Coronavirus live news: European countries ban UK travellers, Congress leaders agree $900bn aid deal

Here is the latest on countries banning travel from the UK amid a new, more contagious, coronavirus strain.

The number of countries instituting the bans outside of Europe has grown, too.

Iran’s health ministry has ordered flights from Britain suspended for two weeks, the state news agency IRNA reported. Israel said it was barring entry to foreign citizens travelling from Britain, Denmark and South Africa. Kuwait has added Britain to a list of “high-risk” nations and banned flights. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said on Twitter that anyone who had been in Britain or South Africa in the past 30 days will not be allowed to enter the country.

Turkey and Morocco have announced they will be suspending air travel from the UK, while the official Saudi Press Agency reports Saudi Arabia is also suspending international flights for one week. There are unconfirmed reports that Canada has banned flights from Britain, too.

South Korea reported 926 new coronavirus cases, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Monday, down from a record high 1,097 the day before.

The recent surge in cases has confounded efforts to contain it and the country is running short of hospital beds, prompting debate over whether the government should impose stricter social distancing measures.

Mexico’s health ministry on Sunday reported 6,870 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 326 more fatalities, bringing the country’s totals to 1,320,545 cases and 118,202 deaths.

The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.

Medical staffing is stretched increasingly thin as California hospitals scramble to find beds for patients amid an explosion of coronavirus cases that threatens to overwhelm the state’s emergency care system, AP reports.

As of Sunday, more than 16,840 people were hospitalized with confirmed Covid-19 infections — more than double the previous peak reached in July — and a state model that uses current data to forecast future trends shows the number could reach 75,000 by mid-January.

More than 3,610 Covid-19 patients were in intensive care units. All of Southern California and the 12-county San Joaquin Valley to the north have exhausted their regular ICU capacity, and some hospitals have begun using “surge” space. Overall, the state’s ICU capacity was just 2.1% on Sunday.

In hard-hit Los Angeles County, Nerissa Black, a nurse at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, estimated she’s been averaging less than 10 minutes of care per patient every hour. That includes not just bedside care, but donning gear, writing up charts, reviewing lab results and conferring with doctors, she said.

“And the patients who are coming in are more sick now than they’ve ever been, because a lot of people are waiting before they get care. So when they do come in, they’re really, really sick,” Black said Sunday.

The enormous crush of cases in the last six weeks has California’s death toll spiraling ever higher. Another 161 fatalities were reported Sunday for a total of 22,593.

Canada has joined in the bans on flights from Britain in a bid to block a new strain of coronavirus, the Associated Press reports. We will have more on this shortly.

Mainland China recorded 23 new Covid-19 cases on Dec. 20, the same number of cases from the previous day, said the country’s health authority on Monday.

The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that 21 of the new cases were imported. The two local transmissions were in the northeastern provinces of Liaoning and Heilongjiang.

Additionally, 15 asymptomatic cases were reported on Dec. 20, down from 10 the previous day. China does not include asymptomatic patients in its total confirmed case list.

Mainland China has now reported an accumulated total of 86,852 coronavirus cases, with 4,634 deaths.

The leader of a north Georgia megachurch who has been a spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19, AP reports.

Jentezen Franklin, the senior pastor of Free Chapel in Gainesville was absent from Sunday services, news outlets reported.

Pastor Javon Ruff announced the diagnosis during Free Chapel’s Sunday service, held both in-person and streamed live.

“We want to make you aware that Pastor Franklin has come in contact with COVID, but he is doing perfectly fine. He actually is doing great,” Ruff said. “He went and got tested and his test came back positive so he is doing the right thing to do and staying quarantined and continuing to be distanced. We’ll continue to pray and lift him up.”

The diagnosis came within days of Franklin attending a Christmas party at the White House. On Tuesday, Franklin posted on Instagram a photo of himself and his daughter at a White House Christmas party.

Trump watched Franklin’s church service during a National Day of Prayer earlier this year. Franklin, who previously told The Associated Press that he’s met with Trump at least 10 times on faith matters, also appeared at a virtual “call to prayer” event for Trump’s campaign when he and first lady Melania Trump were themselves being treated for Covid-19.

Some good news from Australia this morning, where the state of New South Wales – home to Sydney – has recorded 15 new cases of Covid-19 since 8pm last night – all are linked to an existing cluster on the city’s northern beaches.

This figure is down from the 30 new cases yesterday, as people in the northern beaches or with family their await news of what Christmas might look like for them.

State premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state also had a record day of testing.

More than 38,000 people came forward to get tested, so thank you so much to everybody who did that.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Helen Sullivan.

The new coronavirus strain to emerge in the UK is causing travel havoc. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Bulgaria all announced restrictions on UK travel following the disclosure that the highly infectious new strain is widespread across south-east England.

People have been rushing to leave the UK before deadline come into force. The UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, had earlier admitted the new variant was “out of control” and that tough new restrictions announced in the UK on Saturday may remain in place for months.

We’ll be bringing you the latest on that and more – and please get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullvan with any news, tips, comments or questions.

Here’s a summary of events so far:

• France has announced a 48-hour travel suspension from the UK from midnight on Sunday because of the new strain of Covid-19. The UK transport secretary said it was expected to cause “significant disruption”.
• Ireland will suspend flights from Britain from midnight on Sunday until Tuesday, following a cabinet review.
• Germany has also announced a travel suspension until December 31 from the UK. Exemptions to the ban are the repatriation of aeroplanes and their crews, alongside, flights with medical personnel.
• Italy has reported 352 coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday, down from yesterdays 553, the health ministry has said.
• Israel is barring entry to non-citizens arriving from the UK, Denmark, and South Africa to avoid importing the new virus mutation. Israeli citizens arriving from those countries will need to isolate for 14-days.
• Bulgaria will suspend all flights to and from the UK from midnight tonight until January 31, reports Reuters. The government had initially decided on a 10-day quarantine but has now opted for the temporary suspension.
• US congressional leaders have reached agreement on a $900 billion package to provide the first new aid in months to an economy hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, the Senate’s top Republican and Democrat said on Sunday, but it remained unclear when Congress would vote to seal the deal.
  “At long last, we have the bipartisan breakthrough the country has needed,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.
• In Australia, Christmas travel plans have been hit hard by a new outbreak in the country’s biggest city, Sydney. Authorities in New South Wales, the country’s most populous state, of which Sydney is the capital, are concerned over the possible scale of infections after a new outbreak on the city’s northern beaches was discovered last week.