Russia’s new Covid-19 cases have topped 10,000 for the first time since May.
On Sunday, Russia’s coronavirus crisis centre reported 10,499 new infections – the biggest daily tally since 15 May, when the outbreak was at its peak and lockdowns were in place.
The country’s death toll also climbed by 107 to 21,358 in the previous 24 hours.
Hello, Amy Walker here. Welcome to today’s live global coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
The biggest news so far today is the US president Donald Trump’s continuing stay at a hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.
On Saturday evening, he posted a video message on Saturday evening saying that he is “doing well”, his wife Melania is “doing very well” and the next few days will be the “real test”. Meanwhile, his medical team says: “while not out of the woods yet, the team remains cautiously optimistic”.
Across the pond, coronavirus cases continue to surge in some European countries. On Saturday, France reported a daily record of 16,972 new cases, as well as 49 new deaths, while Italy recorded 2,844 new cases – its highest daily tally since April, when the country was still in lockdown.
In the UK, 12,872 new infections were reported in the 24 hours to Saturday, nearly double the number reported a day earlier, which was blamed on reporting delays from previous weeks, as it came to light that the government does not currently know Saturday’s actual number of new infections.
I’ll be keeping you up to date with today’s key developments. But first, here’s a roundup of the news over the past few hours:
- Top Trump aide Nick Luna has tested positive for Covid-19.
- Joe Biden’s campaign is committing to releasing the results of all future Covid tests the candidate takes.
- US secretary of state Mike Pompeo will depart for Japan on Sunday but will not go to Mongolia and South Korea as originally planned, after Trump’s diagnosis.
- Germany has reported 2,279 new cases, bringing the total number to 299,237. Two people were reported to have died, bringing the death toll to 9,529.
- Victoria, the state of Australia most affected, recorded just 12 new cases and one life lost in the past 24 hours. That’s the equal lowest death toll for almost a month.
- Mexico’s confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 757,953 on Saturday, according to the health ministry, with a total reported death toll of 78,880.
- Brazil on Saturday registered 599 new coronavirus deaths and 26,310 new confirmed cases.
- Tunisian authorities will ban all gatherings and reduce working hours for employees in the public sector in order to stop the rapid spread of the coronavirus
- Ireland is seeing a “significant escalation” in coronavirus infections, after reporting the highest daily death toll since May and the third-highest number of daily cases recorded to date.
- Thousands of Israelis protested again across the country on Saturday, flouting a new law meant to curb anti-government demonstrations during a new national coronavirus lockdown
Updated
