(Reuters) – Europe’s worst COVID-19 hotspot Madrid will go into lockdown in coming days and Moscow’s mayor ordered employers to send at least 30% of their staff home, as several European countries reported records in new infections.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread of COVID-19, open https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/ in an external browser.
* For a U.S.-focused tracker with a state-by-state and county map, open https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.
* Eikon users, see MacroVitals cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?navid=1592404098 for a case tracker and summary of news.
EUROPE
* Italy’s prime minister will ask parliament to extend the country’s state of emergency to the end of January, as the government tries to avoid the kind of surge in cases seen in other European countries.
* France called for 25,000 volunteers to enrol in a series of large-scale clinical trials aimed at evaluating the safety and efficacy of several vaccine candidates.
* Britain’s health minister introduced more restrictions across a wider area of England, including the northern city of Liverpool.
* Poland’s health minister expects daily cases to continue peaking above 2,000 during the following week, after the country reported another record with 1,967 new cases.
* Serbia will review records since the start of the pandemic to check the death rate and rectify any irregularities after its leading epidemiologist questioned the figures.
AMERICAS
* U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were expected to try again on Thursday to reach a deal on COVID-19 relief, while the House of Representatives stood ready for a second day to move a Democratic bill if talks fail.
* New cases of COVID-19 rose in 27 out of 50 U.S. states in September compared with August, led by an increase of 111% in Wisconsin, according to a Reuters analysis.
* Mexican president said his country should in coming days have 10 billion pesos ($456.00 million) in funds available to pay for advances on COVID-19 vaccines.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Malaysian authorities warned of a new wave of coronavirus after a spike in new infections following an election in the country’s second largest state Sabah.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Traffic through South Africa’s main airport was minimal on Thursday despite international flights resuming after a six-month ban, with last-minute government curbs leaving many would-be tourists unable to enter the country.
* The United Arab Emirates recorded its highest daily total of infections for the second day in a row, with 1,158 new cases.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* The European health regulator has started a rolling review of the experimental vaccine from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, in a move aimed at speeding up any future approval process.
* The U.S. Food and Drug Administration broadened its investigation of a serious illness in AstraZeneca’s vaccine study and will look at data from earlier trials of similar vaccines developed by the same scientists.
* Enlivex Therapeutics Ltd reported positive results in a clinical trial of the immunotherapy firm’s Allocetra treatment in COVID-19 patients in severe or critical condition.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
* Renewed U.S. stimulus hopes lifted global markets, though an all-day outage on Tokyo’s Nikkei and a Brexit legal row ensured a bumpy start to what could be an explosive fourth quarter. [MKTS/GLOB]
* International Monetary Fund officials warned that risks of a sovereign debt crisis will rise without changes to the international debt architecture, including more transparency for government borrowing.
* Chile economic activity plunged 11.3% in August from the same month a year earlier, deeper than forecasts of an 8.5% drop.
(Compiled by Anna Rzhevkina and Milla Nissi; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
