Coronavirus live news: Germany sets another daily case record as Europe passes 10m infections | World news

A senior UK government scientific advisor has said that family Christmases can be made “relatively safe” if stringent restrictions bring down coronavirus cases.

Prof John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

The idea of a lockdown is to save lives primarily. I think the only real way that we have a relatively safe Christmas is to get the incidence right down because otherwise I think Christmas is very difficult for people – nobody wants to have a disrupted Christmas holiday period where you can’t see your family and so on.

So I think the only way that that can be safely achieved is to bring the incidence right down, and in order to do that we have to take action now and that action needs to be stringent, unfortunately.

Edmunds said tougher restrictions did not have to be national, but that there would be an epidemiological benefit to Cornwall and other areas with lower incidence to reduce case numbers.

“There is a danger that even in the South West now that hospitals will start to really feel the pressure in the coming weeks,” he told Today.

He also criticised the current strategy, saying: “The strategy that we’re following at the moment just really guarantees high incidence across the country over the winter.”

There were 18,410 new cases of coronavirus reported in Russia on Saturday, 4,952 of which were in Moscow, Reuters reports.

The latest update takes the national total number of infections so far to 1,618,116, which is 11,086 per million people.

Authorities also reported 334 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 27,990.

Indonesia reported 3,143 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, taking the country’s total to 410,088, according to the health ministry website.

There were also 87 new deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 13,869, Reuters reports.

Indonesia has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in south-east Asia, but infection rates are comparatively low at 1,494 cases per million people, according to a tally kept by the Worldometers website.

The chairman of the representative body for rank and file police officers in England and Wales has called for clear communication over a possible new national lockdown.

John Apter, the chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents 120,000 officers, criticised the briefing of coronavirus measures to the media, claiming it increased pressure on the emergency services.

His comments come as the government’s latest plans on a new national lockdown, slated to come into force next week, were selectively briefed to the media last night.

Ukraine announced a new high of 8,752 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, the national security council said on Saturday, up from 8,312 cases on Friday.

Total infections stood at 387,481, it said.

Meanwhile, 155 more people died from Covid-19, according to the latest update. That was fewer than Friday but continuing a trend towards increased numbers of deaths that began at the end of August.

Coronavirus is “running riot” across all age groups in the UK, says Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Semple told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “For the naysayers that don’t believe in a second wave, there is a second wave. And unlike the first wave, where we had a national lockdown which protected huge swathes of society, this outbreak is now running riot across all age groups.”

He also said there were many more cases particularly in younger females between the ages of 20 and 40.

Semple said there were three to four times as many women in the age group coming into hospital as men, because they are exposed in hospitality, retail and some educational settings.

For those just waking up, here is a summary of the recent developments in the Covid-19 pandemic around the world.

• Germany has set a new record for new daily coronavirus cases, reporting 19,059 infections. This breaks Germany’s previous highest daily increase of 18,681, set the day before.
• Europe has listed more than 10 million Covid-19 cases to date since the virus first appeared, with the continent’s death tally at about 275,000.
• The US appears to have set a daily record for new infections on Friday, with different sources placing the increase between 94,000 and 100,000 in 24 hours according – just one day after the previous high of 91,000.
• Ukraine also registered a daily Covid-19 record, recording 8,752 new cases, up from the 8,312 new cases announced on Friday.
• France has reported 49,215 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, compared with 47,637 on Thursday. The total number of infections rose to 1,331,984 while the death tally went up by 256 over 24 hours to 36,565.
• Anti-mask protesters were arrested in Melbourne on Saturday, as the state of Victoria – which has eased out of a more than 100 day lockdown in recent days – recorded no new Covid-19 cases. The state of New South Wales recorded four new cases of coronavirus, one of which was transmitted locally.

Hello and good morning from London. This is Damien Gayle taking the reins on the live blog now, bringing you the latest coronavirus-related news and updates from the UK and around the world.

If you have any comments, tips or suggestions for coverage then please drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.

Germany has set a new record for daily coronavirus cases, reporting 19,059 infections.

The country’s previous highest daily increase was 18,681, reported on Friday, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute.

Germany also announced 103 further Covid-19 deaths, with its tally rising to 10,452 on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Ukraine also registered a daily Covid-19 record, recording 8,752 new cases, up from the 8,312 new cases announced on Friday.

In Melbourne, police have arrested protestors objecting to the state’s compulsory mask-wearing law.

A Victoria police spokeswoman told the Guardian that 21 people were arrested for a range of offences including not wearing a mask, breaching public gathering directions, and travelling more than 25km from their homes.

Police formed a ring around the protesters at the gathering at the Treasury Gardens in central Melbourne.

Victoria’s health minister, Martin Foley, responded to reports of the gathering, saying “at the moment protests that spread the risk of the virus are not safe”.

A Covid-hit Slovenia has apparently cooled on its famous daughter, Melania Trump, according to this report from AFP:

In 2016 Slovenia’s media followed the US presidential campaign with bated breath, but now the coronavirus pandemic is dominating headlines and crowding out coverage of whether Melania will stay in the White House alongside her husband President Donald Trump after Tuesday’s US election.

A rare voice of enthusiasm for Trump has been centre-right Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who tweeted his support earlier this month – but even he forgot to mention the family ties to Slovenia.

But unlike Jansa, many politicians in Slovenia have backed Biden or diplomatically avoided taking sides.

Even Srecko Ocvirk, mayor of Melania’s hometown Sevnica, can’t bring himself to utter an endorsement.

“As a Slovenian citizen I elect our country’s president, therefore I can’t comment on the US elections,” Ocvirk told AFP.

In the month since a life-size bronze statue of Melania was unveiled in Sevnica, her face has been covered with a surgical mask.

Here’s a little more detail on the earlier post about Covid-19 vaccines for Pacific nations.

The Australian government will spend A$500m (£270m) on purchasing and distributing Covid-19 vaccines for Pacific countries.

In a move that has since been welcomed by the United Nations Children’s Fund, Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, said the initiative will help the Indo-Pacific region recover more quickly, as many tourism-reliant economies have suffered from travel restrictions.

Payne also said the ensuring pacific countries have access to Covid-19 vaccines will contribute to Australia’s health security and economic recovery.

Over three years, Australia will purchase the vaccines from a range of different manufacturers around the world, and will also provide technical support and advice to health authorities in the Pacific nations it is helping, which will include Timor-Leste and Fiji.

Payne said:

Ensuring countries in our region can quickly recover from the health and economic impacts of this devastating global pandemic is vital to ensuring our shared economic future in the post-pandemic world.

A fast, safe vaccine rollout in the Pacific and Southeast Asia will mean we are able to return to more normal travel, tourism and trade with our key partners in the region.

Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, has also welcomed the initiative.

Thanks to my colleague Luke Henriques-Gomes for handling the blog.

I’m Elias Visontay and I’ll be bringing you updates for the next few hours, from a rainy Sydney.