Spain’s health ministry said 3,715 coronavirus infections were diagnosed in the 24 hours to Wednesday, a new single-day record since the country emerged from a three-month lockdown in mid-June. With 136 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the past two weeks, Spain tops the European chart of the highest cumulative incidence. Its one of the main indicators closely monitored by epidemiologists. The Madrid region, home to 6.6m, has emerged as one of the hot spots in the new wave of outbreaks, which officials have linked mostly to family reunions and nightlife. New regulations, including on hours of nightlife and close outdoor smoking, take effect Thursday in the Spanish capital. France health ministry: "The virus is intensifying" France on Wednesday recorded new coronavirus cases at the fastest daily rate since May, official figures showed, as the country prepared for the return from summer holidays. Almost 3,800 infections were confirmed: “All indicators continue to climb and transmission of the virus is intensifying,” the health ministry’s DGS public health division said. More than 3,000 new daily cases have been registered on just two days since May, on Saturday and Sunday last weekend. Several departments in both the Ile-de-France region around the capital Paris and the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region around Mediterranean port city Marseille on Wednesday passed the “alert threshold” of 50 new daily cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the DGS said. Nationwide, over 16,700 infections have been detected over the past week. Qantas CEO: A vaccine could mean "US is seen as a market by the end of 2021" Joyce is asked when he thinks the US may be open again for Qantas to fly to: The US is like – we’ve always assumed that let’s get the domestic borders open first, get the rules set around them and then potentially have the bubbles, country by country, when we have a similar level of exposure to the virus, so New Zealanders, they are an example and that should potentially open up relatively fast compared to the other countries around the world. The US, with the level of prevalence there is probably going to take some time. It will probably need a vaccine before we could see that happening. The news on the vaccine seems to get better every day. A lot of the people, the medical advice we have, a lot of the medical advice I think Governments around the world are having is that we potentially could see a vaccine by the middle or the end of next year and countries like the US may be the first country to have widespread use of that vaccine, so that could mean that the US is seen as a market by the end of 2021, hopefully we could, dependent on a vaccine, start seeing flights again. Joyce says in addition to the international collapse of air travel, the company has been badly hit by internal border closures in Australia’s states. Travel is currently limited from the country’s two most populous states of Victoria and New South Wales, due to local transmission of coronavirus cases. Victoria has been the hardest hit and on Thursday reported 240 new cases and 13 deaths. Joyce highlighted the uncertainty over Australia’s internal borders: At the moment, there are no rules around how borders are going to close and going to open. And it’s very clear that, from a health and safety point of view, that has to be the priority. And nobody has an issue with the international borders being closed - that’s protected Australia. Nobody’s had an issue with the borders to Victoria being closed. But it’s very clear that we don’t have clear guidelines for when the borders will open, when they will close. So, we have the situation where there are a large number of states and territories that have had zero cases and they’re not even open to each other. So, Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, Tasmania - we’ve got closures there still. With very low cases, no cases, and it’s been like that for a while. And we don’t have any determination on when the borders will open. We think, and I think, the Federal Government thinks, they should be open soon, or now. Qantas CEO: "Covid punched a $4bn hole in our revenue"; airline announces 91% profit drop Just before we get in to our main headlines on coronavirus, we have some breaking news from Australia, where Qantas has announced its profits have dropped by 91%. It’s CEO, Alan Joyce, announced the “worst trading results in history”. We start by saying this is clearly not a standard set of results for the Qantas Group. It’s been shaped by extraordinary events that have made for the worst trading conditions in our 100-year history. To put it simply, we’re an airline that can’t really fly to many places – at least for now. The impact of that is clear. Covid punched a $4bn hole in our revenue and a $1.2bn hole in our underlying profit in what would have otherwise been another very strong result. I’ll come to the statutory result in a moment but the fact that the group still delivered an underlying profit before tax of $124m despite Covid says a lot about our resilience, and why we have confidence long term. In June, Qantas said it would axe 6000 jobs, or around 20% of its workforce. The airline won’t be resuming international flights until at least July 2021. Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with me, Alison Rourke. Before we kick off, here’s a summary of the top lines so far. The number of coronavirus cases recorded around the world passed 22.2 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Deaths from the virus stand at more than 783,000. The US and Brazil still lead the way in coronavirus deaths and cases. France’s Covid-19 infections reached a new post-lockdown peak as another 3,776 cases were recorded, bringing the country’s total to 225,043. The French president Emmanuel Macron again ruled out imposing another national lockdown. The health ministry said transmission of the virus was increasing particularly among young adults, and the virus was especially active in and around Paris and Marseille. Spain reported 3,715 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said. According to Reuters it marks a new daily record since the country came out of a strict lockdown in late June. Cumulative cases, which include antibody tests on patients who may have already recovered, rose by 6,671 to 370,867, the ministry said. Italy recorded 642 new infections in a day, hitting a new record since May when the country cautiously emerged from one of the longest lockdowns in the world after more than 30,000 Covid-related deaths. Seven more people have died with the virus. The overall tally of cases has now risen to 255,178. The death toll now stands at 35,412. The UK government is set to drop Croatia from its travel corridor list on Thursday. It comes after imported Covid-19 infections from the country were identified. The announcement would give thousands of Britons just 30 hours to return home to avoid having to self-isolate for 14 days. Brazil’s coronavirus death toll topped 110,000 and close to another 50,000 cases were recorded. In the past 24 hours, a further 49,298 cases of Covid-19 were registered, the health ministry said, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 3,456,652. An additional 1,212 deaths fatalities took the Covid-19 death toll to 111,100, according to the data. Iran surpassed 20,000 confirmed deaths from the coronavirus, the health ministry said, the highest death toll for any Middle East country. The announcement came as the Islamic Republic went ahead with university entrance exams for over 1 million students. Iran is also preparing for mass Shiite commemorations later this month. South Korea’s health ministry has warned that the country is facing a “desperately dangerous crisis” of spreading coronavirus, after the country reported its highest daily rise in cases since early March. On Wednesday, officials asked people in Seoul, the capital, to stay at home if they could, warning that testing, tracing and isolation measures were insufficient.