Denmark removed from UK travel corridor, meaning arrivals must self-isolate The UK’s secretary of state for transport, Grant Schapps, has removed Demnark from the country’s “travel corridor”, which means all arrivals from Denmark will need to self-isolate for 14 days, starting at 4am Friday morning. The reason for the removal is the spread of coronavirus to people from an outbreak among mink on mink farms in the country, Shapps wrote in a statement: I have taken the swift decision to urgently remove Denmark from the government’s travel corridor list as a precautionary measure given recent developments Passengers arriving into the UK from Denmark from 4am on Friday 6 November 2020 (today) will need to self-isolate for 14 days by law before following domestic restrictions now in force. I understand that this will be concerning for both people currently in Denmark and the wider UK public, which is why we have moved quickly to protect our country and prevent the spread of the virus to the UK. Health authorities in Denmark have reported widespread outbreaks of coronavirus (COVID-19) in mink farms, with a variant strain of the virus spreading to some local communities. The Chief Medical Officer has therefore recommended that, as precautionary measure, all those returning from Denmark should self-isolate for 14 days. WHO warns of ‘explosion’ of virus cases in Europe The World Health Organization in Europe on Thursday said it was seeing an “explosion” of coronavirus cases in the region and warned of a “tough time” ahead as mortality rates rose. “We do see an explosion.... in the sense it only takes a couple of days to have over the European region an increase of one million cases,” WHO’s regional director for Europe Hans Kluge told AFP. Kluge, who was wearing a mask even as he was interviewed over a webcam meeting, also said the mortality rate could be seen rising “little by little.” “It’s going to be a little bit of a tough time, we need to be honest on that,” he said. In spite of the rapidly rising cases, Kluge cautioned that closing schools should be seen as a last resort, especially in light of there being “no reasons to say that schools are a main driver of the transmission.” “We need to keep the schools open really until last because we cannot afford a Covid-19 lost generation,” Kluge said. However the regional director also said that the “status quo is not an option” and called for “proportionate targeted measures,” which could be scaled up. Kluge stressed that governments should take into account two things: “coherence, so people see that we don’t flip-flop, and... predictability, so people know if this threshold is being reached, this is what is going to happen.” He also called for the widespread use of face masks. “With general mask wearing and strict control of social gatherings we can save 266,000 lives by February in the whole European region,” Kluge said. Billions of pounds worth of trade with the European Union will face “significant disruption” on 1 January, regardless of whether a trade deal is agreed, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has concluded. The National Audit Office (NAO) said crucial IT systems have yet to be tested and transit areas for lorries are not ready as the government attempts to prepare new border controls for the end of the Brexit transition period. The planned controls, which had already been rated “high risk”, have been further hampered by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report released today: US likely to again break global record for new cases on Thursday It looks Thursday will again see the US break the global record for daily coronavirus cases – for the third time in eight days – with a possible 116,000 new cases reported in 24 hours (beating its own previous record by 14,000 cases). This is from the Covid-tracking project – the Guardian relies on Johns Hopkins University, which updates a little later, so we’ll have confirmation then. But the two trackers are usually fairly aligned. Meanwhile over at the US elections, where Trump has just made repeated false claims about the election in his first public address since the early hours of Wednesday morning: Uber Technologies Inc said on Thursday demand for its food-delivery service exploded in the latest quarter, but recovery in its global rides business is being held back by its most important market, the United States, Reuters reports. Uber’s recovery will depend much on the course of the pandemic, with a resurgence in virus infections threatening to keep customers wary about returning outside or planning frequent trips far into 2021. Ride bookings were dragged down by a slow recovery particularly on the US West Coast, while Europe and the Middle East recovered more steadily, down only 36% from last year. Uber shares were down 2% in after-hours trading as an adjusted third-quarter EBITDA loss of $625 million was wider than analyst expectations of a $597 million loss, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Non-adjusted earnings per share came in at a loss of 62 cents, compared with a 65-cent loss estimated by analysts. Gross bookings at Uber’s rides mobility unit recovered from their massive drop in April, but remained down 50% from last year on a constant currency basis. But unlike Uber’s other units, the rides segment delivered adjusted EBITDA of $245 million. Summary: Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. My name is Helen Sullivan and if you’re looking for Covid-19 news as it happens, you’re in the right place. You can also find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan. Today is one of the saddest of the pandemic so far. The United States recorded more cases in 24 hours than any country over the course of the pandemic, with 102,000 infections confirmed for Wednesday 4 October, the most recent one day total on Johns Hopkins (there is always a lag in reporting). The country also recorded more than 1,000 deaths for the third time this week, with 1,097 people reported dead in the last 24 hours. The previous record for cases, also held by the US, was 99,321 on 30 October. Globally, the world suffered the highest total one-day death toll of the pandemic so far, with 11,447 people lost in the last day. It also recorded more cases than ever before, partly as a result of rising cases in the US, but also because of Europe’s second wave, and more than 50,000 infections being recorded in India for the first time in 10 days. The global case total was 700,000, taking the world closer to 50m cases – a devastating milestone that we are likely to cross by the end of the week. Cases currently stand at 48,541,340. The UK death toll from coronavirus rose by 378, taking the tally of people who died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 to 48,120, government data showed. As of 9am GMT on Thursday, there had been a further 24,141 lab-confirmed cases in the UK, taking the cumulative total of confirmed infections to 1,123,197. Colombia’s lower house abruptly ended its session on and asked lawmakers to quarantine after a member tested positive for Covid-19. At least 150 lawmakers could potentially have been exposed, the chamber’s press office said. They have been told to avoid travel to their home regions and remain in Bogota while they wait 72 hours from potential exposure to have a test. A dozen US states reported record one-day increases in Covid-19 cases, a day after the country set a record with nearly 105,000 new infections reported on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally. The outbreak is spreading in every region of the country but is hitting the Midwest the hardest, based on new cases per capita. Illinois reported nearly 10,000 new cases and along with Texas is leading the nation in the most cases reported in the last seven days.Other Midwestern states with record increases in cases on Thursday were Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio. Arkansas, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah and West Virginia also set records for rises in new infections. Ireland is on track to get its second wave of Covid-19 infections under control by the end of November when the government hopes to ease some of the strictest restrictions in Europe, a senior public health official said. “The way case numbers are behaving would suggest that case numbers are declining rapidly and that we are on target for the sort of end position we want to be in at the end of the six weeks,” on 1 December, Philip Nolan, the chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, told a press briefing.