Mallorca closes Magaluf party strip – as it happened

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16 Jul 202019.27 EDT

Kalyeena Makortoff

The Treasury is reviewing a “radical” proposal for a new state-owned body that would manage £35bn of toxic coronavirus debt and help save up to 780,000 British businesses.

A City taskforce, the Recapitalisation Group, led by EY and the lobby group TheCityUK, is recommending that a government-owned UK Recovery Corporation be established to handle a growing pile of unsustainable government-backed debt that could otherwise wipe out thousands of businesses and lead to 3 million job losses:

Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now. Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.

Brazil has suffered 1,233 more deaths and registered 39,924 new cases, its health ministry has said. The country has now recorded a total off 75,366 deaths and confirmed 1,996,748 cases in all, making it the world’s second worst-affected.

As the figures were released, the far-right president, who has repeatedly dismissed the dangers posed by the pandemic, publicly acknowledged a second positive test that suggests he has not recovered. Bolsonaro told reporters he would get tested again in a few days.

He continued to play down the country’s mounting death toll and said his good physical condition would prevent him from developing serious symptoms if he got ill.

Bolsonaro has also sidelined medical experts in Brazil’s handling of the pandemic, pushed back against state and city lockdowns and circulated often in public without a mask, drawing criticism from public health specialists.

He has also said he was taking the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, an unproven Covid-19 treatment that he and Trump have touted as a remedy. Bolsonaro’s pressure to use the drug alienated two health ministers who resigned in the middle of the pandemic. The ministry is being led on an interim basis by an active duty army general.

Scotland could ask people arriving from England to quarantine, its first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said. In an interview with ITV’s Peston programme due to be broadcast in the next couple of hours, she has said:

Scotland would have the ability through public health measures to ask people to quarantine if they came to Scotland. And I’ve said, again, this is not political, it is not constitutional, I’m taking these decisions purely from a public health perspective. We do see prevalence of the virus at a lower level at the moment – although we’re not complacent – than we do in England.

But that’s not something I want to do if we can avoid that. I think the first thing we want to do is work very constructively as we do already with authorities in England to look at good outbreak management and where that requires localised travel restrictions, then rely on that in the first instance.

But I’m not going to shy away from doing anything that I think is necessary and appropriate and effective in protecting people in Scotland from a virus that we know now to our painful cost can take life and also as we are increasingly learning can do a lot of long-term health damage to people.

Discussing Scotland’s differing approach to England’s easing of lockdown measures, she said:

Well, my calculation is that if we are more successful in driving the virus to very low levels, getting as close as possible to elimination of it before a potential second wave in the autumn and winter, then we will build ourselves a much more sustainable foundation for economic recovery.

So, the judgement is that taking a couple of weeks, and that’s pretty much what we’re talking about here, longer to come out of lockdown, if that buys us a more sustainable recovery in the medium to long term, then that’s the right thing to do.

And Sturgeon celebrated the lifting of some of the restrictions in Scotland:

Here are the latest developments:

• Magaluf is closing its party strip of Punta Ballena after footage of drunken British tourists flouting regulations about wearing masks and social distancing while dancing on cars prompted an outcry. The Balearic Islands’ tourism minister also announced the closure of two other notorious party strips.
• Ireland delayed the easing of lockdown measures and introduced a requirement that face coverings be worn in shops. The taoiseach Micheál Martin said the pause was disappointing, but necessary.
• A war of words between Trump allies and the White House’s top infectious disease expert continued. Dr Anthony Fauci said he could not understand efforts by some to discredit him, though the US president himself rebuked his own aide over the criticism.
• Spain has recorded 390 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours - the highest single-day figure since 22 May. Most of the new cases are in the northeastern regions of Aragón and Catalonia.
  
• The US has seen 67,000 cases in a single day – the highest number in 24 hours so far, according to the John Hopkins university of medicine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the figure at 60,971.
• Iran said today that 140 of its health workers had died of coronavirus and 5,000 have been infected. Amnesty International has estimated that more than 3,000 health workers have died globally, although it says the figure is likely to be a significant underestimate.
• The Irish government has postponed the scheduled reopening of pubs, due to happen on Monday, until 10 August because of a spike in coronavirus cases. The Irish Independent also reported that the cabinet is expected to recommend that face coverings become mandatory in inside settings and that foreign travel be discouraged.
• Levels of childhood immunisations against dangerous diseases such as measles, tetanus and diphtheria have dropped alarmingly during the Covid-19 pandemic, putting millions of children at risk, United Nations agencies have warned.
• The European commission said today that European Union states should bring forward vaccinations against flu to the summer to reduce the risk of simultaneous influenza and Covid-19 outbreaks in the autumn. It also urged states to increase the number of people vaccinated.
• Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is making face coverings mandatory for shoppers in all its stores from Monday. It said that about 65% of its more than 5,000 stores and clubs are located in areas where there is already some form of government mandate on face coverings and by making it compulsory in all outlets it will bring consistency.

South Africa’s caseload has exceeded 300,000, the greatest national figure on the continent and among the top 10 in the world.

The nation recorded a rise of 12,757 cases on Wednesday to reach 311,049, its health ministry said a little more than four months since the first case was found. It has tested 2,278,127 people so far and has seen a total of 160,693 recoveries and 4,453 deaths.

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has again tested positive, according to CNN Brasil, suggesting the far-right leader has yet to recover from his initial diagnosis announced a week ago.

Since becoming ill, Bolsonaro has said he remains in good health and earlier this week said he would resume his normal work schedule if he tested negative.

15 Jul 202015.06 EDT

Rory Carroll

Here’s a little more on that announcement from Martin, who has said:

One thing has not changed, this virus has not changed. Indiscriminate in its cruelty and relentless as ever in finding new hosts so it can continue to spread ... I know some of the steps I’m announcing this evening will come as a disappointment to some. But we care for our families, we care for our neighbours, we care for our communities.

Ireland is to delay the reopening of all pubs until 10 August, the taoiseach Micheál Martin has confirmed.

Plans to increase the numbers who can gather both indoors and out were also postponed amid warnings about clusters of infection. The wearing of face coverings will be made compulsory in shops and other indoor public spaces. Plans to roll out phase four of the emergence from lockdown have been put on hold. Martin said:

It will be understood for what it is. Protection of the progress, the undoubted progress we have made to date ... It is the right thing to do – to press the pause button. It is very disappointing for publicans in particular.

Martin said unrestricted house parties had been linked to recent outbreaks. The acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said:

It is a pause. Compared to many countries around the world we are still in a good position. The challenge is to maintain that good position and ensure that the good work over many months is not lost.

The number of deaths in France rose by 91 from Monday to stand at 30,120, the country’s health department has said. There was no count for Tuesday, which was a national holiday.

The Health Ministry said the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 fell to 6,915 from 6,983 on 13 July, continuing a weeks-long downward trend. The number of people in intensive care units was down to 482 from 492.

The US president Donald Trump has issued a rare rebuke of his senior adviser Peter Navarro, saying he should not have written the scathing USA Today opinion piece about Dr Fauci. Navarro, a trade adviser who at times has expanded his reach within the Trump White House, wrote:

Dr Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.

The initial lack of a pushback from the White House for the article fed a belief that Navarro’s article was supported at the top levels of the White House. But, departing for a trip to Atlanta, Trump was asked whether Navarro had gone rogue.

Well, he made a statement representing himself. He shouldn’t be doing that. No, I have a very good relationship with Anthony.

A White House official told Reuters that Trump did not endorse Navarro’s article and that Navarro was told “explicitly in recent days to de-escalate the situation”. The official said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows felt Navarro’s article was “unacceptable”.

In the US, the top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said he cannot not understand the effort by some in the White House to discredit him, calling it a mistake. In an interview with The Atlantic, he has said:

You know, it is a bit bizarre. I don’t really fully understand it. I think if you talk to reasonable people in the White House they realise that was a major mistake on their part because it doesn’t do anything but reflect poorly on them. And I don’t think that was their intention.