Health News at Your Fingertips

A total of 126,065 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to 21 October, according to the latest Test and Trace figures. This is an increase of 23% in positive cases on the previous week and is the highest weekly number since Test and Trace was launched at the end of May.

Pope Francis’ weekly general audiences, which had resumed with the public participating, will be moved back indoors and held virtually from 4 November after one participant tested positive for Covid-19, the Vatican said on Thursday.

A statement said the audiences will be held from the pope’s official private library, as they were during the height of the lockdown in Italy earlier this year.

In recent weeks, the public was allowed to return to the audiences, held first in a Vatican courtyard and then in a Vatican auditorium. But a participant at the 21 October audience tested positive for the virus, the statement said, prompting the change.

As of next Wednesday, the audiences will go back to being held in the library in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace without public participation “in order to avoid any eventual future risk to the health of the participants.”

The Vatican’s decision coincides with a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases in Italy. Recently, 13 Swiss Guards and one person who lives in the residence that houses the pope tested positive for the coronavirus.

Oxford city council said the city will be moving to tier 2 from 00:01 on Saturday.

A notice on the council’s website said:

Over the past three weeks, we have not only seen a continued rise in cases in the city, but increasing evidence of the spread of the virus beyond people in their teens and twenties to older, and potentially more vulnerable, age groups.

It is evident that the virus is no longer confined to younger people but is now affecting a much wider age range. Hospital admissions have begun to increase as a result.

An explanation of the tier system for England and what the lockdown rules are for tier 2 can be found here:

Travellers arriving in the UK from Germany, Cyprus and Lithuania could be required to enter quarantine due to a rise in coronavirus cases, figures indicate.

Germany’s seven-day rate of cases per 100,000 people has reached 107 after nearly 17,000 cases were reported on Wednesday. The rate for Lithuania is 140, while Cyprus is on 112. Figures have been calculated by the PA news agency based on data collected by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The UK government is believed to be using a rate of 100 as the threshold above which it considers triggering quarantine conditions. This is up from 20 in recent months. The UK’s own rate is 230.

The transport secretary Grant Shapps is expected to announce the weekly adjustment to the Government’s travel corridors list at 5pm (GMT) on Thursday.

Travellers arriving from areas not on the list must self-isolate for 14 days. Most popular tourist destinations have been removed from the list due to a rise in coronavirus cases, including Spain, France and Italy.

The Bulgarian president Rumen Radev is self-isolating after his secretary general tested positive for coronavirus and will continue to carry out his duties remotely, the president’s office said on Thursday.

Bulgaria has closed universities, high schools and nightclubs for two weeks among other curbs aimed at containing a rise in new Covid-19 cases.

On Thursday, the Balkan country of 7 million people reported a new daily record of 2,760 infections. Some 45,461 Bulgarians have tested positive for the disease since March and 1,197 have died.

The prime minister Boyko Borissov and the Central Bank Governor Dimitar Radev are also in self-isolation after testing positive for the infection.

Finland’s government said on Thursday it would lift its restrictions on opening hours for restaurants serving mainly food but kept stricter rules on bars and nightclubs in place, as the Covid-19 pandemic showed signs of slowing down in the Nordic country.

Earlier on Thursday, Finnish health authorities said the earlier rise in the number of new Covid-19 cases had levelled off and the numbers even seemed to be decreasing slightly.

The number of new coronavirus infections in the Netherlands remained above 10,000 over the past hours, near a record high, according to data released by the National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) on Thursday.

The RIVM said the number of confirmed new cases of Covid-19 was 10,264, just below a high of 10,343 on Oct. 26. The number is being closely watched by the Dutch government, which is weighing tighter curbs.

The Spanish region of Catalonia on Thursday announced a ban on entering or exiting its territory for 15 days, the latest in a series of restrictions taken by Spanish regions to try and curb coronavirus infections.

Catalonia, home to the city of Barcelona, is one of the virus’ hotspots and has already some of the toughest measures in place in the country, including a 15-day shutdown of bars and restaurants, which will also be extended.

It announced the new measures as the parliament in Madrid debated a nationwide state of emergency, which the central government wants to last until May to give regions legal backing for taking such restrictive measures.

“The government is aware that citizens are tired after months of effort and sacrifices, of not being able to do what they used to do before, to hug people, our family and friends,” the health minister Salvador Illa told parliament.

But it is not the time to relax measures, we have very tough weeks and months ahead of us.

After a lot of political wrangling over how to tackle the crisis, the government is expected to gather enough support for parliament to approve the extension of the state of emergency at a vote later on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia will open the Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims from other countries from 1 November, Saudi media reported on Thursday, as the kingdom relaxes measures it had taken to check the spread of the coronavirus.

“The Umrah pilgrimage is allowed for Muslims from across the world,” Saudi state TV said, citing a statement from the Ministry of Pilgrimage. The Saudi-owned, Dubai-based TV channel Al-Arabiya said Umrah will be allowed from 1 November.

Umrah is a pilgrimage which can be undertaken at any time of the year, in contrast to Hajj, which has specific dates according to the Islamic lunar calendar.

Saudi Arabia closed its borders in February to foreign Umrah pilgrims, and in March stopped its own citizens and residents from taking part. In July, it allowed a limited number of domestic pilgrims to perform the Hajj.

Sweden, which has shunned lockdowns throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, registered 2,820 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest since the start of the pandemic and the third record number in a matter of days, health agency statistics showed.

A steady rise in new cases has appeared to be gaining momentum in Sweden in recent weeks though the resurgence of the disease has come later than in wide swaths of Europe and not so far hit the kind of peaks recorded in countries such as France.

The increase compares with a record set only the previous day, a figure that was revised up to just over 2,400 cases on Thursday. The Health Agency has said the peak during the spring probably ran much higher but went unrecorded due to a lack of testing.

Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told a news conference:

We’re beginning to approach the ceiling for what the healthcare system can handle. Together, as during the spring, we can push down this curve and avoid the strain on healthcare.

The health agency also moved to tighten pandemic recommendations for three additional regions, including Sweden’s biggest cities Stockholm and Gothenburg, saying infection rates were rising sharply in these areas.

Sweden has relied primarily on voluntary measures, largely unenforced but still widely adhered to. The new tighter local recommendations, already introduced in two regions with surging infections, included advice to avoid indoor environments such as shops and gyms.

Stockholm authorities said separately that the number of patients with Covid-19 in need of care in the region had risen about 60% over the past week after a near 80% surge in recorded infections.

Sweden registered 7 new deaths, taking the total to 5,934. Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than Nordic neighbours, but lower than some larger European countries, such as Spain and the UK.

The UK’s Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis is self-isolating, after coming into contact with somebody who recently tested positive for Covid-19. Writing on Twitter, Lewis said that he does not currently have any symptoms.

The Covid-19 pandemic has reached a “critical” stage in England, with prevalence doubling since last month with the fastest increases in the south where the R number has risen above 2, research has found.

While cases remain highest in northern England, a dramatic increase in infections has been recorded across all areas, according to the latest interim findings from the React-1 study from Imperial College London.

It triggered warnings from scientists that current measures – including bans for millions on households mixing and the closure of pubs – were not working and urgent action is needed to avoid a sharp rise in hospitalisations and deaths.