Coronavirus live news: France asks citizens to avoid foreign trips; Wuhan lab had bat viruses but not Covid-19 | World news

Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen has apologised after staying at a restaurant past the 11 pm closing time mandated by the government as part of its anti-coronavirus measures.

“I went out for the first time since the lockdown with two friends and my wife,” Van der Bellen tweeted on Sunday, adding: “We then lost track of time while chatting. I’m sincerely sorry. It was a mistake.”

The president linked to an article in the Kurier newspaper according to which a police patrol found the president and his wife on the terrace of an Italian restaurant in central Vienna shortly after midnight on Sunday morning.

Restaurants and cafes were allowed to re-open last week on the condition they adhere to a number of rules, including the 11 pm closing time.

The restaurant’s owner told the Krone newspaper that he thought he had followed the rules by stopping service at 11 pm, believing customers were allowed to stay on the terrace past that time.

The restaurant could potentially be fined for a breach of the new restrictions and Van der Bellen says he will “take responsibility” if the restaurant owner suffers any losses as result of the incident.

South Africa will further relax coronavirus lockdown restrictions from 1 June, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced, allowing large areas of the economy to fully reopen.

“Cabinet has determined that the alert level for the whole country should be lowered from level four to level three,” he said in an address broadcast on television, describing the move as a significant shift in approach to the pandemic.

France has said the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 144,921 from 144,806 on Saturday. The number of people in hospital rose to 17,185 from 17,178, while the number of people in intensive care fell to 1,655 from 1,665.

Israel’s cabinet has curtailed the involvement of its internal security agency, Shin Bet, in the cellphone tracking of people infected by the coronavirus, saying the measure would be a last resort.

The cabinet had circumvented parliament in March and approved emergency regulations to allow the use of the technology, usually deployed for anti-terrorism. Privacy watchdog groups have challenged the practice in court.

In light of falling contagion rates in Israel, phone tracking is now warranted “in specific and special cases only, where location … cannot be completed with epidemiological investigation using other methods”. This may be reviewed if infections surge.

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has backed his chief strategist, Dominic Cummings, amid pressure for his resignation after it was revealed he broke lockdown rules on multiple occasions.

Here are some of the key points from the UK briefing for those who missed it.

• Johnson described Cummings as having acted “responsibly, legally and with integrity”.
• He said the adviser had “followed the instincts of every father and every parent” in travelling to find the right kind of childcare at the moment when “both he and his wife were about to be incapacitated” and he does not “mark him down for that”.
• The PM avoided directly answering whether he was aware at the time that Cummings was travelling to Durham, and if he approved it.

South Africa’s AngloGold Ashanti said on Sunday it had suspended operations at its Mponeng mine after at least 164 employees tested positive for coronavirus.

This follows the news that 53 employees at the world’s deepest mine had tested positive.

AngloGold Ashanti said it had tested 650 workers at the gold mining site in Merafong, Gauteng province, after a first case was detected last week.

“This process has indicated 164 positive cases with only a handful of tests left to process,” the company said in a statement, adding that the “vast majority” of cases were asymptomatic.

Operations at Mponeng mine have been “temporarily halted” to complete contact tracing and “sanitise the workplace”.

The UK’s daily coronavirus briefing has started, led by Boris Johnson. It comes as several Conservative MPs have called for Dominic Cummings to resign following reports that he breached the lockdown on more than one occasion.

My colleague Aaron Walawalkar will steer you through it here:

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Canada has risen to 84,081 from 82,892. There have been 103 more deaths, bringing the country’s toll up to 6,380.

The US is likely to impose travel restrictions on Brazil on Sunday, the White House national security adviser has said, after the South American country became the nation with the second most coronavirus cases.

Robert O’Brien told CBS’s Face the Nation he believed there would be a decision on Sunday about suspending entry for those coming from Brazil. The country became the No 2 hot spot for cases on Friday, second only to the US. Brazil has recorded over 347,000 infections, while the US has over 1.6 million.

“We hope that’ll be temporary, but because of the situation in Brazil, we’re going to take every step necessary to protect the American people,” O’Brien said.

He said restrictions for other countries in the southern hemisphere would be considered on a country-by-country basis.

The national security adviser’s comments follow Donald Trump saying on Tuesday he was considering imposing a travel ban.

“I don’t want people coming over here and infecting our people. I don’t want people over there sick either. We’re helping Brazil with ventilators … Brazil is having some trouble, no question about it,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

The US imposed travel restrictions on China in January, and on Europe in early March.

German authorities are trying to trace the people who attended a church service in Frankfurt after 107 tested positive for the coronavirus.

Services have been allowed in Hesse, the state Frankfurt is in, since 1 May, under the condition they follow strict distancing and hygiene rules.

The service in question took place at a Baptist church on 10 May, and it is not clear whether all the 107 attended the service, or whether the figure includes those who were infected by those who did.

“This situation shows how important it is that all of us stay alert and avoid becoming careless, especially now during the easing of restrictions. The virus is still there and will spread,” Hesse state health minister Kai Klose said.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has risen to 178,281, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The reported death toll rose by 31 to 8,247.

I’m now handing this blog over to my colleague Clea Skopeliti, who will take you through the next few hours. Thanks for your company, emails and tweets throughout the day.

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, was branded a “killer” by his opponents after he popped out for a Saturday night hot dog on the day a further 965 of his citizens were reported to have died from Covid-19, Tom Phillips reports.

Insults hurled at Bolsonaro as he grappled with his fast food dinner included: “assassino” (killer), garbage and fascist. One female dissenter can be heard screaming: “Get to work, you bum!”

Here is the report in full:

Spain has recorded 70 new Covid-19 deaths, bringing its toll to 28,752, the country’s health ministry says. The number of diagnosed cases rose to 235,772 from 235,290.

On top of that, here is some very welcome artistic succour. The Venice Film Festival will go ahead as scheduled at the beginning of September, according to Luca Zaia, the governor of the region around the Italian city.

Organised by the Biennale di Venezia company, Venice is the world’s longest-running film festival, Reuters reports. In January it announced that Cate Blanchett would preside over its 77th edition.

Due to the lockdowns imposed on the film industry across the world to limit the spread of the virus, the festival will probably be attended by fewer productions, said Zaia, who is also a board member of the Biennale di Venezia. The Cannes Film Festival, the world’s largest, was forced to postpone its latest edition in May due to the virus epidemic.

Italy plans to lift all travel curbs from 3 June and travellers from European Union countries will be able to enter without going into quarantine. The country recorded 119 new deaths from the Covid-19 epidemic on Saturday, bringing the death toll in Italy from the outbreak to 32,735, the third-highest total in the world after the United States and the United Kingdom.

Anyone looking for sporting relief during what, here in London at least, is a pleasant Sunday afternoon might enjoy our live football blog from Mainz v RB Leipzig in Germany’s Bundesliga. Rob Smyth has all the action:

Here’s a useful video for anyone wondering what has been happening with the Dominic Cummings lockdown breach story in the UK. This morning he said he did not travel to Durham a second time when he was asked by reporters on his doorstep, before going to Downing Street – from where he appears not to have emerged as yet.