Coronavirus live news: US suffers one Covid death every minute as global cases near 60m | World news

More now on the cases in China:

Chinese authorities are testing millions of people, imposing lockdowns and shutting down schools after multiple locally transmitted coronavirus cases were discovered in three cities across the country last week, AP reports.

As temperatures drop, large-scale measures are being enacted in the cities of Tianjin, Shanghai and Manzhouli, despite the low number of new cases compared with the US and other countries that are seeing new waves of infections.

Many experts and government officials have warned that the chance of the virus spreading will be greater during the cold weather. Recent flare-ups have shown that there is still a risk of the virus returning, despite being largely controlled within China.

On Monday, the national health commission reported two new locally transmitted cases in Shanghai over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to seven since Friday. China has recorded 86,442 total cases and 4,634 deaths since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

The two latest cases confirmed in Shanghai were close contacts of another airport worker who was diagnosed with Covid-19 earlier in November. On Sunday night, the city’s Pudong International airport decided to test its workers, collecting 17,719 samples through the early hours of Monday morning. Plans call for testing others in surrounding communities if further cases are detected.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• Global cases approach 60m. The global coronavirus infections total is currently 58,563,451, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker – less than 2.5m cases from 60m.With daily totals averaging at around 600,000, the global infections total is likely to pass 60m this week – just under three weeks after it passed 50m.The global death toll is nearing 1.4m people. It currently stands at 1,386,465.
• Chaos at Shanghai airport after sudden decision to test thousands – reports. The Global Times reports that Shanghai Pudong airport has started testing thousands of staff and passengers after several cargo handlers tested positive for coronavirus. Hundreds of flights have also been cancelled, and videos posted online appear to show people panicking as they are told they will all be tested for the virus.
• South Korea reported another daily rise of over 200 new coronavirus cases on Monday, a day before tighter social distancing rules aimed at blunting a third wave of infections take effect. The daily tally of 271 new cases fell from 330 reported on Sunday after hovering above 300 for five straight days, a level not seen since August, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
• Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble pops. The much-hyped Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble has postponed, one day before the first flights were set to depart. The bubble was postponed after Hong Kong health authorities reported a rise in new cases, including 43 on Saturday alone, 13 of which were untraced local infections.The bubble allows people to travel between Singapore and Hong Kong for leisure, and to take a Covid test in lieu of quarantine or home isolation.
• US suffers one Covid death every minute. In the US, 1,448 people died on Friday according to Johns Hopkins University – the equivalent of a person every minute, as Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis pointed out on Twitter on Sunday.
• UK government to ease isolation requirements for Covid contacts. The UK government will announce on Monday that self-isolation will no longer be required for those who have come into contact with people who have tested positive for Covid-19, the Telegraph reported. Contacts of those who test positive will be asked to undergo daily tests for seven days, and will be allowed to go about their business in the meantime, the newspaper said.
• The first Americans could be vaccinated on 11 December. US Covid-19 vaccine programme head Moncef Slaoui said the first Americans to receive a coronavirus vaccine could get it as soon as 11 December, CNN reported on Sunday.“Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunisation sites within 24 hours from the approval, so I expect maybe on day two after approval on the 11 or the 12 of December,” he said in an interview to CNN.
• Germany may start Covid-19 vaccine programme in December. Germany could start administering shots of Covid-19 vaccines as soon as next month, health minister Jens Spahn was quoted as saying. “There is reason to be optimistic that there will be approval for a vaccine in Europe this year,” Spahn said in an interview with publishing group RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland. “And then we can start right away.”
• NHS told to be ready to administer vaccine by 1 December. Britain could give regulatory approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine this week, even before the US authorises it, the Telegraph news site reported on Sunday.Citing government sources, it said British regulators were about to start a formal appraisal of the vaccine, made by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, and that the National Health Service had been told to be ready to administer it by 1 December. The US Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that it would meet on 10 December to discuss whether to authorise the vaccine.
• Spain to begin vaccinations in January. Spain will begin a comprehensive coronavirus vaccination programme in January and expects to have covered a substantial part of the population within three months, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday. He said Spain and Germany were the first European Union countries to have a complete vaccination plan in place.
• Experts have urged Americans against travelling for family gatherings at Thanksgiving this week even though millions were set to defy the advice, as the US crossed the threshold of more than 12m cases of coronavirus.Ominous warnings came as Donald Trump appeared to admit that coronavirus is “running wild” across the US, in contrast with his statements throughout the election campaign that the virus would simply “go away” or “disappear” and, more recently, that the country was “rounding the turn” on the pandemic.

The Global Times reports that Shanghai Pudong Airport has started testing thousands of staff and passengers after several cargo handlers tested positive for coronavirus.

Hundreds of flights have also been cancelled, and videos posted online appear to show people panicking as they are told they will all be tested for the virus.

Australia’s New Daily reports:

On the video, authorities in hazmat suits can been seen herding the crowds and barring the paths of others as they try to flee. Elsewhere, workers form long, orderly queues for testing.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled after staff in the airport’s two main zones were told they had to be tested. Elsewhere, roads leading to the airport jammed up with traffic.

China has ramped up testing of frozen foods after saying it has repeatedly discovered the coronavirus on imported products and their packaging, triggering mass scale testing of food and related personnel, suspension of certain imports and disruptions to trade flows, Reuters reports.

China, which has suspended imports from 99 suppliers in 20 countries, argues these measures are needed to prevent more arrivals of the virus in a country that has largely contained the epidemic domestically.

But major food-producing countries are growing increasingly frustrated with China’s scrutiny of imported products.

A seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan is widely believed to be the origin of the pandemic that emerged late last year, but the Global Times, a tabloid backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, suggested this week that the presence of the virus on imported food raised the possibility that it may have come from overseas.

India has recorded 44,059 new cases of the novel coronavirus, taking its total to 9.14 million, data from the health ministry showed on Monday.

India has the second-highest number of infections in the world, after the United States, but the rate of increase in India has dipped since it hit a peak in September.

New daily cases have come in at fewer than 50,000 for more than two weeks, according to a Reuters tally.

Deaths rose by 511, according to the latest health ministry data, taking the total to 133,738.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 10,864 to 929,133, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Monday.

The reported death toll rose by 90 to 14,112, the tally showed.

South Korea reported another daily rise of over 200 new coronavirus cases on Monday, a day before tighter social distancing rules aimed at blunting a third wave of infections take effect, Reuters reports.

The daily tally of 271 new cases fell from 330 reported on Sunday after hovering above 300 for five straight days, a level not seen since August, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

Officials have said the numbers tend to drop during the weekends due to less testing. The government further strengthened distancing rules for the capital Seoul and nearby regions on Sunday, three days after re-imposing curbs ahead of an annual national college entrance exam scheduled for 3 December.

The latest measure will close bars and nightclubs, limit religious gatherings and restrict on-site dining at restaurants and cafes from Tuesday.

“If we can’t sever the links of infections, our anti-virus efforts and medical responses might become unsustainable,” Vice Health Minister Kang Do-tae told a meeting on Monday.

Some experts have accused authorities of failing to take stronger action earlier even though spikes in daily numbers and other benchmarks met conditions set by the government for stricter curbs.