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Hong Kong’s quarantine and isolation facilities will be upgraded as the city struggles to cope with a resurgent coronvirus, its chief executive also announced in a briefing.

Carrie Lam said that that 2,000 more quarantine units would be built near Hong Kong Disneyland and that AsiaWorld-Expo was being converted to accommodate stable Covid-19 patients and elderly people in the event of further outbreaks at care homes, the South China Morning Post reports.

Meanwhile, an event by pro-democracy politicians to mark the first anniversary of an attack in a train station by an armed mob was stopped by police in riot gear for breaking coronavirus measures already in place that restrict group gatherings to four people.

Here’s a tweet from a Reuters correspondent on the ground there earlier

Coronavirus is spreading out of control in Hong Kong with a record 100 new cases confirmed, the territory’s leader said today, as she tightened social distancing measures to tackle the sudden rise in number of infections.

While the city has had initially impressive success in tackling the disease, all but ending local transmissions by late June, infections have spiked in the last two weeks once more and doctors fear the new outbreak is now spreading undetected in the densely packed territory of 7.5 million people.

Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, said today that more than 500 infections had been confirmed in the last fortnight alone, nearly a third of the 1,788 cases since the outbreak began.

More than 100 were confirmed on Sunday, a record daily high for the finance hub.

“I think the situation is really critical and there is no sign the situation is being brought under control,” Lam told reporters.

While some of the world’s richest states have struggled with the pandemic, its spread is on course for elimination in Rwanda, reports there suggest.

The director general of the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, tells Rwanda’s New Times newspaper that he believed spread could be controlled in the central african state.

The basic reproduction number (Ro) in Rwanda is currently 0.9 to be specific, according to a report presented to the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates.

If the Ro number is lower than one, the disease will eventually peter out, as not enough new people are getting infected to sustain the outbreak

There’s more now on that move to lower the Beijing emergency response level by one level on 20 July.

The city had issued the second level response on 16 June after a cluster of new coronavirus cases was found to be linked to Xinfadi, a major wholesale food market in a south-western district of Beijing.

Since 11 June, Beijing has recorded a total of 335 cases linked to Xinfadi, but no new cases have been reported in the past two weeks.

Liu Bei, the vice-secretary of the Beijing municipal government, told a news conference today: “Overall, the risks of getting coronavirus infection in Beijing … and exporting to other regions are low, and the general situation of tackling the pandemic is under control.”

Russia’s ambassador to Britain has rejected allegations that his country’s intelligence services sought to steal information about a coronavirus vaccine.

Andrei Kelin said in a BBC interview broadcast today that there was no sense in the allegations made last week by the US, Britain and Canada.

“I don’t believe in this story at all, there is no sense in it,” he said when asked by the BBC’s Andrew Marr about the allegations.

“I learned about their (the hackers) existence from British media. In this world, to attribute any kind of computer hackers to any country, it is impossible.”

Russian state-sponsored hackers are targeting UK, US and Canadian organisations involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine, according to British security officials.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said on Thursday that drug companies and research groups were being targeted by a group known as APT29, which was “almost certainly” part of the Kremlin’s intelligence services.

Also on Sunday, British foreign secretary Dominic Raab also said Russian actors had tried to interfere in last years general election by amplifying stolen government papers online.

Kelin said in the interview that his country had no interest in interfering in British domestic politics. “I do not see any point in using this subject as a matter of interference,” he said.

“We do not interfere at all. We do not see any point in interference because for us, whether it will be (the) Conservative party or Labours party at the head of this country, we will try to settle relations and to establish better relations than now.”

Household transmission of Covid-19 was high if the patient was 10–19 years of age, according to a new South Korean study which is being flagged up by experts in other states seeking to determine how to approach the tricky issue of reopening schools.

Here’s a tweet from the Scottish government’s top coronavirus adviser, Devi Sridhar, and one from the US biologist Carl Bergstrom.

European Union leaders may not reach a deal on a coronavirus stimulus plan today, German chancellor Angela Merkel said as marathon negotiations ran into a third day and acrimony mounted over the demands of rich but thrifty countries.

Germany and France, the EU’s powerbrokers, are seeking a deal on a €1.8tn economic recovery package to rescue the bloc’s economies, which are facing their worst recession since the second world war.

After two exhausting days of negotiations, a “frugal” group of northern, richer states led by the Netherlands appeared no more willing to back down from demands for cuts to the package, underscoring the depth of the EU’s north-south split.

“There is a lot of goodwill, but also many positions. I will make every effort but it is possible that there is no result,” Merkel said in Brussels as she arrived for a third day of talks.

Chinese authorities will downgrade its emergency response level in Beijing from level 2 to 3 starting on 20 July, as the city reported no new coronavirus cases for 13 consecutive days.

There are “great, gaping holes” in the plan that Britain’s prime minister announced on Friday for the continued easing of lockdown measures, kickstarting of the economy and attempts to return to some semblance of normality, the opposition Labour party has said.

“You only have to go down to the local high street to see what the problem is. Some of the shops and restaurants have now opened up, pubs as well,” Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Lisa Nandy told Sky News.

“But many people aren’t coming out of their houses, they aren’t spending again in the economy because they’re nervous about what this means, whether there’s going to be a second wave, whether the NHS is going to be overwhelmed.”

Nandy was speaking after the prime minister used an interview in the Sunday Telegraph to play down the prospect of a second national coronavirus lockdown, saying he did not want to use it any more than Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent.

The prime minister said the authorities were getting better at identifying and isolating local outbreaks, although it was important that the power to order national action was held in reserve.

“I can’t abandon that tool any more than I would abandon a nuclear deterrent. But it is like a nuclear deterrent, I certainly don’t want to use it. And nor do I think we will be in that position again,” he said.

On Friday, Johnson unveiled his plan for a “more significant return to normality” by Christmas, as he revealed steps to encourage people back to work in England and sweeping measures that will allow ministers to issue stay-at-home orders to tackle coronavirus outbreaks.

Public enthusiasm for next year’s Olympic Games is waning in Tokyo, as many in Japan believe Covid-19 infections will ‘flare up’ if it pushes ahead.

Justic McCurry writes from Tokyo that this Wednesday the reset Olympic countdown clock will show there are 365 days to go until the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games. But with a year left to finalise arrangements, the prospects for a traditional Olympic spectacle in the city are looking grim.

Even if Japan, which has had a comparatively low number of infections and deaths, could contain the outbreak, the virus is expected to rampage through the US, Brazil, India and other parts of the world.

The host city itself is in the grip of a spike in Covid-19 infections, with authorities reporting 290 new cases on Saturday. With 9,223 cases, Tokyo accounts for more than a third of Japan’s total.

The Tokyo 2020 organising committee is now talking of a pared-down games that would reduce costs and ensure the safety of 11,000 athletes vying for a record 339 medals.

For now, no one connected with the Tokyo Games is prepared to deviate from the official line – that the opening ceremony at the new Olympic stadium will take place on 23 July 2021.

The tally of active cases of the new coronavirus in the Czech Republic has risen to 4,764, above the previous high of 4,737 seen in April, health ministry data showed on Sunday.

On Saturday, 113 new cases were identified, bringing the total since the beginning of March when first cases were found to 13,885.

The central European country of 10.7 million has had 358 deaths from the Covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus, far fewer than many western European nations, Reuters reported.

The rise in active cases has grown as daily infections held above 100 in the past days, outpacing the number of recoveries. The new cases – many in the country’s industrial north-east where a mine outbreak occurred – have so far been milder than before.

The number of people in hospitals was 135 on Saturday, less than a third of the peak of 446 in April and far below capacities of the national health system as presented by the government.
Pressure on hospitals is among criteria the government uses when deciding on response.

Since lifting a strict nationwide lockdown imposed in March, the authorities have pledged to avoid future countrywide measures and instead respond to local outbreaks regionally.