Coronavirus live news: Intensive care units in France could reach 'extreme saturation' in two weeks

More now on China’s 42 new cases, which are the highest daily toll in more than two months due to a rise in infections in the northwestern Xinjiang region, the country’s health authority said on Wednesday.

Of the new cases, 22 in the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang were previously asymptomatic patients. The region’s health authorities also reported another 19 symptomless infections, which China does not recognise as confirmed Covid-19 cases, which accounted for half the new asymptomatic cases reported.

The daily toll marks the highest since 44 confirmed infections were reported on Aug. 10, though it remains far off the peaks in February at the height of the outbreak in mainland China that forced the country into a virtual standstill.

Kashgar health officials said the Covid-19 testing drive for the 4.75 million people in the area was completed as of Tuesday afternoon and a total of 183 people were confirmed to have been infected with the novel coronavirus. The cases are linked to a garment factory, though it’s not yet clear how the infections began.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in mainland China now stands at 85,868, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

Nearly half a million people have contracted Covid-19 in the United States over the last seven days, according to a Reuters tally, as new cases and hospitalizations set records in the Midwest.

Coronavirus hot spots include Illinois, which reported 31,000 new infections over the past week, and two states expected to be key in the US presidential election on 3 November: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“We must take significant and collective actions,” Andrea Palm of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services told a news conference, adding that contact tracers were overwhelmed and hospitals may face staffing shortages. “This is going to get worse before it gets better.”

Nationwide more than 5,600 people died from the virus nationwide in the last week, with hospitalizations rising 13%, a Reuters analysis showed.

U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a tough re-election battle on 3 November, on Tuesday reiterated his claim that the country is “rounding the turn” in the pandemic that has killed more than 226,000 people since erupting in March.

“We did the ventilators and now we’re doing all of the equipment and now we’re doing vaccines, we’re doing therapeutics. We’ve done a great job, and people are starting to see,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Mainland China reported 42 new Covid-19 cases on 27 October, up sharply from 16 a day earlier as new cases were reported in the northwestern Xinjiang region, the country’s health authority said on Wednesday.

Of the new cases, 22 of them were locally transmitted infections in Xinjiang following an apparent mass infection in Kashgar. The region’s health authority also reported 19 new asymptomatic infections, half of the total number of symptomless infections reported in Mainland China for 27 October.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in Mainland China now stands at 85,868, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

We’re seeing reports that the French government may be considering a one-month national lockdown in response to surging coronavirus cases and higher deaths.

The lockdown could take effect from midnight on Thursday, France’s BFM TV reported on Tuesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron is due to make a televised address on Wednesday. His office did not comment on whether Macron would announce such a measure then.

BFM TV added the lockdown under consideration would be “more flexible” than the strict restrictions on movement imposed in France in March this year.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest from around the world for the next few hours.

As always, it would be good to hear from you: get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

The French prime minister, Jean Castex, told lawmakers hospital intensive care units will be saturated with Covid-19 patients by 11 November if nothing is done to stop the epidemic in France.

“He told us that on 11 November, our hospitals will be at a saturation level equivalent to that of the first wave, so a level of extreme saturation,” lawmaker André Chassaigne told reporters after a meeting with the prime minister behind closed doors.

“So the situation is particularly serious. If we can’t flatten the curve, in the next 15 days, our hospitals won’t be able to treat patients,” he added.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• French ICU units to hit record saturation in two weeks without new measures. The number of Covid-19 patients in French intensive care units could reach the same level as during the peak of the first wave in April in two weeks without new measures, a government spokesman said.
• Nearly 200 airports in UK and Europe could go bust due to collapse in air travel. Airports Council International Europe, which represents airport operators, said it estimated that 193 out of Europe’s 740 commercial airports face “insolvency in the coming months if passenger traffic does not start to recover by the year-end”.
• Canada’s Justin Trudeau predicts ‘tough winter’ and says pandemic ‘sucks’. As a second wave of Covid-19 infections engulfs much of the country, Trudeau called the pandemic a horrific national tragedy in5a rare show of emotion and frustration from the prime minister.
• US coronavirus cases surge in midwest as Trump heads there in campaign push. Trump travelled to a rally in Michigan and planned to go on to events in Wisconsin and Nebraska the same day, on a pre-election blitz across three states where cases are rising most steeply.
• Obama ridicules Trump over Covid media coverage complaints at Florida rally. He mocked the president for his complaints about the media closely covering the national coronavirus crisis,9saying “He is jealous of Covid’s media coverage.”