Coronavirus live news: WHO approves new rapid Covid test; Madrid to enter partial lockdown | World news

France reported 12,148 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, the French health ministry said.

Friday’s figure is lower than Thursday’s 13,970 and well below highs of more than 16,000 recorded last week.

France also reported 136 new deaths from coronavirus, taking the country’s death toll to 32,155.

Hospital admissions for Covid-19 rose by 106 to 6,758 and intensive care admissions by 11 to 1,276, continuing to rise from recent weeks.

The Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, and his wife, Jill, have tested negative for coronavirus, their doctor said in a statement on Friday.

“Vice-president Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden underwent PCR testing for Covid-19 today and Covid-19 was not detected,” Dr Kevin O’Connor said in a statement.

After the result was announced, Biden headed to the airport, where he was scheduled to travel to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a campaign event.

“I’m happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for Covid,” Biden said on Twitter. “Thank you to everyone for your messages of concern. I hope this serves as a reminder: wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands.”

Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO emergencies programme, said the outbreak at the White House must be “investigated and those individuals who might be at risk need to be advised. This is epidemiology 101.”

He said he was confident that was happening, not least because many Americans “taught the world epidemiology 101”.

But he refused to be drawn on whether Joe Biden was likely to have caught Covid from Trump during this week’s presidential debate. “We absolutely trust the US public health authorities to make the appropriate decision and advise those individuals whether they may be at risk,” he said.

Dr Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the director of the WHO, said it was hard to say why Spain had been so hard hit by the second wave while Italy had fared rather better.

It was partly “bad luck” on Spain’s part, he said, “because in both countries you’ve got very, very impressive responses and very well trained people”.

He warned that in parts of Italy, cases were “heating up”, with the Italian authorities “moving very, very quickly to try and address that”.

“We are dealing with a biological process and we don’t understand everything about this virus and everything about why it takes off in some places and doesn’t in others,” he added.

The WHO has today finalised approval for a second antigen-based rapid diagnostic test, giving it emergency use listing.

“These tests are simple to use and provide reliable results in approximately 15 to 30 minutes, rather than hours or days, at a lower price,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

About 2 million cases of Covid-19 are currently being reported around the world, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), has said.

In a televised press conference, Ghebreyesus said: “This is a critical moment in the outbreak response. We urge every single leader to strengthen their response, to target measures in place that we know can suppress the spread.”

He added: “Where we are able to successfully control it, it’s important governments keep going, stay vigilant and be ready and keep investing in your national health systems, including contact tracing.”

The UK reported 6,968 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, up from Thursday’s figure of 6,914 but below the peak of 7,143 on Tuesday.

There were 66 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test, up from Thursday’s level of 59 but lower than numbers earlier in the week.

Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron, 14, has tested negative for Covid-19, the White House said.

“Barron tested negative and all precautions are being taken to ensure he’s kept safe and healthy,” said Stephanie Grisham, chief of staff for Melania Trump. She said the first lady was doing well.

Meanwhile, the US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said the president has “very light symptoms” after testing positive for Covid-19. He will brief Trump later on Friday on negotiations with congressional Democrats for additional federal coronavirus aid.

Scotland has recorded a further 775 cases over the past 24 hours, first minister Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed. This takes the total number of positive cases in Scotland to 30,687.

Here is a breakdown of new cases:

• NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde: 324
• NHS Lothian: 164
• NHS Lanarkshire: 102

The remaining cases are spread another nine of Scotland’s 14 health boards.

Four people have died after testing positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 2,526 deaths in Scotland.

Restaurateurs and their staff in France stood in front of their restaurants wearing black arm-bands and banging pots and pans today, urging the French government not to order tighter restrictions to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Reuters reports:

On Thursday, health minister Olivier Véran said the Paris region was set to be placed on maximum Covid-19 alert from as soon as Monday as cases rise.

Restaurant owners fear new closures could force them out of business. Bars and restaurants in the French capital must close by 10 pm under current coronavirus restrictions.

Andrea Vincenzi, who manages La Ville de Provins restaurant in northern Paris near the Gare de l’Est railway station, told Reuters:

It’s a great concern for our jobs, for our wages, for our future.

To head off closures, they have proposed measures including taking the temperature of staff and customers before allowing them into venues, limiting the number of people at a table to eight from 10 and keeping a register of customers’ details for contact tracing, similar to schemes in place in Germany, Britain and elsewhere.

Véran said the Paris region had passed all three of the government’s criteria for being put on the highest level of alert. In the past 24 hours, the coronavirus infection rate had surpassed 250 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Double Michelin-starred chef Philippe Etchebest urged fellow restaurant and bar owners to protest against the possible closure of their establishments, calling on them to stand outside their venues on Friday before lunch service and make some noise.

Veran has ordered bars and restaurants in the southern city of Marseille to shut for two weeks.

Update on the Madrid lockdown. The Spanish capital and nine nearby towns will enter a partial lockdown at 10 pm local time tonight, regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero told a news conference on Friday.

The US vice-president, Mike Pence, has tested negative for coronavirus, CNN reports. That is good news if Trump becomes too ill to lead, as Pence will have to hold the fort.

Denmark will cull around 1 million mink after finding further coronavirus infections among the animals at farms that breed them for their fur, authorities said.

The Nordic country is the world’s largest producer of mink – small, lithe mammals with brown-black fur used to make coats and scarves.

Fresh cases have been registered at 41 Danish mink farms and a further 20 were believed to be affected, totalling up to 1 million minks, environment and food Minister Mogens Jensen said at a press briefing on Thursday evening.

As a precaution, the culling will include farms situated within five miles (8km) of a farm with infected mink.

“My main focus is on ensuring, that the … mink farms do not become an infection risk for people, and therefore the government has decided to cull the mink,” Jensen said.

In May, Spain ordered the culling of all 93,000 mink at a farm to prevent human contagion after finding that most of the mink there were infected with the coronavirus.

The Netherlands reported a similar outbreak and undertook a cull after two people were reported to have been infected by mink, though such cases of animal-to-human transmission are believed to be extremely rare.

There have also been occasional cases of zoo animals and house pets coming down with the coronavirus during the global pandemic, with their owners the likely cause of infection.

In England, an estimated 116,600 people had Covid-19 in the week from 18 to 24 September, equating to around one in 500 people, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The ONS said there is “some limited evidence” that the incidence rate may be levelling off following steep increases during August and September. But it warned the confidence intervals on its weekly Covid-19 Infection Survey were so wide that it was impossible to say for sure.

In recent weeks, there has been clear evidence of an increase in the number of people testing positive for Covid-19, with the current rates highest in teenagers and young adults.

Katherine Kent, joint head of analysis for the Covid-19 Infection Survey, said: “Our estimates continue to show a rise in Covid-19 infections across England, especially in teenagers and young adults, based on our analysis of almost 300,000 swabs from the last six weeks. Infections are highest in the north-west and north-east.

“While the evidence suggests that the increase in new cases may be levelling off after a sharp rise in August and September, it is too early to be certain at this stage.”

Madrid’s regional authorities will shortly put the Spanish capital and nine nearby towns under partial lockdown, with immediate effect, a source from Madrid’s regional government told Reuters on Friday.

With 859 cases per 100,000 people, the Madrid region is the worst Covid-19 hotspot in Europe.

The reluctant move – by the conservative-led regional government – follows an order from the Socialist-led central government to ban non-essential travel to and from Madrid.

With the new restrictions, 4.8 million people in Madrid and nine nearby municipalities will see borders closed to outsiders for non-essential visits, with only travel for work, school, doctors’ visits or shopping allowed. A curfew for bars and restaurants will be moved to 11pm from 1am.

Tunisia recorded 1,308 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday, a record since the start of the pandemic, the Tunisian health ministry said on Friday.

The rise prompted the government to impose a night curfew in two coastal areas, Sousse and Monastir, amid fears that hospitals will be unable to cope because of the shortage of intensive care beds.

The total number of cases has jumped to about 20,000 compared with roughly 1,000 cases before the country’s borders were reopened on 27 June

The total number of deaths has reached 271, the health ministry said.

Prime minister Hichem Mechichi said this week it was unthinkable to reimpose a general lockdown because of the unprecedented economic collapse caused by the first lockdown begun in March.

Tunisia’s tourism-dependent economy shrank 21.6% in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the same period last year as a result of the pandemic and measures to curb it.

Face masks will have to be worn at all times outdoors in the Italian capital, Rome, and the surrounding Lazio region, local authorities ruled on Friday.

Italy on Thursday registered more than 2,000 new coronavirus cases for the first time since the end of April. Lazio accounted for 265 of those cases and has been increasingly concerned by the growing contagion.

A number of other Italian regions, including Campania centred on Naples, have already made mask-wearing obligatory outdoors. Previously, masks had to be worn only in closed public spaces, such as shops and cinemas.

“Most of the cases are tied to the lack of respect in using masks and in social distancing,” Lazio’s health chief, Alessio D’Amato, told reporters on Friday as he announced the new measure.

Trump is, of course, not the only world leader to have succumbed to Covid. Boris Johnson was the first major global politician to catch it, spending time in intensive care during early April.

The Brazilian president Jair Bolsanaro announced his illness in July, after months of playing down the virus as a “little flu” and refusing to abide by social distancing guidelines. He used it to publicly extol hydroxychloroquine, the unproven malaria drug that he’d been promoting as a treatment for COVID-19 and was taking himself.

Juan Orlando Hernandez, the president of Honduras, tested positive in June and was briefly hospitalised. He has added his voice to growing pleas for equitable access to any Covid-19 vaccine, asking the recent U.N. gathering of world leaders: “Are people to be left to die?”

The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, dismissed concerns about the virus as psychosis and recommended drinking vodka to stay healthy. Then in July he said he had contracted it himself but was asymptomatic. Belarus is one of the few countries that took no comprehensive measures against the virus.

Prince Albert II of Monaco was the first monarch to admit to testing positive, back in March. Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, also tested positive in March and showed mild symptoms.

Other world leaders to catch Covid include Alejandro Giammattei, the president of Guatemala; Jeanine Anez, the Bolivian interim president; and Luis Abinader, the newly elected president of the Dominican Republic.

Malaysia reported 287 new coronavirus cases on Friday, according to the health ministry, the highest daily increase since the country started tracking the spread of the pandemic.

The south-east Asian country has reported a total of 11,771 cases of the virus so far, including 136 deaths.

I’m Helen Pidd and I will be looking after this blog for much of the rest of the day. Feel free to email me at helen.pidd@theguardian.com