Pubs in Ireland that do not serve food will remain closed until 10 August at the earliest – the nation’s government is set to announce.

Ministers are expected to delay plans to fully reopen the industry from next week over concerns about the number of young people who have contracted Covid-19.

Currently only bars that provide a substantial meal are allowed to sell alcohol with it .

Face coverings are also set to be made mandatory in shops following Wednesday evening’s Cabinet meeting.

Kevin Stitt has announced he is the first governor in the United States to test positive for coronavirus and is isolating at home.

Mr Stitt, 48, said he mostly feels fine, although he started feeling “a little achy” on Tuesday and sought a test.
He said his wife and children were also tested Tuesday and none of them tested positive.

Mr Stitt has backed one of the country’s most aggressive reopening plans, resisted any statewide mandate on masks and rarely wears one himself.

“We respect people’s rights … to not wear a mask,” Mr Stitt said during Wednesday’s news conference, which was held virtually. “You just open up a big can of worms. A lot of businesses are requiring it and that’s fine. I’m just hesitant to mandate something that I think is problematic to enforce.”

The Lancet Medical Journal plans to publish phase 1 of clinical trial data on Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine on Monday 20 July.

Two more people have died with Covid-19 in Ireland, the National Public Health Emergency Team said, bringing the total to 1,748 up by 10 since the beginning of July.

As of midnight on Tuesday, the health system has been notified of 14 more confirmed cases.

Dr Ronan Glynn, the nation’s acting chief medical officer at the Department of Health, said the National Public Health Emergency Team met on Tuesday and will convene again on Thursday to review Ireland’s response to and preparedness for Covid-19.

He said: “We are at a sensitive stage in the pandemic – this requires caution and collective effort to hold firm and keep the virus suppressed in the community. Continue to follow public health advice.”

The coronavirus pandemic will swell the ranks of the poor and unemployed in Latin America and the Caribbean and drag the region´s economic output down by 9.1 per cent, a United Nations agency has said in a report.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimated an additional 18 million people will find themselves out of work versus 2019 levels as lockdown measures continue to hammer already frail economies.

The agency expects 44.1 million will be unemployed by year´s end, a figure higher than that registered amid the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

“Latin America and the Caribbean is today at the epicenter of the pandemic,” ECLAC said in its report. “While some governments have begun to ease containment measures, others have had to maintain or even intensify them in the face of the persistent increase in new cases.”

Many after school clubs have struggled to reopen due to restrictions in place to limit the spread of coronavirus, a leading body has told The Independent.

These clubs – which parents use for childcare in after school hours – could operate again at the start of June, when certain school years started going back to school in England.

However, “in practice very few of them did as it was so difficult”, Clare Freeman from the Out of School Alliance (OOSA) told our reporter Zoe Tidman.

More below:

An appeal to raise funds to fight coronavirus in refugee camps and poor communities in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries has raised more than £5million in a day.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Coronavirus Appeal, involving 14 of Britain’s largest aid charities, was launched on Tuesday to raise funds to provide food, water and medical care to people in countries such as Syria, Yemen and South Sudan.

Other targets are Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.

The UK Government has pledged to match the first £5 million in donations made by the public.

Anti-Trump campaign group The Lincoln Project has released an ad defending Dr Anthony Fauci against criticism from the White House, and asking viewers whether they prefer to trust him or “Donald the dope”.

The ad describes Dr Fauci as “a natural leader” and runs through his long record of working with the government, which has earned him high praise from presidents of both parties.

It then contrasts him against the current president, including clips of Mr Trump suggesting that disinfectant could cure Covid-19, denying responsibility for the death toll, and saying he expects the virus to “disappear”.

More below:
 

A French minister had a moment of panic after she realised she had forgotten her face mask for a Bastille Day ceremony.

Agnes Pannier-Runacher greeted other dignitaries – many wearing face coverings – before suddenly turning around to run after the car which had just dropped her off for the parade in Paris on Tuesday.

She stopped as the vehicle continued to drive away.

More – including the video – below:
 

The DHSC also said that in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 538 lab-confirmed UK cases. Overall, a total of 291,911 cases have been confirmed.

Researchers at the University of Exeter’s Business School discovered 7 per cent of women had been made redundant during the lockdown in comparison to 4 per cent of men.

Women’s correspondent Maya Oppenheim reports:
 

Scientists are advising anyone who notices a new rash to self-isolate and get tested after identifying it as a symptom of Covid-19.

Researchers say characteristic skin rashes and “Covid fingers and toes” can occur in the absence of any other symptoms and therefore should be considered when diagnosing Covid-19.

A persistent cough, fever and a loss of smell or taste are listed by the NHS as the main symptoms of the virus.

Using data from the Covid Symptom Study app from about 336,000 regular UK users, King’s College London researchers found that 8.8% of people testing positive for the disease had experienced a skin rash as part of their symptoms.

This was compared with 5.4% of people with a negative test result.

Similar results were seen in a further 8.2% of users with a rash who did not have a coronavirus test, but still reported classic Covid-19 symptoms, such as cough, fever or loss of smell.

Researchers said their study “strongly supports the inclusion of skin rashes in the list of suspicious Covid-19 symptoms”.

“Although it is less prevalent than fever, it is more specific of Covid-19 and lasts longer,” they said.

PA

Asked whether Boris Johnson believed businesses should pass the VAT cut on to customers in lower prices, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “It will be a matter for any premises to decide what to do in relation to the VAT cut.

“The support which we have provided is in recognition of the fact that the hospitality industry has been hit very hard by the pandemic and we are trying to provide it with support to help it with its recovery.

“We were not prescriptive in the way we set out how the scheme would work. It’s a matter for individual businesses and customers.”

“As of last Thursday, it had reached more than 144,000 close contacts of people who tested positive for coronavirus who might have otherwise unknowingly have spread the virus.”

Now, the coronavirus pandemic has dealt yet another blow to vulnerable migrants caught in Yemen’s war zone.

Stigmatised as carriers of Covid-19, over 14,500 migrants, mostly Ethiopian, have been relentlessly hounded, rounded up and sent packing to different provinces, the UN migration agency reported on Tuesday. They remain stranded without adequate food, water or shelter.
 

“It is mandatory… we are talking about supermarkets and other shops, rather than food shops.”
 

The development comes after Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove was pictured shopping in Pret A Manger without wearing a mask ahead of the law change.

But on 8 July, after more than two months, he was able to leave the intensive care unit.

The results have been hailed as “good news” by Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious diseases expert.

On Tuesday, researchers reported the findings from the first 45 healthy adults who received Moderna Inc’s experimental vaccine in March, which showed it provided a hoped-for immune boost.