Key points
Turkey will impose curfews on weekdays and full lockdowns over weekends to combat the spread of the coronavirus, President Tayyip Erdogan has said, after new cases and deaths hit record highs in recent weeks.
Citizens will not be allowed to leave home between 9pm and 5am on weekdays, and over the whole weekend from 9pm on Fridays to 5am on Mondays, Erdogan said.
Some sectors, including supply chain and production, will be exempt from the measures which will begin on Tuesday, he added.
The World Health Organisation's chief has urged countries not to politicise the hunt for the origins of the novel coronavirus as that will create barriers to learning the truth.
“We need to know the origin of this virus because it can help us to prevent future outbreaks,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a daily briefing.
“There is nothing to hide. We want to know the origin, and that's it.”
British pop star Rita Ora has apologised after she admitted she had attended a party to celebrate her 30th birthday which broke England's strict Covid-19 lockdown laws.
Ora said she had gone to a “small gathering with some friends” which the Sun newspaper said was held at a restaurant in west London on Saturday night with 30 people in attendance.
“It was a spur of the moment decision made with the misguided view that we were coming out of lockdown and this would be OK,” Ora said in a statement on Instagram Stories.
“I'm deeply sorry for breaking the rules and in turn understand that this puts people at risk. This was a serious and inexcusable error of judgment.”
Pope Francis has cancelled a ceremony that traditionally begins Rome’s Christmas season on Dec. 8 at the Spanish Steps because of coronavirus restrictions, Reuters quoted the Vatican as saying on Monday.
The pope customarily places a wreath of flowers at the base of a 12-metre column bearing a statue of the Madonna and blesses from a distance another wreath already placed around the statue’s arm by firefighters using a ladder.
The Vatican said Francis would skip the ceremony, which popes have been carrying out on the feast of the Immaculate Conception since 1953, “in order to avoid any risk of contagion caused by gatherings of people”.
Thousands of people usually line the streets near the area to see the pope and pray with him.
Hong Kong has reimposed social distancing measures at some of their strictest levels in the city since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as authorities battle a fourth wave of infections, AFP reported.
The financial hub has maintained bans on large group gatherings for much of the year and has shuttered various industries when cases have spiked.
The measures have helped keep infections to just over 6,000 in the city of 7.5 million with 109 deaths. But daily cases have risen above 100 in recent days, prompting authorities to usher in stricter measures similar to those seen during earlier outbreaks.
“This new wave of Covid-19 has hit Hong Kong very quickly,” chief executive Carrie Lam told reporters, adding the new restrictions would take effect from Wednesday.
Moderna Inc will apply for US and European emergency authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine on Monday after full results from a late-stage study showed it was 94.1 per cent effective with no serious safety concerns, Reuters quoted the company as saying.
Moderna also reported that its vaccine’s efficacy rate was consistent across age, race, ethnicity and gender demographics as well as having a 100pc success rate in preventing severe cases of a disease that has killed nearly 1.5 million people.
The filing sets Moderna’s product up to be the second vaccine likely to receive US emergency use authorisation this year following a shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech which had a 95pc efficacy rate.
“We believe that we have a vaccine that is very highly efficacious. We now have the data to prove it,” Moderna Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks said. “We expect to be playing a major part in turning around this pandemic.”
1,336 new cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Sindh, taking the provincial tally to 174,350, according to Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah.
Eleven more people lost their lives due to the virus, with Sindh's death toll climbing to 2,935.
A total of 13,169 tests were carried out during the last 24 hours in Sindh, according to Shah.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has banned wedding parties and gatherings of more than 20 people, as authorities move quickly to try to thwart a coronavirus outbreak after announcing rare cases of community transmission.
Fifteen people have so far tested positive from 3,332 tested since Sunday, the health ministry said, all linked to a 56-year-old woman who had travelled to the country's two biggest cities since Nov 20.
Cambodia is among the countries least impacted by the coronavirus, with just 323 cases so far and no deaths reported. Most of those cases were imported.
It was unclear how the woman, the wife of the country's prisons chief, had become infected. Her husband and several family members also tested positive.
Germany's word of the year is — what else? — corona pandemic.
AP reported that the Association for the German Language announced that a jury chose Corona-Pandemie for this year's honour. The group said that it names THE dominant issue of almost the entire year.
The runners-up were Lockdown and Verschwoerungserzaehlung, or conspiracy story. Black Lives Matter took fourth place.
Doctors are studying the impact of Covid-19 on pregnant women and their unborn babies in Singapore, where an infant delivered by an infected mother earlier this month had antibodies against the virus but did not carry the disease, Reuters reported.
The ongoing study among the city-state's public hospitals adds to international efforts to better understand whether the infection or antibodies can be transferred during pregnancy, and if the latter offers an effective shield against the virus.
The World Health Organisation says while some pregnant women have an increased risk of developing severe Covid-19, it is not yet known whether an infected pregnant woman can pass the virus to her foetus or baby during pregnancy or delivery.
“It is still unknown whether the presence of these antibodies in a newborn baby confers a degree of protection against Covid-19 infection, much less the duration of protection,” said Tan Hak Koon, chairman of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology division at KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
Read more here.
India’s novel coronavirus cases have risen by 38,772, the health ministry said, making it the 23rd straight day that daily cases have stayed below the 50,000 mark.
The country now has 9.43 million cases, the second-highest in the world after the United States, but daily cases have been dipping since hitting a peak in September.
Deaths rose by 443 in the last 24 hours, and now total 137,139.
Pakistan has reported 40 additional fatalities from coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 8,025.
The countrywide breakdown of deaths is as follows:
Pakistan has recorded 1,613 recoveries from Covid-19, marking the sixth straight day of reporting more than 1,000 recoveries.
The country's total recoveries have risen to 341,423.
According to the government's portal, 2,046 virus patients are in critical condition.
Punjab has recorded 524 coronavirus cases and 12 more fatalities over the last 24 hours.
This has taken the province's tally of infections to 119,035 and deaths to 2,991.
Islamabad has reported 341 new Covid-19 infections, taking its tally to 30,123. It has also confirmed five more deaths from coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of fatalities to 314.
Gilgit-Baltistan has reported 12 new cases while Azad Jammu and Kashmir has recorded 173, taking their tallies to 4,649 and 6,855, respectively. AJK has also confirmed one more death, taking the total to 165.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has recorded 313 new coronavirus cases and nine additional fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to the government's Covid-19 portal. The province's total infections have risen to 47,190 and the number of deaths to 1,368.
Meanwhile, Balochistan has confirmed 57 fresh infections, taking its total to 17,158.
Canada will extend its restrictions for all travellers entering the country, except from the United States, until Jan 21, the government has said, in a move to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Restrictions for US citizens and foreign nationals arriving from the United States will continue until Dec 21 and may be extended at that time, Health Minister Patty Hajdu said in a statement.
Canada said it is also amending its order and creating a framework for considering applications from sport organisations seeking to hold International Single Sport Events.
Mexico has reported 6,388 new confirmed coronavirus infections and 196 additional deaths, health ministry data showed.
The latest tally brought the official number of cases to 1,107,071 with a total death toll of 105,655.
Covid-19 infections have fallen by 30 per cent during England’s month-long national lockdown and the virus is now in retreat, a large-scale study of more than 100,000 volunteers showed.
England began its second national lockdown on Nov 5 to curb rapidly rising infections and protect its health system. The country is due to return to a regional approach to restrictions from Dec 2.
Levels of infection fell 30pc, with 96 people per 10,000 infected between Nov 13 and Nov 24, according to interim results of the study by Imperial College London and Ipsos MORI.
The last iteration of the research, carried out between Oct 16 and Nov 2, showed 130 infections per 10,000 people.
Coronavirus deaths in Turkey rose to a record for the seventh consecutive day and the number of new cases remained high despite efforts by President Tayyip Erdogan's government to contain a second wave of infections, Reuters has reported.
The government introduced tighter measures a week ago including nightly curfews at weekends, restrictions on movements of people of non-working age, a move to online schooling and limiting restaurants and cafes to takeaway services.
However, the moves have done little to halt a remorseless rise in cases and fatalities, with today's toll of 185 dead 45 per cent above the peak of the first wave in April, and the number of new cases behind only the United States, India and Brazil — all countries with far larger populations than Turkey.
More than 29,000 cases were reported in the last 24 hours.
Americans should brace for a “surge upon a surge” in the coronavirus as millions of travelers return home after the Thanksgiving holiday, AFP reported while quoting US government scientist Anthony Fauci.
“There almost certainly is going to be an uptick because of what has happened with the travel,” Fauci told CNN's State of the Union. “We may see a surge upon a surge” in two or three weeks, he added.
“We don't want to frighten people, but that's the reality.”
This was an ominous trend, with the Christmas holidays and more year-end travel looming, Fauci added.
China has reported 11 new coronavirus cases in the mainland for November 28, compared with six cases a day earlier, the health authority said.
All of the new infections were imported cases, the National Health Commission said in a statement. There were no new deaths.
China also reported 10 new asymptomatic patients, compared with four a day earlier.
France's State Council, the country's highest court, has ordered the government to review a law limiting the number of people in churches during religious services to 30, Reuters reported.
The Council said in a statement that the measure was not proportionate to coronavirus infection risks. Last week, the government announced that a nationwide lockdown in place since Oct. 30 would be unwound in phases.
Shops selling non-essential goods were allowed to reopen from November 28 and indoor religious services were allowed to resume, but the number of worshippers was capped at 30 people, regardless of the size of the place of worship.
Catholic organisations have challenged the limit, arguing that churches and cathedrals are much more spacious than retail outlets, where the limit is one person per eight square metres.
“The claimants are right in saying that the measure is disproportionate in light of protecting the public's health [...] thus it is a serious and illegal infringement on the freedom of worship,” the council said.
The World Health Organisation has delivered 15 ventilators to Gaza hospitals amid a spike in Covid-19 infections that has tested the Palestinian territory’s under-developed health system, Reuters reported.
The donation of the intensive care devices, funded by Kuwait, came a week after local and international public health advisers said hospitals in the enclave could soon become overwhelmed.
“These devices will help medical teams provide better service to patients, but it is not enough,” said Abdullatif Alhaj of Gaza’s health ministry.
Sindh has reported 1,419 new cases and 13 deaths over the past 24 hours, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said.
According to the statement, the province has so far reported 173,014 cases and 2,924 deaths, while 151,529 patients have recovered.
The Pakistan Medical Commissions (PMC) special MDCAT examination for students who have been diagnosed with Covid-19 will be held on December 13, APP reported.
According to an official of PMC, any student who had tested positive for the virus between November 15-29 will be permitted to sit the special MDCAT exam.
He said that only Covid-19 positive applicants will be required to submite their test result to PMC by uploading their reports here.
The special MDCAT exam will be conducted on the same structure and standard as the MDCAT exam being conducted on November 29, he added.
South Korean authorities have announced a ban on year-end parties and some music lessons and said public saunas and some cafes must also close after coronavirus infections surged at their fastest pace since the early days of the pandemic, Reuters reported.
What authorities are calling a third wave of infections is spreading at the fastest rate in nearly nine months, driven by outbreaks at military facilities, a sauna, a high school and churches.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said restrictions would be tightened on gatherings and activities seen as prone to virus transmission, especially in the capital Seoul and surrounding urban areas.
“Year-end events and parties hosted by hotels, party rooms, guest houses and other accommodation facilities will be banned outright,” Chung told a briefing after meeting health officials.
Saunas and steam-bath rooms with a high risk of mass infection would also be banned as would the teaching of wind musical instruments and singing, he said.
Hong Kong reported 115 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, including 109 locally transmitted, the highest in nearly four months, as authorities battle a renewed wave of Covid-19, Reuters reports.
The figure was up from Saturday’s 84 and the highest since Aug 1, when 125 cases were reported. It compares with the July 30 record of 149.
Since late January, 6,239 people in Hong Kong have been infected with the virus that causes Covid-19, of whom 109 have died of the disease.
Hong Kong has closed bars, nightclubs and other entertainment venues for the third time this year, through at least Thursday. Authorities warn the resurgence is worsening rapidly.
Police in London said on Saturday that they had made 155 arrests as they tried to break up anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests.
Reuters quoted police as saying the arrests had been made for different offences including assaulting a police officer, possession of drugs and breaching coronavirus restrictions. England’s current lockdown ends on Dec 2.
Earlier, police lined up in a number of streets in central London’s West End shopping district and confronted crowds of protesters in St James’s Park, near Westminster. The anti-lockdown protesters were joined by groups who oppose a Covid-19 vaccine.
One police officer estimated the protesters, who held up signs saying “Defend Freedom, Defend Humanity”, “No more lies, no more masks, no more lockdowns”, numbered between 300 and 400.
London’s Metropolitan Police said they had intercepted and turned back coaches full of people wanting to join the demonstrations.
A Singaporean woman, who was infected with the novel coronavirus in March when she was pregnant, has given birth to a baby with antibodies against the virus, offering a new clue as to whether the infection can be transferred from mother to child, according to Reuters.
The baby was born this month without Covid-19 but with the virus antibodies, the Straits Times newspaper reported on Sunday, quoting the mother.
“My doctor suspects I have transferred my Covid-19 antibodies to him during my pregnancy,” Celine Ng-Chan told the paper.
Ng-Chan had been mildly ill from the disease and was discharged from hospital after two-and-a-half weeks, the Straits Times said.
The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has been informed in its meeting that five cities — Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi — were contributing 70 per cent to the spread of the coronavirus in the country due to rising positivity ratio and daily cases.
According to a statement, the NCOC was informed that around 46 deaths a day were recorded daily for this week while 237 hospital admissions were noted.
"Karachi, Hyderabad, Peshawar and Rawalpindi were among the top cities with a persistent rising positivity ratio," the forum was told. It was informed that all required medical equipment was available as per the need and proper supply to the provinces was being managed, the statement added.
The government's database for tracking the spread of Covid-19 shows that 2,257 more people have recovered from coronavirus in the country, taking the total to 339,810.
However, 2,186 virus patients are in critical condition.
Islamabad, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir have collectively reported 499 new cases and five fatalities.
The breakdown is as follows:
Punjab has recorded 613 new Covid-19 infections, down from 738 a day earlier, taking the provincial total to 118,511.
The province has also recorded 19 additional fatalities. The total number of virus deaths in the province has reached 2,979.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported 273 new coronavirus cases and four more deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the government's Covid-19 portal. This has taken the provincial tally of cases to 46,877 and fatalities to 1,359.
Meanwhile, Balochistan has recorded 55 new infections and one death. The province's caseload has risen to 17,101 while total fatalities have reached 166.
Mexico has reported 10,008 new confirmed coronavirus infections and 586 additional deaths, health ministry data showed, bringing the official number of cases to 1,100,683 with a total death toll of 105,459.
Health officials have said the real number of both is likely to be significantly higher due to little testing.
Greece has reported 121 coronavirus-related deaths, a daily record, with hospitals in the north of the country under pressure as intensive care beds fill up with Covid-19 patients.
Health authorities reported 1,747 Covid-19 cases, bringing the total since the first case was detected in February to 103,034. The death toll stands at 2,223.
Authorities have a nationwide lockdown in place until Dec 7, with repeated appeals to a fatigued public to conform to distancing regulations.
South Korean authorities will consider tighter social distancing restrictions to clamp down on economic activities after last week saw the fastest spread of infections since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to Reuters, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun is to meet with health authority officials at 3pm (0600 GMT) to decide whether virus curbs need to be tightened further to slow transmissions.
South Korea has reported 450 new infections of the coronavirus after reporting more than 500 new coronavirus cases for three days in a row, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
This third wave marks the highest level of infections in nearly nine months.
Turkey's daily Covid-19 death toll has hit a record high for a sixth consecutive day, with 182 fatalities in the last 24 hours, data from the Health Ministry showed.
Turkey also recorded a new high of 30,103 coronavirus infections in the space of 24 hours, including asymptomatic ones. For four months, Turkey only reported symptomatic cases, but since Wednesday it has reported all cases.
The total number of deaths stood at 13,373.
Italy reported 686 Covid-19-related deaths in the last 24 hours, against 827 the day before, and 26,323 new infections, down from 28,352 a day ago, the health ministry said.
There were 225,940 swabs carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 222,803.
Italy was the first Western country to be hit by the virus and has seen 54,363 Covid-19 fatalities since its outbreak emerged in February, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain. It has also registered 1.564 million cases.
Across town one ice rink has been converted into a Covid-19 hospital, but some Moscow residents have taken to the ice as the city’s biggest outdoor rink opened for winter during the pandemic.
The rink in the Soviet-era amusement park in northern Moscow opened its doors despite a surge in coronavirus cases since September with the city of over 12.5 million people regularly reporting the most infections of any Russian region.
People out skating said they felt it was safe as they had worn masks and gloves in the indoor part of the rink. Their temperatures were measured upon arrival. Most people were not wearing masks on the rink itself.