Iran announced new lockdown curbs on Saturday after registering a record daily number of Covid-19 cases and another 423 deaths from the disease.
Reuters reports:
The latest health ministry data, which registered 9,450 new infections in the last 24 hours, took the total number of confirmed cases to 673,250 and raised the death toll to 37,832, a ministry spokeswoman told state television.
Iran’s government recently imposed new restrictions as the country battles a third wave of the virus, and the president, Hassan Rouhani, announced further measures on Saturday.
Starting on Tuesday, for one month, all non-essential businesses will have to close at 6pm.
Thousands of coronavirus patients in Britain will be given aspirin as part of a trial to determine whether the painkiller can reduce the risk of dangerous blood clots.
People infected with coronavirus seem to have hyper-reactive platelets, the cell fragments that help stop bleeding, which means they are at higher risk of potentially deadly blood clots, scientists say.
Experts hope that aspirin, an anti-platelet agent that is commonly used as a blood thinner, can reduce the possibility of clotting complications.
Prof Martin Landray, co-chief investigator of the trial, said:
Aspirin is widely used to prevent blood clots in many other conditions, including heart attack, stroke, and pre-eclampsia in pregnant women.
But enrolling patients in a randomised trial such as Recovery is the only way to assess whether there are clear benefits for patients with Covid-19 and whether those benefits outweigh any potential side-effects such as the risk of bleeding
Austria has reported a record high of 8,421 new coronavirus infections within the last 24 hours, says Reuters , citing the Kronen Zeitung newspaper.
The number of deaths related to the virus has risen by 37, said the newspaper.
The US president Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has tested positive for Covid-19, along with at least one other aide to the president, sources have told multiple news organisations.
It is not immediately clear when or how Meadows was infected, but the chief of staff has frequently appeared at public events without wearing a mask. The reports came just days after Meadows appeared with Trump at a White House event along with numerous people who were not wearing masks.
The New York Times is reporting that as well as Meadows, four White House officials tested positive for the virus. Bloomberg News is also reporting that four other officials tested positive, including Cassidy Hutchinson, one of Meadows’s closest aides.
Another campaign aide, Nick Trainer, has also tested positive for the virus, according to Reuters’ source.
Neither Meadows nor the White House has commented or confirmed that he contracted the virus and little is known about when or if he has developed symptoms, but advisers told reporters on Friday night that he shared the news with others at the White House after Tuesday’s election, AP reports.
Meadows, a former North Carolina lawmaker, regularly accompanied Trump on the final, frenzied days of the campaign rallies leading up to the presidential election on Tuesday.
He is the latest official within Trump’s close circle to have contracted Covid-19, which has killed more than 236,000 Americans.
The president was briefly hospitalised after he was infected with the virus. His wife and son Barron also tested positive for the coronavirus in October. His national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, was also infected with the virus.
Authorities in Georgia are to impose a curfew between 10pm and 5am in its largest cities to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
The restrictions, announced by the deputy prime minister, Maia Tskitishvili, will come into force on Monday and restrict the movements of pedestrians and vehicles, local media reported.
Tegeltija is is self-isolating at home, Reuters reports, citing a cabinet statement.
The prime minister is in a stable health condition with mild symptoms of the coronavirus, the statement said.
A union in the UK has warned it is too late to find the nurses needed to meet the demands of an “extremely challenging” winter and called on the British government to “be honest” about the risks a lack of staff could pose to patient safety.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said that despite more nurses being registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) than last year, there are still around 40,000 registered nursing vacancies in England alone.
The union said it is concerned staff could burn out over winter unless local staffing plans proposed by NHS England prioritise the “safest, highest quality care”.
The RCN called on the government to base its decisions and planning about what the NHS can provide this winter on the actual number of nursing staff available and what those staff can safely maintain.
It said workers must be able to raise concerns about staffing levels and patient safety, and be assured such worries will be properly acted on.
Mike Adams, the RCN England director, said:
The NHS is now at its highest level of preparedness as it faces the prospect of an extremely challenging winter.
We already know that frontline nurses, in hospitals, communities and care homes, are under huge strain, and anecdotally we’re hearing that in some hospitals they are becoming increasingly thinly spread on the ground, as staff become unwell or have to isolate at the same time as demand on services continues to increase.
The government says nurses have been given extra training to provide more critical care staff to treat Covid-19 patients, but there simply aren’t enough to go around.
There are around 40,000 registered nursing vacancies across the NHS in England alone.
It is essential that learning is applied to planning for this winter, including what service can be delivered safely with the workforce available.
Poland reported a record 27,875 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the total number of reported cases to more than 500,000.
Reuters reports:
Infections have risen sharply over the last month, with doctors telling Polish media that the country is running out of hospital beds, ventilators and medics.
On Friday, Poland saw a record 445 coronavirus-related deaths. On Saturday, the country recorded 349.
The restrictions in force in Poland include shutting most shops in shopping malls, theatres, museums and galleries from Saturday onwards, but the government has insisted it wants to avoid a total lockdown.
Poland has 20,249 occupied hospital beds out of 30,896 available for Covid-19 patients.
Some 1,813 of its 2,357 ventilators are in use, health ministry data showed.
On Friday, the government introduced new economic support measures amounting to 9-10 billion zloty (£1.8bn-£2bn) to help businesses weather the second wave of the pandemic.
The UK’s first mass Covid testing trial is taking place in Liverpool. Six new testing centres opened their doors to Liverpudlians at midday on Friday as part of the government’s Operation Moonshot drive, which aims to eventually test up to 10 million people a day.
Liverpool’s director of public health, Matt Ashton, said the city’s mass testing pilot had shown positive signs on its first day of operation.
It is aiming to test up to 50,000 people a day once fully up and running, PA Media reports.
Ashton told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
It was the first day yesterday, and we didn’t open first thing, we opened at lunchtime and had six of the asymptomatic testing centres open.
We are still working on the numbers, but we think [there were] about 1,500-2,000 people per testing centre, so really good numbers and really good interest, so it was very encouraging.
The restrictions will absolutely help, they will reduce the levels of infection in our community because they will cut social contact.
The big question is: will they cut them enough, will it take the levels of the virus low enough?
Hungary reported a record high of 107 daily Covid-19 deaths on Saturday while new cases rose by 5,318, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Indonesia, the south-east Asian country hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, reported 4,262 new infections on Saturday, taking the total to 433,836, Reuters said.
There were 98 new deaths, bringing the total to 14,540.
Original News : https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/nov/07/coronavirus-live-news-italy-begins-nightly-curfew-victoria-has-eighth-straight-day-of-no-cases
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