Mexico hails 'good indicator' of recovery in jobs; US FDA approves new cheaper saliva Covid test - as it happened
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Mexico hails a recovery in jobs but will need up to 200m coronavirus vaccine doses; Algeria and South Africa start to relax lockdown restrictions; Malta reports highest-ever one-day rise in cases
Pedestrians wearing protective face masks walk along the bank of the river Seine, Paris, 15 August 2020. France reported 3,310 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, a post-lockdown high for the fourth day in a row. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters
Pedestrians wearing protective face masks walk along the bank of the river Seine, Paris, 15 August 2020. France reported 3,310 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, a post-lockdown high for the fourth day in a row. Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters
The Australian state of New South Wales recorded nine new cases of Covid-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
The NSW health department reports that one of the new cases is a staff member of Chopstix Asian Cuisine in Smithfield RSL, whose source is unknown at this point.
Another staff member at Chopstix Asian Cuisine, is likely a secondary infection from the above case.
One is a student from Tangara School for Girls.
One attended Mounties club at Mount Pritchard.
Five are close contacts of known cases.
Tangara School for Girls in Cherrybrook in Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images
Anyone who dined at Chopstix Asian Cuisine restaurant from Friday 31 July to Saturday 9 August is considered a casual contact who must monitor for symptoms and immediately get tested and self-isolate if symptoms occur.
A case dined at Rick Stein at Bannisters in Mollymook on Saturday, 1 August. Anyone who was at the restaurant on this night between 8pm and 10.30pm for at least one hour is considered a close contact and must get tested for Covid-19 right away and self-isolate until midnight tonight or until they have received a negative result, whichever is later.
Via the AP, the U.S. Postal Service is warning states coast to coast that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted, even if mailed by state deadlines, raising the possibility that millions of voters could be disenfranchised.
Voters and lawmakers in several states are also complaining that some curbside mail collection boxes are being removed.
Even as President Donald Trump rails against wide-scale voting by mail, the post office is bracing for an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The warning letters sent to states raise the possibility that many Americans eligible for mail-in ballots this fall will not have them counted. But that is not the intent, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in his own letter to Democratic congressional leaders.
Mail boxes sit in front of a United State Postal Service facility in Chicago, Illinois. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
The post office is merely asking elected officials and voters to realistically consider how the mail works, and be mindful of our delivery standards, in order to provide voters ample time to cast ballots through the mail,” wrote DeJoy, a prominent Trump political donor who was recently appointed.
The back-and-forth comes amid a vigorous campaign by Trump to sow doubts about mail-in voting as he faces a difficult fight for re-election against Democrat Joe Biden.
Though Trump casts his own ballots by mail, he has repeatedly criticised efforts to allow more people to do so, which he argues without evidence will lead to increased voter fraud that could cost him the election.
Meanwhile, members of Congress from both parties have voiced concerns that curbside mail boxes, which is how many will cast their ballots, have abruptly been removed in some states.
Officials in more than a dozen states, including the presidential election battlegrounds of Michigan and Pennsylvania, all confirmed to The Associated Press on Friday that they had received the warning letters.
US president Donald Trump delivers remarks to the City of New York Police Benevolent Association at Bedminster, New Jersey, on 14 August 14, 2020. Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/Reuters
“This is a deeply troubling development in what is becoming a clear pattern of attempted voter suppression by the Trump administration”, Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement.
“I am committed to making sure all Virginians have access to the ballot box, and will continue to work with state and federal lawmakers to ensure safe, secure and accessible elections this fall.”
Kim Wyman, the Republican secretary of state in Washington state, where all voting is by mail, said sending fall ballot material to millions of voters there is a routine operation of the US Postal Service.
“Politicizing these administrative processes is dangerous and undermines public confidence in our elections”, she said in a statement.
“This volume of work is by no means unusual, and is an operation I am confident the US Postal Service is sufficiently prepared to fulfill.”
Australia is delivering humanitarian supplies to Beirut as the city continues to reel from a blast that left more than 170 people dead and 30,000 homeless.
On Saturday the country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced the delivery will include shelter kits and mobile warehouses to replace destroyed storage facilities, in addition to the $5m in aid already promised to organisations like the Red Cross Movement and Unicef.
The federal government said the supplies will be distributed by trusted NGOs, including the Red Cross, and Australia’s UN partners. An Australian Defence Force C-130J Hercules aircraft based in the Middle East is touching down in the Lebanon capital on Saturday.
A man stands inside a damaged building at the port in Beirut, Lebanon. Photograph: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
Police in Victoria, Australia, have issued 223 fines to people in the past 24 hours for breaching the state’s tough lockdown measures. Twenty-seven of them were for failing to wear a face covering when leaving home, now mandatory in the state.
Other fines included:
A man who lives in Truganina and was allegedly located in Box Hill. Police said the man believed Covid-19 to be a conspiracy, and that he was targeted by police.
A man who resides in Morwell allegedly travelled by train to Drouin so he could go for a walk.
A driver in Wyndham was allegedly intercepted by police whilst on his way to buy fast food. Police said he was also watching Netflix on his phone whilst driving.
Police on horseback patrol the central business district in Melbourne, Australia. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images
Businesses in England are “delighted” to be welcoming customers back through their doors on Saturday, as part of the latest easing of lockdown restrictions in the country, the Press Association reports.
Tattoo studios, beauty salons, spas and hairdressers will all be able to offer additional services from Saturday, including front of face treatments such as eyebrow threading.
Staff wearing masks run through a game of roulette at The Rialto casino in central London as they prepare for reopening. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA
Alice Bellamy, 67, from Calne in Wiltshire, has been a beauty therapist for 27 years and runs specialist laser hair removal studio Woman to Woman & The Male Perspective Ltd.
She said: “I am indeed delighted. One day’s notice is not amazing but it’s typical of the total ineptitude of this Government and its handling of this pandemic.
“But I am overjoyed and so are my clients, my phone has been hot, hot, hot.”
The lockdown restrictions were due to be eased on 1 August, but a spike in coronavirus cases at the time resulted in them being paused for two weeks.
Meanwhile Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said an estimated 160,000 holidaymakers were expected to try to return to the UK from France on Friday before the new quarantine measures were brought in.
Passengers arriving at St Pancras International station on 14 August 2020 in London, England. Photograph: John Phillips/Getty Images
Travellers returning to or visiting the UK from France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks & Caicos and Aruba after 4am on Saturday will be required to self-isolate for two weeks.
We expect to hear more from the Victorian government on the 303 new cases reported earlier this morning, but in the meantime it’s worth noting these figures at least appear to be a sign of a slow downward trend.
Over the past five days Victoria recorded 372, 278, 410, 331 and 303 cases respectively.
“The seven-day trend indicates the peak was probably four or five days ago and we will continue to see lower numbers overall from here on in,” the state’s chief medical officer Brett Sutton said on Friday.
The New Zealand Herald reports that a person who has tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving in Japan had recently visited Rotorua and Taupō in NZ, prompting health officials in the country to warn there was a possibility people may have been infected at two locations:
The Wairakei Terraces between 6pm and 7pm on Thursday, 6 August 6 and;
Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland on Friday, 7 August, between 9am and 10.15am
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has just been talking to Sydney radio station 2GB about the findings of the Ruby Princess inquiry, which cleared federal agencies of wrongdoing in the saga.
Morrison said:
It is as we said it was. We were being straight with people about what happened and I think the inquiry has borne that out.
On the New South Wales health department, which was criticised in the final report for making “serious errors” in handling the debacle, Morrison said it had been “a very difficult time”.
Officials will make mistakes in a pandemic that none of us have had to manage before. I think there have been some humble learnings in NSW and I’ve seen NSW go from strength to strength.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here’s how things stand:
Australia’s Covid-19 death toll stands at 379 after Victoria reported 303 new cases and four deaths on Saturday. It came after a man in his 20s became the youngest person to die of the virus in Australia on Friday amid the second-wave outbreak in the city of Melbourne. Also on Friday a long-awaited report into the Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle – which saw hundreds of infections spread around the country after the ship was allowed to dock in Sydney despite having infectious patients on board – found the New South Wales Health department made multiple “serious errors”.
France has recorded another new post-lockdown record rise in cases, with 2,846 new infections. The UK has removed the country from its travel corridor, meaning all holidaymakers returning from France will have to self-isolate for two weeks, prompting British tourists to scramble to cross the Channel before the cut-off time on Saturday 4am BST.
People wearing face masks walk next to a billboard reading ‘Mandatory mask in downtown Montpellier’, on 14 August 2020, in Montpellier, southern France. Photograph: Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images
In the UK, the North West, West Yorkshire, East Lancashire and Leicester face a third week under tightened coronavirus restrictions as the latest figures showed no decrease in the number of infections, the Department of Health has said.
Germany has declared almost all of Spain as a coronavirus risk region following surging infections – a further blow to the country’s tourism industry.
Greece is limiting public gatherings to 50 people amid a recent spike in cases. The measure will be in place until 24 August in areas with high infection numbers. The government has imposed a midnight curfew on bars and restaurants in Athens and other regions.
The EU has reached a deal with British company AstraZeneca for at least 300m doses of its vaccine candidate. The deal includes an option to purchase a further 100m doses should the vaccine prove safe and effective.
Brazil has reported 50,644 new coronavirus infections and 1,060 new deaths, the health ministry said on Friday. The country’s tally now stands at 3,275,520 confirmed cases and 106,523 deaths, making it second globally in terms of the number of cases and deaths after the US.
The Church of Nosso Senhor do Bonfim in Salvador, Brazil. Photograph: Bruna Prado/Getty Images
Croatia recorded 208 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the country’s chief epidemiologist Krunoslav Capak has said. Croatia will require bars and nightclubs to close after midnight for a period of 10 days from this weekend, similarly to Greece.
You can follow me on twitter at @mmcgowan or email me at michael.mcgowan@theguardian.com
