a highly controversial figure, at 68 years old is considered to be among the at-risk population. Owing to his detention, he will already be isolated in his estate near the country’s Caribbean coast.
Rumours began circulating early on Wednesday that the embattled statesman may be in ill health, after reporters camped outside his grounds spotted an ambulance arrive.
He later announced that he had tested positive, although he was reportedly not displaying any symptoms other than a soar throught.
The announcement came less than 24 hours after Colombia was rocked by the Supreme Court decision to place Uribe under house arrest.
He served as Colombia’s president from 2002 to 2010, during which he lead a brutal campaign against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), a Marxist rebel group that took up arms against the Colombian government in 1964.
Yet despite leaving office a decade ago, he remains as divisive and influential as he did when he lead the country. His supporters say he neutered a violent leftist group that had terrorized the country since the 1960s. His critics say he did so at an inexcusable cost to human rights.
During his tenure, right-wing paramilitary groups flourished, often terrorizing civilians suspected of collaborating with rebels.
Since leaving office, he has twice proved himself a kingmaker. In 2016, he lead the campaign to vote down a referendum on a peace deal with the Farc. That deal was later ratified in congress. In 2018, his protege, current president Iván Duque, won office with his crucial backing.
Colombia is currently rattled by the coronavirus pandemic, with over 335,000 confirmed cases on Tuesday evening and 11,315 deaths. New daily now regularly rise by over 10,000.
The country has been under quarantine since late March.
British American Tobacco South Africa (BATSA) has been court for the first day of hearings in a case against a government-imposed ban on tobacco sales to limit the spread of coronavirus.
South Africans have been unable to legally purchase cigarettes since the country went into a strict nationwide lockdown on 27 March.
While confinement measures are being gradually lifted, tobacco products have remained banned for the time being due to “health risks” associated to smoking.
BATSA, which covers 78% of the legal cigarette market in South Africa, decided to sue the state in May after talks with the government fell through.
Speaking before the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday, BATSA advocate Alfred Cockrell argued the ban was “unconstitutional” and “unscientific”.
Cockrell said the measure had “devastated” the tobacco industry in an already ailing economy and was costing the state around 38m rand ($2.2m) per day in excise taxes.
Government representative Andrew Breitenbach argued the case was about “lives and livelihoods” but said the minister behind the ban had “taken steps” to allow trade between tobacco producers and cigarette manufacturers.
“The ban deals with prohibiting sales,” Breitenbach added. “So infringements on rights are just incidental.”
BATSA estimates that South Africa has around 8 million smokers.
Its legal action has been backed by Japan Tobacco International and by groups and organisations representing consumers, retailers and tobacco farmers, who agree that the ban is fuelling an illicit cigarette market.
The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) legally challenged the “irrational” ban last month, claiming it has diverted revenue away from a multi-million dollar business and into the black market.
The court has since ruled in favour of the government but granted FITA leave to appeal.
BATSA’s case is scheduled to resume on Thursday.
South Africa was already in recession before the coronavirus struck in March and the economy is now forecast to contract by more than six percent this year as a result of the pandemic.
The country is the hardest-hit in Africa with at least 521,318 infections diagnosed so far, accounting for more than half the continent’s cases.
Its mortality rate has remained low however, with just over 8,800 deaths reported to date.
Customers stream into a central Wellington cafe, past a QR code posted on the door that allows people to check in on the New Zealand government’s Covid-19 tracing app.
None pause to pull out their phones. Down the footpath outside, crosses of tape – denoting physical distancing measures for shoppers that ended months ago – feel like a reminder of a bad dream.
New Zealand has attained the status of one of the world’s safest countries when it comes to the coronavirus; there is no known community transmission in the country and life has largely returned to normal.
But with one eye on nations where the virus was once quashed before spiralling out of control again, officials and the government have changed their language in recent days in order to fight a new battle – this time against complacency.
“We have to be absolutely on our toes,” Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s top health official, said in a Radio New Zealand interview on Wednesday. “That’s not just the health system … it’s everybody.”
It has been 96 days since the last domestic case of Covid-19 was transmitted from an unknown source in New Zealand; all 24 diagnosed instances of the virus are among travellers returning to the country who are in quarantine at government-managed isolation hotels. But it was inevitable, Bloomfield said on Wednesday, that New Zealand would have an outbreak beyond the isolation facilities.
“It’s a matter of when, not if,” he said. “We’re working on the basis that it could be any time.”
A group of Senate Republicans have backed extending a $25bn payroll assistance programme for US airlines after warnings carriers may be forced to cut tens of thousands of jobs without government action, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Airline stocks moved sharply higher on the news. Shares of American Airlines were up 8.9% in afternoon trading while shares of United Airlines rose 6.3%.
The letter was the first public disclosure of significant support in the Republican-led Senate for additional emergency funding for US airlines.
The senators who signed the letter said they backed a new six-month extension of the $25bn payroll support program “to avoid furloughs and further support those workers”.
Airline officials and unions have been urging US lawmakers to extend new assistance in the face of the coronavirus epidemic’s devastating impact on airline travel. The letter said:
With air travel anticipated to remain low in the near future, Congress should also consider provisions to support and provide flexibility for businesses across the aviation industry similarly impacted, such as airport concessionaires and aviation manufacturing.
On 27 July, a majority of the Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives signed a letter also calling for a six-month extension for the payroll aid programme that they argue is crucial to keeping hundreds of thousands of aviation workers employed through 31 March.
That letter was signed by 195 Democrats and 28 Republicans.
Congress awarded $25bn in payroll assistance to US passenger airlines in March, along with $4bn for cargo carriers and $3bn for airport contractors. Most of the bailout funds do not have to be paid back.
Airlines and unions have warned that mass layoffs could take place after the existing $25bn in aid expires on 30 September, just over a month before the 3 November US elections.
Between American Airlines and United Airlines, more than 60,000 frontline workers have received warnings that their jobs are on the line.
Virginia has launched the first coronavirus contact tracing app in the United States that uses new technology from Apple and Google.
The state is hoping that the app, COVIDWISE, can help it catch new cases faster, though long delays in getting test results must be overcome in order for it to be effective.
Phones with the app exchange Bluetooth signals to keep an anonymous list of close encounters.
The app then allows people who catch the virus to notify those contacts without anyone revealing their identity.
“This is a way we can all work together to contain this virus,” Democratic governor Ralph Northam said. “No one is tracking you. None of your personal information is saved.”
At least three more states are nearing the launch of similar apps, aiming to ease the burden on underfunded manual contact tracing teams.
But the United States remains far behind Europe, where millions of people across 11 territories over the last two months have downloaded smartphone tracker apps using the specialised Apple-Google Bluetooth technology.
A couple of US states previously released contact tracing apps that experts have described as more privacy-invasive because they rely on tracking users’ locations, as opposed to Bluetooth transmissions.
NHS Grampian has had suspended all visits to hospitals in Aberdeen, Scotland with immediate effect, including Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and the city’s childrens and maternity hospitals, to protect patients and staff.
While hospitals in Aberdeenshire and Moray were unaffected, NHS Grampian said the ban extended to anyone resident in Aberdeen who was a designated visitor for patients in hospitals outside the city, even if less than five miles from their home.
We are aware this change is being imposed at short notice, however it is of the utmost importance that we do all we can to stop the spread of Covid-19 and ensure we do not provide opportunities for it to do so.
In the first instance these measures are being introduced for seven days, with reviews every seven days and extensions if necessary.
The price of gold soared to a record $2,047 (£1,538) on Wednesday as investors panicked by fears of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic rushed to buy the yellow metal as a safer place to store their wealth.
The gold price has risen by 34% since the start of the year, and this week broke through the $2,000 an ounce barrier and kept rising, as investors worry about Covid-19, as well as rising geopolitical tensions and the weakening of the US dollar.
Ruth Crowell, chief executive of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), said that in the past week more gold has been traded every day than ever previously recorded – by some distance.
Chief Aritana Yawalapiti, one of Brazil’s most influential indigenous leaders who led the people of Upper Xingu in central Brazil and helped create an indigenous park there, died on Wednesday from Covid-19, his family said in a statement.
His death underscores the threat that Brazil’s indigenous people are facing from the coronavirus pandemic that has spread to their vulnerable communities, infected thousands and killed hundreds.
Yawalapiti chief Aritana, suffering from Covid-19, arrives at Sao Francisco de Assis hospital after being transferred from Canarana to Goiania. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Aritana, 71, was rushed to a Goiânia hospital two weeks ago in a risky 9-hour drive from the western state of Mato Grosso, breathing with the aid of oxygen tanks so that he could get to an intensive care unit.
He died at the hospital from lung complications caused by the disease.
One of the most traditional indigenous leaders in Central Brazil, Aritana led the people of the Upper Xingu and was one of the last speakers of the language of his tribe, Yawalapiti.
Aritana worked with the Villas-Bôas brothers to create the Xingu National Park, the first vast protected indigenous area in the Amazon where 16 tribes live.
According to Brazil’s largest indigenous umbrella organisation, APIB, 631 indigenous people have died from Covid-19 and there have been 22,325 confirmed cases in the community so far.
The ministry of health reports a smaller number of 294 deaths among indigenous people and 16,509 confirmed cases, because it does not count indigenous people who have left their lands and moved to urban areas.
Half of Brazil’s 300 indigenous tribes have confirmed infections.
Russia is expanding Covid-19 express tests to other major air hubs in Moscow after using them at the country’s busiest airport, Sheremetyevo, in the capital.
The portable testing system, which fits in two small suitcases, gives results within an hour and is already being used by some Russian companies and at major events, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said
Moscow announced the resumption of some regular international flights on 1 August to Turkey, Britain and Tanzania, as the coronavirus crisis eases in Russia.
The country has also been in talks with other countries to re-launch the flights.
Russia has the world’s fourth-highest number of coronavirus cases at 866,627. It says 14,490 people have died from the virus.
As part of a wider plan to create coronavirus-free airport hubs, RDIF said on Wednesday the express tests would be expanded to other Moscow’s largest airports, Vnukovo International and Moscow Domodedovo.
It said the testing would be available both for arriving and departing passengers. The service will be rolled out at the airports within a week.
Germany has warned against all non-essential travel to the Belgian province of Antwerp following a coronavirus surge in the region.
Germany’s public health agency declared the region centered on Belgium’s largest port and second city as a high-risk area, meaning returnees from there can be forced to enter 14 days of quarantine.
The foreign ministry wrote.
Numbers of new infections and deaths have been rising since the end of July, especially in Antwerp province, where the number of new cases currently exceeds 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over seven days.
Romanian schools will reopen on 14 September on a case-by-case basis, with towns affected by Covid outbreaks likely to hold classes online, president Klaus Iohannis said.
Coronavirus infections in Romania have exceeded 1,000 new cases per day on all but one of the last 15 days, taking confirmed cases to 56,550.
Some 2,521 people have died, and Romania has extended a state of alert until the middle of August as well as placing several small towns and villages with spikes in the number of cases under localised quarantine.
Iohannis told reporters:
For most children, (the reopening) means they will actually physically go to school.
There are three scenarios depending on the number of cases in each town.
The way each school functions will be decided locally, on a decentralized county level.
Towns with a single case per 1,000 people reported in the last 14 days will see all children back in classrooms.
Those with up to three cases will see only kindergartens and a few grades back, with other classes held online.
Towns with more than three cases will hold classes exclusively online.
Iohannis said several hundred towns currently fell under the middle scenario and there are 50 towns in which schools could not reopen.
The status of each school would be constantly re-evaluated.
The move to close schools at the start of the pandemic has underscored the unequal access to education in Romania for children in rural areas and underprivileged communities.
On Wednesday, the Romanian unit of charity Save the Children commended the move to reopen schools but urged authorities to see that all students are treated equally.
“What is essential is that all children return to school safely and with equal access,” it said in a statement.
France’s daily Covid-19 infections reached the highest in more than two months on Wednesday, with 1,695 new cases.
The seven-day moving average stood above the 1,300 threshold for the first time since the end of April, when the country was still in lockdown.
The 1,222 daily average of cases seen since the beginning of August is now almost three times higher than June’s 435 figure but still half April’s 2,585, when the pandemic was in full swing.
France’s main seaside resorts have made wearing masks in the streets mandatory and some have restricted access to the beaches in the wake of the uptick in new cases.
Paris authorities are expected to announce shortly that people will have to wear face masks along the banks of the Seine and around the trendy Canal Saint-Martin, as well as in some of the capital’s other tourist hot spots.
However, after creeping up over the past two days, the number of patients in intensive care units in French hospitals for Covid-19 went down by four, to 384.
And the overall number of people hospitalised with the disease fell by 14 to 5,148, following a downward trend of two and a half months and suggesting the spike in cases has not yet translated into renewed strain on the health system.
The number of people in ICUs for the virus peaked at 7,148 on 8 April and overall hospitalisations at 32,292 on 14 April.
French health authorities reported nine additional deaths from the disease, bringing the total to 30,305, the seventh-highest in the world. The number of confirmed cases stands at 194,029.
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the coronavirus live blog for the next few hours.
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Spain has recorded 1,722 new cases of coronavirus, the highest daily count since a national lockdown was lifted in June. The figures, which do not include data from two regions, sharply rose from Tuesday, while one more death was registered, bringing the country’s official death tally to 28,499.
Greece’s prime minister blamed “complacency” for the country’s “significant rise” in cases in recent days. Kyriakos Mitsotakis has warned tighter measures could be brought in to curb the spread of coronavirus after Greek officials registered 121 new infections on Tuesday, the most since 22 April.
The regional government in the Canary Islands will cover coronavirus-related costs to Spanish and foreign tourists. It is hoped the announcement, which includes health expenses or the extension of holidays in case of a compulsory quarantine while on the islands, will help rescue the tourist season after a spike in infections in Spain.
One of Brazil’s most important indigenous leaders has died of Covid-19. Aritana Yawalapit, 71, who spent decades fighting for the rights of indigenous communities, died in a hospital in the state of Goiânia after a fortnight in intensive care.
Switzerland has imposed a 10-day quarantine on travellers from Spain. It is the latest country to put travel warnings in place for people arriving from Spain, following a surge in new coronavirus infections there. The UK reimposed a 14-day quarantine on travellers from Spain on 27 July.
A new coronavirus outbreak in Vietnam has spread to two more provinces. The country reported 43 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing its total to 713. Most of the new infections have been linked to Vietnam’s coronavirus epicentre Danang, but Bac Giang and Lang Son are also said to be experiencing an uptick in cases.
