Coronavirus - latest global news - discuss Irish news the other thread

THE UNITED STATES and South Africa have reported record daily coronavirus cases, with US figures surpassing 50,000 a day for the first time.
The US has recorded 50,700 new cases, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, as many states struggle to contain the spread of the pandemic, blamed in part on Americans not wearing masks or following social distancing rules.
Surging numbers in California have prompted governor Gavin Newsom to announce just ahead of the 4 July weekend that he is closing bars, cinemas and indoor restaurant dining over most of the state.

The US has now reported nearly 2.7 million cases and more than 128,000 deaths.

 
Yesterday the UK revised its total cases down by 30,000.

“To ensure consistent reporting across all pillars we have paused reporting the number of people tested due to an issue with the data for pillar 2.

We have updated the methodology of reporting positive cases, to remove duplicates within and across pillars 1 and 2, to ensure that a person who tests positive is only counted once. Methodologies between nations differ and we will be making future revisions to align approaches as much as possible across the 4 nations.

Due to this change, and a revision of historical data in pillar 1, the cumulative total for positive cases is 30,302 lower than if you added the daily figure to yesterday’s total. We will revise the methodology note explaining this in more detail in due course.”

Meanwhile, yesterday, the US hit another daily new case high of more than 57,000 cases.
 
Catalonia imposes regional lockdown on 200,000 people following surge in Covid-19 cases...
Catalonia’s regional president Quim Torra told reporters there had been a “sharp rise” in infections in Segria, a zone that includes the town of Lerida some 150 kilometres west of Barcelona. Nobody would be allowed to enter or leave the area, gatherings of more than 10 people would be banned and visits to retirement homes halted, officials said.

 
Melbourne goes back under lockdown after worrying spike in virus cases... Australia will also effectively seal off the wider state of Victoria from the rest of the country... Home to more than 6.6 million people, Victoria announced a record 127 new cases Monday as the virus spread through Melbourne — including a cluster in several densely populated apartment blocks... State Premier Daniel Andrews said the lockdown would begin at midnight and last at least six weeks as he warned residents “we can’t pretend” the coronavirus crisis is over.
 
USA:
Florida in the United States has reported 15,300 new cases of Covid-19 today, following on from the country hitting a new all-time record of 66,528 daily cases yesterday. The Florida Department of Health today reported over 140,000 Covid-19 test results, 11.25% of which were positive.
Yesterday, the United States hit a new record high number of 66,528 cases reported in a 24-hour period, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The country has recorded a total of 3,242,073 infections, the university said in its latest data as of 8.30pm yesterday (1.30am Irish time).
The death toll stood at 134,729. The US has seen daily new cases top 60,000 in four of the past five days up to Saturday.
President Donald Trump also yesterday donned a face mask in public for the first time, yielding to criticism to set a public health example.
 
Hungary imposes tough new quarantine measures:
Hungarian authorities said today that they would put countries in three categories – red, yellow and green – based on their rate of new coronavirus infections. Restrictions including entry bans and mandatory quarantines will be imposed, depending from which country people were coming from.
“We see worrisome signs about an increase in the number of cases in the neighbouring countries, Europe and the whole world,” Gergely Gulyas, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, said.
Foreigners from countries in the red category – those with a high rate of infections, including Albania, Ukraine, Belarus and practically all of Asia, Africa and South and Central America – are banned from entering.
Hungarian citizens arriving from those locations will have to stay quarantined for two weeks or until they test negative twice, 48 hours apart.
Both Hungarians and foreigners arriving from countries in the yellow category – which includes, among others, Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania and Sweden, as well as the UK, Russia, Serbia, Japan, China and the United States — will have to quarantine for two weeks.
They will be allowed out if they test negative for the virus: once for Hungarians, or two negative tests 48 hours apart in the case of foreigners.
 
Spain:
RESIDENTS OF SPAIN’S second city Barcelona have been urged to stay at home unless absolutely necessary after a rise in coronavirus cases, the Catalan government has said. The regional government also ordered the closure of cinemas, theatres and nightclubs and banned gatherings of more than 10 people in the coastal city, spokeswoman Meritxell Budo told a press conference. Almost four million people are affected by the move in one of Europe’s most visited cities, where restaurants will have to limit capacity to one-half the usual amount...
Catalonia and the neighbouring Aragon region, where coronavirus cases have also spiked, are now of most concern to the Spanish authorities, as they watch more than 150 clusters of the virus across the country. West of Barcelona, 160,000 people in Lerida and surrounding towns were placed under lockdown on Wednesday following a standoff between the regional government and judicial authorities. Many Spanish regions have made it mandatory to wear face masks in public, even if people are able to maintain social distancing...
Spain has also ordered the culling of nearly 100,000 mink on a farm in the northeast after confirming many were carrying coronavirus. Speaking to reporters, Joaquin Olona, agriculture minister for the Aragon region, said the cull would involve the slaughter of some 92,700 mink who are prized for their pelt.

 
Brazil:
Brazil's coronavirus death toll has surpassed 80,000, according to health ministry figures, as the country hit second-hardest in the world continued struggling to control the pandemic. The figure, second only to the death toll in the US, has quadrupled in two months. Brazil passed the mark of 20,000 Covid-19 deaths on 21 May. Recently, the Latin American country of 212 million people has regularly registered more than 1,000 new deaths a day - though the figure for Monday was lower, at 632, bringing its overall death toll to 80,120. The country has confirmed 2.1 million total infections.
Experts say under-testing means the real numbers are probably much higher. President Jair Bolsonaro, who is infected himself, faces criticism for downplaying the virus and urging state governors to reopen their economies despite health officials' recommendations.

 
France:
France’s coronavirus infection has rate crept higher as health authorities warn the country is going backwards in its battle against the pandemic.
French health authorities said the closely-watched “R” infection gauge is now up to 1.3, suggesting that infected people are contaminating 1.3 other people on average.
France’s daily new infections are also rising – up to 1,130 on Friday.
Covid-19 has already killed at least 30,195 people in the country and infection indicators now resemble those seen in May, when France was coming out of its strict two-month lockdown.
“We have thus erased much of the progress that we’d achieved in the first weeks of lockdown-easing,” health authorities said, adding that the French appear to be letting down their guard during their summer holidays, with those testing positive making less of an effort to self-isolate.

Spain:
In Spain, Catalonia became the latest region to crack down on nightlife, trying to halt new infection clusters.
The wealthy north-east region – home to Barcelona – ordered all nightclubs to close for 15 days and put a midnight curfew on bars in the greater Barcelona area and other towns around Lleida that have become contagion hot zones.
Spain has reported more than 900 new daily infections for the last two days as authorities warn that the country that lost 28,000 lives before getting its outbreak under control could be facing the start of a second major outbreak.

India:
India, which has the world’s third-highest infections behind the United States and Brazil, reported its death toll rose by 740 to 30,601. It saw a surge of more than 49,000 new cases, raising its total to over 1.2 million. The home ministry issued an advisory calling for Independence Day celebrations on August 15 to avoid large gatherings.

South Africa:
South Africa, Africa’s hardest-hit country, reported more than 13,000 new cases, raising its total to more than 408,000. The death toll stands at 6,343.
 
Northern Ireland:
  • The province has now gone over two weeks without a Covid-19 death.
  • NI’s Department of Health has said that no new deaths from the Coronavirus have been recorded today, with the total number of fatalities remaining at 556
  • That figure has remained static since 12 July, with the department saying there are currently two Covid-19 patients in ICU.
  • Four people have tested positive for Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, with 56 positive tests over the past seven days. There have been a total number of 4,918 cases in Northern Ireland.
 
Belgium:
Antwerp has announced a nighttime curfew as the country toughened social-distancing and mask wearing rules to stem a flare-up in coronavirus cases. In the city, a major business hub and sea port, bars and restaurants will close at 11pm and citizens will be obliged to get home by 11.30pm and to stay there until 6am. Everyone over 12 years old will have to wear a face mask in public places and crowded areas, contact and adult team sports will be banned and teleworking will be compulsory for anyone whose employment allows it... Belgian health officials said there had been a rapid rise in coronavirus cases, with 1,952 new infections over the past week, up more than 70% on the previous week.
 
Australia:
  • Australia reported a record number of new coronavirus infections and its deadliest day of the epidemic so far following a spike in cases at elderly-care homes today.
  • The news comes days after authorities expressed hope that a Melbourne lockdown – now in its third week – was bringing persistent outbreaks under control.
  • Thirteen deaths and 723 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were recorded in Victoria State alone, well beyond the previous nationwide high of 549 cases set on Monday. Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews indicated the leap was partly linked to a surge in cases at elderly-care homes. Most of those who died were aged in their 70s-90s.
 
UK:
  • Stricter lockdown measures, announced on Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s Twitter at around 9pm and later posted online, mean households in north England are not able to mix with other households after a spike in virus cases.
  • Households in Greater Manchester, parts of east Lancashire and West Yorkshire have been banned from meeting each other inside their homes or in gardens.
  • The household mixing restrictions will also apply in Leicester, which has seen the first so-called local lockdown since June, but other measures in the city will be eased. From Monday restaurants, cafes, bars and hairdressers can reopen – but leisure centres, gyms and pools will remain closed.
  • On Saturday, Luton will be brought in line with the rest of the country after “significant progress”, the British government said.
  • The new rules also ban members of two different households from mixing in pubs, restaurants and other hospitality venues, but these businesses will remain open for those visiting individually or from the same household.
 
re UK, I know the local lockdowns in Manchester have been dominating the news however when I check the "rolling 14 day average per 100.000" statistic for UK it is surprisingly low only 12.9 and this is at the low end of the scale for Europe. For example Ireland has 6.7 (and we are top of the class nearly), Austria 19.7, Poland 15.7, Belgium 35.8, Denmark 10.8. France 19
Is there a danger we are sensationalising everything especially with regard to UK, maybe they have decided to do local lockdowns quickly now and try to crush it quickly. Maybe Johnson is now copying Leo Varadker
 
Ireland's incidence of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days is now higher than in the UK, according to figures released by the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC). Ireland's rate stands at 16.9 cases while the UK's rate stands at 16.5. The increase reflects the spike in cases over the past week. Ireland used the ECDC figures as a basis for its selection of which countries went on its travel Green List.
 
New Zealand:
New Zealand announced its first locally transmitted coronavirus infections in 102 days today, prompting the country’s prime minister to issue a stay-at-home lockdown order for the country’s largest city.
Jacinda Ardern said four cases had been detected in a single family in Auckland from an unknown source.
“After 102 days, we have our first cases of Covid-19 outside of managed isolation or quarantine facilities… While we have all worked incredibly hard to prevent this scenario, we have also planned and prepared for it,” she said
 
Just shows how difficult the new zealand strategy of tackling corona virus actually is, 1 case and they need to lockdown entire city again. The question is how does new zealand actually open up properly?, it's not a sustainable strategy for Europe and even for Ireland . There are a lot of proponents of new zealand strategy in the medical profession here however doctors inhabit the medical bubble, they are experts at medicine but not of human nature and complex modern economies
 
New Zealand officials are investigating the possibility that its first Covid-19 cases in more than three months were imported by freight, as the country's biggest city plunged back into lockdown...
Investigations were focusing on the possibility the virus was imported by freight.
Mr Bloomfield said surface testing was underway at an Auckland cool store where a man from the infected family handled frozen food.
"We know the virus can survive within refrigerated environments for quite some time," he told a televised media conference...
China has reported several instances of the coronavirus being detected on the packaging of imported frozen seafood in recent weeks.
The World Health Organization website states there is currently no confirmed case of Covid-19 transmitted through food or food packaging.
However, it also notes that studies have shown that the virus can survive for up to 72 hours on plastic.
 
UK:
Some 3.4 million people in England have been infected with Covid-19, a figure far higher than previous estimates, a study suggests.
The results come from the world’s largest home testing programme to find antibodies for the coronavirus, a study involving more than 100,000 volunteers and carried out by Imperial College London. Conducted with the use of a simple finger-prick home test said to be easy and accurate enough for mass surveillance studies, the programme suggested 6% of England’s population had already been infected with Covid-19 by 13 July...
The programme suggested a total of 13% of people living in London had Covid-19 antibodies, compared with less than 3% in the South West of England.
 
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