/Covid UK news – live: Too soon to know if lockdown can be lifted in early December, Sage adviser says

Covid UK news – live: Too soon to know if lockdown can be lifted in early December, Sage adviser says

<p>A man wears a scarf as a face covering during an anti-lockdown protest in Liverpool on Saturday</p>

A man wears a scarf as a face covering during an anti-lockdown protest in Liverpool on Saturday

(Getty Images)

Returning to the lowest alert level of the regional tier system when the lockdown ends in early December would be “very unwise”, a government scientific adviser has said.

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said it was “too early to judge” if 2 December was too soon to lift the current restrictions and said the tier system was not “a very well thought through strategy”.

His comments came after a further 462 deaths from coronavirus and 26,860 cases were reported in the UK on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Professor Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford University and AstraZeneca trial, said his team were “optimistic” tens of millions of doses of UK-made coronavirus vaccines can start being produced by the end of the year.

And Labour has called for emergency legislation to “stamp out dangerous anti-vax content” following promising preliminary results from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The opposition claimed dedicated anti-vaccination groups with hundreds of thousands of members on social media are “churning out disinformation” on the issue.

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Malaysia reports 1,208 new coronavirus cases

Malaysia reported 1,208 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, taking the total to 47,417 infections.

The health ministry also recorded three new fatalities, raising the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 309.

Emily Goddard15 November 2020 10:24

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Worldwide coronavirus cases cross 54.01 million

More than 54.01 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,312,334 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

An interactive graphic tracking the global spread of coronavirus is available here.

Emily Goddard15 November 2020 10:21

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India reports 41,100 new coronavirus cases

India has reported 41,100 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s overall tally since the pandemic began to 8.79 million.

The Health Ministry also reported 447 deaths in the same period, driving total fatalities to 129,635.

India is second in the world in total reported cases behind the US, but daily infections have been on the decline since the middle of September.

There has been, however, a resurgence of infections in New Delhi, which has seen a renewed surge in recent weeks, recording more new cases than any other Indian state.

New Delhi registered 7,340 new cases, including 96 deaths on Sunday.

Emily Goddard15 November 2020 10:10

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Czech Republic sees further decline in Covid cases

The Czech Republic has reported a further decline in the number of Covid-19 infections and deaths from daily highs seen in early November, but the country remains among the hardest hit in Europe during the second wave of the pandemic.

Health ministry data showed 4,199 new cases were reported on Saturday, down by more than 3,500 from the same day a week earlier, amid tough lockdown measures, with 132 new deaths, which includes revisions to previous days.

The total number of cases in the country of 10.7 million since the start of the pandemic now stands at 458,229. The death toll stands at 6,058, a tenfold increase since late September.

Emily Goddard15 November 2020 10:07

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Germany told to brace for months of severe coronavirus measures

Germany should brace for at least another five months of severe measures to halt the spread of Covid-19 and should not expect the current rules to be eased quickly, the country’s economic minister has warned.

Peter Altmaier said Germany is “not out of the woods yet” despite the “lockdown light” measures imposed to rein in the second wave of the pandemic, and he urged the nation to be wary of relaxing restrictions too quickly.

“We cannot afford a yo-yo shutdown with the economy constantly opening and closing,” he told Bild am Sonntag.

The number of confirmed cases in Germany increased by 16,947 to 790,503, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday.

Weekend figures tend to be lower as not all data is reported by local authorities.

Emily Goddard15 November 2020 09:55

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Covid infections growth rate slowing across UK

The Covid-19 rate of growth across the UK is slowing, the national statistician has said.

Professor Sir Ian Diamond, the head of the Office for National Statistics, told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday show: “The good news is – yes – we are seeing a slow down in the rate of growth.

“That means we’re still increasing and we are now in England at 1.25 per 1,000. That means that one in 85 people in England, we believe, have the virus.

“In Wales, a little less at one in 100, in Scotland one in 135 and Northern Ireland one in 105.

“So, yes, we are continuing to increase the numbers, but the rate of growth is slowing.”

He said he expected to see infections continuing to increase in the initial period of restrictions, as “these are infections that people would have caught before the restrictions started”.

The ONS will continue to monitor how the restrictions are working, he said, adding that it will provide data towards the end of the lockdown to help ministers “with what will clearly be a very difficult decision”.

Emily Goddard15 November 2020 09:39

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Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage. Follow along as we bring you the latest updates on the global pandemic as they happen.

Emily Goddard15 November 2020 09:16