LONDON — The British government has given the city of Manchester a noon Tuesday deadline to agree to tighter coronavirus measures, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson struggles to impose his plan for localized restrictions on restive regions.
Johnson’s government is resisting a recommendation from its scientific advisory committee for a short “circuit-breaker” lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Instead it has adopted a three-tier system for England, with areas classed as medium, high and very high risk. In the top tier, pubs have to close and people are barred from mixing with members of other households.
So far only the Liverpool and Lancashire regions of northwest England have been placed in the highest tier. Nearby Greater Manchester, with a population of almost 3 million, has been holding out for more support for workers and businesses affected by the restrictions.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said if the government imposed the measures, “we would obviously have to accept that decision … But I would say to them at this point are they sure that that is a wise thing to do?”
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— An angry Trump criticizes disease expert Dr. Fauci, the news media and polls that show him trailing rival Biden in key states 2 weeks before Election Day
— U.K. researchers plan to infect healthy volunteers with the virus to speed the development of a vaccine, a move that is risky but could produce faster results
— Argentina is 5th nation to surpass 1 million cases; 3 others in Latin America near the milestone
— Some progress claimed in Washington’s negotiations for a new coronavirus relief package, but the same core problems remain
— A World Series like no other opens Tuesday night with Major League Baseball relieved to reach the championship of a pandemic-delayed season
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Follow all of AP’s coronavirus pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
LISBON, Portugal — Portugal’s prime minister is backing down from his plan to make the government’s COVID-19 tracing app mandatory.
Prime Minister Antonio Costa said in a television interview that the widely contested move, which was due to be voted on later this week in parliament, required further debate.
Portugal’s Stayaway COVID app has been downloaded 2.3 million times — just over one third of the government’s target.
Costa’s plan for compulsory use was widely criticized as unworkable. Among other complaints, police said the measure was unenforceable, and legal experts said it was unconstitutional.
Parliament is expected on Friday to make the wearing of face masks mandatory outdoors.
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BERLIN — A district in Germany’s Alpine southeastern corner is going into a de-facto lockdown Tuesday after reporting well above 200 new cases per 100,000 residents in a week, the highest level in a country that is still in better shape than many others in Europe.
Schools, restaurants and other facilities in the Berchtesgaden district, on the border with Austria, are being closed for 14 days. Hotels there are closed to tourists and residents can only leave their homes for good reason.
Other areas across Germany are considering less onerous new restrictions as infections rise. The national disease control center said the country of 83 million people recorded 6,868 new cases over the past day — below the record of 7,830 on Saturday but considerably more than a week earlier.
Many of Germany’s biggest cities have exceeded the level of 50 new cases per 100,000 residents over a week that is supposed to trigger new local restrictions. As of Tuesday, the entire Ruhr industrial region in western Germany was above that figure.
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LONDON — U.K. researchers are preparing to begin a controversial experiment that will infect healthy volunteers with the new coronavirus to study the disease in hopes of speeding up development of a vaccine.
The approach, called a challenge study, is risky but proponents say it may produce results faster than standard research, which waits to see if volunteers who have been given an experimental treatment get sick.
Imperial College London said Tuesday that the study, involving healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 30, would be conducted in partnership with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and hVivo, a company that has experience conducting testing .
Professor Peter Openshaw, co-investigator on the study, says that “deliberately infecting volunteers with a known human pathogen is never undertaken lightly. However, such studies are enormously informative about a disease, even one so well studied as COVID-19.”
In the first phase, researchers will aim to determine the smallest level of exposure needed to cause the disease. Researchers will then use the same challenge model to study how potential vaccines work in the body, the bodies immune response and potential treatments.
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HELSINKI – The Finnish national carrier Finnair says it will cut 700 jobs – over 10% of its total workforce – by the end of March 2021 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The airline based at the Helsinki Airport is heavily focused on Europe to Asia flights. It said Tuesday that some 600 of the cuts would be in Finland.
FInnair CEO Topi Manner said the job cuts are “necessary and inevitable. Finnair’s re-build requires us to be competitive when aviation gradually starts to recover. Therefore, in the future, we will have to do many things differently in order to succeed.”
The coronavirus pandemic has forced global airlines to halt most of their flights. Finnair has temporarily laid off a large part of its 6,500 staff and its flight traffic was down 91% in September from the previous year.
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PRAGUE — The Czech government is further tightening its restrictive measures in efforts to slow a record surge in coronavirus infections.
Health Minister Roman Prymula says the new restrictions expand mandatory wearing of face makes to outdoor spaces if people are closer than two meters (6.5 feet). Face coverings will be mandatory in cars if the driver and passengers are not members of the same family. The measures will become effective on Wednesday.
The Czech Republic has about 178,00 infections while 1,501 people have died of the virus.
The number of new cases has tripled in the past two weeks, from a seven-day rolling daily average of 23.81 per 100,000 people on Oct. 4 to 75.74 on Sunday.
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ISLAMABAD — A Cabinet minister says Pakistan has witnessed a 140% increase in fatalities from COVID-19 in recent weeks due to widespread violations of social distancing rules.
Asad Umar, the planning and development minister who oversees Pakistan’s response to coronavirus, warned on Twitter “We will lose both lives and livelihoods” if people did not adhere to social distancing rules.
His comments Tuesday came shortly after the military-backed Command and Operations Center reported 14 deaths and 625 new cases in the past 24 hours.
Prime Minister Imran Khan had warned on Monday that Pakistan’s big cities could face a second wave of COVID-19 in the coming weeks because of increasing pollution in winter. Pakistan has reported 324,084 cases, including 6,673 COVID-19 deaths.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A number of fishing crew who flew into New Zealand on chartered planes have the coronavirus.
Health officials said Tuesday that 11 have tested positive so far and another 14 cases are being investigated.
The crew members have been in quarantine at a Christchurch hotel since they arrived, and tested positive during routine testing, officials said. The news could deal a blow to New Zealand’s efforts to restart its fishing industry, which has struggled to find local workers to crew vessels.
Jeremy Helson, the chief executive of Seafood New Zealand, said all the men tested negative before flying to New Zealand. “While we await to see how many cases there are, the fact that they were all detected in quarantine shows the system is working well,” Helson said.
The origin of the infected crew members wasn’t immediately clear.
New Zealand has managed to stamp out community spread of the virus.
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NEW DELHI — India has added over 46,000 cases of coronavirus infection and 587 deaths in the past 24 hours.
With 7.59 million cases, India’s total detected cases is second in the world, behind only the U.S. Although the number of new infections detected daily in the country has been been declining in the past month, independent experts have cautioned against laxity.
They pointed out that people not wearing masks or maintaining distance during the upcoming festival season, combined with cold weather, could lead to a surge in cases.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday that India is strategizing to immunize its population by using a digital health plan, under which each person gets an identity card containing all health-related information.
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LONDON — Ireland’s government is putting the country at its highest level of coronavirus restrictions for six weeks in a bid to combat a rise in infections.
Premier Micheal Martin said Monday the measures take effect at midnight Wednesday and run until Dec. 1.
People are being asked to stay at home, with exercise allowed only within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius of their home. Only essential stores can open. Restaurants and bars can provide only takeaway service. No social or family gatherings will be allowed in homes or private gardens, but schools will remain open to prioritize education.
Martin urged the country to “pull together” for six weeks so that the virus can be suppressed and people can still enjoy Christmas.
Ireland has seen daily cases rising. It had 1,031 new confirmed cases Sunday and the death toll stands at 1,852.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom says the state won’t allow distribution of coronavirus vaccines until it is reviewed by the state’s own panel of experts.
Newsom said Monday that California wants its own independent review no matter who wins the presidential election next month.
The governor named 11 doctors and scientists to review any rollout of vaccines by the federal government or vaccine developers. The board members hail from top California top universities and medical providers, along with state and local public health officials.
Newsom’s position pledge raises the possibility that California’s 40 million residents might not receive a vaccine as distribution begins in other states.
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SALEM, Ore. — As Oregon’s total number of confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic nears 40,000, state health officials say face-covering requirements are being expanded.
Currently, Oregonians are required to wear masks at indoor public spaces and outside where they cannot maintain six feet of space between others. Health officials said Monday that they are expanding the guidance to include all private and public workplaces, including classrooms, offices, meeting rooms, colleges, universities, outdoor markets and private career schools.
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AUSTIN, Texas — Health officials in Texas have reported 4,319 COVID-19 hospital patients, the most since Aug. 28.
The state estimated Monday that 82,930 coronavirus cases are active in Texas. That is about a third more than the 64,431 reported a month ago, on Sept. 20.
In Houston, schools in the state’s largest school district resumed in-person classes Monday for the first time since campuses doors were closed in March when the coronavirus came to Texas.
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TOPEKA, Kansas — A coronavirus outbreak has killed 10 residents in a nursing home in a northwestern Kansas county that already had proportionally the nation’s largest increase in cases over two weeks.
The health department in Norton County reported that all 62 residents and an unspecified number of employees at the Andbe Home in Norton had tested positive. It said one Andbe Home resident was hospitalized, while the remaining 51 were being treated at the home.
The local health department said residents are being quarantined in their rooms and the home is not allowing outside visitors.
The outbreak at the nursing home came after the state Department of Health and Environment last week reported more than 100 cases at the state’s prison in Norton over the two weeks ending Wednesday.
Kansas is seeing an average of more than 700 new coronavirus cases a day, its largest numbers since early March.
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