Key points
SAPM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan has said that due to growing number of cases and deaths in the country, the imposition of more restrictions was becoming "unavoidable".
Addressing a press conference, the premier's aide said that the number of daily cases as well as deaths has increased over the past few days along with the country's positivity rate.
"It is clear that as a nation we are not taking the precautions that we should in order to curb the spread of this virus," he said and added that the government's approach would be to "tackle this from a local level". The SAPM said that government may impose new restrictions or introduce more strictness in the imposition of existing ones.
The matter was under discussion in the National Command and Operation Centre and guidelines would be announced after talks with provincial governments, he said.
335 new cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Sindh, taking the provincial tally to 144,449, according to Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah.
Five more people lost their lives from the virus, with Sindh's overall death toll rising to 2,604.
A total of 8,860 tests were carried out during the last 24 hours in Sindh, Shah said.
The number of new coronavirus infections in Germany is likely to reach 20,000 a day at the end of this week, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said.
“We are dealing with exponential growth,” Altmaier told a German-French economic conference via video link in Berlin. “In Germany the number of new infections is rising by 70-75 per cent compared to the week before.”
Altmaier's forecast shows that Germany is contending with a faster upswing in coronavirus cases than previously expected. At the end of September, Chancellor Angela Merkel said there could be 19,200 cases per day by Christmas, Reuters reported.
Authorities in India have reported 36,470 newly confirmed coronavirus infections — the lowest one-day tally in more than three months in a continuing downward trend.
According to AP, the Health Ministry also listed 488 new fatalities from Covid-19 in the previous 24 hours, raising the overall death toll to 119,502.
The case number reported today is the lowest since India had 35,065 newly confirmed infections on July 17. Last month, the country hit a peak of nearly 100,000 cases in a single day, but daily infections have been decreasing since then.
Hong Kong will reopen public beaches and increase the number of people allowed to sit together in bars and restaurants starting Friday as the city continues to unwind strict Covid-19 rules put in place in July.
Sophia Chan, the Chinese special administrative region's health secretary, said that six people would be allowed to sit together in restaurants, up from four. Bars will be able to seat four people together, up from two, according to Reuters.
All dining facilities will be able to stay open until 2am, later than the current midnight closing time.
France’s government is holding emergency virus meetings and warning of possible new lockdowns, as hospitals fill up with new Covid patients and doctors plead for backup, according to AP.
French President Emmanuel Macron is convening top ministers and Prime Minister Jean Castex is meeting with lawmakers, unions and business lobbies as the government weighs its next steps in the fight against surging infections. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told France-Inter radio that “we should expect difficult decisions.”
Among possible new measures for the hardest-hit areas are lengthening existing curfews, full confinement on weekends or all week, and closing non-essential businesses.
Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir have collectively reported 183 coronavirus cases and two deaths.
Here is a breakdown of the cases and death recorded:
Punjab has reported 207 coronavirus cases and one death during the last 24 hours.
The provincial total has risen to 103,082 while the death toll is 2,336.
Pakistan has reported 365 coronavirus recoveries during the last 24 hours, according to the government's portal for tracking the spread of the disease in the country.
The total number of recoveries has risen to 311,440.
French hospitals registered 1,307 new coronavirus patients in the highest one-day increase since April 2, which saw 1,607 new patients, as the health system comes under increasing stress from a runaway infection rate.
According to a Reuters report, French health ministry data showed that France now has a total of 17,784 coronavirus patients in its hospitals, compared with a record 32,292 on April 14, at the height of the March-May lockdown.
The ministry also reported 26,771 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, from 52,010. The death toll went up by 257, taking the cumulative total since the start of the epidemic to 35,018.
The Czech government has ordered a 9pm curfew and will limit retail sales on Sundays as part of tighter measures to curb the spread of novel coronavirus infections, ministers said.
The government’s curfew will be in place Oct 28-Nov 3 and will last until 5am each day. Exemptions include travel for work or family visits.
Retail shops still running under current restrictions must also close by 8pm and on Sundays, with exceptions for gas stations, pharmacies or shops at train stations and other travel points.
Deaths per day from the coronavirus in the United States are on the rise again, just as health experts had feared, and cases are climbing in nearly every state, despite assurances from President Donald Trump over the weekend that "we’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great", an AP report said.
With Election Day just over a week away, average deaths per day across the country are up 10 per cent over the past two weeks, from 721 to nearly 794 as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Confirmed infections per day are rising in 47 states, and deaths are up in 34.
Health experts had warned that it was only a matter of time before deaths turned upward, given the record-breaking surge in confirmed cases engulfing the country. Deaths are a lagging indicator — that is, it generally takes a few weeks for people to sicken and die from the coronavirus.
Norway will tighten restrictions on gatherings and foreign workers entering the country after a rise in coronavirus infections, Reuters quoted Prime Minister Erna Solberg as saying on Monday.
Cases are up across large parts of the Northern Hemisphere and authorities have also reported increases in Oslo and other parts of Norway which has long had one of Europe's lowest rate of infections.
“We need to do more to control the spread of the infection,” Solberg told a news conference.
Indoor public gatherings will be limited to 50 people, down from 200, and people will be only be able to invite up to five guests to their house, down from having 20 gathered in one home.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is planning a “lockdown light” which would mainly focus on the closure of bars and restaurants to slow down a second wave of coronavirus infections, Reuters quoted newspaper Bild as reporting on Monday.
Shops could remain open with certain restrictions under Merkel's plan, which she will discuss with Germany's 16 state premiers on Wednesday, the report said.
Wales has said it would review regulations and guidance after a public outcry at a ban on the sale of items deemed non-essential during the country's coronavirus lockdown, AFP reported.
All non-essential retailers were shut on Friday and supermarkets were told only to sell essential items to discourage people from spending more time than necessary in shops.
But the rule has proved highly unpopular, as details emerged of clothing, books and paper roped off or covered up. More than 65,000 people signed a petition calling the restrictions “disproportionate and cruel”, and for them to be reversed.
Another row blew up after one shopper complained on Twitter she had been unable to purchase female sanitary products after initially being told there were “not essential”.
Supermarket giant Tesco initially told the woman it had been “told by the Welsh Government not to sell” period products during the shutdown.
It then deleted the tweet and apologised for the error.
A French doctor has warned that his country has lost control of the epidemic, a day after health authorities reported more than 52,000 new coronavirus cases as nations across Europe enact more sweeping restrictions to try to slow surging infection rates, AP reported.
Dr Jean-Franois Delfraissy, president of the scientific council that advises the French government on the virus, said the country is in a "very difficult, even critical situation".
"There probably are more than 50,000 new cases every day. Our estimate at the Scientific Council is closer to 100,000 twice as many," Delfraissy told RTL radio.
Between those who aren't tested and asymptomatic patients, were close to that number of cases. This means the virus is spreading extremely fast."
One of the world's leading Covid-19 experimental vaccines produces an immune response in both old and young adults, raising hopes of a path out of the gloom and economic destruction wrought by the novel coronavirus.
“It is encouraging to see immunogenicity responses were similar between older and younger adults and that reactogenicity was lower in older adults, where the Covid-19 disease severity is higher,” an AstraZeneca spokesman said.
“The results further build the body of evidence for the safety and immunogenicity of AZD1222,” the spokesman said, referring to the technical name of the vaccine.
Croatia has intensified efforts this week to fight the coronavirus after exceeding 2,000 daily cases over the weekend, ordering the use of masks outdoors and recommending work from home wherever possible, Reuters reports.
Also from this week, Slovenia, its northwestern neighbour in the European Union, will allow citizens to leave their municipal areas only in exceptional cases, after having reported 1,675 new infections on Sunday.
On Monday, Croatia, a nation of about 4 million people, reported 828 infections, down from Sunday's daily record of 2,421 new cases. Typically, the number of reported cases falls on Mondays, as a result of less testing over the weekend.
Another Croatian neighbour, Bosnia, also introduced new measures after last week's spike in infections, with active cases rising nearly 70 per cent to 13,950 on Monday and total cases reaching 41,596 in the country of about 3.3 million.
Spain's Catalonia region said Monday it was studying imposing a lockdown on weekends to fight the spread of the coronavirus, a day after nighttime curfew came into effect across the country, AFP reports.
“It is a scenario which is on the table because it is during the weekend that there are more social interactions,” the spokeswoman for the regional government, Meritxell Budo, told Catalan public radio.
Infections have soared in recent days in the wealthy northeastern region, home to around 7.5 million people, as well as the rest of Spain, which last week became the first European Union nation to surpass one million confirmed Covid-19 cases.
To try to curb the infection rate, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Sunday declared a national state of emergency, and a curfew covering all of Spain except the Canary Islands where infections are lower.
Sindh has reported 278 new cases of the novel coronavirus, raising the provincial tally to 144,114.
Moreover, the daily situation report issued by the Chief Minister's Office confirmed the death of one more person. The death toll now stands at 2,599.
Hospitals in many Iranian provinces are running out of capacity to handle Covid-19 cases, health authorities say, with the novel coronavirus now killing around 300 people a day or one person every five minutes.
Reuters reported that authorities have complained of poor social distancing, and Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi said the pandemic could cause 600 daily deaths in coming weeks if Iranians failed to respect health protocols in the Middle East's hardest-affected country.
A caption that ran on state television news said an Iranian died of novel coronavirus every five minutes, a rate that corresponds to daily death tallies reported by the authorities of just above or below 300 over the past 20 days.
France may be experiencing 100,000 new Covid-19 cases per day — twice the latest official figure — Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, who heads the scientific council that advises the government on the pandemic, told RTL radio.
“There are probably more than 50,000 cases per day. We estimate, on the scientific committee, that we are more in the region of 100,000 cases per day,” said Delfraissy.
France, the euro zone’s second-biggest economy, is currently examining whether to tighten lockdown measures further to curb the resurgence of the Covid-19 virus, having already imposed night-time curfews on major cities including Paris.
India’s total coronavirus infections stand at 7.91 million, having risen by 45,148 cases in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed.
The world’s second-most populous country also has the second-highest number of infections after the United States, which has around 8.1 million.
However, India recorded its lowest death toll in about four months with 480 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, taking total fatalities to 119,014.
Russia's daily tally of new coronavirus cases has surged to a record high of 17,347, including 5,224 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 1,531,224.
Authorities said 219 people had died in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 26,269.
Foreign pilgrims between the age of 18 and 50 will be allowed to perform Umrah when Saudi Arabia permits entry of pilgrims from outside the kingdom during the third phase of the gradual relaxation effective from November 1, Saudi Gazette reported.
The pilgrims must remain in quarantine for three days upon their arrival in the kingdom, according to the precautionary measures and preventive protocols issued by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah to stem the spread of coronavirus.
Read more here.
China reported the highest number of asymptomatic novel coronavirus infections in nearly seven months following the discovery of a cluster of cases linked to a garment factory in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Health authorities found 137 asymptomatic cases on Sunday during a drive to test 4.75 million people in the Kashgar area triggered by an asymptomatic infection in a 17-year-old female garment factory worker reported on Saturday.
It was not clear how the teenager was infected though the official Xinhua news agency said all of the new cases were linked to another garment factory where the patient's parents work. The parents had not tested positive for the virus, however, it said.
The teenager's infection was discovered during routine weekly testing in Xinjiang for what Xinhua called key groups of people. It did not specify who was in those groups or why she was among those tested, Reuters reported.
Early results from tests for a coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, show it produces a robust immune response in elderly people, the group at highest risk, Financial Times reported.
It has been discovered that the vaccine triggers protective antibodies and T-cells in older age groups, the newspaper said, citing two people familiar with the finding, encouraging researchers as they seek evidence that it will spare those in later life from serious illness or death from the virus, according to Reuters.
The findings echo data released in July which showed the vaccine generated “robust immune responses” in a group of healthy adults aged between 18 and 55, the newspaper reported, citing people aware of the results from so-called immunogenicity blood tests.
Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir have collectively reported 162 coronavirus cases and three deaths during the last 24 hours.
Here is a breakdown of the number of cases and deaths reported:
Punjab has reported 198 coronavirus cases during the last 24 hours, taking the provincial total to 102,875.
Now new deaths were reported during this period and the death toll remains 2,335.
Pakistan has reported another 584 coronavirus recoveries during the last 24 hours, according to the government's portal for tracking the spread of the disease in the country.
The total number of recoveries has risen to 311,075.
The capital administration has sealed 10 streets in seven residential sectors after another 157 cases of Covid-19 were reported on Sunday.
“Every street that has been sealed has five or more cases of Covid-19. The decision has been made to keep the residents in isolation so that the spread of the virus can be stopped,” Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat told Dawn.
According to a notification issued by the Ministry of National Health Services, available with Dawn, Islamabad’s District Health Office teams have carried out Covid-19 surveillance activities in various streets in the city.
Read full story here.
Australia's Victoria state said it had gone 24 hours without detecting any new Covid-19 cases, a milestone last achieved four months ago, raising hopes that a stringent lockdown of Melbourne will be eased.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday delayed the reopening of the city — home to 5 million people — amid an outbreak in Melbourne's north, Reuters reported.
Officials said they had tested about 15,000 people in the area and all had come back negative.
“This is one of the best outcomes we could hope to see,” said Jeroen Weimar, Commander of Testing and Community Engagement for Victoria.
Andrews is under intense pressure to lift Melbourne's lockdown, imposed in July. Businesses and the federal government argue it will delay Australia's economic rebound.
From factory to syringe, the world’s most promising coronavirus vaccine candidates need non-stop sterile refrigeration to stay potent and safe, notes AP.
But despite enormous strides in equipping developing countries to maintain the vaccine “cold chain,” nearly three billion of the world’s 7.8bn people live where temperature-controlled storage is insufficient for an immunisation campaign to bring Covid-19 under control.
The result: Poor people around the world who were among the hardest hit by the virus pandemic are also likely to be the last to recover from it.
The coronavirus has reached into the heart of the White House once more, less than a week before Election Day, as it scorches the nation and the president’s top aide says “we’re not going to control the pandemic".
An AP report said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, when pressed to explain why the pandemic cannot be reined in, said: “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu."
He told CNN’s ”State of the Union” that the government was focused on getting effective therapeutics and vaccines to market.
"Only people with jobs in essential services and with negative Covid certificate will be allowed to leave," Islamabad DC Hamza Shafqaat said in another tweet and warned that the virus' "second wave is here".
US Vice President Mike Pence plans to maintain an aggressive campaign schedule this week despite an apparent outbreak of the coronavirus among his senior aides, the White House has said.
Pence chief of staff Marc Short and “a couple of key staff surrounding the vice president” have tested positive for the virus, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said on Sunday. Pence, who thus far has tested negative, is considered a “close contact” of the aides under Centres for Disease Control and Prevention criteria but will not quarantine, his spokesperson Devin O’Malley said.
Spain has declared a second nationwide state of emergency and ordered an overnight curfew across the country in hopes of stemming a resurgence in coronavirus infections, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.
The Socialist leader told the nation in a televised address that the extraordinary measure will go into effect on Sunday night, according to AP.
“The reality is that Europe and Spain are immersed in a second wave of the pandemic,” Sánchez said after meeting with his Cabinet.
Sánchez said that his government is using the state of emergency to impose an 11pm-6am nationwide curfew, except in the Canary Islands.
Spain this week became the first European country to surpass 1 million officially recorded Covid-19 cases. But Sánchez admitted on Friday in a nationally televised address that the true figure could be more than 3 million, due to gaps in testing and other factors.
Spain on Friday reported almost 20,000 new daily cases and 231 more deaths, taking the country’s death toll in the pandemic to 34,752.
Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has tightened nationwide coronavirus restrictions after the country recorded a record number of new cases, despite opposition from regional heads and street protests over curfews.
Cinemas, theatres, gyms and swimming pools must all close under the new rules, which come into force on Monday and run until Nov 24, while restaurants and bars will stop serving at 6pm, the prime minister's office said.
Italy, the first European country to be hit hard by the pandemic and impose a nationwide lockdown, clocked nearly 20,000 new cases in a 24-hour period.
“Semi-lockdown for a month,” said the Repubblica daily, noting Conte had done little to appease regional heads who had appealed for much softer measures to save ailing businesses devastated by the lockdown in spring.
Hungary has reported 3,149 new cases of coronavirus, its highest single-day tally and jumping above 3,000 for the first time, the government said.
The total number of cases rose to 59,247 in the country of 10 million, with 35 new deaths taking the total to 1,425.
Although coronavirus cases have been rising sharply since late August, Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seeking to avoid a repeat of the spring lockdown that sent the economy crashing by 13.6pc in the second quarter, reported Reuters.
Another 390 people have recovered from the coronavirus in Pakistan, according to the government's database on Covid-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 310,491.
The database shows that 562 virus patients are in critical condition.
Punjab has reported more than 200 Covid-19 cases for the second day in a row. According to the government's coronavirus portal, 210 infections were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the provincial total to 102,677.
Punjab has also reported one more fatality from the virus, taking the death toll to 2,335.
Islamabad, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir have collectively recorded 216 new coronavirus cases and three more deaths in the last 24 hours.
The breakdown is as follows: