Spain sees record Covid-19 cases – latest updates

Friday, September 11, 2020

Spain sees more than 12,000 new daily cases

Spain’s Health Ministry has reported more new coronavirus infections than any other day since the pandemic began – 12,183 cases, bringing the total to above 566,300.

The latest surge broke the previous record, which was set on Thursday, although at the beginning of the pandemic widespread testing was not available to confirm cases.

Concern, however, is picking up over testing, with the rates of positive tests continuing to increase.

Overall, the average positivity rate over the last week now sits at 11.8 percent.

The World Health Organization says a country does not have the pandemic under control until the positivity rate is below 5 percent. Only one Spanish region – Asturias – has managed to keep it below that threshold.

France sees more than 9,000 cases in a day

The number of new confirmed Covid-19 cases in France has risen by 9,406 over the last 24 hours, the country's health ministry said on Friday, to stand at a total of 363,350.

The number of Covid-19 deaths also climbed by 40 over the last 24 hours, to reach a total of 30,893 casualties.

There have also been 2,357 new hospital admissions in the last seven days, 389 of which have been admitted to intensive care units.

France's has the seventh-highest coronavirus death toll in the world.

UK announces new restrictions

The UK records 3,539 confirmed cases of Covid-19 compared with 2,919 cases a day earlier, according to government data.

Authorities in Britain's second city of Birmingham announced new coronavirus restrictions as the nation's viral reproduction rate, or R number, exceeded 1.0 for the first time since March.

From next Tuesday, more than 1.1 million people will be banned from mixing with any other household, after the rate of infections in Birmingham rose from 30 to 75 cases per 100,000 people over a week in August.

Turkey sees more than 1,000 recoveries

Turkey records 1,117 more recoveries from Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry. There have also been 56 fatalities and 1,671 new cases.

The country’s overall infection count to date has reached 288,126, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote on Twitter, citing Health Ministry data.

And a total of 112,213 more Covid-19 tests were done over the past day, pushing the total up to over 8.3 million.

The number of patients in critical condition stands at 1,223.

No MLB player cases

No Major League Baseball players and only one team staff member tested positive among 11,669 coronavirus tests given in the past week, the league and its players union said.

The MLB Players Association and MLB said that through Thursday testing, the past week had only a 0.009 percent positive rate.

Among MLB players, there have been no new positives for 12 consecutive days and in 20 of the last 21 days.

From 115,337 samples tested since the monitoring phase of Covid-19 testing began, 86 positive results, 0.07 percent, were returned, and only 55 of those by players.

Two Swiss care homes hit by deadly virus outbreaks

Ninety people have tested positive for Covid-19 and eight have died in two care homes in central Switzerland in two of the largest outbreaks seen in retirement facilities, local authorities said.

The new clusters come amid a steady rise in cases in the country since mid-June, despite low and stable case numbers compared to its European neighbours.

In the Siviriez nursing home in the canton of Fribourg, 37 elderly residents and 19 staff members have tested positive for Covid-19. 

Seven people have died in the past week, the canton's authorities said in a statement Thursday.

Switzerland, a country of some 8.5 million people, has so far counted more than 45,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and over 1,700 deaths.

Israel set to impose restrictions as cases soar

With over 4,300 more cases reported on Friday, the steady rise in infections in Israel since June shows no signs of abating.

According to the Health Ministry, 4,388 new cases over the past 24 hours raised the overall count to 146,542, including 1,077 deaths and 111,539 recoveries.

At least 489 patients are in critical condition, 180 in moderate condition, and 134 are on respirators, the ministry said.

Israeli authorities approved a plan on Thursday to tighten restrictions in three stages to stem the spread of the virus.

The strategy will be approved by the Israeli government on Sunday, according to a joint statement by the Health Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office.

Virus wrecks Catalonia's big national day party

Separatists are staging a muted celebration of Catalan national day with their traditional mass rallies backing independence from Spain banned over a sharp hike in virus cases.

The annual "Diada" on September 11 marks the fall of Barcelona to Spain in 1714 and normally draws vast crowds of more than a million people.

But this year's anniversary comes as Spain struggles to contain a huge surge in virus cases, on Monday becoming the first European Union nation to record more than half a million infections – and the wealthy northeastern region is particularly hard hit.

With large gatherings banned, organisers have opted for a decentralised format and various small events across the region to avoid overcrowding.

Indian state nears 1M cases

India's biggest and richest state, Maharashtra, is set to record its millionth infection, putting it on par with Russia in the pandemic and stifling India's attempts to turn around an economic plummet. 

The western state, home to financial capital Mumbai, is on pace to blow past the 1 million mark as infections have been rising some 20,000 a day recently.

Maharashtra, if it were a country, would now rival Russia for the world's fourth-highest caseload. 

The spike in the state of 130 million people is the vanguard for India's breathtaking COVID-19 surge, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the national total. 

India is likely to hit 5 million cases in coming days, behind only to the United States. 

Myanmar reports 115 new cases

Myanmar has reported 115 new cases, a day after imposing sweeping new lockdown measures in its battle on a second wave of infections.

The tally stands at 2,265 cases and 14 deaths after infections quadrupled over the last month, since the virus resurfaced in the western state of Rakhine, following weeks without a domestic case.

The health ministry announced 115 new cases in a Facebook post on Friday, following 142 reported on Thursday evening.

In the wake of the new outbreak, opposition parties have called for general elections set for November to be postponed.

Malaysia reports 182 cases, highest jump in over 3 months

Malaysia has reported 182 new cases, the sharpest spike in more than three months with no new deaths, the health ministry said.

The new infections marked the biggest jump since June 4, when 277 cases and one death were reported.

Malaysia currently has 9,810 confirmed coronavirus infections, including 128 deaths.

Austria expands face mask requirement as cases rise

Austria will tighten up on mask-wearing and social distancing at public events and in restaurants from Monday in response to the accelerating spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said.

Wearing of masks will be compulsory in shops, in all public transport and in schools outside classrooms from Monday, he said. Private events will be limited to 50 participants indoors and 100 outdoors, while professionally-organised seated events could run to up to 1,500 people indoors and 3,000 outdoors.

The daily number of infections has been rising since late June and reached 644 on Thursday, the highest number since late March, when an initial spike in infections was fading under a national lockdown.

"Precisely because the summer went well and people can't quite believe that the numbers are rising once again, I call on all of us to together take the situation seriously," Kurz told a news conference.

Russia reports 5,504 new cases, 102 deaths

Russia has reported 5,504 new cases, bringing the national tally to1,051,874, the fourth largest in the world.

Authorities said 102 people had died in the past 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 18,365.

Hungary's daily infections tally hits new record at 718

Hungary has reported 718 new cases, the highest daily tally to date, the government said.

The country has reported 10,909 cases with 631 deaths so far.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said earlier in the day that Hungary would not impose blanket school closures, but would aim to protect the most vulnerable elderly as the goal was to keep the economy going.

Covid beds fill up as virus pressure builds in Marseille

All five intensive care beds dedicated to Covid patients are in use at the Laveran Military Training Hospital in Marseille, and its doctors are bracing for more.

While France’s daily case count climbed back up as summer vacations brought relaxed virus vigilance, the number of infected patients in hospitals and intensive care units stayed low and stable for several weeks.

Doctors in Marseille — the country’s latest virus hotspot — started sounding the alarm this week. The 70 ICU beds dedicated to virus patients in France’s second-biggest city and the surrounding Bouches-du-Rhone region were all occupied by Tuesday. The number of ICU virus patients in the region has doubled in the past 10 days and now surpasses 100.

France has a total of more than 353,000 Covid-19 infections and over 30,000 fatalities from the disease, according to a tracker.

Ukraine reports record daily high of 3,144 new cases

Ukraine has registered a record 3,144 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the national security council said, up from a previous record of 2,836 registered on Sept. 5.

 The council said a total of 148,756 cases were registered in Ukraine as of September 11, with 3,076 deaths.

Myanmar bans flights, travel from Yangon

Myanmar has reimposed its toughest measures so far to control the spread of the coronavirus, banning travel out of the country’s biggest city, Yangon, and grounding all domestic flights.

Both measures, announced just hours before taking effect, will be in place until October 1.

An upsurge in coronavirus cases that began in August in the western state of Rakhine has since spread to other parts of the country. 

The Health Ministry on Friday announced 115 new confirmed cases, bringing the total to 2,265, including 14 dead.

The Yangon regional government said the number of locally transmitted cases there from August 24 to Tuesday totalled 656.

India reports record daily jump of 96,551 cases

India has reported another record daily jump of 96,551 cases, taking its caseload to over 4.5 million.

Infections are growing faster in India than anywhere else in the world and the US is the only nation worse affected.

Deaths have remained relatively low in the country, but are seeing an upward trend, with more than one thousand deaths being reported every day for the last ten days.

On Friday, 1,209 people died, the ministry said, taking total mortalities to 76,304.

Czech Republic reports 1,382 new cases

The Czech Republic has reported1,382 new cases, the highest daily tally to date, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

The central European country tightened restrictions on face mask wearing this week as new cases spiked, but has so far opted to avoid bringing back measures that would hurt businesses.

Germany's cases rise by 1,484 to 256,850

The number of confirmed cases in Germany have increased by 1,484 to 256,850, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.

The reported death toll rose by one to 9,342, the tally showed. 

N Korea issues shoot-to-kill orders to prevent virus – US

North Korean authorities have issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent the virus entering the country from China, according to the commander of US forces in the South.

The impoverished North – whose crumbling health system would struggle to cope with a major virus outbreak – has not confirmed a single case of the disease that has swept the world since first emerging in China, the North's key ally.

Pyongyang closed its border with China in January to try to prevent contamination, and in July state media said it had raised its state of emergency to the maximum level.

US Forces Korea (USFK) commander Robert Abrams said that the border shutdown had increased demand for smuggled goods, prompting authorities to intervene.

The North introduced a new "buffer zone, one or two kilometres up on the Chinese border," Abrams told an online conference organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on Thursday.

"They've got North Korean SOF (Special Operations Forces) out there. ... Strike forces, they've got shoot-to-kill orders in place."

Latin America, Caribbean pass eight million cases

Latin America and the Caribbean have passed the milestone of eight million cases of Covid-19, days after logging more than 300,000 deaths from the virus, according to an AFP tally of official records.

The region, which is the worst hit in the world, had 8,035,484 cases as of 2200 GMT on Thursday, out of a global total of 28.02 million people infected with the disease.

Brazil is the worst hit country in Latin America, with 4.23 million people infected with Covid-19 and 129,522 dead from the disease.

Peru holds second place in the number of infections with 702,776 cases, as well as 30,236 dead – but Mexico holds second place in the number of fatalities in the region, with 69,095 having succumbed to the virus. It has logged 647,507 infections.

Mainland China reports 15 new cases vs 7 a day earlier

Mainland China reported 15 new coronavirus cases on September 10, up from seven cases a day earlier, the country's national health authority said in statement.

The National Health Commission said in a statement all of the cases were imported infections involving travellers from overseas, marking the 26th straight day of no local infections.

The number of new asymptomatic cases also rose to 22 from 15 a day earlier. China does not classify these symptomless patients as confirmed Covid-19 cases.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in mainland China now stands at 85,168, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.

Mexico reports total of 652,364 cases

Mexico reported 4,857 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 554 additional fatalities on Thursday, bringing its totals to 652,364 infections and 69,649 deaths.

Australia's Victoria state reports 43 new cases, nine deaths

Australia's Victoria state, which is at the centre of the country's coronavirus outbreak, reported 43 new cases and nine deaths in the last 24 hours.

Australia's second-most populous state a day earlier reported 51 new cases and seven deaths.

Victoria, home to one-quarter of Australia's 25 million population, now accounts for about 75% of the country's more than 26,500 cases and 90% of its 797 deaths.

A flare-up in cases forced the Victoria government to put the state into a hard lockdown in early August.

But it has helped to bring down the daily rise in infections to double digits in recent days after it touched highs of more than 700. 

Brazil reports 40,557 new cases, 983 deaths

Brazil recorded 40,557 additional confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, and 983 deaths, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.

Brazil has registered more than 4.2 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 129,522, according to ministry data.

New Orleans keeps tough virus rules, state eases

New Orleans will not follow the rest of Louisiana in easing up on public gathering restrictions aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell staked out that position on Thursday hours after GovernorJohn Bel Edwards announced that the state will ease restrictions starting on Friday. The governor gave no details on what the new phase will look like, saying he would provide more information at a news conference on Friday.

New Orleans city was the epicentre of a spring outbreak of Covid-19 that made Louisiana one of the nation’s hot spots. The resulting shutdowns, including an off-again-on-again closure of bars, have damaged the city’s tourism-dependent economy.

Bars that don’t serve food remain closed in the city under current guidelines.

Minnesota cutting men's track, gym, tennis teams

Minnesota is dropping men’s indoor and outdoor track and field, gymnastics and tennis because of budget concerns brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

Minnesota President Joan Gabel and athletic director Mark Coyle said on Thursday that the athletic department is facing a projected loss of $75 in revenue for this fiscal year following the Big Ten’s decision to postpone fall sports.

School officials said the elimination of the sports will be effective at the completion of their 2020-21 competition seasons, which the teams will play if “health and safety precautions allow.”

The athletic department is eliminating eight other positions in addition to those that will be cut because of the four programs being discontinued. School officials said that’s part of a personnel cost-reduction that should save $1.3 million this fiscal year.

The 10% salary reductions that Coyle, football coach PJ Fleck, men’s volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon, men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko, men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino and women’s basketball coach Lindsay Whalen had accepted already will now be extended through the entire fiscal year. That is expected to save about $1.2 million.

No cases linked to New Hampshire Trump rally

The New Hampshire state health commissioner said that there have been no cases of the coronavirus linked to President Donald Trump’s rally two weeks ago, and only one person who attended another large event - Motorcycle Week in Laconia - has since tested positive.

About 1,400 people attended the president’s rally in an airport hangar in Londonderry Aug. 28. Many were not wearing masks, despite Governor Chris Sununu’s order making them mandatory for gatherings of more than 100 people.

Sununu was asked a few days later “what did it make you feel” to see people ignoring the mandate, and said he felt frustrated, just as he does when he sees someone grocery shopping without a mask.

On Thursday, Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Shibinette said officials aren’t aware of any attendees testing positive after the rally. Asked if passing someone in a grocery store was equivalent to sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with others for several hours, she said, “Any time you’re within six feet people of someone and not wearing a mask, you increase your risk of exposure to Covid-19.”

The annual Motorcycle Week was held August 22 to 30, and Shibinette said she knows of one attendee who has tested positive.

In contrast, health officials across 12 states have found more than 300 people with infections who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota in August.