Coronavirus live news: Germany extends partial lockdown as Ukraine reports record daily cases

November 26, 2020 3oliver

The New Zealand government has issued the touring Pakistan cricket team with a “final warning” after six of the team tested positive following rule breaches while they were isolation in Christchurch.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health on Thursday said all 53 members of the travelling party, including players and staff, were tested on arrival on 24 November and the positive results are from those tests.

New Zealand Cricket said in a statement all players in the squad had tested negative four times before leaving Lahore. Two of the six results were “historical” infections while four were new. NZC said it had been made aware members of the squad may have breached strict biosecurity protocols on the first day of their 14-day mandatory isolation.

As part of measures to prevent Covid-19 being brought into the country, the team were not allowed to socialise, eat or train together outside their small bubbles while in isolation.

The health ministry said: the team as a whole has been issued with a final warning”. Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield added:

It is a privilege to come to New Zealand to play sport, but in return teams must stick to the rules that are designed to keep Covid-19 out of our communities and keep our staff safe.

Read more here:

People pay tribute in Buenos Aires to one of the best footballers in history Photograph: Roberto Tuero/REX/Shutterstock

There wasn’t much sign of social distancing in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires last night, at the start of three days of national mourning for the footballer Diego Maradona.

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Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said he’s considering limiting Christmas celebrations to six people, Reuters reports.

Speaking on Wednesday Sánchez he said:

This is not a number we have pulled out of nowhere. It is a number which health professionals, scientists have told us is sufficiently rigorous and restrictive to prevent another surge in infections.

The central government is still negotiating the next round of restrictions with regional authorities, meaning some changes could be introduced.

The health ministry recorded 10,222 new cases on Wednesday, while the death toll rose by 369 to 44,037, slowing from the previous day’s jump of 537, which marked a record for the second wave.

Photographer Jill Mead has taken a poignant set of pictures of London during the second lockdown.

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, in Sydney.

I’m off to our socially distanced office Christmas party and am very glad to be nowhere near this Turkey:

Ukraine registered a record 15,331 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, health minister Maksym Stepanov said on Thursday, up from a previous record of 14,580 reported on 21 November.

He said the total number of cases had climbed to 677,189, with 11,717 deaths.

Medical specialists pose for a picture in a hospital for patients infected with the coronavirus disease in Kyiv
Doctors and medical specialists wearing personal protective equipment pose for a picture in a hospital for patients infected with coronavirus, Kyiv, Ukraine 25 November 2020. Photograph: Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Walt Disney Co said on Wednesday it would lay off 32,000 workers, primarily at its theme parks, an increase from the 28,000 it announced in September, as the company struggles with limited customers due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The layoffs will be in the first half of 2021, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Earlier this month, Disney said it was furloughing additional workers from its theme park in Southern California due to uncertainty over when the state would allow parks to reopen.

Disneyland Resort and Downtown Disney, Anaheim, California, USA. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Disney’s theme parks in Florida and those outside the United States reopened earlier this year without seeing new major coronavirus outbreaks but with strict social distancing, testing and mask use.

Disneyland Paris was forced to close again late last month when France imposed a new lockdown to fight a second wave of the coronavirus cases.

The company’s theme parks in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo remain open.
Disney did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on whether the 28,000 layoffs announced earlier were included in the latest figure, but a spokesperson for the company confirmed to Variety that the figure includes the previously announced number.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

Germany extends partial lockdown. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors on Wednesday agreed to extend a partial shutdown well into December in an effort to further reduce the rate of Covid-19 infections ahead of the Christmas period.
South Korea reports highest cases since March. South Korea has reported its highest daily number of Covid-19 cases since March, despite the recent introduction of stricter social distancing measuresin Seoul and other virus hotspots. The country reported 583 infections on Thursday, the first time they had topped 500 since 6 March.
CDC estimates only 1 in 8 infections caught. A new government report says the US is still missing nearly eight coronavirus infections for every one counted. By the end of September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculates that as many as 53 million Americans had been infected. That is just under eight times the confirmed cases reported at the time. Previously, the CDC estimated that one of every 10 infections were being missed.
Global cases surpassed 60m, according to researchers at both Johns Hopkins University. According to Reuters, 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.

A little more than half the 26,700 Australians stranded overseas in September who Scott Morrison suggested could come home by Christmas have returned to Australia.

Despite the prime minister boasting on Thursday that 35,000 Australians have returned home since September, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials revealed that just 14,000 of those were registered with the department.

That means of the original cohort who had registered by 18 September, more than 12,000 Australians are yet to return home:

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 22,268 to 983,588, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.

The reported death toll rose by 389 to 15,160, the tally showed.

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Six members of the Pakistan men’s cricket team have tested positive for Covid-19 in managed isolation in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The affected players have been moved to quarantine, the ministry of health said, and all training at outside facilities would be cancelled.

In addition, since their arrival, several team members have been seen on CCTV at the facility breaching managed isolation rules, MoH said.

All incidents of breaches occurred within the facility and there is no risk to the public, but the team as a whole has been issued with a final warning.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said any breaches of managed isolation rules were taken very seriously.

“It is a privilege to come to New Zealand to play sport, but in return teams must stick to the rules that are designed to keep Covid-19 out of our communities and keep our staff safe.”

It is unclear if the team’s match with the Black Caps on December 18 will go ahead.

India recorded 44,489 new coronavirus infections, data from the health ministry showed on Thursday, the 19th straight day that single-day cases have stayed below the 50,000 mark.

India’s coronavirus tally now stands at 9.27 million, the second-highest in the world, after the United States.

Deaths rose by 524, taking the total to 135,223.

South Korea has reported its highest daily number of Covid-19 cases since March, despite the recent introduction of

Police officers arrest an activist of Femen movement protesting outside Ukrainian President’s to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in Kiev on 25 November 2020. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images

UN agency UNAIDS said that “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.

In Turkey, where at least 234 women were killed since the start of the year, according to government figures, riot police in Istanbul blocked a small group of demonstrators from marching to the city’s iconic Taksim Square to denounce violence against women. 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 Erdogan’s government to remain committed to a European treaty on combatting violence against women.

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A recent survey conducted by the Novus polling institute suggested that 26 percent of Swedes do not plan to take any of the Covid-19 vaccines being developed and 28 percent are undecided, AFP reports.

Forty-six percent said they would get a jab.

Of those opposed, 87 percent said it was due to fears over as-yet unknown side effects.

Health authorities in the Scandinavian country in 2009 urged the public to voluntarily take the Pandemrix vaccine against swine flu, made by British drug company GlaxoSmithKline.

A woman rides an electric scooter wearing a protective mask, amid the continuous spread of the coronavirus pandemic, along Standvagen in Stockholm, Sweden, 20 November 2020. Photograph: Tt News Agency/Reuters

More than 60 percent heeded the call – the highest level in the world.

Hundreds of young Swedes suffered debilitating narcolepsy after a mass vaccination campaign against the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic.

The experience has shaken Swedes’ confidence in any future vaccine against the new coronavirus, compounding fears about unknown long-term side effects.