Coronavirus live news: UK daily infections pass 1,000 as Greece posts highest single rise

Belarus police fired stun grenades and began detentions in a crackdown on protests that erupted as president Alexander Lukashenko was set to claim another election win on Sunday in the face of the biggest challenge in years to his grip on power.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Minsk while protesters clapped, shouted “victory” and honked their car horns in solidarity with the opposition.

Police blocked off streets and at least 10 people were detained in one spot in Minsk, a Reuters witness said, while local media reported detentions and clashes between police and protesters in the capital and other cities.

The internet and social media networks experienced disruption.

The government said in a statement that no protesters had been injured.

A former Soviet collective farm manager, the authoritarian Lukashenko has ruled the country since 1994 but has battled a wave of anger over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy and his human rights record.

State-approved exit polls showed him winning 79.7% of the vote while his main opponent Svetlana Tikhanouskaya, a former English teacher who emerged from obscurity a few weeks ago to lead rallies against him, received 6.8%.

Foreign observers have not judged an election to be free and fair in Belarus since 1995.

Wedded to a Soviet-style economic model, Lukashenko has struggled to raise incomes and living standards in recent years.

He also faced anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which he dismissed as a “psychosis” while suggesting drinking vodka and playing ice hockey as remedies.

Around 850 French passengers who were onboard a coronavirus-riddled cruise ship that was turned away from numerous ports in March have filed a collective suit in Paris with 180 complaints, including manslaughter, against Costa Cruises, their lawyer said on Sunday.

The class action, which includes complaints from the families of three passengers who died of Covid-19, accuses the Italy-based cruise giant of negligence and various faults during their trip on the Costa Magica.

From 6 to 13 March the ship was refused to dock in most of the Caribbean islands it visited, including Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Barbados and Saint Lucia.

In the absence of stopovers, the crew encouraged the passengers to use the ship’s shops, spas, restaurants and casino without sufficiently putting health measures in place, or informing them there were suspected infections onboard, the complainants said in their suit.

The staff members on the ship “were at fault, the passengers had almost no information and only found out from local media that there were cases on the ship,” lawyer Philippe Courtois, who represents the collective of some 850 French passengers, told AFP.

Courtois also criticised the “extremely light” virus measures on the ship.

“It was meant to be a dream cruise, but it ended in an ordeal,” he said.

Costa Cruises, which is part of the Carnival group, has suspended its trips worldwide until 15 August due to the pandemic.

All arrivals coming to Germany from high-risk areas are subject to compulsory coronavirus testing since Saturday, amid a rise in the country’s infections.

On Sunday morning, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 555 new infections, markedly lower than on the previous three days, which saw infections topping 1,000 for three days in a row.

If you have arrived in Germany since Saturday, I am keen to hear about your experience.

If you have updates on the pandemic from any other place in the world, I’d also love to hear from you, you can message me on Twitter @JedySays or email me.

A total of nine students and staff members at a Georgia high school that made national headlines after a photo shared on social media showed its hallways packed with teenagers, many of them not wearing masks, have tested positive for the coronavirus, my colleague Tom Lutz reports.

North Paudling High School principal Gabe Carmona wrote Saturday that six students and three staff members returned positive tests in a letter obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Hannah Watters, a sophomore at the school who was initially suspended for posting the photo to Twitter, has since had her punishment revoked, CNN reported.

Elsewhere in Georgia, the AP reports that school officials in a nearby metro Atlanta county said 12 students and two staff members across a dozen schools tested positive for the virus during their first week back at school. The Cherokee County school system reported that more than 250 students with potential exposure had been sent home to quarantine for two weeks.

As our Ed Pilkington wrote today, Georgia is one of 21 states across the US that have been placed by the White House coronavirus taskforce in the “red zone”, indicating the disease is now so prevalent that immediate restrictions must be imposed to avoid dire consequences.

A large study on the transmission of coronavirus in schools, involving about 20,000 pupils and teachers in 100 institutions across the UK, will confirm that “there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted” there, according to a leading scientist, the Sunday Times reports.

Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of the government advisory group Sage, said: “A new study that has been done in UK schools confirms there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools.

“This is the some of the largest data you will find on schools anywhere. Britain has done very well in terms of thinking of collecting data in schools.”

The study is being carried out by Public Health England and is expected to be published later this year.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday reported 4,974,959 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 54,590 cases from its previous count a day prior, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,064 to 161,284.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as Covid-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4pm ET on 8 August.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

• Britain’s economy will be officially declared in recession this week for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, as the coronavirus outbreak plunges the country into the deepest slump on record. The country recorded more than 1,000 new infections on Sunday, for the first time since late June.

• Greece has recorded 203 new infections in the 24 hours to Sunday, the highest daily rise since the start of the outbreak in the country.

• There have been no new deaths from coronavirus in Wales since Saturday’s tally, meaning the total death toll remains at 1,579. The number of cases increased by 26.

• Ministers have rejected a call from the children’s commissioner for England to bring in routine coronavirus testing in English schools.

Despite international tourism facing its worst crisis since records began, Saudi Arabia has agreed with Europe’s biggest hotel group Accor for the group to expand and operate a resort at the $20 billion Al-Ula tourism project in the kingdom’s northwestern region, the Royal Commission for the project said on Sunday.

Al-Ula, the site of an ancient civilisation in a remote northwestern corner of the country, is part of plans by the world’s top crude exporter to diversify its economy away from oil and open up after decades of seclusion, Reuters reports.

The agreement will see Accor operate an expanded Ashar Resort under the Banyan Tree brand, with 47 new units bringing the resort’s total capacity to 82 high-end villas, along with a spa and several gourmet restaurants, a commission statement said.

The project is located in the Ashar valley, 15 km (9 miles) from the Kingdom’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hegra.

In April, Saudi Arabia’s tourism minister said the sector could see a 35-45% decline this year due to measures taken by the government to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom, relatively closed off for decades, has in recent years relaxed strict social codes such as the segregation of men and women in public and the requirement that women wear all-covering black robes, or abayas.

Al-Ula’s development is part of a push to preserve pre-Islamic heritage sites in order to attract non-Muslim tourists and strengthen national identity.

It plans an official opening to the world as a year-round destination in October 2020.

The kingdom closed its borders to foreign “umrah” pilgrims and to tourists from at least 25 countries in late February.

In March, it barred all travel in and out of the country.

Saudi Arabia has reported 287,262 cases of Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, and 3,130 deaths so far.

Binational couples separated by coronavirus travel and immigration restrictions will soon be granted a ‘laissez-passer’ – a special exemption that allows the partner from the high-risk country to be reunited with their partner in France, the daily Sud Ouest reports.

Since travel restrictions and lockdown rules were introduced in France in March, some couples have been living a long-distance relationship in two different countries.

Secretary of state for tourism and French people Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne announced on Saturday that a derogatory procedure would allow binational couples to meet again.

From Monday, a laissez-passer can therefore be issued in consulates for one of the spouses to join the other in France.

They “must present themselves at the consulate with documents attesting to common activities, their identity documents, proof of residence in France for the French spouse, a return ticket”, Lemoyne said.

Greece has recorded 203 new infections in the 24 hours to Sunday, its highest daily tally since the start of the outbreak in the country, a government official said.

The latest jump in cases brings the total number of infections in the country to 5,623 since its first infection surfaced in late February, Reuters reports.

Britain’s confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 1,062 on Sunday, going over 1,000 for the first time since late June.

As cases rise in the country, new local lockdowns are implemented in some areas and worries over a second wave of infections are rife.

Official data showed Sunday’s reported cases are 304 higher than the 758 new cases reported on Saturday.

In mid-June, the World Health Organization advised that England’s coronavirus lockdown should not be further lifted until the government’s contact-tracing system has proven to be “robust and effective”, after widespread criticism of the first results of the government’s new tracking operation.

Non-essential shops began reopening in England and Northern Ireland in mid-June, and in Wales and Scotland later that month.

Hotels, pubs and restaurants in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland followed suit in July, though customers were only allowed back inside Welsh pubs and cafes in the first week of August.

As confirmed coronavirus cases in the US have hit 5 million on Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the world’s most powerful nation to contain the virus has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe, the Associated Press reports.

Perhaps nowhere outside the US is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe’s epidemic.

The Italian government was unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February, and the country still has one of the world’s highest official death tolls at 35,000.

But after a strict nationwide, 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment.

“Don’t they care about their health?,” Patrizia Antonini, a mask-clad woman asked about people in the United States as she walked with friends along the banks of Lake Bracciano, north of Rome.

“They need to take our precautions. […] They need a real lockdown.”

Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself didnt have when the first Covid-19 patients started filling intensive care units.

Yet, more than four months into a sustained outbreak, the US reached the 5 million mark, according to the running count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Health officials believe the actual number is perhaps 10 times higher, or closer to 50 million, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40% of all those who are infected have no symptoms.

“We Italians always saw America as a model,” said Massimo Franco, a columnist with daily Corriere della Sera.

“But with this virus we’ve discovered a country that is very fragile, with bad infrastructure and a public health system that is nonexistent.”

Italian health minister Roberto Speranza hasn’t shied away from criticizing the US, officially condemning as wrong the decision of the Trump administration to withhold funding from the World Health Organization and expressing amazement at president Donald Trump’s virus response.

After Trump finally donned a mask last month, Speranza told La7 television: “I’m not surprised by Trump’s behavior now; Im profoundly surprised by his behavior before.”