October 15 coronavirus news

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Thursday that he expected the UK government to impose new restrictions in the British capital and warned that millions of residents in the British capital "we've got a difficult winter ahead."

Khan said he expected the UK government to move London up a level in its three-tier restrictions system from "Medium" to the "High," the second tier, which means people from different households can no longer meet indoors — including homes, pubs and restaurants.

Groups of six from different households can still meet outdoors, and pubs and restuarnats will be allowed to remain open until 10 p.m., as is currently the case.

"This is deemed to be necessary in order to protect Londoners," Khan said in a televised statement Thursday.

“I must warn Londoners that we’ve got a difficult winter ahead. But just as we’ve always done through our city’s great history, I know that we’ll get through this dark time by pulling together.”

Khan criticized the UK government's test, track and trace program as a failure.

"I believe we also need action on a national scale, just as the government’s own scientific advisers have recommended. That is why I will continue to call for a short national circuit breaker." 

The British government ignored the advice of a scientific advisory team to implement a two-week lockdown, known as a circuit breaker, to slow the spread of the virus and prevent thousands of deaths.

Russia has reported a record daily death count as the country battles a new surge in infections.

Russia's coronavirus response center said Thursday that 286 people had died in the past 24 hours and confirmed 13,754 new cases.

Russia is experiencing a streak of record-high daily infection increases, with health officials reporting totals at around 2,000 cases a day more than it did during the spring peak.

More than 1.3 million people in Russia have had confirmed infections.

Hong Kong and Singapore plan to open an "air travel bubble" that allows residents to travel between the two Asian hubs without requiring quarantine or restrictive control measures, authorities announced on Thursday.

Open travel in both the Chinese city and the Southeast Asian country has been suspended for months. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, both governments shut borders and denied entry to most non-residents and short-term visitors. In Hong Kong, returning residents are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine and wear an electronic bracelet to track their location.

But both cities have managed to get their Covid outbreaks under control, and reported low numbers of local infections in the past few months -- which is why they agreed in principle to the travel bubble plan during discussions on Wednesday, according to the statement.

Ong Ye Kung, Singapore's Minister for Transport, called it a "significant" move forward.

"It is a safe, careful but significant step forward to revive air travel, and provide a model for future collaboration with other parts of the world," he added.

There isn't yet a launch date for the travel bubble, but details will be fleshed out in the coming weeks, they said.

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By Jessie Yeung, CNN

A vaccine is still the best way to bring an end to the Covid-19 pandemic, health experts say, adding that pursuing herd immunity would be dangerous.

The idea of letting the virus run unchecked through communities "misses the basic point that we're all connected," former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Thomas Frieden told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

Frieden was responding to recent efforts to promote herd immunity as an answer to Covid-19. The idea is being pushed by those eager to stop the economic damage the pandemic has caused.

The virus has infected more than 7.9 million people and killed at least 216,872, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

A vaccine could be available to some groups by the end of the year. But some politicians hoping to reverse the economic havoc from the pandemic have embraced the idea of letting the virus spread until enough people have been infected and developed immunity that there is no where for it to spread next.

White House senior administration officials, in a call with reporters Monday, discussed a controversial declaration written by scientists that advocates for such an approach.

But the idea is "a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence" that risks "significant morbidity and mortality across the whole population," 80 scientists from around the world wrote in an open letter.

It is impossible to keep just the vulnerable protected from the spread, Frieden said. And letting the virus run rampant would likely lead to recurring epidemics because there is no evidence that people are protected long-term after they have been infected, according to the letter.

The best way to achieve widespread immunity, Frieden said, will be through a vaccine.

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The Czech Republic identified 9,544 coronavirus cases on Wednesday -- a single-day high -- as countries across Europe struggle to contain new outbreaks of Covid-19.

The Czech Ministry of Health said there are now 77,217 active cases across the country. Czech authorities have identified nearly 140,000 Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began.

Another 35 coronavirus-related fatalities were registered on Wednesday, bringing the total death toll to 1,172, according to the latest government data. Some 2,678 people remain hospitalized with coronavirus. 

In a video shared on Twitter on Wednesday, the Czech Minister of Health, Roman Prymula, warned that hospitals across the country are nearing their limits. 

"We have to mobilize various stadiums, sport halls, so we can establish beds there. The situation is becoming very serious,” Prymula said. 

German authorities identified a single-day high of 6,638 new coronavirus cases, according to data published Thursday by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the country's disease control and prevention agency.

To date, more than 341,000 Covid-19 infections have been identified in Germany since the pandemic began, killing at least 9,710 people. Another 33 Covid-19 deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours, according to the RKI.

A spike in Europe: Thursday marked the highest number of cases identified in a day in Germany since March 28. It is just one of many countries in Europe fighting to contain new outbreaks of Covid-19.

Thousands of cases are being identified in France, where authorities in several cities have begun enacting curfews in an attempt to limit the virus' spread. Numbers are also soaring in the United Kingdom and Italy.

Chinese health officials in the eastern city of Qingdao carried out 9,947,304 Covid-19 tests in four days as part of a citywide effort to stop a cluster of 12 coronavirus cases from growing into a major breakout.

Qingdao's Municipal Health Commission said Thursday that 7,646,353 test results have been returned, among which no new positive cases have been identified.

The mass testing program was rolled out by authorities after three asymptomatic patients with links to a hospital treating imported cases were identified over the weekend.

Cases throughout China: China's National Health Commission said 11 new cases were reported on Wednesday throughout the country. Ten of those were imported, and one was an asymptomatic case that started presenting symptoms.

Chinese authorities count asymptomatic cases separately from symptomatic ones.

During a speech in Shenzhen on Wednesday to promote the continued development of China's first special economic zone, Chinese President Xi Jinping coughed -- a lot.

While any speculation about Xi's health was, unsurprisingly, not evident on Chinese social media or in tightly controlled state publications, critics of Beijing quickly seized the opportunity.

In a story headlined "Xi Jinping coughs and coughs at Shenzhen event," Apple Daily -- a vehemently anti-Chinese Communist Party, pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong -- reported that in the second-half of Xi's 50-minute speech "he frequently paused to drink water and coughed repeatedly."

Epoch Times, a media outlet linked to the Falun Gong religious group, which has long been suppressed in China and is one of Beijing's biggest critics overseas, took the speculation a step further, with a video titled "Xi Jinping in Shenzhen: is he infected?" Some Taiwanese outlets also noted the President's "violent cough."

There are, of course, plenty of reasons for Xi to cough that do not indicate illness: his throat may have been dry; he spoke for almost an hour, and China loves to over air-condition public buildings like the one he was speaking in. It's also important to note that China has reported less than 100 coronavirus cases nationwide in the past week, making the chances of Xi being infected by the pandemic which has brought the world to a standstill exceptionally unlikely.

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India's Health Ministry reported 67,708 new cases of Covid-19 Thursday, the fewest number of infections identified in a day since August.

Thursday was the fourth day in a row that the world's second-most populous country recorded fewer than 70,000 new coronavirus cases.

Few countries have been hit as hard by the global pandemic as India. The country has identified more than 7.3 million cases -- 812,390 of which are considered active -- and more than 111,000 virus-related deaths, authorities said. Only the United States has recorded more cases, and only the US and Brazil have identified more fatalities.

Authorities said 680 deaths were recorded across the country in the past 24 hours.

Because of the lower numbers, schools and movie theaters in some parts of the country are expected to reopen in the coming days, albeit with strict social distancing measures in place.