Coronavirus live news: China says it has been vaccinating key workers; Trump approves plasma treatment | World news

French authorities will in the coming days reciprocate Britain’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on all arrivals from France, the junior minister for European affairs said on Monday.

Britain said on Friday travellers from the UK to France would be required to self-certify that they are not suffering from coronavirus symptoms or have been in contact with a confirmed case within 14 days preceding travel.

Since 15 August British authorities have also required travellers returning from France to self-isolate upon their return due to high Covid-19 infection rates in France.

“We will have a measure called reciprocity so that our British friends do not close the border in one single way,” the French junior European affairs minister Clément Beaune told France 2 television.

“For travellers returning from the United Kingdom, there will probably be restrictive measures decided in the next few days by the prime minister and by the defence council.”

Residents in China’s north-western Xinjiang region have complained on social media about the harsh coronavirus lockdown measures in the sensitive region after a local outbreak.

China – where the disease first emerged – had largely brought domestic transmission under control through lockdowns, travel restrictions and testing, but sporadic regional outbreaks have emerged.

A new cluster in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi in mid-July prompted fresh restrictions. A total of 902 cases have been officially reported in the outbreak.

Officials said earlier this month that they had “effectively contained” the spread of the Urumqi cluster, and there have been no new cases reported in the last eight days.

But hundreds of local residents flooded local social media forums in recent days to complain about harsh conditions, including many being forced to stay home.

After some of these comments were removed – China’s internet is heavily censored – users tried to flood local forums on the Twitter-like Weibo platform in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Social media users shared photos of front doors sealed with steel crowbars, and locks installed by community workers.

“Why can’t prefectures with no cases remove the lockdown? Why do you need to lock down the whole of Xinjiang?” read one comment on Weibo, which received thousands of likes.

South Korea’s capital on Monday ordered masks to be worn in both indoor and outdoor public places for the first time, as it battles a surge in coronavirus cases centred in the densely populated metropolitan area.

In May, the city government ordered that masks be worn on public transport and in taxis, but a recent spike in cases has health officials worried that the country may need to impose its highest level of social distancing, known as phase 3.

“If we can’t stop it at this stage, we have no choice but to upgrade to the third phase of social distancing,” President Moon Jae-in told his top aides. “The raise to phase 3 is by no means an easy option.”

Under phase 3, schools and business will be urged to close, inflicting more damage on Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 266 new cases as of midnight on Sunday, down from 397 a day earlier but another in more than a week of triple-digit daily increases.

Overall, South Korea has reported 17,665 coronavirus cases and 309 deaths.

Russia reported 4,744 new coronavirus cases on Monday, pushing its confirmed infection tally to 961,493, the fourth largest in the world. Authorities said 65 people had died over the past 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 16,448.

The FTSE 100 jumped on Monday, tracking Asian markets as US regulators authorised a Covid-19 treatment over the weekend, while AstraZeneca rose on a report the US government was considering fast-tracking its experimental vaccine.

The drugmaker gained 1.5% and was the top boost to the FTSE 100 as the report said one option being explored would involve the US health regulator awarding “emergency use authorisation” in October to the potential vaccine.

The export-laden FTSE 100 was up 1.2% after ending Friday with its first weekly loss in three as fresh Brexit concerns compounded fears over the UK’s post-pandemic economic recovery.

The blue-chip index has gained about 23% from its March lows, but lagged the US benchmark S&P 500, which is scaling record highs on historic fiscal and monetary stimulus and hopes that the worst of the pandemic’s economic damage was over.
On Sunday, the US Food & Drug administration said it authorised the use of blood plasma from patients who had recovered from Covid-19 as a treatment for the disease.

The UK’s mid-cap FTSE 250 rose 0.5%, led by financial, industrial and consumer discretionary stocks.

Russian authorities may this week announce the resumption of international flights to France, Hungary, Malta, Cyprus, Jordan, Egypt and China’s Shanghai, the Izvestia newspaper cited unnamed airport and airline sources as saying on Monday.

Russia grounded international commercial flights during the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year and has so far only resumed flights to London, Turkey, Tanzania and Switzerland.

Russia has confirmed the world’s fourth largest tally of coronavirus cases. It has recorded close to 5,000 new cases of the virus on a daily basis for the last several weeks.

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thanks for following along.

For those readers who are just tuning in, you can find a summary of the key developments from the last few hours here.

My colleague Sarah Marsh will be bringing you the latest for the next while.

A lighter story now from Reuters:

For Zeng Sheng, the manager at Shanghai Maiyi Arts, this autumn should have been a boon for business: with the US presidential election, demand for the centre’s wax replicas of Donald Trump should have been off the charts.

Instead, the spread of the coronavirus has halted new orders and stalled overseas travel, including to and from the US. He is now holding off on producing a replica of Joe Biden.

Located in the outskirts of Shanghai, about an hour’s drive from the city centre, its exhibition hall also doubles as makeshift museum, where guests can pose next to replicas of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, martial arts star Jackie Chan, and others.

Zeng says that by 2019, the company was shipping up to 700 figures annually to customers, with about one-third going overseas.

The virus, however, hit orders twice: first in China, when factories and tourist sites closed, and then overseas. Business remains about two-thirds its normal size, Zeng says.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has returned from hospital, making brief remarks following a second hospital visit that has stoked concern about his health.

Abe said he wants to do everything to maintain his health and do his utmost at his job. Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister has been the target of deepening speculation that he may resign due to his health issues. On Monday he visited a Tokyo hospital for the second time within days.

He was speaking to reporters after returning to his official residence from the hospital.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• Blood plasma treatment given green light in the US. The US Food & Drug Administration said it has authorised the use of blood plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 as a treatment for the disease, a day after President Donald Trump blamed the agency for impeding the rollout of coronavirus vaccines for political reasons.
• Boris Johnson has issued a plea to parents to send their children back to the classroom when schools reopen in September. The UK prime minister said the risk of contracting coronavirus in schools is “very small”, and that pupils face greater harm by continuing to stay away from the classroom.
• The Chinese government has been administering a vaccine candidate to selected groups of key workers since July, a senior health official told state media yesterday. Zheng Zhongei, head of the national health commission’s science and technology centre, told CCTV the government had authorised “emergency use” and it was in line with the law, the South China Morning Post has reported.
• China sees no locally transmitted cases for eighth day in a row. China reported 16 new Covid-19 cases in the mainland for 23 August, all of which were imported infections involving travellers from overseas, the country’s health authority said on Monday. This compared with 12 new Covid-19 cases reported a day earlier, all imported too, and marked the eighth consecutive day of no locally transmitted cases.
• South Korea counted its 11th straight day of triple-digit daily jumps in coronavirus cases as officials tighten social distancing restrictions nationwide to combat what they describe as the biggest crisis since the emergence of Covid-19.
• Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, visited a Tokyo hospital on Monday for a second time within days, stoking concern about his ability to stay on as leader due to health issues and fatigue from tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
• Australian state of Victoria sees lowest one-day case rise in seven weeks. The Australian state of Victoria reported its lowest daily rise in new coronavirus infections in seven weeks on Monday, fuelling optimism that a deadly second wave there is subsiding. Victoria on Monday reported 116 cases and 15 deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours, down from a peak of more than 700 cases early this month.
• New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, will continue with its Level 3 restrictions for an additional four days. Auckland was set to lift the restrictions – requiring residents to ‘stay at home and stay local’ – on Wednesday, but those have now been extended to 11:59pm on Sunday. The Auckland cluster is now 101 confirmed cases, the largest in the country.
• France reported almost 4,900 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, its highest figure since May. French regional health authorities also said there had been a very worrying outbreak of coronavirus at a naturist holiday resort on the Mediterranean coast, with more than 100 holidaymakers so far testing positive.
• The number of daily coronavirus cases recorded in Italy has nearly doubled in the past five days, rising to more than 1,200 on Sunday. Italy recorded 1,210 cases in the past 24 hours, compared with 642 on Wednesday, latest official figures showed.
• The UK recorded 1,041 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, down from 1,288 on Saturday, government figures showed. It is the fourth day in a row that new infections have been more than 1,000 in 24 hours.
• Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in a serious condition with a fever, Reuters reports. Tymoshenko, who twice served as leader before her defeat in the 2010 presidential election, became the first high-profile Ukrainian politician known to have contracted Covid-19.
• The Greek island of Lesbos was added to a list of areas under heightened Covid-19 vigilance, officials said. The move came as health authorities announced a new daily infection high of 284 cases nationwide in the last 24 hours.

Coronavirus cases are approaching 25m, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with 23,358,598 infections currently confirmed.

The global death toll is nearing 810,000. Currently it stands at 807,830.

Here are the ten worst-affected countries in terms of number of cases:

1. US: 5,701,938
2. Brazil: 3,605,783
3. India: 3,044,940
4. Russia: 954,328
5. South Africa: 609,773
6. Peru: 585,236
7. Mexico: 560,164
8. Colombia: 541,139
9. Chile: 397,665
10. Spain: 386,054

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, visited a Tokyo hospital on Monday for a second time within days, stoking concern about his ability to stay on as leader due to health issues and fatigue from tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Abe was at the hospital for the follow-up of a medical check a week ago when his examination lasted 7-1/2 hours, fuelling worries about his health.

But major broadcaster Nippon TV said Abe was being treated for a chronic illness rather than a check-up, citing multiple unidentified government and ruling party sources. It added that Abe was scheduled to go to his office in the afternoon.

“I was informed that he’s getting an additional exam after last week’s exam,” Suga, who is also the chief cabinet secretary and is seen as one of the main contenders for Abe’s job, told a regular news conference.

“The premier himself said the other day that he wanted to return to work.”

A return to the old ways…

In Papua New Guinea, the Covid-19 lockdowns have led to a shortage of food in stores, and a lack of cash. In response, many of the archipelago nation’s old ways are returning. In East New Britain, people are going back to trading in shell money, to bartering, home gardens, and fishing.

From Kalolaine Fainu in The Observer: