Coronavirus Global Updates, Oct 28: U.S. averages more than 70, 000 new coronavirus cases a day over a week, shattering records

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Zimbabwe COVID19 Update


COVID-19 update: As at 27 October 2020, Zimbabwe had 8 315 confirmed cases, including 7 804 recoveries and 242 deaths. 


 





 



U.S. averages more than 70,000 new coronavirus cases a day over a week, shattering records


 

As days grow short and cold weather sets in across the northern United States, the country is logging more coronavirus infections than ever before. Tuesday marked the first time that the rolling seven-day average of new daily case counts — a metric considered more reliable than single-day figures — topped 70,000. Record numbers of infections have been reported in 29 states over the past week, in every region of the country.

 

More than 8.7 million cases have been reported nationwide since February, and at least 226,000 people have died of covid-19, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.

 


Melbourne’s 111-day lockdown stopped the virus — and caused jobs to fall and calls for mental health services to rise


One of the world’s longest lockdowns effectively came to an end on Wednesday morning, allowing roughly 5 million people in the Australian city of Melbourne to leave home any time they want, eat dinner at a restaurant or have a drink at a bar for the first time in over three months.

 

The celebratory occasion came after the city reported zero new coronavirus cases on Monday and Tuesday, a dramatic drop from the hundreds logged each day during the outbreak’s peak in late July and early August. But while the 111-day lockdown clearly helped stamp out the spread of the virus, it’s also had devastating side effects.

 

Victoria, the state where Melbourne is located, lost an average of 1,200 jobs a day as most businesses were forced to stay closed, according to Bloomberg News. Demand for mental health services grew by 31 percent in September and October as a lockdown that began in July was initially supposed to last only six weeks dragged on. Meanwhile, alcohol consumption increased, as did domestic violence.

 

Enduring the prolonged shutdown may have been made even more challenging by the fact that Melbourne had only recently exited a nationwide lockdown that was in place from March to May, giving residents a brief taste of normal life before their daily activities were curtailed again.

 

Many European countries facing a surge of infections may soon be in a similar situation, though leaders have said their goal is to avoid hard lockdowns like those imposed in the spring. Both Italy and Spain have significantly tightened restrictions in recent days, while France is reportedly considering a month-long lockdown and Germany is expected to announce new, tougher rules this week.


 


France, Belgium turn into Europe's worst virus hot spots – latest updates


 


Global coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 44 million people and claimed over 1.1 million lives. Here are the updates for October 28:


Europe struggles to contain virus

Several European countries have registered record numbers of Covid-19 infections in recent days as autumn turns to winter in the Northern Hemisphere and people socialise indoors where the risk of infection is higher.

The government in France, which is emerging as Europe's epicentre, has been exploring bringing in a national lockdown from midnight on Thursday, BFM TV reported as it reported the highest daily death toll since April 22.

The number of Covid-19 patients in French intensive care units could reach in two weeks the same level as during the peak of the first wave in April without new measures.

EU officials said only part of the European Union population can be inoculated against the virus before 2022 as the vaccines the bloc is securing may not prove effective or may not be manufactured in sufficient doses.

Dr Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said on Tuesday the European Union's open borders might even need to be shut down again to “take the heat out of this phase of the pandemic.”

“There’s no question that the European region is an epicenter of disease right now,” he said.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said even more stringent measures should be applied to stop the virus.

“If it’s let go freely, it can create havoc, especially when we don’t have vaccines at hand," he said. “Governments should do their share and citizens should do their share ... we should not give up.”

Belgium's hot spot

This week, news struck that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had recorded Belgium — shoehorned in between Germany, France and the Netherlands — as having the highest 14-day cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 citizens, just surpassing the Czech Republic.

At 1,390.9 per 100,000 people, it far outstrips even hotbeds like France or Spain.

Nearly 11,000 people have died so far, and experts say all such confirmed numbers undercount the true toll of the pandemic.

All this in a wealthy nation of 11.5 million people where no fewer than nine ministers — national and regional — have a say on health issues. The dictum “less is more" never reached the Belgian high echelons of power.

Ukraine reports record daily virus-related deaths

The number of daily coronavirus deaths in Ukraine jumped to 165 from the previous record of 141 fatalities registered on October 21, the national security council said.

The council said 7,474 new virus cases were recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 363,075 cases with 6,755 deaths. 

India capital has its worst 1-day virus caseload

India's tally of coronavirus cases are now less than 10,000 away from the grim milestone of 8 million, after 43,893 new cases were reported during the last 24 hours, data from the federal health ministry showed.

Totalling 7.99 million, India has the second-most number of confirmed cases after the United States, which has a tally of 8.7 million.

The daily increase had been dipping in India since a peak in September, but health experts warn that the numbers could surge again during the ongoing Hindu religious festival season.

South Africa's Ramaphosa self-isolates after dinner guest gets virus

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has gone into quarantine after a guest at a charity dinner he attended tested positive for Covid-19, his office said.

Africa's most advanced economy has been the continent's worst hit, with more than 700,000 coronavirus infections and nearly 20,000 deaths, but new cases peaked in late July before falling sharply.

The reduction in new infections enabled Ramaphosa to ease what was one of the world's toughest lockdowns in September, and the following month South Africa opened its borders to international travellers after a six-month ban.

Merkel wants to close all bars, restaurants to halt virus spread

German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to agree at a meeting with leaders of the states to close all restaurants and bars from November 4 in a bid to curb coronavirus infections but keep schools and nurseries open, newspaper Bild has reported.

It cited a draft resolution as saying Merkel wanted to agree with the 16 premiers of the states to close fitness studios, casinos and cinemas along with theatres, opera houses and concert venues but allow shops to remain open if they implement hygiene measures and limit customer numbers.

The report said the federal government wanted to provide financial aid to firms affected by closures, adding that a concept for this would be presented later on Wednesday.

Hawaii eases virus restrictions for Japanese nationals

Starting from November 6, Hawaii will allow visitors from Japan to bypass the state’s 14-day quarantine requirement if they test negative for the virus within 72 hours of departing for the islands.

But Japanese travellers will still have to spend two weeks in quarantine upon returning home, which will likely limit the number of people taking advantage of the plan.

Hawaii earlier this month implemented a similar testing program for travellers from other parts of the US.

Hawaii’s tourism-dependent economy gets more travellers from Japan than any other foreign country. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the state would welcome about 5,000 visitors from Japan daily. Those numbers have dwindled to almost none.

UN appeals for aid to battle virus

The UN humanitarian chief is appealing for an additional $211 million to help Syria deal with the Covid-19 crisis.

Mark Lowcock told the UN Security Council that the money is needed to maintain supply lines for health items, to improve water and sanitation in camps for people displaced by the war, and to make schools safe for returning students and teachers.

He says confirmed virus cases are overwhelmingly the result of community transmission, noting that 92 percent of officially confirmed infections can’t be traced to a known case.

Lowcock adds that as in many countries, “the scale of the outbreak is therefore likely to be far greater” in Syria than suggested by the current level of confirmed cases, about 13,500.

Early vaccines 'might not work for everyone'

UK Vaccines Taskforce Chair Kate Bingham has said that the first generation of vaccines "is likely to be imperfect" and that they "might not work for everyone."

"However, we do not know that we will ever have a vaccine at all. It is important to guard against complacency and over-optimism," Bingham wrote in a piece published in The Lancet medical journal.

"The first generation of vaccines is likely to be imperfect, and we should be prepared that they might not prevent infection but rather reduce symptoms, and, even then, might not work for everyone or for long," she added.

Melbourne reopens after months of hard lockdown

Australia's coronavirus hotspot of Victoria state has reported two new cases after posting no infections in the previous two days, as state capital Melbourne emerged from more than three months of a hard lockdown.

Restaurants and cafes in Melbourne, home to five million people, can reopen from Wednesday, and limits on social gatherings at homes have been eased, allowing two adults and dependents from one house to visit another household.

Melbourne, the Australian city most affected by the virus, was put into lockdown in early July after a second-wave outbreak that pushed daily case numbers to more than 700 in early August.

Australia has recorded just over 27,500 novel coronavirus infections, far fewer than many other developed countries.

Victoria, the second-most populous state, has accounted for more than 90 percent of the country's 907 deaths. It reported two deaths in the past 24 hours. 

Mainland China reports 42 new cases

Mainland China has reported 42 new cases, up sharply from 16 a day earlier as new cases were reported in the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the country's health authority has said.

Of the new cases, 22 of them were locally transmitted infections in the area following an apparent mass infection in Kashgar. 

The region's health authority also reported 19 new asymptomatic infections, half of the total number of symptomless infections reported in mainland China for October 27.

The total number of confirmed infections in mainland China now stands at 85,868, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

UN in New York cancels in-person meetings

The United Nations has cancelled all in-person meetings at its New York headquarters for the rest of the week after five people in Niger's UN mission were infected with the novel coronavirus.

After largely operating virtually since New York became a global Covid-19 hotspot in March, the 193-member world body had been holding some in-person gatherings again, with precautions such as requiring diplomats to wear masks, social distancing, and restricting the number of people at meetings.

In a letter to UN General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that "out of an abundance of caution and following medical advice" all in-person meeting should be suspended for the rest of this week "to allow for a better understanding of the extent of the exposure and for full contact tracing."

Niger is part of the 15-member Security Council, which last met in person on Thursday. 

Diplomats said people who attended Thursday's meeting were being tested and an in-person meeting on Syria planned for Tuesday was instead held virtually.

English virus data patchy – researchers

There are significant problems with the availability and quality of Covid-19 data in England, British researchers have said as they launched a dashboard to help make sense of the patchwork of stats.

The Covid Response Evaluation Dashboard (Covid RED) presents available statistics from Public Health England (PHE), the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and the National Health Service (NHS) and also highlights where more data are needed.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has introduced a three-tier system of local lockdowns for England in a bid to tackle local flare-ups in infections while avoiding a new national lockdown.

The researchers said there were gaps in information over whether confirmed cases were followed up, the number of people isolating with symptoms in England, and about the number of people needing or receiving support.

They added that often the best available data was up to two weeks old, adding that local lockdowns could only be informed by the most up-to-date information. 

 

 

 

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