Coronavirus live news: vaccine trials 'encouraging' says WHO; South Korea tightens curbs in Seoul

Mainland China reported 15 new Covid-19 cases on 16 November, up from eight cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Tuesday.

The National Health Commission said in a statement all new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not count as confirmed Covid-19 cases, fell to 12 from 14 a day earlier.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 86,361, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.

We have more detail now on the curbs in Seoul, from Yohap agency.

The level will be raised to 1.5, which means that a cap will be placed on school attendance, limiting it to two thirds of the total student body – and restricting the use of “multi-use high-risk facilities” (such as some bars, karaoke rooms, restaurants and coffee shops), Yonhap reports:

The government decided Tuesday to raise the social distancing level by one notch to 1.5 in the greater Seoul area, amid a resurgence of new COVID-19 cases in and around the capital.

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Under Level 1, people are required to follow basic guidelines, such as wearing masks, and gatherings of over 500 people are not recommended.

Under Level 1.5, the operation of multi-use and high-risk facilities will be restricted, and the attendance cap in schools is placed at two-thirds of the total student body.

South Korea decided to tighten social distancing curbs for the greater Seoul area amid recent spikes in new coronavirus cases, the Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a meeting hosted by Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun.

We’ll have more detail shortly.

California will dramatically roll back its reopening efforts, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Monday, saying he was pulling the “emergency brake” amid a troubling surge in cases.

The changes, which take effect Tuesday, will see more than 94% of California’s population and most businesses across the state return to the most restrictive tier of rules aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. The state is also strengthening its guidance on masks; Newsom announced face coverings would now be required outside people’s homes with limited exceptions.

You can read the full report, by Lois Beckett and Vivian Ho, here.

The WHO is experiencing its own outbreak of coronavirus, with Tedros spending 17 days in quarantine – though he said he had not developed any symptoms.

Five new cases within the same WHO team have been registered in the past week, WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove said.

“We don’t know if there is an actual cluster,” she said, adding that experts were trying to work out if transmission had happened on the premises.

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan stressed that the Geneva region is experiencing “some of the most intense transmission in the world right now”.

“We are human beings and we live within a society,” he said.

Reported breakthroughs in Covid-19 vaccine research are “encouraging”, the World Health Organization’s chief said on Monday, but voiced concern about surging cases and warned against complacency, AFP reports.

“We continue to receive encouraging news about Covid-19 vaccines,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press briefing.

Tedros, who has just spent more than two weeks in quarantine after coming in contact with someone with Covid-19, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that new tools would start to arrive in the coming months.

But he added: “This is no time for complacency.”

His comments came as hopes trials of a second candidate vaccine suggested it was nearly 95 percent effective against the virus.

The news from US biotech firm Moderna followed similar interim results last week for Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate vaccine.

But WHO has warned that widespread availability of any vaccine remains a long way off, and Covid-19 cases and deaths are surging in many parts of the world.

“Those countries that are letting the virus run unchecked are playing with fire,” he said.

He voiced particular alarm about the situation in Europe and the Americas, where he said health workers and systems were being pushed to breaking point.

“A laissez-faire attitude to the virus … leads to death, suffering and hurts livelihoods and economies,” he said.

“The quickest way to open up economies is to defeat the virus.”

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest Covid-19 news from around the world for the next few hours.

Reported breakthroughs in Covid-19 vaccine research are “encouraging”, the World Health Organization’s chief said on Monday, but voiced concern about surging cases and warned against complacency.

“We continue to receive encouraging news about Covid-19 vaccines,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press briefing. But he added: “This is no time for complacency.”

His comments came as hopes trials of a second candidate vaccine suggested it was nearly 95% effective against the virus.

The news from US biotech firm Moderna followed similar interim results last week for Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate vaccine.

In South Korea, officials reported more than 200 new coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, as the government considers tightening social distancing.
“We are at a critical crossroads where we might have to readjust distancing,” South Korean Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said.

“The current situation is taking a very dangerous turn considering the rising infections from daily lives and the unrelenting pace of the spread.”

• The US biotech firm Moderna has claimed that its Covid-19 vaccine is 94.5% effective, according to an interim analysis released on Monday and based on 95 patients with confirmed Covid infections. The company plans to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency-use authorisation.
• Greeting the news, the head of the World Health Organization said a vaccine will not by itself halt the pandemic.
• Scientists have expressed hope that the preliminary success of mRNA vaccines could be a “leap forward” for fighting other diseases, including cancer.
• France’s coronavirus hospitalisations reach new record. French health authorities have reported that the number of hospitalised coronavirus patients has increased by 416 to reach a new all-time high of 33,497, even as the number of new cases reached a more than one-month low.
• There have been a further 21,363 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, according to government data, raising the cumulative total to 1,390,681. A further 213 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Monday, bringing the total to 52,147.
• Greece has reported 2,198 new coronavirus infections and 59 fatalities. The country’s caseloads stands at 76,403, while 1,165 have died.
• Norway’s minority government and the opposition party have agreed on an increased economic support package of 22.1bn Norwegian crowns (£1.84bn) amid the continuing coronavirus crisis.
• The United States registered more than one million new coronavirus cases last week as new infections rose in every state except for Hawaii, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.
• A highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has been found in the pet section of a shop in one of Corsica’s main cities, the French farm ministry has announced. It follows Denmark ordering the culling of 25,000 chickens after detecting H5N8 bird flu on a farm.