Protesters set trash bins afire and police responded with hydrant sprays in downtown Rome Tuesday night, part of a day of public outpouring of anger against virus-fighting measures like evening shutdowns for restaurants and bars and the closures of gyms and theaters — a sign of growing discontent across Europe with renewed coronavirus restrictions, AP reports.
Pedestrians and motorists returning home from work in Rome were taken by surprise when protesters, some of them hooded and members of an extreme-right political group, set afire to trash bins in Piazza del Popolo, overturned parked motor scooters and mopeds and hurled smoke bombs, state TV reported. Police vans unleashed torrents of water to disperse them.
It was a fifth straight night of violent protest in Italy, following recent local overnight curfews in metropolises including Naples and Rome.
Starting next week, Hawaii will begin allowing visitors from Japan to bypass the state’s 14-day quarantine requirement if they test negative for Covid-19.
But Japanese travelers will still have to spend two weeks in quarantine upon returning home, which will likely limit the number of people taking advantage of the plan.
The testing option takes effect on 6 November. Travelers must take a Covid-19 test from an approved clinic or hospital in Japan within 72 hours of their departure.
Hawaii earlier this month implemented a similar testing program for travelers from other parts of the US.
Hawaii’s tourism-dependent economy gets more travelers from Japan than any other foreign country. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the state would welcome about 5,000 visitors from Japan daily. Those numbers have dwindled to almost none.
Half of total 2016 US election turnout figure have already voted this year
Updated
at 9.45pm EDT
More on the US case surge:
Beyond the Midwest, the Texas city of El Paso is also facing a surge in cases that is overwhelming local hospitals, with officials setting up an alternate care facility to help relieve medical centers.
“We are seeing all sorts of patients. The narrative historically has been the above-65, those with multiple co-morbidities. But we’re seeing 20-year-olds. We’re seeing 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds,” Dr. Ogechika Alozie, an infectious disease specialist in El Paso, told Reuters.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced he was reinstating some coronavirus rules to combat what city officials described as a “dramatic rise” in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations.
Restaurants, retail businesses and offices will have their 50% capacity slashed in half, the mayor said, while events will be capped at indoor 25 people indoors and 75 outdoors.
Colorado reported a record one-day increase in cases on Monday and hospitalizations have risen 60% in the last two weeks to 571. The percentage of positive tests has more than doubled this month to over 7%. However, the number of those hospitalized in the state is far below April’s record 1,000.
Nearly 500,000 Americans have tested positive for coronavirus in last seven days
Nearly half a million people have contracted Covid-19 in the United States over the last seven days, according to a Reuters tally, as new cases and hospitalizations set records in the Midwest.
Coronavirus hot spots include Illinois, which reported 31,000 new infections over the past week, and two states expected to be key in the US presidential election on 3 November: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“We must take significant and collective actions,” Andrea Palm of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services told a news conference, adding that contact tracers were overwhelmed and hospitals may face staffing shortages. “This is going to get worse before it gets better.”
Nationwide more than 5,600 people died from the virus nationwide in the last week, with hospitalizations rising 13%, a Reuters analysis showed.
U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a tough re-election battle on 3 November, on Tuesday reiterated his claim that the country is “rounding the turn” in the pandemic that has killed more than 226,000 people since erupting in March.
“We did the ventilators and now we’re doing all of the equipment and now we’re doing vaccines, we’re doing therapeutics. We’ve done a great job, and people are starting to see,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
The Australian state of Victoria has achieved a remarkable reduction in Covid-19 case numbers after a lengthy period of restrictions.
To put this achievement in context – Australia has done what very few countries have achieved in effectively suppressing a second-wave outbreak from a high point of more than 700 new cases a day. Victoria has now recorded only two cases in three days and lockdown restrictions are being eased.
This story showd a visual comparison of Australia’s epidemic curve compared with a number of other countries:
It looks like being another difficult day on global financial markets with uncertainty about the outcome of the US election adding to the negative sentiment around the spread of coronavirus in Europe and the US.
The Australian stock market opened down 0.4% but has recovered some ground to 0.1% in the red. That’s a big improvement on Tuesday’s chunky loss of 1.7% but it looks like shares are going to lose out across Asia Pacific more broadly with the Nikkei off 0.4% at the opening on Wednesday and Seoul down 0.25%.
CommSec
(@CommSec)The Aussie market continues its recent trend lower with the #ASX 200 down 24pts or 0.4% to 6,027 on the open. Financials & energy are falling most but IT, health & consumer staples are rising #ausbiz
