Coronavirus live news: UK adds Belgium, Bahamas and Andorra to quarantine list

US president Donald Trump has intensified his attacks on China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, as his health secretary headed to Taiwan for a visit sure to irk Beijing.

Trump, whose public approval ratings have fallen amid continued Covid-19 infection rates and economic woes, sought to shift the focus to Beijing, claiming again, without evidence, that it may have intentionally let the virus spread globally.

The Republican president, who is trailing Democrat Joe Biden in national polls ahead of the 3 November election, said it was a “disgrace” that Beijing had limited the spread of the virus at home but allowed it to reach the rest of the world.

“What China did is a terrible thing … whether it was incompetence or on purpose,” he said, reviving a refrain that has strained ties between the world’s two largest economies and raised questions about a US-China trade deal signed in January.

Biden on Wednesday said the deal was “failing” after Commerce Department data showed the US-China trade deficit widened 5% to $28.4bn in June.

Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday aimed at yanking back supply chains from China for key ingredients and supplies used to make medicines and medical equipment, said Peter Navarro, a key adviser and China hawk.

Trump’s health secretary, Alex Azar, is due to visit Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, starting Sunday and reaffirm the US partnership with the Asian country, prompting China to threaten “strong countermeasures.”

Azar will be the highest-level US official to visit the island in four decades.

Washington broke off official ties with Taipei in 1979 in favor of Beijing but is now moving to sell Taiwan at least four of its large sophisticated aerial drones.

Alongside transport secretary Grant Shapps’ announcement that travellers from Belgium, the Bahamas and Andorra will have to self-isolate from Saturday, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has updated its travel advice to warn against all but essential trips to the three countries.

Brunei and Malaysia have been added to the government’s travel corridor list, following a decrease in confirmed cases of coronavirus, meaning arrivals from these countries no longer need to quarantine.

Figures released on Thursday show Belgium has suffered a consistent increase in cases in recent weeks, rising to 27.8 new cases per 100,000 people.

This towers over the UK’s latest rate of 8.4 per 100,000, and is higher than Spain’s 27.4 level around the time when the UK introduced travel restrictions there.

Belgium’s prime minister, Sophie Wilmes, was last week forced to put a halt to the nation’s Covid-19 exit plan by introducing drastic new social distancing measures in the hope of avoiding a new national lockdown.

Contacts outside every household were limited to the same five people for a month, in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.

In Andorra, new cases per week have increased five-fold since mid-July, while in the Bahamas the weekly case rate peaked at 78.6 last week, up from 3.1 in the middle of last month.

The UK’s move to add Spain onto the quarantine list on 26 July sparked a diplomatic row with the nation and caught out holidaymakers who had already flown over, including Shapps himself.

It also angered transport bosses who have called for increased testing to reduce the isolation period.

Luxembourg was added to the UK’s red list on 31 July.

Shapps said he “cannot rule out” other countries being included on the list, as officials keep overseas infection rates under close observation.

The Foreign Office says it keeps its own travel advice “under constant review”.

Spain’s health ministry has denied the country is facing a second wave of Covid-19 infections, despite a spike in cases of the virus in recent days.

According to the Spanish government’s own figures, over the past seven days there have been 19,405 new coronavirus cases registered, an average of 2,772 per day.

A week earlier the rate was an average 1,913 cases per day and the week before that the daily figure was 1,460.

“I wouldn’t speak of a second wave,” unless transmission rates were out of control, said Fernando Simon, head epidemiologist at the health ministry.

“It is not clear that the increase in detected cases isn’t simply due to the increase in testing,” he added.

The worst-hit areas are Catalonia, with more than 5,100 cases diagnosed in the past week, and neighbouring Aragon with 4,100 cases.

Austria on Thursday announced it would issue a travel warning for mainland Spain, becoming the latest country to do so.

Switzerland had already said on Wednesday it would add mainland Spain to its list of countries seen as having heightened risk of Covid-19 transmission and thus requiring travellers from there to undergo a quarantine.

Germany last week added three northern Spanish regions to its list of high-risk destinations, while France and Britain have also taken steps to limit travel from the country.

Despite the rise in the number of cases in Spain, Simon assured that there was no risk of the hospital system buckling under pressure.

Nevertheless regional authorities, such as those in Catalonia and Aragon, have ordered new partial lockdown measures.

Passengers from Belgium, Andorra and the Bahamas will be required to self-isolate at home or another specified address for 14 days on arrival in the UK from Saturday.

In a tweet, transport secretary Grant Shapps said: “Data shows we need to remove Andorra, Belgium and The Bahamas from our list of coronavirus Travel Corridors in order to keep infection rates DOWN.

“If you arrive in the UK after 0400 Saturday from these destinations, you will need to self-isolate for 14 days.”

Speaking about the changes to the quarantine list, Scottish justice secretary Humza Yousaf said:

The governments of all for nations have agreed to these changes based on a shared understanding of the data.

This is another important step in our efforts to prevent the spread of the virus, and adhering to the quarantine is a vital aspect of this.

Imposing quarantine requirements on those arriving from another country is not a decision made lightly – but suppressing the virus and protecting public health remains our priority.

Greece has recorded more than 5,000 coronavirus cases after a spurt in new infections that sparked a “wake-up week”.

The national public health organisation announced 153 cases over the last 24 hours, raising the total to over 5,100. There have been 210 deaths so far.

The highest amount of daily cases announced was 156 on 21 April, following a mass outbreak at a migrant hotel near Athens.

Late on Thursday, the civil protection agency announced emergency restrictions on the small holiday island of Poros near Athens.

These include a night curfew for all restaurants and bars to 17 August, and a ban on fairs and open markets, after over a dozen cases were reported on the island.

A ban on gatherings of over nine people was declared on Poros, even inside homes, and masks have been made obligatory both outdoors and indoors.

Greece on Wednesday announced a “wake-up week” on Covid-19, tightening restrictions after the steady rise in mostly domestic infections.

Officials have blamed the increase on overcrowding in clubs and social events.

Only 10% of cases in Greece can be traced to foreign arrivals, prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Earlier on Thursday, the government said Greece’s land borders would close at night to travellers, except one crossing with Bulgaria. Petsas said:

We have located three sources of concern: very regular crossings from Balkan countries by ethnic Greeks and residence permit holders… social gatherings, including clubbing youths, weddings and baptisms, and public transport.

The public protection agency last week said masks must be worn in all indoor public areas, and visits to retirement homes and other institutions hosting vulnerable groups are restricted until 15 August.

A limit of 100 guests was also set for weddings, baptisms and funerals, and summer fairs were cancelled.

Mitsotakis has already ruled out a general lockdown after gradually reopening the economy in May and starting to accept foreign arrivals in June to salvage part of the tourism season that is vital to the economy.

French universities will reopen in September after nearly six months but students will be encouraged to wear face masks, the ministry of higher education has announced.

Universities in France closed on 16 March as part of the new coronavirus restrictions. Schools gradually reopened on 11 May but the country’s 74 universities have remained shuttered.

“The wearing of masks in classrooms is highly recommended,” the ministry said, asking universities and leading higher education institutions “to let in a greater number of students while respecting health regulations”.

“We are working in tandem with these establishments to put in place measures …. to protect teachers, personnel and students from the virus,” higher education minister Frederique Vidal said.

She said social distancing would be observed with a metre maintained between each student in classrooms. Facemasks will be mandatory in libraries.

Closed spaces will be aired twice a day and pedestrian traffic will be regulated in busy areas, it said.

A rise in the Covid-19 infection rate in Ireland is a “serious concern” but the country has not yet seen a significant resurgence in infections outside of identified clusters, a leading health official said.

Ireland, which for several weeks had one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, has seen a spike since last Thursday and has identified a number of clusters of infections in meat plants and accommodation for asylum seekers.

The reproduction value, or the number of people who become infected from each positive case, has increased to 1.8 from 1.3 a week ago, professor Philip Nolan, the chairman of the country’s Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said.

A reproduction number of almost 2 is a serious concern, and although we have not yet seen a significant increase in community transmission, there is a significant risk this could develop over the coming days and weeks.

Ireland reported 69 cases on Thursday and the average infection rate has more than doubled in recent weeks to around 50 per day.

It also reported five deaths on Thursday after six days with no deaths.

Acting chief medical officer Ronan Glynn said half of all recent cases had come from three adjoining counties – Kildare, Laois and Offaly – and that a cluster of 60 cases from the counties were set to be added to Friday’s numbers.

He warned people from those counties to be particularly careful and said he could not rule out specific restrictions being imposed on those three counties.

The US has lifted a global health advisory imposed in March that advised US citizens to avoid all international travel because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The State Department said in a statement:

With health and safety conditions improving in some countries and potentially deteriorating in others, the department is returning to our previous system of country-specific levels of travel advice.

US airline stocks rose on the announcement.

The State Department issued updated country-travel specific alerts, including “Level Four: Do Not Travel” advisories for about 30 countries, including India, Russia, Bangladesh, Belize, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Haiti, Iran, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Honduras and Libya.

The State Department also issued numerous new “Level 3: reconsider travel” advisories, including for countries in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Armenia, the Philippines, Laos and Australia.

The United States has barred most non-US citizens from many parts of the world from traveling to the United States, including from the EU and China.

China has been on the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” advisory since June.

Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the coronavirus live blog for the next few hours.

Please do get in touch with any suggestions or story tips.

Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_

• The Dutch prime minister called on tourists to avoid busy parts of Amsterdam. Mark Rutte said the Netherlands doesn’t need to undergo a second lockdown, despite a sharp increase in the number of coronavirus cases, but implored tourists to avoid busy areas of the capital and for youths to adhere to social distancing in order to avoid one.
• Economic recovery around the world could come faster if any Covid-19 vaccine is made available to all as a public good, the World Health Organization director-general said. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “vaccine nationalism” would not help the world recover from the pandemic, rather global solidarity in sharing vaccines and other tools would lessen the damage and hasten economic recovery. “No country will be safe until we are all safe,” he said.
• Belgium is set to become the latest country added to England’s quarantine list. It has suffered a resurgence of the virus, with the country passing 70,000 Covid-19 cases this week. The surge means arrivals will have to isolate for 14 days. The Foreign Office is expected to change its travel advice for Belgium at the weekend.
• Spanish authorities placed a northern town into confinement following a surge in cases. The northern region of Castilla y León has ordered the town of Aranda de Duero and its 32,000 residents back into confinement for a fortnight after 230 cases of coronavirus were detected in the area.
• Daily cases in Germany rose above 1,000 for first time in three months. In response to the recording of its highest rate of infections since May, the government moved to tighten the testing regime for travellers returning from risk regions. From Saturday travellers returning to Germany from risk regions will face mandatory coronavirus tests.

France reported 1,604 new Covid-19 infections over 24 hours, the total staying above the 1,600 threshold for the second day running, health ministry data showed on Thursday.

In a statement, the ministry also said the number of patients in intensive care units for the disease was on the rise again, at 390 versus 384 on Wednesday.