Ireland has set out new rules for its quarantine-free travel “green list”, allowing visitors from countries with a Covid-19 infection rate of under 25 cases per 100,000 over the past fortnight to skip the 14-day isolation. Previously the green list was made up of countries with lower infection rates than Ireland, but the government stopped updating the list when cases there surged to 45 per 100,000 people during the past two weeks. Prime minister Micheál Martin said the government would soon publish a new list and would then adopt a coordinated EU system of travel restrictions he said would be approved at an EU General Affairs Council meeting on 13 October. Concern is mounting in the UK about a backlog in its coronavirus testing system which has caused people in areas with the highest infection rates to be unable to go a test. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the House of Commons Speaker, has joined MPs speaking out about the unavailability of coronavirus tests. He says that he is receiving “numerous complaints” and that the current situation is “completely unacceptable”. Meanwhile, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I do have a concern about the capacity constraints right now in the UK-wide system,” Sturgeon said, adding that the issue in Scotland was not about access to testing slots, but of sufficient laboratory processing. You can follow updates on the issue – understood to have been caused by a backlog at laboratories which process the tests – over on our UK blog: Millions of school students in Pakistan have returned to classes after schools and colleges were closed for six months due to the coronavirus outbreak. Educational institutes were closed in March but the government announced a staggered reopening last week as daily infection numbers are falling. “May God make us successful in this test, and may the loss suffered by the students be compensated,” education minister Shafqat Mahmood told reporters in Islamabad. Senior schools were the first to restart, with middle school set to go back next week and primary school the week after. The long closure led to the cancellations of exams and left academic calendars in disarray. Mahmood warned that schools that did not following precautionary measures, including the wearing of masks and social distancing, would be closed. Pakistan has recorded 302,424 cases of the coronavirus and more than 6,300 deaths but daily infections have been slowing from a peak of nearly 7,000, and 118 deaths, in one day in June. On Monday, authorities reported 404 new cases and six deaths. Denmark"s coronavirus reproduction rate at 1.5 Hospitality venues in Copenhagen have been ordered to limit their opening hours following a rise in Covid-19 cases in Denmark. Restaurants, bars and cafes will have to close at 10pm in the capital, after health minister Magnus Heunicke said the country’s reproduction rate – which indicates the average number of people an infected person transmits the virus to – is at 1.5. A total of 334 new coronavirus infections had been registered in the last 24 hours, he told a press conference. Germany will not take shortcuts in the race to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, its research minister has said, “Even when the world is waiting for a vaccine – we won’t take risky short-cuts here,” Anja Karliczek told a news conference in Berlin. “We will not deviate from this line in Germany or in Europe. And I also believe that all countries should proceed in this way globally.” She also repeated her assertion from July that she does not expect that a vaccine will be broadly available until the middle of 2021. A trolley that uses artificial intelligence (AI) is delivering food to restaurant customers in Seoul to minimise human contact amid the pandemic. After customers order through a touch-screen on the table, the 1.25-metre-tall robot, developed by South Korean telecoms company KT corp, brings the food and uses its visual SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping) capabilities to avoid obstacles and navigate around customers. The robot is also equipped with food trays – which can carry up to four tables or 30 kilograms-worth of food – as well as an LCD screen and speaker that communicate in both Korean and English. “Customers found the robot serving quite unique and interesting, and also felt safe from the coronavirus,” said Lee Young-ho, a manager at the Mad for Garlic restaurant in Seoul, which has tested the robot. From Monday, restaurants and cafes in the densely populated capital are allowed to open after 9pm, but must leave 2 metres between tables and record patrons’ names and contact details. Foreigners working in France on the frontline of the battle against the coronavirus are to be fast-tracked for nationality. The French government has sent a directive to local officials to “recognise the work of foreign workers during the lockdown” by speeding up their naturalisation. Among those cited for fast-tracking are care workers, refuse collectors, security guards and childminders. The citizenship minister, , said France wanted to show its gratitude to those who had “shown their attachment to our nation”. “Our country was able to count on their solidarity and generosity faced with that immense challenge,” Schiappa said. The directive states: “Certain foreigners mobilised and were particularly exposed in order to fight against the Covid-19 epidemic. They actively participated in the national effort with dedication and courage … The state wishes to recognise their commitment.” You can read the full report from our Paris correspondent, Kim Willsher, here: Organised crime targeting European Recovery Fund, warns Europol director Angela Giuffrida Europol director Catherine De Bolle has urged vigilance to ensure money from the European Recovery Fund does not fall into the hands of the mafia. Opening a meeting in Rome about coronavirus-related crime threats, she said: The reconstruction funds are already being targeted by criminal organisations and will be even more. With the financing for the recovery, we have to be careful and vigilante in order to avoid the risk of infiltration by the mafia: it is important that, at the highest levels of the European Union, we are aware of the risks [involved] in administering subsidies linked to the pandemic.” Italy is set to be a top beneficiary of the €750bn recovery fund after EU leaders agreed to the stimulus plan following a lengthy debate in July. At the time, prime minister Giuseppe Conte said the funding was an opportunity for his government to “change the face” of the country. Federico Fornaro, a parliamentarian with the leftwing party Free and Equal, said the government must take heed of De Bolle’s warning. “It will be fundamental to keep guard at the highest level in order to stem the attempts by organised crime groups to get their hands on public money.” A growing number of companies are betting on a rise in demand for plant-based meat alternatives in China as consumers take their health more seriously in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week, US-based Beyond Meat Inc said it had signed a deal to open a production facility near Shanghai. Earlier this year it launched a partnership with Starbucks Corp for its vegan products to be sold by the cafe giant in China. Meanwhile, Beijing-based startup Zhenmeat – whose products include vegan meatballs, steaks, crayfish and dumplings – is one of many small Chinese countries entering the market. Its “meatballs” are available on a trial basis at a Beijing branch of hot-pot chain Hope Tree. “After Covid-19, consumers are more concerned about health and restaurant brands are responding to this,” Zhenmeat founder and CEO Vince Lu told Reuters, adding that sales were “up considerably” since June. The World Health Organization has praised the decision by Oxford University and AstraZeneca to pause global trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine after an unexplained illness in a trial patient. “This is what we want to see with trials, it is a well-run trial. Safety is always critical, it is crucial and they have looked at that in an appropriate manner,” official Margaret Harris told journalists in Geneva. Asked to react to experimental Covid-19 vaccine use in China and Russia, she said: “The WHO would like to see vaccines go head to head so we can have clear information and to see these results against each other.” And that’s goodbye from me. Here’s Amy Walker to take you through the rest of the day. A senior health official in China said she expected a vaccine to be publicly available as early as November, Lily Kuo reports. Wu Guizhen, the head of biosafety at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said she expected Chinese vaccines for Covid-19 would be available to the public as soon as November or December. Speaking to state broadcaster CCTV, Wu said: “It will be very soon. The progress is currently very smooth.” Reuters is also reporting the same line. China has four Covid-19 vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials. At least three of those have already been offered to essential workers under an emergency use programme launched in July. Wu, who said she has experienced no abnormal symptoms in recent months after taking an experimental vaccine herself in April, did not specify which vaccines she was referring to. A unit of state pharmaceutical giant China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and US-listed Sinovac Biotech are developing the three vaccines under the state’s emergency use programme. A fourth Covid-19 vaccine being developed by CanSino Biologics was approved for use by the Chinese military in June. Sinopharm said in July its vaccine could be ready for public use by the end of this year after the conclusion of phase 3 trials. Momčilo Krajišnik, a former top wartime Bosnian Serb official who was convicted of war crimes by a UN court, has died after contracting coronavirus, AP is reporting. He was 75. A hospital in the northern Bosnian town of Banja Luka said Krajišnik died early Tuesday “from consequences of infection with the new coronavirus”. Krajišnik was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison by the UN. Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, for persecuting and forcibly expelling non-Serbs during the 1992-95 war. He was released from a British prison in 2013 after serving two-thirds of the sentence. Krajišnik served as the Bosnian Serb parliament speaker during the conflict that erupted after the breakup of the Yugoslav federation in the 1990s. He was among the top Bosnian Serb leadership that led the effort to create a Serb self-styled state in parts of Bosnia and unite it with neighbouring Serbia. He was a close aide to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, who was convicted by the Hague tribunal for genocide. Cases in Dublin increase twentyfold in a month The Irish government is to delay the reopening of Dublin’s drink-only pubs because coronavirus cases in the capital have increased twentyfold in the past month. Leo Varadkar, the deputy prime minister, said the surge would require additional restrictions in Dublin, which has a 14-day incidence rate of 89.1 per 100,000, almost double the national rate of 46.8. Prof Samuel McConkey, an infectious disease expert at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Dublin, urged residents to restrict social gatherings, saying: “Where we are at now is not a stable place.” The government is to publish on Tuesday a risk-ranking system, with a score of one the lowest and five the highest, requiring a full lockdown. It considers Ireland to be at level two. Despite the continued closure of so-called “wet” pubs it is not yet clear if Dublin will be given a higher rating. The wealthy in America are expected to splurge online for gifts and home decorations this holiday season, even as the Covid-19 pandemic erodes sales growth to the slowest in at least a decade, according to a forecast from Deloitte. US retail sales are expected to inch up 1% to 1.5% to as much as $1.15tn between November and January, led by a 25% to 35% rise in e-commerce sales, the consultancy firm said, . While the overall rise in sales would be slower than previous years, Deloitte’s US retail and distribution leader, Rod Sides, said a surprise increase in back-to-school spending and higher savings rates than last year showed demand could be strong between Thanksgiving and Christmas. “We don’t see many of the higher and upper middle income folks being impacted by job losses, so we think for that group holiday sales go up as much as 2% to 3%,” Sides said. Purchasing among lower income households will probably be flat to up just 1%, as the coronavirus lingers and the health crisis related government spending dries up. Brick-and-mortar sales could fall as much as 3.4%. Australia’s virus hot spot Victoria state says it will relax pandemic restrictions in most areas from Wednesday night. Premier Daniel Andrews said Tuesday that people who live outside the state capital, Melbourne, would have no restrictions on leaving their homes and all shops will be able to reopen, AP is reporting. Andrews also urged Melbourne residents not to get discouraged about staying in lockdown as the rest of the state opens up. People are not allowed to leave Australia’s second-largest city without approved reasons and police would tighten checkpoints on routes from Melbourne as the rest of the state opens up. Australia recorded its first day without a single reported Covid-19 death since 13 July on Tuesday.