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Wales 'firebreak' lockdown begins – as it happened

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Shop owner pulls the shutters down on the Wales souvenir shop in Cardiff before Wales entered a two-week lockdown.
A shop owner pulls the shutters down on the Wales souvenir shop in Cardiff before the two-week lockdown begins. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
A shop owner pulls the shutters down on the Wales souvenir shop in Cardiff before the two-week lockdown begins. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

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Here’s what we learned on Friday:

  • The EU’s disease control agency joined health workers across Europe in sounding the alarm about the surge in coronavirus infections as the World Health Organization warned of an “exponential” rise in cases. Several countries in Europe are reporting infection rates higher than during the first wave of the pandemic in March and April, with Spain saying it has now more than 3 million cases.
  • Denmark is lowering the limit on public gatherings to 10 people from 50 and banning the sale of alcohol after 10pm to curb the spread of coronavirus, prime minister Mette Frederiksen said.
  • AstraZeneca has resumed the US trial of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine after approval by US regulators, the company said. It was paused on 6 September after a report of a serious neurological illness, believed to be transverse myelitis, in a participant in the company’s UK trial.
  • Dr Anthony Fauci, the US infectious disease expert, said the White House coronavirus task force’s meetings have become less frequent, even as infections rise in dozens of US states.
  • Covid-19 was the main cause of death for 543 people in Moscow in September, up 21% from August, the Russian capital’s healthcare department said, as the spread of the coronavirus widened.
  • Iran is planning new restrictions, including state employees working every other day in the capital Tehran, after a record surge in coronavirus cases on Friday, a senior official said. Iran’s health ministry reported 6,134 new cases for the previous 24 hours, bringing the national tally to 556,891 in the Middle East’s hardest-hit country.
  • Turkey will evaluate possible new measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus as the outbreak flares nationwide, president Tayyip Erdoğan said.
  • France’s second wave of coronavirus could be worse than the first, the boss of Paris public hospital group AP-HP said on Friday as the country registered a record number of daily cases. With pressure on hospitals rising fast, France has expanded a 9pm to 6am curfew to cover 46 million people, more than two-thirds of its population.
  • Italy registered 19,143 new coronavirus infections, a jump of more than 3,000 within the last 24 hours. The northern Lombardy region, the worst hit region during the first wave of the pandemic, recorded almost 5,000 new cases while in Campania, in the south, there were 2,280.
  • More than half a million people in the US could die from Covid-19 by the end of February next year, but about 130,000 of those lives could be saved if everybody were to wear masks, according to estimates from a modelling study.
  • In Portugal, face masks will have to be worn in crowded outdoor areas, the country’s parliament decided on Friday, to contain the surge in coronavirus cases. The measure will be in place for at least 70 days and covers all residents aged 10 and over, who must wear masks outside when they cannot keep a physical distance from people.
  • Brazil recorded 30,026 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours and 571 deaths, the Health Ministry said on Friday.Brazil has registered more than 5.3 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 156,471.
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Brazil’s health regulator has authorised the import from China of a potential vaccine against the coronavirus, just days after president Jair Bolsonaro insisted he wouldn’t allow doses to be shipped from the Asian nation, AP reports.

The health regulator, Anvisa, said in a statement Friday that Sao Paulo state’s Butantan Institute can import 6 million doses of the CoronaVac shot that Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac is developing. The potential vaccine cannot be administered to Brazilians as it isn’t yet approved locally, the statement said.

Earlier this week, Bolsonaro sparked confusion when he publicly rejected the CoronaVac shot, saying Brazilians would not be used as guinea pigs. The declaration followed news that his health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, had agreed to purchase CoronaVac doses produced locally by the Butantan Institute.

On Wednesday, the executive secretary of Brazil’s Health Ministry said in a televised statement that there had been a misunderstanding.

“There is no intention to buy vaccines from China,” said Antonio Elcio Franco, who added there will be only “a Brazilian vaccine” made at the Butantan Institute.
Brazil’s presidential palace didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Anvisa’s authorisation of imported vials.

Victoria reports seven new Covid-19 cases

The Australian state of Victoria has reported seven new cases of Covid-19 overnight.

Despite a slightly higher case number, the rolling 14-day average for metro Melbourne is now five cases.

The number of mystery cases over the past 14 days is still at 10.

We know already four of the seven new cases were linked to the northern Melbourne outbreak.

Yesterday there were 7 new cases & no loss of life reported. The 14 day rolling average is down in Melb & regional Vic, and cases with unknown source stable. There is more info here and also later today https://t.co/pcll7ySEgz #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/DlWYER6e9K

— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) October 23, 2020
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The president of the United Nations General Assembly has expressed concern that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio rejected a meeting with him to discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the work of the 193-member world organization, AP reports.

Volker Bozkir said in a statement that the United Nations “has been proud to call the city its home since the middle of the last century” and is “happy to generate billions of dollars in economic benefits and tens of thousands of jobs in New York City.” But the Turkish politician said he was disappointed at the mayor’s refusal to meet him.
Bozkir said: “This lack of interaction concerns me.”

His spokesman, Brenden Varma, told reporters that Bozkir reached out about two weeks ago to ask for an appointment with the mayor. But the assembly president received a response a few days ago declining the request, he said.

Penny Abeywardena, New York City’s commissioner for international affairs, responded to the assembly president’s statement without mentioning the mayor’s decision not to meet Bozkir.

She pointed to de Blasio’s “excellent relationship” with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and “deeply collaborative relationship with Mr Bozkir’s predecessors,” and said the city looks forward “to continuing our partnership with the United Nations.”

European leaders have begun to increase the restrictions across Europe as the cases continue to rise.

Coronavirus: European leaders tighten measures as WHO warns of pandemic juncture – video report

Health experts fear that the planned global eradication of potentially fatal polio has been delayed by Covid-19, and a resurgence of the condition could be felt in Australia, AAP reports.

The coronavirus pandemic has diverted polio resources in more than 55 countries, including Asia Pacific nations and Papua New Guinea, where the virus briefly reappeared in 2018 after almost two decades.

The World Health Organisation-backed global polio eradication initiative, estimated to have saved 1.5 million lives and prevented life-long paralysis for 16 million others, was suspended in March and didn’t resume until July.

The Australian director of poverty-tackling group Global Citizen, Sarah Meredith, said the four-month vaccination pause was a setback with the world on the brink of wiping out the infectious disease which attacks the central nervous system.

“We’re racing against time at the moment to try and reach every last child,” she said.

Global polio cases have fallen by 99.9% since 1988, from about 350,000 to 176 last year.

The last vestiges of wild polio virus are circulating in Afghanistan and Pakistan where 129 cases have been detected to date this year – up from 88 at the same time in 2019.

“We are so close to eradicating this disease,” Meredith said.

“The biggest challenge has been getting to the heart of parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan to get the vaccine out there.”

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Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission said on Friday that a number of migrants are being held at some government facilities without proper sanitary measures, with migrants with Covid-19 mixed in with some without symptoms, AP reports.

The governmental commission said one facility in southern Chiapas state lacked enough face masks and hand gel, and said social distancing measures are not being followed.

It said some Central Americans are being held at another improvised facility that doesn’t have electrical service or running water.

There, 19 Hondurans who tested positive for coronavirus were being held in late October along with others, including women and children, who didn’t have symptoms.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute did not immediately respond to the allegations.

Central American migrants are frequently detained in Mexico when they try to reach the US border.

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Preston cluster worsens in Victoria

Josh Taylor
Josh Taylor

In the Australian state of Victoria, all eyes are on a growing cluster in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services flagged that there would be an additional four cases reported on Saturday in the suburb of Preston, including one student at the East Preston Islamic College.

It will take the total number of cases in the cluster to 32. There are a little over 100 active cases in the entire state, as lockdown restrictions are expected to be eased following announcements from the premier, Daniel Andrews, on Sunday.

Although restrictions are soon to be eased, hundreds of people turned out for an anti-lockdown protest at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne on Friday.

Police said 16 people were arrested and 96 fines were issued including for not wearing a mask, breaching public gathering directions, travelling more than 25km from home, assaulting police, and failing to state name and address when asked.

Police said three officers were injured, with one taken to hospital as a precaution. Several horses were hit in the face by a flagpole, but weren’t injured.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said on Friday that all states bar Western Australia had agreed to a timetable for reopening by Christmas, including the internal borders that prevent Victorians travelling to other states.

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Brazil surpasses 156,000 deaths

Brazil recorded 30,026 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours and 571 deaths, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

Brazil has registered more than 5.3 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 156,471.

More from US presidential candidate Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

Joe Biden: I'm going to 'shut down the virus', not the US – video

A slight change of tone from the president for one night doesn’t cover up the lies he told. It doesn’t change the fact that over 220,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 on his watch.

We can’t take another four years of Donald Trump’s failed leadership.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 23, 2020
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Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa said in a statement that it authorised Sao Paulo’s Butantan Institute biomedical centre to import 6m doses of a coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by China’s Sinovac.

The vaccine, known as CoronaVac, is still in phase 3 clinical trials in Brazil and has not been registered for wider use in Brazil, Anvisa said.

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US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has attacked President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden, 77, spoke from his home city of Wilmington, Delaware ahead of a campaign trip by Trump, 74, to the battleground state of Florida with just 11 days left in the campaign.

While election day is scheduled for November 3, more than 52 million Americans have already voted, a record-setting pace that points to a record turnout, according to the University of Florida’s Elections Project.

Biden said: “He’s quit on America. He just wants us to grow numb.”

He said if he wins the election, he will ask Congress to pass comprehensive Covid-19 response legislation and send it to him to sign into law within his first 10 days in office.

“I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m going to shut down the virus,” he said.

Joe Biden: I'm going to 'shut down the virus', not the US – video
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The mayor of Mexico City, the country’s largest city, called on residents to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people as the capital grapples with a surge of coronavirus hospital admissions.

Health authorities have been warning that large gatherings, such as the 1-2 November Day of the Dead festivities that usually draw hundreds of thousands of people nationwide, could prompt another wave of infections.

The pandemic has led to more than 874,000 infections and killed nearly 87,900 people in Mexico.

Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that from 10 to 19 October, total coronavirus hospitalisations in the capital rose to 2,775 from 2,565, still far below the peak of 4,575 patients in hospital in late May.

She added that six out of 10 beds hospital beds are still available for Covid-19 patients.

Mexico City will remain at the second-most restrictive level on a four-level scale of health measures but cemeteries that typically host Day of the Dead celebrations will be closed for the holiday, Sheinbaum said.

“We’re not at the level to return to ‘red,’” Sheinbaum told reporters, referring to the strictest level of containment measures. “But we’re also not in a situation to open new activities.”

She recommended that gatherings be limited to no more than 10 people after large weddings, baptisms and other celebrations in which proper health measures were not observed led to the spread of the virus.

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Large wildfires may be linked to increases in Covid-19 cases and deaths in the San Francisco area, according to a paper in the European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences.

Researchers found that between March and September, increases in smoke particles, other wildfire pollutants and carbon monoxide levels corresponded to increases in daily virus diagnoses and total deaths.

While correlation does not necessarily mean causality, co-author Sultan Ayoub Meo, of King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, said air pollution provides a means for viruses to move around the environment.

These tiny pollution particles, along with the micro-organisms they carry “can easily be inhaled deep into the lungs and cause infections”, Meo said.

“Carbon monoxide is a highly toxic gas which can damage our lungs, resulting as a triggering factor for an increase in Covid-19 cases and deaths in the wildfire region,” he told Reuters.

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Democratic presidential nominee and former vice-president Joe Biden picks up his mask after dropping it at the end of his speech on Covid-19 at the Queen theater on 23 October in Wilmington, Delaware. Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
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A summary of today's developments

  • The EU’s disease control agency joined health workers across Europe in sounding the alarm about the surge in coronavirus infections as the World Health Organization warned of an “exponential” rise in cases. Several countries in Europe are reporting infection rates higher than during the first wave of the pandemic in March and April, with Spain saying it has now more than 3 million cases.
  • Denmark is lowering the limit on public gatherings to 10 people from 50 and banning the sale of alcohol after 10pm to curb the spread of coronavirus, prime minister Mette Frederiksen said.
  • AstraZeneca has resumed the US trial of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine after approval by US regulators, the company said. It was paused on 6 September after a report of a serious neurological illness, believed to be transverse myelitis, in a participant in the company’s UK trial.
  • Dr Anthony Fauci, the US infectious disease expert, said the White House coronavirus task force’s meetings have become less frequent, even as infections rise in dozens of US states.
  • Covid-19 was the main cause of death for 543 people in Moscow in September, up 21% from August, the Russian capital’s healthcare department said, as the spread of the coronavirus widened.
  • Iran is planning new restrictions, including state employees working every other day in the capital Tehran, after a record surge in coronavirus cases on Friday, a senior official said. Iran’s health ministry reported 6,134 new cases for the previous 24 hours, bringing the national tally to 556,891 in the Middle East’s hardest-hit country.
  • Turkey will evaluate possible new measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus as the outbreak flares nationwide, president Tayyip Erdoğan said.
  • France’s second wave of coronavirus could be worse than the first, the boss of Paris public hospital group AP-HP said on Friday as the country registered a record number of daily cases. With pressure on hospitals rising fast, France has expanded a 9pm to 6am curfew to cover 46 million people, more than two-thirds of its population.
  • Italy registered 19,143 new coronavirus infections, a jump of more than 3,000 within the last 24 hours. The northern Lombardy region, the worst hit region during the first wave of the pandemic, recorded almost 5,000 new cases while in Campania, in the south, there were 2,280.
  • More than half a million people in the US could die from Covid-19 by the end of February next year, but about 130,000 of those lives could be saved if everybody were to wear masks, according to estimates from a modelling study.
  • In Portugal, face masks will have to be worn in crowded outdoor areas, the country’s parliament decided on Friday, to contain the surge in coronavirus cases. The measure will be in place for at least 70 days and covers all residents aged 10 and over, who must wear masks outside when they cannot keep a physical distance from people.
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Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine trial will resume very soon after investigators concluded a participant’s illness was unrelated to the vaccine, the Washington Post reported.

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