Coronavirus live news: Europe leaders told to ‘act urgently’; US nears 9m cases | World news

Indonesia reported 2,897 new coronavirus infections on Friday, taking the total number to 406,945, data from the country’s COVID-19 task force showed, Reuters reports.

The data also showed 81 additional deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 13,782.

Indonesia has recorded the most cases and deaths from COVID-19 in Southeast Asia, Reuters notes.

UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab did not deny that ministers are considering introducing an even stricter tier of coronavirus restriction in England – a higher Tier 4- to contain the virus.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

We’re always ready for further measures that we can take. But I think the most important thing about further measures is that we continue on the track we’re on of targeting the virus.

Russia’s daily tally of coronavirus cases surged to a record high of 18,283 on Friday, including 5,268 in Moscow, Reuters reports.

The latest figures take the national total to 1,599,976 since the pandemic began.

Authorities reported 355 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 27,656.

Morning, my name is Aamna Mohdin and I’ll be taking over the liveblog for the next few hours. If you want to get in touch, you can email me (aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com)

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Happy almost Halloween. With everything going on it pretty much couldn’t be scarier, could it?

Anyway, here’s a song for Devil’s Night about The Gremlins:

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• US nears 9m cases. The United States, the worst-affected country worldwide in terms of the number of coronavirus cases and national death doll, is on the brink of the terrible milestine of 9m cases. In recent days the US has twice reported daily infection totals of over 80,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.It currently has a total of 8,944,632, with the next daily infection figure expected to take that number over 9m.
• Record 17m guns bought this year in the US. Americans have bought nearly 17m guns so far in 2020, more than in any other single year, according to estimates from a firearms analytics company. Gun sales across the United States first jumped in the spring, driven by fears about the coronavirus pandemic, and spiked even higher in the summer, during massive racial justice protests across the country, prompted by police killings of black Americans.
• Australian active cases lowest in four months. Australian officials said on Friday there just under 200 active cases of Covid-19 in the country, the lowest number in more than four months and well down from a peak of just over 8,000 in mid-August. Officials reported just 11 new infections in the past 24 hours, the bulk of which were people already in hotel quarantine after arriving from overseas. Australian states and territories have begun further relaxing domestic travel bans, although some restrictions remain.
  
• Mainland China reported 25 new Covid-19 cases on 29 October, down from 47 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Friday. Of the new cases, 24 were imported infections originating from overseas. The National Health Commission said in a statement that one local infection was reported in the eastern province of Shandong.
• Japan passes 100,000 cases. The total number of Covid-19 cases in Japan has topped 100,000, as experts warned that Tokyo – the most-affected part of the country – should prepare for another wave of infections this winter. Japan had recorded 100,516 cases and 1,761 deaths as of Thursday, according to a tallyby public broadcaster NHK.
• New Zealand government orders Air New Zealand to freeze bookings to the country. New Zealand’s government has ordered Air New Zealand to freeze all international bookings to the country as quarantine facilities near capacity, as more citizens try to return home ahead of the Christmas holidays.From Tuesday, they will need to have a voucher in order to board a flight home.
• EU to fund transfer of Covid-19 patients across borders to prevent hospital collapse. The EU will finance the transfer of patients across borders within the bloc to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed as Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations rise across the continent. “The spread of the virus will overwhelm our healthcare systems if we do not act urgently,” said Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU Commission.
• Spain hit a new record in daily cases, recording another 23,580 infections. It brought the nation’s tally to 1,136,503, health ministry data showed. The government voted in favour of a six-month extension of the state of emergency, which allows Spain’s 17 regional governments to limit mobility, impose curfews and shut their borders with other regions.
• France will restrict outdoor movement and make working from home mandatory under new lockdown rules, coming into effect at midnight. People will only be able to leave their own homes for certain essential purposes, as the country tries to put the brakes on a Covid-19 outbreak that the president Emmanuel Macron said risked accelerating out of control. More details here.
• West Yorkshire in England will move into tier 3 restrictions from 12.01 on Monday. The ‘very high’ restrictions – the strictest level in England – will see indoor social mixing banned and the closure of pubs and bars unless they can operate as a restaurant. More details here.
• Greece will impose regional lockdowns on its second-largest city of Thessaloniki and two other regions from Friday after a rise in cases of Covid-19, the government said.
• Italy registered a record of 26,831 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, its highest daily increase in coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Under new restrictions bars and restaurants must stop serving customers at 6pm while cinemas, theatres, swimming pools and gyms must close completely.
• Sweden registered 2,820 new coronavirus cases, the highest since the start of the pandemic and the third record number in a matter of days. Hospitals are feeling the strain, with the number of patients with Covid-19 in need of care in the region having risen about 60% over the past week after a near 80% surge in recorded infections.

The first doses of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine will likely become available to some high-risk Americans in late December or early January, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, said on Thursday.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he based this on current projections from vaccine front-runners Moderna Inc and Pfizer.

Even with an effective vaccine to protect against the virus, Fauci said it will take time to get back to something approaching normal as vaccine-induced immunity builds both nationally and globally. He said life will likely not get back to normal “until the end of 2021 at least.”

Oil and gas companies worldwide are taking an axe to their employment rolls, shedding workers to survive what is expected to be a prolonged stretch of weak demand.

Reuters: Exxon Mobil Corp said it will cut its workforce by 15%, or about 14,000 people, along with oil majors Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

All told, more than 400,000 oil and gas sector jobs have been cut this year, according to Rystad Energy, with about half of those in the United States, where several big exploration companies and most large oil service companies are headquartered.

Coronavirus has devastated swathes of the global economy, with energy, travel and hospitality among the industries hit hardest. Energy companies were already struggling with weak returns, particularly those operating in U.S. shale regions, but have had to double down on cost cuts as investors pressure companies to improve margins.

More US election news: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has slammed Trump’s campaign rallies, saying they are spreading more than just Covid-19 – they are dividing the nation politically.

Biden also criticised the Trump camp’s approach to managing the spread of Covid, with the president playing down its impact despite rising case numbers across the country:

Australian officials said on Friday there just under 200 active cases of Covid-19 in the country, the lowest number in more than four months and well down from a peak of just over 8,000 in mid-August, Reuters reports.

Officials reported just 11 new infections in the past 24 hours, the bulk of which were people already in hotel quarantine after arriving from overseas.

Australian states and territories have begun further relaxing domestic travel bans, although some restrictions remain.

In Victoria state, which accounts for more than 90% of the country’s 905 Covid-19 deaths, a weeks-long stringent lockdown in the city of Melbourne was eased earlier this week.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Friday said her state would reopen to visitors from neighbouring New South Wales, with the exception of Sydney residents.

Australia has recorded just over 27,500 novel coronavirus infections, far fewer than many other developed countries.