COVID-19 Live Updates: White House Chief of Staff Meadows Reportedly Tests Positive

BREAKING: Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has the coronavirus. Meadows informed a close circle of advisers after the election.

Story by me, @tylerpager and @MarioDParker out soon.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) November 7, 2020

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The United States has registered more than 128,000 new coronavirus cases within the past 24 hours marking the largest daily increase since the start of the epidemic, US media reported.

The country reports more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases for the third day in a row, The Washington Post newspaper reported.

The United States remains the worst-hit nation both in terms of the number of cases (over 9.7 million) and fatalities (more than 236,000).

PARIS (Sputnik) – France has registered 60,486 new coronavirus cases within the past 24 hours marking the largest daily increase since the start of the epidemic, the country's national public health agency, Sante Publique, said on Friday.

A day earlier, the country reported over 58,000 new infections.

The total number of coronavirus cases registered in France has surpassed 1.6 million, with more than 39,800 people having died of the disease.

BELGRADE (Sputnik) - The Russian Consulate in Montenegro suspends services from November 9 due to the increase in the incidence of COVID-19 in the country, the Russian embassy in the country said in a statement.

"In connection with a sharp deterioration in the sanitary and epidemiological situation in Montenegro in October-November 2020 due to a significant increase in the number of cases of coronavirus infection COVID-19, the adoption of additional restrictive measures by the Montenegrin authorities to combat its spread and in order to ensure the safety of Russian citizens in Montenegro, еhe embassy will suspend the provision of consular services (actions) from November 9, 2020. In this regard, their provision to citizens applying via the preliminary electronic registration system will not be made (tentatively until November 22, 2020)," the diplomatic mission said.

Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Friday that about 250,000 coronavirus patients were being treated in hospitals in Russia.

"Today, about 650,000 people [infected with the coronavirus] are on outpatient treatment, this is a global practice. And somewhere around 250,000 people are those who are in hospitals today," the minister said in an interview with Channel One.

Greece is cancelling mass events marking the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising on November 17 due to the introduction of a quarantine to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Minister for Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochoidis said on Friday following a government meeting.

Earlier this week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a three-week nationwide lockdown starting Saturday over a resurgence in the daily increment of COVID-19 cases.

"In 2020, we did not celebrate together the days that unite us. We did not celebrate March 25 [the beginning of the Greek War of Independence], Easter, October 28 [Ochi Day that marks Greece's refusal to yield to the powers of the Axis in 1940]. The Polytechnic uprising cannot be an exception," Chrysochoidis said, as quoted by the ministry's press service.

In November 1973, a student uprising against the Greek military junta began at the National Technical University of Athens, paving the way to the collapse of the regime. Though the uprising was suppressed, it led to massive protests, which resulted in the overthrow of the dictatorship.

Commemorative mass events on the anniversary of the uprising in Greece are held for three days starting on November 17. Traditionally, citizens hold two marches toward the US embassy — the Greeks accuse the United States of supporting the junta from 1967-1974.

The Latvian government has declared a state of emergency in the country in connection with the spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said on Friday after an emergency cabinet meeting.

"The government has announced a state of emergency. It will enter into force on November 9 and will last through November 29," the prime minister said.

Over the past day, 357 coronavirus cases were detected in Latvia, the total number of cases increased 7,476. Seven people infected with coronavirus died.

Latvia has a total of 250 hospital beds equipped for treating infectious diseases.

Authorities in the Norwegian capital of Oslo have decided to toughen coronavirus-related restrictions concerning residents' social life starting November 10 amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, the country's NRK broadcaster reported on Friday, citing a local official.

As of Thursday, the number of those infected in the country has reached 23,225 with most of the cases being recorded in Oslo. On Monday, Norway confirmed 617 cases — the highest daily increase since the outbreak.

According to the broadcaster, the capital's playgrounds, theatres, cinemas, fitness centres and other similar places will be closed starting 10 November, while the sale of alcohol in catering establishments will be banned, which could mean "stopping the social life of the city". In addition, all indoor events will be cancelled.

Among other measures, a ban on outdoor sports activities for adults will be in place. Restaurants and cafes would be able to further operate but without selling alcohol. People will be required to wear masks both in taxis and on public transport, as well as maintain a social distance in shops.

Romania confirmed a record 10,260 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking its overall tally to 287,062, the government's COVID-19 strategic contact group said on Friday, as cited by national media.

According to the Digi 24 broadcaster, the death toll has increased by 123 over the given period to a total of 7,663 fatalities.

The Romanian Health Ministry said that nearly 196,000 patients have recovered from the coronavirus.

The Romanian government decided to respond to a surge in the COVID-19 infection rate by imposing a month-long curfew starting from Monday, making wearing face masks mandatory and transferring schools and kindergartens to online learning.

"Amnesty International believes that… cooperation between States in the Americas must ensure that medical treatments to combat COVID-19 and/or a potential vaccine are made available and accessible without discrimination, establishing special measures to support specific groups who are most at risk from the virus", the organisation said.

The watchdog added that Mercosur should also address the issue of child sexual abuse. According to Amnesty, the states could tackle the problem if they initiated sexuality education among children and adolescents and made sexual health services available.

"Amnesty International wishes to draw attention to the need to raise awareness of forced pregnancies among children and the need for the State to guarantee comprehensive care for the various forms of… child sexual abuse", the watchdog said.

At the early stages of the pandemic, some experts have suggested hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 or a possible prevention method. Nonetheless, several studies showed no benefit of hydroxychloroquine use after exposure to the coronavirus.

However, the possibility of the use of the drag to prevent COVID-19 was still on the table so a team of scientists, including epidemiologist Christopher Rentsch, conducted a population study using the OpenSAFELY platform, that has a database capturing 40 percent of the population of England. The database included 30,569 patients suffering from rheumatic arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus that were taking hydroxychloroquine six months before the coronavirus pandemic and 164,068 patients with the same rheumatic diseases who did not use the drag.

"The study found no significant difference in standardised cumulative COVID-19 mortality associated with hydroxychloroquine use (0·23% among hydroxychloroquine users and 0·22% among non-users) with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1·03 (95% CI 0·80–1·33) … Additionally, no difference was seen in non-COVID-19 mortality associated with hydroxychloroquine use", the study said, as quoted by The Lancet.

Moreover, Rentsch told The Telegraph that scientists found "no association between hydroxychloroquine use and Covid mortality."

In May, The Lancet published an article that suggested that coronavirus patients who received hydroxychloroquine were dying at higher rates than other individuals with the disease, prompting the World Health Organization to halt trials of the medication on COVID-19 patients.

The United States on Friday reported a record high daily increase in new coronavirus infections — 121,888 cases, according to the data colected by Johns Hopkins University.

A day earlier, a daily increase of 102,831 cases was reported.

Employees of entertainment facilities and food outlets in Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv are holding a rally near the building of the regional administration in protest against the country's coronavirus-related lockdown measures, domestic media reported on Friday.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the authorities would toughen social distancing measures should the epidemiological situation in the country deteriorate further. At that time, Chief Sanitary Doctor Viktor Liashko also said that the country's health ministry would ask the government to ban all mass events.

According to the Ukrainian Segodnya.ua news website, the employees are demanding to be able to set their enterprises' working hours in accordance with the mandatory quarantine safety standards.

They have also demanded the creation of a working group, which will develop rules for the operation of public catering establishments under quarantine conditions, and for the government to reduce tax and utility payments for the entire quarantine period.

A nationwide quarantine was introduced in Ukraine back in March and was subsequently extended several times. Most recently, the measures were prolonged on October 28 until December 31.

So far, the country has registered more than 440,000 cases of the coronavirus disease, resulting in 195,544 recoveries and 8,125 deaths. A new single-day record of 9,850 new positive tests was set on Thursday.

Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization Soumya Swaminathan said Friday it was too early to decide whether the coronavirus mutation found in the farmed mink population in Denmark could impact the efficacy of vaccines.

Denmark, a major mink fur exporter, has said it may need to kill up to 17 million of minks over fear of the new mutation spreading back to humans.

"We need to wait and see what the implications are, but I don't think we should come to any conclusions whether this particular mutation is going to impact vaccine efficacy or not. We don't have any evidence at the moment that it would," Swaminathan told a virtual press briefing.

The coronavirus mutations in minks need to be studied properly before experts can say if there can be any complications and what kind, Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical Lead at WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said.

"What we understand is the minks have been infected with contact from humans, it circulates in the mink and then it could pass back to humans. So there's always a concern when you have a circulation and transmission from human to animals and then from animals to humans. So there is a number of activities that are ongoing to understand the situation in Denmark," Van Kerkhove said.

According to the expert, mutations are normal and experts have been monitoring all changes in the virus since the beginning.

"In this situation, there is a suggestion that some of these mutations may have some implications, but we need to do the proper studies to evaluate this. and that is ongoing right now with colleagues at the SSI in Denmark as well as our international working group," Van Kerkhove said.

There is no evidence yet that this particular mutation behaves differently from others, Michael J. Ryan, the executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said.

"It may have a slightly different signature, but it is still the same virus. What we have to evaluate over time is whether this virus has any difference in transmission or clinical severity or whether there are any implications for diagnostics or vaccines. But we're a long, long way away from making any determination of that kind," Ryan said.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn has said on Friday that the epidemiological situation in the country is severe, adding that although the country managed to stop an increase in the incidence of new infections during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government should make every effort to slow down the spread of the virus.

Germany, like many countries across the world, has faced a sharp surge in the number of COVID-19 infections per day since October. On Friday, 21,506 cases — a new record high — were registered by German public health officials.

"During the first phase of the pandemic, we managed to stop an increase in the incidence and break the dynamics. We had a relatively calm summer. Today, we are again doing our best to slow down the spread and protect our health care system from being overloaded. Efforts must be made at the national level for this. The situation is serious," Spahn said, addressing the German parliament.

According to the minister, the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units has doubled over the past 10 days, although the health care system can cope with the situation.

However, if the current trend continues, even "the best system will collapse," Spahn remarked.

As a result, the minister called on the parliament to provide more financial aid to the country's hospitals than before.

The minister added that the pandemic has not yet reached its peak.

So far, more than 619,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the country, resulting in 11,000 fatalities, according to public health officials in the European country.

"I would like to reiterate that Russia is ready to help CIS partners, share its achievements. We are working to make it possible for our people to get vaccinated [against the coronavirus] and will of course work on supplies to our allies, to other countries", Mishustin said at an online meeting of CIS prime ministers.

"An upward trend [in infections] is predicted, which requires greater measures. You can see that more is being done - greater regulatory measures - without resorting to lockdown, and as such, each region is taking the appropriate decisions bearing in mind their specific circumstances. However, the trend, as has been said many times before, is alarming. The pandemic is developing", Peskov said.

#Cuba contará con 4 candidatos vacunales contra la #COVID19 en ensayos clínicos a finales del presente año e inmunizará en 2021 a toda su población

A pesar del recrudecimiento del bloqueo de EEUU, el carácter humano de la ciencia cubana permite superar barreras para salvar vidas pic.twitter.com/tk3P3R4UQw

— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) November 5, 2020

Russia has registered 20,582 new COVID-19 cases, its highest daily increase on record, bringing the cumulative total to 1,733,440, the federal response centre said Friday.

Russia also registered the highest daily uptick in the number of people who have recovered: 16,955. In the same period, 378 deaths were registered across the country.

Moscow has been consistently reporting the highest daily increase in infections among all regions. On Friday, it registered  6,253 new cases. St. Petersburg reported 1,171 new cases, and the Moscow region reported 605.

The daily increase in the number of detected COVID-19 cases in Georgia reached a record-high of 2,775, Alexander Khodjevanishvili, a member of the Coordination Council for the fight against coronavirus, said.

"Overnight, 2775 new confirmed cases of infection were detected. We maintain a positive trend in terms of the number of recoveries - 3560 people recovered per day, in total - 37,019", he said at a briefing.

According to Khodjevanishvili, 22 people infected with the coronavirus died in the past 24 hours.

The mandatory quarantine was cancelled in Georgia despite the resurgence of COVID-19 — the daily infection rate increased from several dozens in late August to an average of 1,700-2,300 cases in early November.

To date, Georgia has confirmed around 52,000 COVID-19 cases, with a death toll of 423.

The United States has registered 120,048 new coronavirus cases within the past 24 hours marking the largest daily increase since the start of the epidemic, US media reported.

The country reports more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row, the NBC News broadcaster reported.