Global virus infections top 10 million
PARIS, France — Global infections from the novel coronavirus passed 10 million Sunday, an AFP tally showed, as California ordered bars in LA and some other parts of the state to quell a surge in cases there.
One million new infections were recorded in just six days, according to the count based on official sources, even as countries were loosening punishing lockdowns that have devastated their economies and thrown millions out of work.
The worldwide death toll from the disease that first emerged in China six months ago is also nearing 500,000 as fears grow of a full-blown second wave. The rate of contagion has doubled since May 21.
The United States, the hardest-hit country, has more than 2.5 million cases alone, and efforts to reopen the world's economic powerhouse were set back by a jump in new infections in big states such as Florida and California.
President Donald Trump was under growing pressure to set an example by wearing a facemask as his health secretary warned the "window is closing" for the country to gain control of the pandemic.
The disease is also rampaging through Latin America, where Brazil has over 1.3 million cases alone.
Infections are up too in other parts of the world that have reopened, with Europe still registering the biggest caseload at over 2.6 million, although daily rates have stabilised.
'Severe and complicated'
The US state of California was the latest authority to reimpose restrictions, ordering bars in Los Angeles and six other Californian counties closed because the rising number of cases.
The governor had already ordered some areas to reinstate stay-at-home orders, while San Francisco announced a "pause" in its reopening.
In Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis conceded there had been an "explosion" in new cases as the "Sunshine State" notched a record 9,585 cases in 24 hours.
Young people frustrated by months of confinement have poured back to the state's beaches, boardwalks and bars, often without masks and seemingly unconcerned about social distancing.
Miami announced beaches would close over the July 4 holiday weekend and bars are also shutting their doors.
New coronavirus cases have been surging in more than half of US states, reaching record highs.
Several countries have also imposed new restrictions to counter fresh outbreaks.
China imposed a strict lockdown on nearly half a million people in a province surrounding Beijing to contain a fresh cluster.
Beijing official Xu Hejian described the situation as "severe and complicated," saying the city needed to continue tracing the spread of the virus.
Britain's government warned it might have to shut down the central English city of Leicester and its population of 340,000 because of a spike in cases. Media reports said were linked to fresh outbreaks at food production plants.
But the government still plans a July 4 re-opening of pubs, restaurants and hairdressers across England, despite warnings from some medical experts of a second wave in what is Europe's worst-hit country, with more than 43,000 deaths.
'Very serious situation'
The tension between reopening battered economies — efforts pushed in the US by Trump — and public health concerns is a source of debate in nearly every country.
US deaths now exceed 125,000, about a quarter of the world total.
"This is a very, very serious situation and the window is closing for us to take action and get this under control," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on CNN.
The EU has pushed back a decision on a list of "safe countries" from which travellers can visit Europe — a list which could exclude the US.
With Trump struggling to get his re-election bid off the ground ahead of the November vote, the campaign confirmed that planned events featuring Vice President Mike Pence in Arizona and Florida next week had been postponed "out of an abundance of caution".
Texas — among the first US states to reopen — also shut down its bars after the governor conceded he had allowed them to get back to business too soon.
Infections are also running higher in India, with densely populated cities particularly hard hit.
Although a nationwide lockdown is gradually being eased, the country set a daily record Saturday with 18,500 new cases and 385 deaths. Total infections are at 509,000, with more than 15,600 deaths.
Iran, which has struggled to curb its outbreak even as it gradually lifted restrictions from April, said it would make mask-wearing mandatory in certain areas from next week.
Many global events have had to be curtailed because of the pandemic, with the 50th anniversary of the first Gay Pride march marked mostly online.
The virus has also disrupted world sports.
But football matches have resumed in Brazil, despite the objections of two clubs, Botafogo and Fluminense, who lost a court battle to stop the return to the pitch.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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