Health News at Your Fingertips

New York City will impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering as the rate of positive tests for the novel coronavirus climbed above 3% for the first time in months, mayor Bill de Blasio has said.

Officials will first offer free masks to those caught not wearing one. If the person refuses, they will face an unspecified fine, de Blasio told reporters, according to Reuters.

“Our goal, of course, is to give everyone a free face mask,” de Blasio said. “We don’t want to fine people, but if we have to we will.”

The new rule extends across the city a similar policy imposed earlier this month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, controlled by New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, in which commuters who refuse to wear a mask on public transit face a $50 fine.

De Blasio’s office did not respond to questions about who would enforce the new fines and how much they would be.

The city-wide daily positive test rate was 3.25%. The mayor attributed the rise in part to nine zip codes out of 146 that city health officials say have seen a worrying uptick in cases, including several tight-knit Hasidic Jewish communities. The seven-day rolling average for positive coronavirus tests was 1.38%.

The AFP news agency has more on the Indian study mentioned below. Its key finding is pretty stark: more than 60 million people in India – 10 times the official figure – could have contracted the novel coronavirus, the country’s lead pandemic agency has said, citing a nationwide study measuring antibodies.

According to official data, India is the world’s second most infected nation, with more than 6.1 million cases, just behind the United States.

But the real figure could be much higher, according to the latest serological survey – a study testing blood for certain antibodies to estimate the proportion of a population that has fought off the virus.

“The main conclusions from this sero-survey are that one in 15 individuals aged more than 10 have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 by August,” Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) director-general Balram Bhargava said at a health ministry press conference.

Coronavirus infection rates among adults in India have risen sharply, a new survey has shown, although cases could rise much further because a large percentage of the population has not yet been exposed.

In the serological survey conducted in August and September, blood samples were tested for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. If a person tests positive for the antibodies, it means they were infected with the virus at some point.

Blood samples collected from more than 29,000 adults between 17 August and 22 September showed that the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies increased to 7.1% compared to 0.73% in a previous survey between 11 May and 4 June, the director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Balram Bhargava, told a press briefing.

“However, a large percentage of the population is still unexposed and the susceptibility of a considerable section of people getting infected exists,” he added.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, expects the rate of infection spread to rise as the change in weather means more people will spend time inside in the coming months.

Speaking after a video conference with premiers of the federal states, Merkel said the number of daily infections could rise to 19,200 in three months if the rate of infection continued as it has done over the past three.

According to Reuters, Merkel also said she wanted to avoid a full nationwide lockdown “at all costs”:

We want to act regionally, specifically and purposefully, rather than shutting down the whole country again – this must be prevented at all costs.

Health inspectors in Greece say an emergency docking order for a cruise ship near Athens can now be lifted after crew members suspected of having been infected with Covid-19 tested negative.

The Maltese-flagged Mein Schiff 6, carrying more than 1,500 people, was rerouted from a Greek island cruise and ordered to sail to the port of Piraeus after sample testing of the crew indicated that 12 ship staff were positive for coronavirus but asymptomatic.

However, Gkikas Magiorkinis, a member of the government’s pandemic expert committee, has said that all 12 crew members have now tested negative, using rapid and confirmatory tests, along with 24 other people they had come into contact with, Associated Press reports.

The UK reported 7,143 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, the highest single figure to date, and 71 deaths, the biggest toll since July, according to the government’s dashboard. This figure is possibly misleading though, as testing is more widespread now than it was during the peak.

The 71 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test is the highest level since 97 fatalities were recorded on 1 July. However, that figure is an underestimate because it only counts people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus. Overall more than 57,600 people have died from confirmed or suspected coronavirus in the UK.

Follow more updates on our UK live blog:

New York City will impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face mask from Tuesday as the rate of positive tests for coronavirus climbed above 3% for the first time in months, the mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday.

Officials will first offer free masks to those caught not wearing one, and then if the person refuses they will face an unspecified fine, De Blasio told reporters.

Our goal, of course, is to give everyone a free face mask. We don’t want to fine people, but if we have to we will.

The city’s positive Covid-19 test rate topped 3% “for the first time in months”, the mayor added, attributing the rise in the city’s infection rate to nine particular zip codes.

The citywide daily positive test rate was 3.25%, while the seven-day rolling average was 1.38%. De Blasio added:

Obviously everyone is concerned about that. That is something we all have to work on together to address.

The new rule extends across the city a similar policy imposed earlier this month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, controlled by New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, in which commuters who refuse to wear a mask on public transit face a $50 fine.

The citywide daily positive test rate was 3.25%, which the mayor attributed in part to nine zip codes that city health officials say has seen a worrying uptick in cases. The seven-day rolling Covid-19 positivity average was 1.38%.

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, has extended an upcoming school holiday by a week to limit the spread of coronavirus, days after sources told Reuters that the Russian capital’s hospitals had been told to free up hundreds of beds.

Covid-19 infections have been rising across Europe in the weeks since the start of the new academic year. Other countries have also considered extending October school holidays to try to slow the spread.

The Kremlin said last week it did not plan to impose severe lockdown restrictions despite a growing number of new cases of Covid-19, but Sobyanin advised anyone with chronic health problems or those older than 65 to stay home.

On Tuesday, Sobyanin said students would be off school from 5-18 October, and urged parents to keep their children at home. On his website, he wrote:

Today a significant proportion of the sick – who are often asymptomatic – are children. When they come home, they easily transmit the virus to adults and elderly family members who get much more sick.

The increase in cases in Moscow has escalated since Russia reopened schools on 1 September. The number of new daily infections has more than doubled compared with late August.

The rouble nosedived on Tuesday, hitting 93 against the euro and continuing its sharp downward trajectory from the previous two trading sessions. The falls were due to concern over the rising rate of infections as well as clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh just beyond Russia’s southern border.

With 1,167,805 cases, Russia has the world’s fourth highest number of infections. On Tuesday, the authorities said that 160 people had died from the virus in the last 24 hours, pushing the country’s official death toll to 20,545.

The energy ministry plans to ask nearly 20% of its staff to work from home from 1 October in response to the growing number of coronavirus cases, the deputy minister Anastasia Bondarenko said, after over 70% of its personnel was working remotely in March-July.

Restaurants and bars will have to close by 10pm in areas of Poland worst affected by the coronavirus, the health minister said, adding that there would be no nationwide lockdown.

The country reported 1,326 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, after a record 1,587 new cases on Friday. Poland will continue to report high numbers of daily coronavirus cases in the coming days, Adam Niedzielski said earlier on Tuesday.

“Depending on the place and scale of new infections we will be implementing new measures,” he told a news conference. It was not immediately clear when the new measures would take effect.

There would also be further limits on the number of people who can attend weddings and the wearing of face masks will be obligatory outside home in badly hit places, he added.

Niedzielski said that he saw no threat of a shortage of hospitals beds, reacting to complaints from some doctors that they are struggling to deal with high numbers of coronavirus patients. He added:

Expecting that the trend of new infections above 1,000-1,500 a day will be continued … we have increased the base of beds available.

German finance minister Olaf Scholz has said he will persist with heavy spending to help Europe’s largest economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic as rescue and stimulus measures push debt to its highest level on record, Reuters reports.

Presenting his draft budget for 2021, he said the government would continue to help companies and consumers by expanding job protection schemes and would keep public investments high. Scholz said:

With the investments of this budget, we’re pushing the door further open for the future of our country.

He said the draft budget, which envisages net new debt of €96.2bn ($112.45bn) to finance further measures to tackle the coronavirus crisis, was “a lot of money” but added that inaction would lead to even higher costs in the long run.

The cost of Spain’s Covid-19 social-protection measures, including the ERTE furlough scheme, reached €22bn ($25.75bn) between April and September, Reuters reports.

The full package of measures could cost an additional €1bn per month beyond September, social security minister Jose Luis Escriva told reporters today at the weekly cabinet meeting.

This is Lexy Topping holding the fort for a while, so Josh can eat a sandwich and do an interview. Do get in touch on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com.