Coronavirus live news: UK adds France to quarantine list from 4am BST on Saturday

Hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers’ plans have been plunged into chaos after the government confirmed that France would be removed from the UK’s travel corridor list following a surge in Covid-19 cases.

The move, which will mean arrivals into the UK from France will have to quarantine for 14 days on their return or face a fine, will come into effect at 4am on Saturday leaving a window of little more than 28 hours for travellers to get home if they want to escape the measures.

The UK government will also remove the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks & Caicos and Aruba from the list, the transport secretary Grant Shapps confirmed. Travellers arriving in the UK from those destinations from that time will also be required to self-isolate for 14 days.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has updated its travel advice for those countries, now advising against all but essential travel based on the current assessment of Covid-19 risks.

The decision comes after the Joint Biosecurity Centre and Public Health England indicated a significant change in Covid-19 risk in all six destinations.

Department for Transport officials said that data from France shows that over the past week there has been a 66% increase in newly reported cases and a 52% increase in weekly incidence rate per 100,000 population, indicating a sharp rise in Covid-19.

There has been a consistent increase in newly reported cases in the Netherlands over the past four weeks, with a 52% increase in newly reported cases between 7 and 13 August.

Over the past week, there has been a 273% increase in newly reported cases in Turks & Caicos, a 1,106% increase in newly reported cases in Aruba, and Malta has had a 105% increase.

An artist in Los Angeles is memorialising each of the thousands of people who have died from Covid-19 in the United States with a delicate origami crane.

Karla Funderburk started making the cranes three months ago, stringing the paper swans in pink, blue, yellow and many other colours together and hanging them in her art gallery.

“I was feeling the loss, and one way to process that was I started folding cranes. Cranes are a traditional Japanese symbol of carrying the soul to heaven,” she said.

She tried making 10 cranes each night but when on 14 May the number of deaths ticked to 88,000 she realised it would take her 24 years to complete them and she asked for help.

Now volunteers drop off scores of the elegantly made paper swans daily.

“I started receiving boxes and bags. Sometimes I would get one crane with one name on it, some boxes had 300,” she said.

Hundreds now hang from the ceiling of her Matter Studio with others sitting on tables and stacked in boxes waiting to be added to the sad reminder of the virus toll. The gallery’s website also lists hundreds of names of virus victims.
I feel like this space is holding, holding the place, for the remembrances of the souls we are losing, she said.

Funderburk had 9,300 cranes as of Thursday. More than 165,000 people in the US have died of Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bolivia’s political crisis is adding to the burden on its health care system, which was already grappling with coronavirus as it continues to spread across one of Latin America’s poorest countries, the Associated Press reports.

Street unrest erupted after the Supreme Electoral Tribunal moved the planned vote from 6 September to 18 October following warnings from medical experts that it would be unsafe to hold the election while the pandemic was not yet under control.

It was the third time the vote has been delayed, angering protesters who accuse the government of the interim president Jeanine Áñez of simply trying to hang on to power.

After about 10 days of nationwide blockades by supporters of the party of the former president Evo Morales, who object to the recent postponement of elections, supplies are threatened in some hospitals that are also dealing with an escalating number of Covid-19 patients, according to officials.

The blockades are having a wider impact on Bolivia’s beleaguered health system. Ambulances are sometimes prevented from reaching hospitals. The health ministry said 31 adults with Covid-19 have died since last Friday because of a lack of oxygen.

The government has described the situation as inhumane, blaming Morales’ supporters for causing even more misery at a time when the pandemic is inflicting a heavy toll on the country. But authorities are reluctant to use force to break up the blockades, recalling widespread bloodshed in clashes last year around the time when Morales resigned after an election marred by irregularities.

Morales, who had ruled for 14 years, left Bolivia after resigning and could face sedition and other charges if he returns. He was Bolivia’s first Indigenous president and remains a powerful influence in the country. His party, the Movement Toward Socialism, controls congress.

Bolivia has reported nearly 4,000 deaths from Covid-19, though the real number is believed to be much higher.

Last month, police in major cities said they had recovered the bodies of hundreds of suspected victims of the coronavirus from homes, vehicles and, in some instances, the streets. Hospitals filled up with patients, and funeral homes were besieged by grieving relatives looking to bury their dead.

The UK government said 41,347 people have died across the country within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, as of Thursday. That is a rise of 18 from the day before.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 56,800 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

The government said:

We have not received the latest data for cases and tests in England. We will update today’s records as soon as they become available.

Wednesday’s figures showed a total of 313,798 people had tested positive for Covid-19, a rise of 1,009 on the previous day.

French health authorities warned Thursday that new coronavirus cases were rising fastest among younger people, as the number of confirmed infections per day continued to tick up, AFP reports.

In mainland France, the pace of growth in cases in the week of 3-9 August was fastest among people aged 15-44, the health ministry’s DGS public health arm said, calling it a “troubling situation”.

In total 2,669 tests had come back positive in the past 24 hours, it added, pointing to “regular growth” in daily new cases.

The figure was higher than Wednesday’s 2,524, which itself had been the highest since May.

Among the new infections were 50 gendarmes based in Tarbes, southwest France, out of a group of 82 who had just returned from a deployment in Polynesia, the prefecture in the Hautes-Pyrenees department said.

Richard Peabody, an epidemiologist leading the High Threat Pathogens Team at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, warned that laxer respect for infection control measures was leading to increased case numbers across the continent.

“If you take… the pressure off the virus, then it will come back,” he said, calling on European governments to be mindful of the lessons learnt in the first months of the pandemic.

So far almost 30,400 people have died of coronavirus in France – 17 in the past 24 hours – and 374 are presently in intensive care.

Mexico’s energy minister, Norma Rocío Nahle García, said on Thursday she placed herself in isolation due to a Covid-19 infection, although she was not suffering symptoms of the virus.

“As soon as the viral load goes away, I will return to my normal activities,” she wrote on Twitter.

Coronavirus is making it more difficult for indigenous Wayuu people in Colombia to survive and putting children at risk of malnutrition, advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.

Even before coronavirus, food insecurity and malnutrition plagued Wayuu communities, exacerbated by mismanagement and corruption, migration from neighbouring Venezuela and climate change, HRW said.

But limited state support afforded the Wayuu amid the pandemic creates a particularly dangerous situation, HRW’s Americas director, José Miguel Vivanco, said in a virtual media conference.

“This crisis is fundamentally due to state abandonment which has led to very limited access to drinking water, food, and basic health services,” Vivanco said.

A government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Travel restrictions to contain the spread of Covid-19 have severely limited the Wayuu’s access to food, HRW said in the report with the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.

The majority of the 270,000 Wayuu live in Colombia’s impoverished and arid La Guajira province in the north of the country.

Colombia has reported more than 420,500 cases of coronavirus and just under 14,000 deaths. La Guajira has reported over 3,000 cases, with some 100 Wayuu infected.

The country’s president, Ivan Duque, declared an ongoing national lockdown in late March that is due to lift at the end of August.

La Guajira has 7% of Colombia’s population but accounts for a fifth of malnutrition deaths in children under 5. Of those, more than 75% are from indigenous communities, HRW added, citing government data.

Previous government initiatives to address malnutrition have been beset by shortcomings, the report found. School meals have at times been scant or spoiled and treatment for malnutrition hard to access.

Here is some more detail as France reported more than 2,500 new Covid-19 infections for the second day in a row, levels last seen in mid-April when the country was in the middle of one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.

Despite the rise in cases, which could prompt the UK to remove France from its list of safe travel destinations, the number of people hospitalised due to the disease continued to fall, having dipped below 5,000 for the first time since mid-March on Wednesday.

Experts say this is because more young people are being infected, who are less likely to need hospital care.

The total official tally of cases now stands at 209,365.

The seven-day moving average of new infections, which smooths out reporting irregularities, increased to 1,962, a total that has doubled over the last two weeks to levels not seen since the end of April.

Meanwhile, the daily average since the beginning of the month has reached 1,650, approaching March’s 1,678, when the disease started to overwhelm the healthcare system and prompted the government to impose lockdown on 17 March.

The daily death toll increased by 17 to 30,388 on Thursday, lifting the seven-day average to 11 versus 10 on 1 August.

But fatalities remain low in comparison with the April’s average daily death toll of 695.

Italy has imposed mandatory coronavirus testing for all travellers arriving from Croatia, Greece, Malta and Spain, and banned all visitors from Colombia, in a bid to rein in new infections.

“We must continue to be cautious in order to protect the results obtained thanks to sacrifices made by all in recent months,” the health minister, Roberto Speranza, said late on Wednesday after issuing the new rules, which will last until 7 September.

Health authorities worry in particular that Italians returning from vacations abroad may be bringing home the virus and passing it on when people are crowding outdoors, on beaches, at festivals or parties during the summer.

A weekly report issued on Thursday by the health ministry and the top health agency, the Instituto Superiore di Sanità, said Italy was in a transitional phase “with a progressive worsening trend”.

Recent infections from early August showed “important warning signs for a possible increase in transmission” of the virus”, it said.

Under the new rules, travellers arriving at an airport, port or border crossing can choose from a number of options, including rapid tests on the spot, or the presentation of a certificate obtained within the last 72 hours which shows they are Covid-19 free.

They can also choose to carry out a test within two days of entering Italy, but will have to stay in isolation until the results arrive.

Anyone found to be positive, including asymptomatic cases, must report to the local health authorities.

More than 251,000 people have been infected by coronavirus and more than 35,000 have died in Italy, once of the worst affected countries in Europe. More than 13,000 people are currently known to be infected.

If you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the latest coronavirus-related developments from the past few hours:

• Global coronavirus deaths top 750,000. The coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 750,000 people worldwide, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Almost half of the deaths reported worldwide were in the four worst hit countries: the United States (166,118), Brazil (104,201), Mexico (54,666) and India (47,033).
• France reports new post-lockdown peak in daily Covid-19 cases. The French health ministry reported 2,669 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, setting a new post-lockdown daily high for the second day in a row and taking the country’s cumulative total of cases to 209,365.
• WHO downplays danger of coronavirus latching on to food packaging. The World Health Organization urged people not to be afraid of the virus entering the food chain, after two cities in China said they had found traces of the coronavirus in imported frozen food and on food packaging.
• Netherlands and Malta set to be added to England’s quarantine list. The two countries are set to be removed from England’s travel-corridor list but ministers are still mulling over a decision on France, the Guardian has learned.
• UK will be “ruthless” over quarantine, Johnson says. The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, said his government was prepared to be ruthless with even its closest partners over Covid-19 quarantine rules, after he was asked whether France would be removed from the government’s safe-travel list.
• Germany admits delay in thousands of virus test results. The Bavarian premier, Markus Söder, has been forced to apologise over an embarrassing delay to thousands of coronavirus test results, just as Germany is seeing a new surge in virus cases.
  
• Spain’s daily infections spike to 2,935 but officials insist rise is not second wave. Spain reported 2,935 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, the highest number since the country’s lockdown ended and up from 1,690 recorded the previous day, although officials argued the situation remained manageable.
• Exposure to air pollution may increase risk of Covid death, major study says. Long-term exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of death from Covid-19, according to a large study by the Office for National Statistics.
• Air passenger numbers to drop 60% in Europe in 2020: IATA. Air passenger numbers in Europe are expected to drop by 60% in 2020 due to the coronavirus crisis, the global aviation industry has said, with the recovery looking highly uncertain.
• Iraq reports record daily Covid-19 cases. Iraq’s health ministry has reported 3,841 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, a record since the first infection was registered in February.
• US progress towards black equality seen unravelling in pandemic. Black people in the US were making slight progress towards equality, but even that is being undone by the economic and social impacts of the coronavirus, according to an index of American equality released on Thursday.
• Workplaces top source of virus clusters in France. Workplaces are the main source of clusters of coronavirus infection in France, and companies should have staff work from home as much as possible after the August holidays, one of France’s top coronavirus experts has said.
• Germany reports highest daily cases since start of May in “unsettling” trend. Germany has reported 1,445 new coronavirus infections in 24 hours, the highest level since 1 May, according to the Robert Koch Institute, which said the “trend is unsettling”.
• Spanish regions impose smoking ban to curb virus spread. A ban on smoking on streets and restaurant terraces when social distancing cannot be guaranteed has been introduced in Spain’s Galicia region, and will come into force on the Canary Islands tomorrow.
• England launches trial of revamped contact-tracing app. Britain’s health ministry has launched its delayed contact tracing app for England with fresh trials after technical issues prompted a rethink of its approach and a change of system.
• Trans-Tasman travel bubble ‘on pause’ amid new Covid outbreaks across Pacific. A Trans-Tasman bubble allowing travel between Australia and New Zealand is “on pause” after new Covid-19 outbreaks, and may be delayed until after NZ’s general election, possibly until next year.