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Americas record worst week since pandemic's start – as it happened

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Wed 25 Nov 2020 18.29 ESTFirst published on Tue 24 Nov 2020 18.54 EST
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Travellers wearing protective face masks and face shields to prevent the spread of the coronavirus at the airport in Denver, Colorado. Photograph: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Travellers wearing protective face masks and face shields to prevent the spread of the coronavirus at the airport in Denver, Colorado. Photograph: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

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All adults should do a minimum of 150 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week, even more vital for well-being and mental health in the Covid-19 era, the World Health Organization said in its first guidance in a decade.

It recommended that children and adolescents have an average of one hour of daily physical exercise and limit time in front of electronic screens.

And people of all ages must compensate for growing sedentary behaviour with physical activity to ward off disease and add years to their lives, the WHO said, launching its “Every Move Counts” campaign.

“These guidelines emphasise what many are experiencing during the Covid restrictions that are applied all over the world. And that is that being active every day is good not only our bodies but also our mental health,” said Fiona Bull, head of WHO’s physical activity unit.

“Phone a friend and do classes online together, help your family members, do it as a family. And when you can, get outside,” she said.

Pregnant women and postpartum mothers are now included in the recommendations of 150 to 300 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity per week for adults.

This brings health benefits for both the mother and baby, according to Juana Willumsen, a WHO technical officer. “For example there is a 30% reduction in gestational diabetes amongst women who are physically active during pregnancy,” she said.

Adults above 65 are advised to add muscle strengthening and activities focusing on balance and coordination to help prevent falls later.

In an eve-of-Thanksgiving address, Joe Biden drew on historic hardships and his deep personal loss to make a passionate appeal for resilience, asking Americans to endure a national holiday amid restrictions on travel and gatherings imposed to fight the pandemic.

More than 12.6m cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in the US and more than 260,000 people have died. Vaccines are imminent but hospitalisations and deaths are surging in the US, straining infrastructure to breaking point as leaders warn of impending disaster.

His speech struck a note of unity. “We need to remember, we’re at war with the virus, not with each other,” Biden said from Wilmington, Delaware, where he is continuing transition work before his inauguration as the 46th president in Washington on 20 January.

Germany will make mask-wearing obligatory in all pedestrian high-traffic areas as well as in city centres, chancellor Angela Merkel has said.

“We are still too far away from an incidence of 50 per 100,000 inhabitants over seven days. I remain convinced [...] we still have to aim for this target,” she said.

Germany likely to extend virus curbs to early January

Germany will extend its current coronavirus restrictions through to early January unless there is a dramatic drop in infections - something that is not expected, chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Speaking after a meeting with the heads of Germany’s 16 states, Merkel said the measures introduced in early November, including limits on private gatherings and the closure of restaurants, leisure and cultural facilities, cannot be lifted given current infection rates.

The curbs will be continued “until 20 December first but we assume that ... due to the very high incidence of infection, restrictions will have to apply until the beginning of January unless we have an unexpected decrease,” Merkel said.

The agreement means continued closures for restaurants, bars, sporting facilities and cultural venues in Europe’s biggest economy, though schools and shops will remain open.

From 1 December, private gatherings will be limited to five people from two households - down from 10 people currently, though children are exempted from the new rule.

Trains will also expand their seating capacity, in order to better ensure distancing between passengers.

Fireworks will be banned on certain public squares to prevent people from gathering in large groups on New Year’s Eve in particular.

Germany will also seek a deal with European partners to close ski slopes through to early January, to prevent the virus spreading further.

“I will say this openly that it won’t be easy, but we will try,” Merkel said.

The measures were agreed after more than seven hours of tense talks, with some less-affected regions calling for lighter restrictions.

The number of new infections in Germany has plateaued over the past two weeks, with October’s exponential growth brought to a halt.

However, health officials have sounded the alarm over rapidly filling intensive care units and an inability to track the source of transmission while rates remain high.

In order to ease restrictions, the infection rate would have to come down to below 50 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants per week, Merkel said - a far cry from the current seven-day incidence of almost 140.

“The steeply rising curve has become a flat one, but this is only a partial success. We can by no means be satisfied with this partial success,” she said.

Germany has registered a total of 961,320 coronavirus cases and 14,771 deaths, according to the Robert Koch Institute disease control centre.

Wednesday saw 18,633 new cases and a record 410 deaths.

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Helena Smith
Helena Smith

In a global push to end violence against women, activists held rallies on Wednesday and world leaders called for action to stop abuse, which has worsened during the coronavirus pandemic.

Protests from France to Ukraine were held on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to draw attention to the millions of women killed or abused every year by their partners and close relatives.

Yet another by-product of Covid-19, domestic violence has risen dramatically this year world wide with calls to emergency services increasing especially during periods of lockdown and social isolation.

Orange was selected by campaigners to denote the day because of its ability to symbolise a brighter future, free of violence.

A number of EU buildings were lit up orange, while the Greek parliament in Athens illuminated with “no to violence” display.

Greece, like so many countries, has reported a steep climb in incidences of women seeking help. In April alone, calls to the SOS hotline reporting domestic violence quadrupled.

Presidential guards walk past a projection on the Greek parliament building in Athens reading “No to violence” for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

The Italian health ministry, citing data from national statistics agency ISTAT, said calls to domestic violence hotlines shot up during the coronavirus lockdown, registering a 75% increase compared to the same period in 2019.

Together with Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte signed a joint declaration vowing to accelerate measures to stamp out violence against women, calling it “an invisible pandemic”.

In Turkey, where at least 234 women have been killed since the start of the year, riot police in Istanbul blocked a small group of demonstrators from marching to the city’s iconic Taksim Square. The government has declared the square off-bounds for demonstrations.

Elsewhere in Istanbul, some 2,000 other women staged a peaceful demonstration calling on president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government to remain committed to a European treaty on combatting violence against women.

Turkish activists mark International Day for Violence Against Women in Istanbul. The banner at the front reads, “Let our voice be heard.” Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

UN agency UNAIDS said “evidence shows that the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in significant increases in gender-based violence in nearly all countries,” especially for women trapped at home with their abuser.

“Men’s violence against women is also a pandemic — one that pre-dates the virus and will outlive it,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of the UN Women agency.

“Last year alone, 243 million women and girls experienced sexual or physical violence from their partner. This year, reports of increased domestic violence, cyberbullying, child marriages, sexual harassment and sexual violence have flooded in,” she said.

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The majority of England will enter the two toughest tiers of Covid restrictions from next week, ministers are set to announce amid signs of a growing parliamentary rebellion and fears that the measures could remain unchanged until spring.

On Thursday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is expected to say that most of the country will be placed into tiers 2 or 3, which include significant restrictions on hospitality, after the national lockdown ends on 2 December.

As ministers grappled with the backlash, a further 696 coronavirus deaths were announced on Wednesday – the highest UK daily total for fatalities since 5 May.

There is widespread expectation among MPs and local leaders that almost no regions will be in tier 1, and the main battle is over avoiding tier 3, under which pubs, restaurants and hospitality businesses can only operate as takeaways, and almost all household mixing is barred.

One key area of dispute is the size of the geographic areas allocated to different tiers. MPs, particularly in north-west and south-east England, who had been fiercely lobbying for regions to be decided in smaller geographical areas, said ministers had “gone quiet” over the course of Wednesday afternoon.

The EU is planning bold measures to boost its access to drugs, from sidestepping patent rights in emergencies to offering incentives for companies to shift production to Europe, according to documents published on Wednesday.

The possible moves are meant to tackle the chronic shortages of medicines that have dogged the bloc for years and have become more serious since the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated trade disruptions and drug export bans.

The European Commission wants faster procedures during crises to produce generic versions of drugs in EU states without the consent of patent holders, an EU document says.

So-called compulsory licensing is allowed under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules in emergencies as a waiver of normal regulations and could be applied during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The Commission sees the need to ensure that effective systems for issuing compulsory licences are in place, to be used as a means of last resort and a safety net, when all other efforts to make IP (intellectual property) available have failed,” the first of Wednesday’s documents said.

Ironically, the proposal is part of an EU action plan on intellectual property that is mostly aimed at strengthening the protection of EU companies’ patents against foreign actors.

“Compulsory licensing is not an effective policy tool to create access and puts at risk any incentive to invest in medical innovation at a time when citizens across Europe, across the world, are looking to the life science community to find the answers to the coronavirus crisis,” EFPIA, the body representing the largest players in the European pharmaceutical industry, said in a statement.

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers and activists had urged the EU to use the WTO waiver to gain access to potential vaccines and drugs against the coronavirus, which have mostly been developed outside the 27-nation bloc.

The EU initially struggled to order large volumes of the antiviral drug remdesivir, which some studies have shown to be effective against Covid-19, because nearly all stocks of the drug produced by Gilead had been ordered by the US.

Though the EU executive has so far refused to invoke the WTO waiver and has struck multibillion-euro deals with drugmakers to secure Covid-19 shots and therapeutics, the pandemic has led to a reconsideration of existing procedures that largely fall under the remit of national governments in the bloc.

Canada has ordered more Covid-19 vaccine doses per capita than any other country - at least 194m and up to 414m doses for its population of 38 million.

With limited manufacturing capacity, six of the vaccines the country has ordered will have to be imported and the first are unlikely to arrive before early 2021, while a candidate from Quebec’s Medicago is likely at least six months from approval.

Canada has announced purchase deals with Moderna, Pfizer, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi SA with GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and Medicago.

In the unlikely event all seven are approved, Canada could buy enough doses to vaccinate the country more than five times over. The vaccines will be distributed free through the provincial health services.

Canadian officials have not given a precise timeline for deliveries, but said they expect to receive a combined six million doses of Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines by the end of March 2021.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau warned Canadians on Tuesday that manufacturers are likely to provide their own countries with vaccines first.

“Countries like the United States, Germany and the UK do have domestic pharmaceutical facilities, which is why they are obviously going to prioritise helping their citizens first,” he said.

Michael Mullette, managing director of Moderna’s Canadian unit, said timing of shipments will depend in part on which countries have approved its vaccine, noting that Canada has been working to speed up the regulatory process.

“Canada is certainly one of the first countries to have an agreement with us, and will be serviced very quickly,” he said. Canada announced a deal with Moderna on 5 August. The EU finalised a supply deal with Moderna on Tuesday.

Health Canada said last week it could approve one or more vaccine early in the first quarter of 2021.

According to preliminary guidance published by the federal government in early November, more vulnerable people will be prioritised for vaccination. They would include those at high risk of severe illness or death from Covid-19, such at the elderly.

Others likely to be in the early waves of inoculations are healthcare workers, people providing essential services such as workers at food processing plants and grocery store staff, and other people whose living or working conditions put them at elevated risk of infection, “and where infection could have disproportionate consequences, including Indigenous communities.”

Jessica Murray
Jessica Murray

Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next few hours - do get in touch if you’d like to share any story tips or personal experiences.

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

Summary

Here’s a summary of the most recent developments:

  • The global tally of cases surpassed 60m, according to researchers at both Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the Reuters news agency. According to the latter, the pace of new infections is accelerating and the United States is reporting its worst numbers of hospitalisations.
  • Authorities in Sicily asked Cuba’s government to send to the region about 60 health operators, including doctors and nurses, as hospitals are struggling with a shortage of medical personnel during the second wave. The request was filed this week to the Italian embassy in Cuba and consists of intensive care specialists, nurses, anaesthetists, resuscitators, virologists and pneumologists, the Italian newspaper la Repubblica reported.
  • The Americas reported more than 1.5m cases in the last seven days; the highest weekly number since the start of the pandemic, the World Health Organization regional branch PAHO said. The rapid surge of infections in the US continued and cases accelerated in countries of North, Central and South America, PAHO said. In Canada, infections were rising particularly among the elderly and indigenous communities.
  • The daily death toll in the US reached 2,157 – one person every 40 seconds. It was the first time since May that deaths had passed 2,000 in 24 hours.
  • Germany reported 410 deaths in 24 hours; its worst such toll since the pandemic began. It came as the chancellor Angela Merkel met with 16 federal state leaders to discuss restrictions for the Christmas and new year holidays.
  • Iran recorded its worst daily caseload, with the health ministry reporting 13,843 new infections. That pushed the national tally to 894,385 in the Middle East’s worst-hit country. The ministry’s spokeswoman, Sima Sadat Lari, told state TV the death toll rose by 469 in 24 hours to 46,207.
  • Test and trace fails to contact 110,000 in English Covid hot spots. The British government’s £22bn test-and-trace system has failed to reach more than 100,000 people exposed to coronavirus in England’s worst-hit areas since the second wave began, official figures show, with four in 10 not asked to self-isolate.
  • Japan has withdrawn the cities of Osaka and Sapporo from its controversial Go To Travel campaign, which was launched in July to help the country’s Covid-hit economy. Pressure has been building on the government to rethink the scheme, which offers generous discounts on travel and accommodation, after experts said it was contributing to the recent rise in coronavirus infections in parts of Japan.
  • French president says lockdown to ease starting this weekend. In France, president Emmanuel Macron announced a three-stage easing of the country’s month-long lockdown, beginning this weekend with the reopening of “non-essential” businesses such as hairdressers and clothes shops, which will have to observe strict distancing rules and close at 9pm.
  • CDC may shorten quarantine period guidelines. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may soon shorten the length of self-quarantine period recommended after potential exposure to the coronavirus, a top official said on Tuesday. Health authorities currently recommend a 14-day quarantine in order to curb transmission of the virus but an official said Tuesday that there is evidence that the period could be shortened if patients are tested for the virus during their quarantine.
  • A senior leader of India’s Congress party died of coronavirus related complications on Wednesday, his family said, a second veteran from the opposition group to fall victim to the virus in recent days, as total cases in the country touched the 9.2m mark. Ahmed Patel, a lawmaker who was party treasurer and was seen as close to the Gandhi family that leads the party, was detected with Covid-19 a month ago and died of multi-organ failure, his family said in a statement.
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France has reported a fresh surge in confirmed Covid-19 cases over the last 24 hours, along with another rise in deaths.

There were a further 16,282 new confirmed cases, up sharply from the 9,155 new cases recorded on Tuesday and 4,452 on Monday, and taking the total number of confirmed cases in France to 2,170,097.

The death toll rose to 50,618 - up by more than 380 from the previous day. There were a total of 29,972 patients in hospital with Covid-19, and 4,148 in intensive care units.

French president Emmanuel Macron, who this week announced a gradual easing of a national lockdown set up to stop the spread of the virus, wants the daily rate of new cases to drop to around 5,000 per day before restrictions are lifted.

On Tuesday, Macron said France will start easing the lockdown this weekend so that by Christmas, shops, theatres and cinemas will reopen and people will be able to spend the holiday with their families.

However, French restaurants and cafes would have to stay shut until 20 January to avoid triggering a third wave.

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Turkey recorded 28,351 new cases in the last 24 hours, the health minister Fahrettin Koca has said. It is the first time since July that Ankara has included asymptomatic cases in the total.

The government had only been reporting symptomatic cases since the summer, which critics said masked the true scale of the outbreak. Data from the Health Ministry showed on Wednesday that 168 people had died in the last 24 hours; the most since the beginning of the outbreak.

Koca said Turkey has signed a contract to buy 50m doses of vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech. They are due to be delivered in the months of December, January and February, he has told a news conference.

Sinovac’s experimental vaccine CoronaVac triggered a quick immune response but the level of antibodies produced was lower than in people who had recovered from the virus, preliminary trial results showed.

CoronaVac and four other experimental vaccines developed in China are in late-stage trials to determine their effectiveness.

Speaking in Ankara after a science council meeting, Koca said Turkey is also in talks with other vaccine developers.

The important thing here for us to start using vaccines which are known to be effective and reliable ... I think the vaccination calendar could start on 11 December.

The US has recorded 165,282 new cases and 1,989 more deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said, taking the totals to 12,498,734 and 259,005, respectively.

Researchers led by the World Health Organization would like to go back to a wholesale food market in Wuhan in China to follow up initial cases that emerged in the city and investigate how the virus probably first spread from bats.

Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert in animal diseases, said that the team would like to re-interview early cases and find infected workers who may have “important information” on where they may have picked up the virus.

“There is nothing to indicate that it would be man-made,” he said, reiterating the view of the WHO and of most scientists. Ben Embarek said:

Before December 2019 we don’t really know what happened, we don’t know how the virus jumped from its most probable natural environment in the bat population over to humans. And it’s that bit of the history that we need to reconstruct.

The WHO has had assurances from China that an international field trip will be arranged as soon as possible, its top emergency expert Mike Ryan has said.

Chinese researchers are carrying out epidemiological studies into early cases and conditions at the Wuhan market while the international team of 10 experts is to carry out phase 2 studies.

The United States and, to a lesser extent, some European delegations have raised questions about the delay and sought a timeline for the international experts’ visit, diplomats say.

Ben Embarek said “it’s not too late” for the probe.

What we would like to do with the international team and counterparts in China is to go back in the Wuhan environment, re-interview in-depth the initial cases, try to find other cases that were not detected at that time and try to see if we can push back the history of the first cases.

Investigations would look into “everything that went in and out of that market at that time and try to find out where these animals and food products came from,” he said.

They would look for commonalities among market workers who got severely ill in December, and whether they were infected in the countryside or a farming environment in southern China or “perhaps even outside China”, he said.

An analysis of the Reuters data showed the rate of new infections picking up globally. It took just 17 days to go from 50m cases to 60m, compared with the 21 days it took to go from 40m to 50m.

About 580,000 cases have been reported each day over the past week and around half of all cases since the start of the pandemic were reported over the past 70 days.

In Europe, 1m new cases were recorded over just five days, for a total of more than 16 million cases, including 365,000 deaths, Reuters reports.

Governments across Europe are struggling to impose restrictions on public life while allowing families to celebrate Christmas without further fuelling outbreaks. While a national lockdown in England is due to end next week, Germany, Spain, and Italy have all announced restrictions over the holiday period, including limits on house guests.

The Latin American region has the highest number of reported deaths in the world, representing about 21% of all global cases and over 31% of all global deaths reported.

Brazil joined the United States and India as the only countries to have recorded more than 6 million infections last week. With almost 170,000 confirmed fatalities, Brazil has the world’s second-highest death toll.

While India remains the second-worst affected country in the world with almost 9.2m cases, it has continued to report a slowdown in new cases in recent weeks. It has reported an average of around 44,000 cases a day over the past week, well down from a peak of just under 97,900 cases in mid-September.

Asia-Pacific countries such as China, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand had shown how rapid, local, and intrusive steps can be effective in extinguishing outbreaks.

Global number of cases passes 60m

The global tally of cases has surpassed 60m, according to researchers at both Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the Reuters news agency.

According to the latter, the pace of new infections is accelerating and the United States is reporting its worst numbers of hospitalisations. Officials there urged Americans to stay home for the imminent Thanksgiving holiday as soaring numbers of patients pushed medical professionals to the brink.

The United States has reported 1m new cases in less than a week, taking its total reported infections to over 12.5m and its death toll to 260,000, according to the Reuters data, which is based on official statements.

JHU, which bases its figures on both official and media sources, said 60,037,735 have been infected since the pandemic began. More than 1.4 million people are reported to have died.

South Africa’s Western Cape province, home to the tourist hub Cape Town, is experiencing a resurgence of Covid-19 infections, its premier Alan Winde has said after new cases jumped 52.1% in the past week.

The Western Cape emerged as Africa’s first regional hotspot towards the end of March when the virus spread via tourists into local communities, following the first confirmed positive case in South Africa earlier that month. Winde said:

The Western Cape government is deeply concerned about the growing number of Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations in the province, which can now be considered as an established resurgence.

Issuing a hotspot alert, Winde said a resurgence occurred when the number of active cases increased week-on-week by more than 20%.

“There is also now established community transmission of the virus again in this province, which means that it is spreading within communities at a faster rate,” he said, adding that since the start of November, hospitalisations across the province have increased by 63%.

As of Wednesday, there were 962 hospitalisations in the province, with 183 patients in intensive care units, Winde said. The total number of infections had reached 126,362.

South Africa has recorded the most infections on the African continent, with more than 760,000 confirmed cases and more than 20,000 deaths.

The country’s lockdown restrictions were eased to their loosest in September after the rate of new cases fell.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the South African government was joining the Covax global vaccine distribution scheme, with a committed purchase for 10% of its population of 58 million people.

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