The Latest: New restrictions as Paris goes on maximum alert
French authorities placed the Paris region on maximum virus alert on Monday, saying the new restrictions would apply at least for the next two weeks.
Starting on Tuesday, bars will be closed in Paris and its suburbs. Student parties and all other festive and family events in establishments open to the public will be banned.
Restaurants will remain open under strict conditions, to be detailed later on Monday. They are expected to include distance between each table, a limitation of the number of people and a request to register customers’ names and phone numbers.
The director of the Regional Health Authority, Aurelien Rousseau, said about 3,500 new cases of infection are confirmed on average each day in the Paris region, and 36% of ICU beds in the area are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
Marseille and nearby Aix-en-Provence, as well as the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean have had alerts raised to the maximum level for the past 12 days. French health authorities reported 16,972 new cases of infection on Saturday, the highest daily number since the country began widespread testing.
___
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— Americans fault US govt over foreign powers for virus crisis
— Trump takes a brief car ride outside hospital, ignoring own COVID infection
— Biden campaign says Democratic presidential nominee tested negative for virus
— EU top official self-isolating after contact with virus case
— Asian shares rise as investors are optimistic about Trump’s recovery from virus
___
Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
___
HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
___
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Dutch justice minister says churches have agreed to limit the number of people attending services after hundreds of faithful gathered in one town’s church over the weekend even as coronavirus infections rose across the country.
The government says it can’t impose the measures on churches or enforce them because of the constitutional freedom of religion.
Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus told reporters Monday that churches will adhere to the same restrictions that were imposed during the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak earlier this year.
Grapperhaus says that churches will hold services online as much as possible, restrict visitor numbers to a maximum of 30 people and ban singing.
Confirmed new infections have been spiking in the Netherlands and rose to just over 4,000 per day over the weekend.
In an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, the government has tightened restrictions, including limiting groups to a maximum of 30 people at indoor public venues such as shops, museums and libraries.
___
GENEVA — The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization says its “best estimates” indicate that roughly one in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus.
Dr. Michael Ryan, speaking Monday to a meeting of the WHO’s 34-member executive board focusing on COVID-19, said the figures vary from urban to rural, and between different groups, but that ultimately it means “the vast majority of the world remains at risk.”
The estimate — which would amount to more than 760 million people based on current world population of about 7.6 billion — far outstrips the number of confirmed cases as tallied by both WHO and Johns Hopkins University, now more than 35 million worldwide.
Experts have long said that the number of confirmed cases greatly underestimates the true figure.
___
GENEVA — The U.N. health agency says a new survey shows the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted or stopped critical mental health services in more than nine in 10 countries worldwide, even as need for them is rising.
The World Health Organization says its survey, conducted between June and August in 130 countries, is the first to detail the “devastating impact” of COVID-19 on access to mental health services.
More than two-thirds of countries reported disruptions to counselling and psychotherapy, and over one-third cited disruptions to emergency interventions.
“Bereavement, isolation, loss of income and fear are triggering mental health conditions or exacerbating existing ones. Many people may be facing increased levels of alcohol and drug use, insomnia and anxiety,” a WHO statement said. “Meanwhile, COVID-19 itself can lead to neurological and mental complications, such as delirium, agitation and stroke.”
The survey comes ahead of a WHO-backed advocacy event on Saturday for World Mental Health Day.
___
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said Monday he will self-quarantine after a Cabinet minister he was in contact with tested positive for the coronavirus.
Muhyiddin had chaired an Oct. 3 meeting attended by Religious Minister Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri, who confirmed Monday he has been hospitalized for treatment.
Cases in the country have soared in recent days, hitting a record high of 432 on Monday. Malaysia’s tally of virus cases is at 12,813 with 137 deaths.
Muhyiddin said he tested negative for the virus in the past three consecutive weeks, after returning from campaigning in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island which is a hotspot zone.
But he said in a statement he will observe the quarantine and work from home until Oct. 16. All those at the meeting will also observe self-isolation. Local reports said the attendees included several ministers, the national police chief, the armed forces chief and the health director-general.
___
MADRID — Groups representing more than 170,000 health workers are urging Spanish politicians to base their response to the pandemic on scientific grounds rather than politics.
A 10-point manifesto by 55 scientific societies published Sunday in all the major newspapers said “decisions must be based on the best available scientific evidence, completely detached from the continuous political confrontation.”
The campaign comes after a dispute between the left-wing national government and the conservative regional authorities of the Madrid region led to weeks of back and forth before partially locking down the Spanish capital late Friday amid a surge of infections.
The manifesto also calls for less red-tape in adopting measures against virus outbreaks, for authorities in Spain’s 19 regions to abide by a set of national scientific standards that would dictate the response, and calls for stopping interference in medical decisions.
Addressing “politicians” in general, the scientists write: “On behalf of more than 47 million Spaniards, including you and your families, we have to change so much political, professional and human inconsistency.”
___
BRUSSELS — Authorities in Belgium are warning that the number of virus cases is rising sharply and is likely to do so for several more months.
A spokesman for Belgium’s COVID-19 crisis center says that “unfortunately, the stabilization that we had hoped for has not happened. On the contrary, we see a clear increase in the number of cases in every region and age group.”
The number of new cases reported daily over the last week climbed by 32% to around 2,100, as of Monday. Those aged 20-29 are seeing most new infections, but authorities are particularly concerned for the very elderly, with a tenfold increase in new cases among people aged over 90.
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 130,200 people have been infected with the virus in the country, which has around 11.5 million residents. As of Monday, 10,064 people were reported to have died from the disease.
Just last Thursday, Belgium dropped rules requiring people to wear a mask outdoors but they must still do so in crowded places. The government also reduced the mandatory quarantine period from 14 days to one week for people with COVID-19 symptoms who eventually test negative for the virus.
___
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania’s foreign minister will spend a week in isolation after having had contact with a person from the French delegation who was infected with the coronavirus the French president’s visit to the country last week.
A spokeswoman for the Lithuanian foreign minister made the announcement.
The French Embassy in Vilnius told the Baltic News Service that two embassy staffers had tested positive for the coronavirus and they were part of the delegation.
The persons are self-isolating and the French Embassy has been closed for several days.
The French Embassy said the whole delegation from Paris was pre-tested and the results were negative before the visit.
___
STOCKHOLM — A technology institute in Sweden has found large concentrations of the coronavirus in Stockholm’s sewage system, saying it “has doubled in the last weeks and is now back at the same levels as in May 2020.”
In a statement, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology said the increased number of cases of COVID-19 in recent weeks is reflected in the wastewater and thus not due to more people being tested.
“My interpretation is that this latest increase is definitely about an increased number of infected people in society,” said Cecilia Williams, a professor at the institute in Stockholm.
Sweden, which has opted for a much debated COVID-19 approach of keeping large parts of the society open, has reported 94,283 cases and 5,895 deaths.
___
LONDON — Britain’s opposition Labour Party is asking the government to explain the latest problem with the nation’s COVID-19 tracing system after the reporting of almost 16,000 cases was delayed for days.
Public health officials said Sunday that 15,841 cases weren’t tabulated from Sept. 25 to Oct. 2. While all of those who tested positive were informed of the results, authorities weren’t able to trace and notify the people they had come in contact with, Public Health England said.
The government said the “technical issue” was discovered Friday night and has now been resolved. The previously unreported cases were added to the government’s daily figures over the weekend, boosting new cases to 12,872 on Saturday and 22,961 on Sunday. That compares with about 7,000 cases on each of the previous four days.
The reporting error is just the latest problem with Britain’s test and trace system, which is seen as crucial to slowing the spread of COVID-19 and reducing the need for further limits on social interaction. Lawmakers from all parties have previously criticized the government for a shortage of testing capacity and delays in notifying people of their test results
___
NEW DELHI — India has registered a single-day spike of 74,442 new coronavirus cases, driving the country’s overall tally since the pandemic began to 6.6 million.
The Health Ministry on Monday also reported another 903 virus deaths in the past 24 hours, taking total fatalities up to 102,685.
India has reported the second most infections globally after the United States, but its daily new infections are now on a downward trend, though still the highest in the world. The number of active virus cases in the country has also remained below 1 million for the past two weeks.
The country’s recovery rate stands at 84%, the highest in the world, with more than 5.5 million people recovered from coronavirus so far, according to the Health Ministry.
___
MANILA, Philippines — Grade and high school students in the Philippines have started classes at home after the pandemic forced remote-learning onto an educational system already struggling to fund schools.
The shift to distance-learning that began Monday has been a logistical nightmare for the poverty-stricken Southeast Asian country that has long lacked enough classrooms, teachers and educational equipment. Nearly 25 million students enrolled this year in mostly 47,000 public schools nationwide that would have to be replicated in homes and enlist the help of parents and guardians as co-teachers.
A majority of families, especially from poor and rural communities, opted to use government-provided digital or printed learning materials, which students would read at home with the guidance of their elders before carrying out specified activities. Most lacked computers and reliable internet connections. Teachers could answer questions by telephone.
The rest of the families preferred for their children to get lessons online or through regional radio and TV educational broadcasts.
President Rodrigo Duterte has said school classes should resume only when a COVID-19 vaccine has been made available.
