Coronavirus live news: Global cases near 18m as Melbourne braces for further lockdown measures | World news

The number of new Covid-19 cases in China’s far northwestern region of Xinjiang are continuing to fall, with 28 reported on Monday, AP reports. China reported 43 new cases nationwide, seven of the imported and eight in the northeastern province of Liaoning.

No new deaths were reported, leaving China’s total at 4,634 among 8,428 cases. All the new cases in Xinjiang were in the regional capital and largest city of Urumqi, which has been at the center of China’s latest major outbreak since cases were first detected there in mid-July.

The region has reported a total of 590 cases, all but four of them in Urumqi, where authorities have conducted mass testing, cut down on public transport, isolated some communities and restricted travel outside the city.

Yet, while mainland China’s latest outbreak appears to have peaked, authorities in the semi-autonomous Chinese city of Hong Kong are struggling to contain a new wave of infections, with more than 200 new cases added over the weekend.

More now from New Zealand – Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian:

New Zealand has reported two new cases of Covid-19 on Monday, both diagnosed in travellers returning to the country who are quarantined in government-managed facilities.

It has been 94 days since a coronavirus case in New Zealand was last recorded as being acquired locally from an unknown source. There are 27 active cases in the country, all among returning travelers staying in the isolation facilities.

Returnees must spend two weeks at the hotels, where they are tested twice for Covid-19. Only New Zealanders and certain essential workers are permitted to enter the country.

The two latest cases were diagnosed in a teenage boy returning from the United States and a man in his 20s arriving from Switzerland.

New Zealand has recorded a total of 1,217 confirmed cases of the virus, with 22 deaths. A swift, early lockdown of the country in March appears to have quashed its spread.

Vietnam’s coastal city of Danang plans to test its entire population of 1.1 million people for coronavirus infection, the governing authorities said on Saturday, as 40 new cases linked to the tourist hot spot were reported across the country, taking total infections to 586, with three deaths, Reuters reports.

Most of the new cases are linked to hospitals in Danang city, where the first locally transmitted infection in more than three months was detected last week.

The Health Ministry said on Saturday that up to 800,000 visitors to Danang have left for other parts of the country since 1 July, adding that more than 41,000 people have visited three hospitals in the city since.

Local medical officials in Danang have conducted 8,247 coronavirus tests in the city since 25 July, when the latest cluster was first detected. Testing capacity will be increased to 8,000-10,000 per day, the governing authorities said.

Vietnam has detected new coronavirus cases in other cities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, with links to Danang.

Meanwhile, authorities of the capital city, Hanoi said late on Saturday it had carried out around 49,000 tests since Thursday after the city ordered mass testing for all people who recently returned from the popular coastal city.

Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian:

Here’s another way in which New Zealand is casting off the last restraints on domestic life since Covid-19:

Jury trials resumed today in the country’s courts for the first time since New Zealand entered a strict period of lockdown in late March. While life has largely returned to normal in the country – there are no known cases of Covid-19 in the general population, outside of quarantine facilities – only defendants who opted to be tried by a judge alone have been able to proceed through the system.

The return to jury trials was tested in one city, Dunedin, in late July to see how potential jurors would respond to receiving a summons, the Otago Daily Times reported. But there were no issues with attendance.

There is, however, a long wait – often a case can take a year to come to trial in New Zealand, and the lockdown resulted in about 500 extra trials in the system.

Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian:

The governments of New Zealand and Australia have been talking for months now about the eventual possibility of a trans-Tasman travel “bubble”, in which travelers would be able to move between the countries without spending the requisite time required in quarantine at each end.

But the events in the Australian state of Victoria are a significant impediment to those plans happening any time soon, Jacinda Ardern told Radio New Zealand on Monday.

“This is a major setback for trans-Tasman travel because we have always said we have to be very, very assured that any quarantine free travel we have with any country needs to ensure that it doesn’t come at a risk or a cost to us,” she said. “And so obviously this is going to be some time away now.”

When asked by RNZ whether she had ruled out such a travel bubble this year, Ardern said she hadn’t “put a timeframe on it.”

There is no known community transmission of Covid-19 in New Zealand; all diagnosed cases are contained in quarantine hotels among returning travellers. In contrast, Victoria has moved to its strictest period of lockdown so far.

The US reported 1.87 million cases in July alone, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.

This figure is more than twice the figure for April, which was the last highest at 860,000 new cases. May saw 690,200 new infections, while June saw 820,000 cases reported:

US infections are approaching 5 million, with 4,657,693 currently confirmed, which amounts to a quarter of the global total of nearly 18 million.

Deaths in the country stand at 154,834, or a fifth of the global total of 687,067.

Seven Chinese health officials arrived in Hong Kong on Sunday, the first members of a 60-person team that will carry out widespread Covid-19 testing in the territory as it races to halt another wave of illness.

The initiative marks the first time mainland health officials have assisted Hong Kong in its battle to control the epidemic.

The city has reported around 3,500 coronavirus cases and 34 deaths since January, far lower than many other global metropolitan centres. But the daily number of new infections has been in three digits for the past 12 days.

Members of the testing team, co-ordinated by the Chinese government, are mostly from public hospitals in Guangdong province, China’s National Health Commission said.

A group of local Hong Kong councillors said on Sunday that some local residents fear China may use their presence as an opportunity to collect DNA samples for surveillance purposes:

Hi, my name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus news from around the world for the next few hours.

Please do get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: [email protected]. News tips, feedback and questions are welcome.

Residents in the Australian city of Melbourne woke up this morning to their first full day of strict lockdown expected to last as long as six weeks, as the Australian state of Victoria struggles to contain an outbreak with hundreds of what authorities call “mystery cases” – infections that cannot be traced to known outbreaks. Yesterday 671 new cases were confirmed in the state. Many of Victoria’s cases are in aged care homes and among healthcare workers.

Here is a reminder of the restrictions in Melbourne:

Global infections meanwhile are nearing 18m, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with 17.95m currently confirmed. There have been 686,947 deaths reported over the course of the pandemic so far.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• Residents in the Australian city of Melbourne will be subject to an overnight curfew for the next six weeks, and be banned from travelling more than 5km to go shopping or to exercise, as Victoria attempts to get the number of new coronavirus cases under control. The premier, Daniel Andrews, announced that from 6pm on Sunday, residents in the Melbourne metropolitan area would be under curfew for six weeks until 13 September.
• Nancy Pelosi says she has no confidence in Deborah Birx over handling of pandemic. House speaker Nancy Pelosi escalated an attack on Dr Deborah Birx, a senior scientist on Donald Trump’s coronavirus taskforce, in television comments on Sunday as Birx defended the administration’s handling of the pandemic.
• Media to be banned from Republican convention due to coronavirus restrictions. The media will reportedly not be allowed to witness Donald Trump’s formal renomination as the Republican party’s choice for president at its national convention later this month.
• UK prime minister Boris Johnson is considering new lockdown measures in England should there be a second wave of coronavirus infections. Plans are being assessed after a rise in Covid-19 cases forced the prime minister to slow the lockdown easing on Friday, with proposed relaxations for the leisure and beauty sectors delayed.
• Trump campaign adviser says election will not be delayed. “The election is going to be on 3 November,” Donald Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said, adding it is actually Democrat governors who want the election delayed by introducing mail-in voting, where ballots can arrive after 3 November.
• India reported nearly 55,000 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, down from the previous day’s record 57,118 but raising the country’s total to 1.75 million. The month of July accounted for more than 1.1 million of those cases. The major cities of New Delhi and Mumbai might have passed their peaks, said a government expert, Randeep Guleria. Subways, cinemas and other public facilities are closed until 31 August.
• The Philippines announced it would reimpose a stricter lockdown in and around its capital for two weeks from midnight of 4 August, as the country struggles to contain coronavirus infections that have jumped to more than 100,000 cases.
• 40 cruise ship passengers infected with coronavirus. At least 40 passengers and crew from a luxury cruise liner have tested positive for Covid-19 and the authorities are still trying to trace a number of passengers from two recent Arctic voyages, public health officials in Norway said on Sunday.
• A major incident was declared in Greater Manchester, England on Sunday after coronavirus infection rates continued to climb at the end of the week. Crisis meetings of senior figures from the police, local authorities and other agencies have been taking place over the weekend amid concerns that numbers are still going up in the wake of stricter lockdown measures, which were announced on Thursday night.
• France to push for sanctions for countries tolerating human rights violations in EU Covid recovery plan. France will push for financial sanctions under the EU’s 750 bn euro ($880bn) coronavirus recovery fund against states that undermine fundamental human rights, its junior European affairs minister told the Financial Times.