Updated at 11/20/2020, 1: 32: 02 PM BST
Andrew Jack
England and Japan are “global outliers” among the world’s richest countries in failing to provide significant extra financial support for university students from low-income backgrounds struggling because of coronavirus, according to a survey by a charity specialising in social mobility.
An analysis of 45 countries’ higher education policies by the Sutton Trust found that widespread disruptions to admissions and “digital poverty” during the pandemic had set back access by students from low-income and marginalised backgrounds.
It warned: “The pandemic may only serve to exacerbate existing inequalities in higher education participation and attainment.”
Many countries including the US, Canada, Australia, Germany and France have offered grants or reduced tuition fees to help those struggling economically still have access to education to enhance their future prospects. Ireland subsidised laptops and IT support.
Despite support from lower-income countries, the analysis said “in sharp contrast” there was no such systemic support in England. It stressed that the UK had developed significant policies on access but should consider extra measures including maintenance grants for those from poorer backgrounds.
It concluded: “If the government wants England to remain one of these leading countries then it should consider again offering additional financial support from students from low-income backgrounds and/or experiencing other forms of disadvantage.”
Kerin Hope in Athens
Archbishop Ieronymos, head of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Greece, was in a stable condition after being admitted to hospital with Covid-19, a medical spokesman said on Friday.
A church official said the 82-year-old prelate tested positive days after attending a dinner for 16 Greek bishops to mark the completion of a Holy Synod meeting in Athens.
The archbishop had no underlying health issues and was admitted to hospital “for precautionary reasons”, the official said.
Another senior Orthodox cleric, 91-year-old Archbishop Anastasios of Albania, is also being treated for Covid-19 in Athens after he was airlifted from Tirana last week.
Places of worship across Greece closed this month as the country re-imposed lockdown measures aimed at containing a second coronavirus wave. But the Orthodox church administration continues to operate in cities around the country.
The Holy Synod said in a statement this week that the church was fully complying with safety measures for public health.
Patriarch Irinej, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, has died after contracting Covid-19, Reuters reported President Aleksandar Vucic as saying on Friday.
James Politi in Washington
Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, defended his decision to wind down several of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending facilities at the end of the year, saying it was “not a political issue” and there was “a lot of firepower left” to respond to financial distress.
In an interview with CNBC, Mr Mnuchin rejected criticism that he had opened a risky rift with the Fed that could leave markets vulnerable and is limiting the capacity of the future Biden administration to protect the economic recovery.
“We said these are emergency tools and when the emergency is over let’s put them away,” Mr Mnuchin said. “Well, the medical emergency may not be over but . . . financial conditions are in great shape. Corporate bonds have come in, municipals have come in, mortgages have come in, the stock market has rebounded.”
Mr Mnuchin said fears that the markets were being left without a backstop were overblown in that the credit facilities related to short-term funding markets — like commercial paper and money market mutual funds — would remain in place. He said the others could be reactivated from existing Treasury resources without congressional approval. “I consider that to be a pretty good bazooka,” he said.
The US Treasury secretary, who refused to concede that he would be passing the department’s baton to the Biden administration in January, said the unused funds from the lapsing programmes should be used to fund a new round of stimulus.
“Let’s go use this money for things in parts of the economy that need it. We don’t need this money to buy corporate bonds, we need this money to go help small businesses that are still closed, or hurt through no fault of their own. For people who are going to be on unemployment, and unemployment is running out,” he said.
Mr Mnuchin said he and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, would be discussing the possible stimulus options with Republican leaders in Congress, though no negotiations are set with Democrats yet.
Anna Gross
The rate at which coronavirus is spreading across the UK population appears to have slowed considerably, according to government scientists.
Estimates suggest that the number of new infections is rising by anywhere between 0 and 2 per cent every day, down from 1 to 3 per cent the week before.
Meanwhile, the latest estimate for the R value – the average number of new cases generated by an infected individual – has remained relatively stable at 1.0 to 1.1, according to the latest report by the Government Office for Science, meaning that 10 people infected with Covid-19 in the UK will infect on average 10 to 11 people.
The R number provides a snapshot of how the disease is spreading at a given time, whereas the growth rate reflects how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day.
Experts say decisions about how the UK population will spend Christmas will hinge upon the R number being brought comfortably below 1.
There were significant regional differences in both the growth rate and R number.
The East of England, South East and South West had the highest growth rate, of 1 to 4 per cent, and R numbers between 1 and 1.3.
The North West on the other hand, had an R number of 0.8 to 1 and a growth rate of -3 to 0 per cent.
London was in the middle, with an R number of 1 to 1.2 and a growth rate of 0 to 3 per cent.
Sarah Provan
Scotland plans to have as many as 1m people vaccinated before the end of January as the most populated parts of the country prepare to go into a stricter lockdown from this evening.
“The rest of the adult population would follow” on in the vaccination plan, said the first minister in a briefing on Friday. “I hope that encourages us to strengthen our resolve and stay safe ourselves.”
Nicola Sturgeon’s comments were in response to positive vaccine news this week. As she was speaking in Edinburgh, Pfizer and BioNTech said they planned to submit their Covid-19 vaccine for emergency authorisation in the US, which would make them the first pharmaceutical companies to apply for regulatory approval of a coronavirus shot.
Meanwhile, 11 local council areas in Scotland, including Glasgow and Stirling, will go under level 4 restrictions from 6pm on Friday, meaning that hairdressers, gyms, leisure, entertainment, beauty salons and other non-essential shops and outlets will close for three weeks until December 11.
It will become illegal to travel between these authorities and less controlled areas, as well as into or out of Scotland, unless there is a reasonable excuse to do so, such as caring for a vulnerable person.
Infection rates in Scotland have stabilised, Ms Sturgeon said, but in the most at risk areas they remain “stubbornly high”.
“The risks will not be zero which is why we must be very careful about any relaxation of the rules,” she said. “We want rates to come down further before the Christmas period. But we have to be very careful.”
The latest 24-hour figures revealed 32 Covid-19 deaths over the previous 28 days, bringing Scotland’s total to 3,459.
Anna Gross
Roughly 664,700 people in England had coronavirus in the most recent week to November 14, or 1 in 80 people, according to the latest analysis by the Office for National Statistics. This is up slightly from 1 in 85 people the week before.
The rate of infection across England has remained relatively stable since last week in part due to significant differences in rates of infection between regions of the country.
Positivity rates rose in London, the East of England, and the South East, while they appear to have decreased in the North West and East Midlands. The highest rates remained in the North West and Yorkshire and The Humber.
Infection rates are still highest among secondary school students and young adults, according to the data. But positivity rates were found to have risen among primary and secondary school students, while appearing to have levelled off for young adults and those aged 25 and older.
The ONS estimated there were roughly 38,900 new cases a day in England, based on more than 198,932 swab tests taken over the latest two-week period, and down from 47,700 the week before.
In both Wales and Northern Ireland, positivity rates peaked in mid-October, and rates have decreased over the latest two week period, according to the ONS data.
Joe Miller in London and Hannah Kuchler in New York
Pfizer and BioNTech said they would submit their Covid-19 shot for emergency authorisation in the US on Friday, becoming the first pharmaceutical companies to apply for regulatory approval of a coronavirus vaccine.
In a joint statement, the companies said they had gathered enough safety data to satisfy the US regulator and that doses of the vaccine would be ready to be shipped within hours of authorisation, which could happen by the middle of December.
If approved, the shot will be the fastest to market in history, and the first to use mRNA technology, which sends genetic instructions to cells to provoke an immune response rather than using a weakened form of the virus.
On Monday, data from the companies’ phase-3 trial, involving more than 43,000 people, showed the vaccine had an efficacy rate of 95 per cent, far above the threshold required by the US Food and Drug Administration, and higher than many common jabs, such as those for flu or rabies. The study also found that the vaccine, which requires a booster shot, caused no serious side-effects, and was almost as effective in people over 65.
Pfizer boss Albert Bourla said the submission to the FDA marked a “critical milestone” in efforts to deliver a Covid-19 vaccine to the world. “We now have a more complete picture of both the efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine, giving us confidence in its potential,” he added.
Benjamin Parkin
All but one resident of a Himalayan village have contracted coronavirus in a sign of how the pandemic has overrun far-flung corners of India, which has the world’s second-highest caseload.
Of the 42 residents in Thorang village in the Lahaul valley, near the Chinese border in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh, 41 tested positive for Covid-19, according to the Times of India. Residents in a number of neighbouring villages have also been infected.
The virus’s spread through the remote village was thought to be the consequence of a recent religious gathering. There has also been a recent increase in tourists visiting the Himalayas ahead of winter, when temperatures become so cold that the villagers themselves move to lower altitudes.
Originally concentrated in cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, coronavirus has spread through rural India as migrant labourers left urban areas and states eased their lockdown measures. But many rural areas are less equipped to deal with the virus, lacking health infrastructure and testing capacity.
Bhushan Thakur, the sole resident of Thorang who did not test positive, told the Times of India that he was isolating away from his five infected family members: “I was strict about all protocols like sanitising hands, wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing … People should not take this disease lightly.”
Naomi Rovnick
Unloved bank shares could rebound, as government schemes to repair the economic damage wrought by coronavirus boost banks’ lending businesses, analysts at Jefferies have said.
Bank shares have suffered during the pandemic. Investors fear that rising consumer and business insolvencies will leave them saddled with loans borrowers cannot repay, while ultra-low interest rates hit their profit margins.
The MSCI index of global bank stocks has fallen 20 per cent so far this year. Jefferies analysts led by Joseph Dickerson write in a research note, however, that western nations might loosen bank lending rules to get economies moving again.
They write:
We suspect policy-makers (politicians as opposed to bank regulators) may ultimately view bank deregulation as a potential inflationary tool.
They do not expect regulators to tear up lending rules, but they believe that they could be “tweaked,” to allow banks to grow their credit card and personal loan businesses.
European banks are valued, on a price-to-book basis, at about one third of the market average, according to Jefferies. In the US, where equity indices contain more highly valued tech stocks, banks are trading at about a quarter of the market average.
Further expansion of government-backed coronavirus loan schemes could also be good business for banks, the Jefferies analysts believe, as loan losses are borne by the state. Government backed loans also do not require banks to put up regulatory capital against them, which increases the profitability of the loans.
Global regulators have already freed up about $500bn of capital for lenders around the world to help them absorb the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the FT’s Martin Arnold reported here.
Banks are concertedly lobbying for further deregulation, while academics have warned regulators not to go too far.
Valentina Romei in London
More than a third of young Britons feel lonely and more than two in five are anxious, says a survey that lays bare the toll restrictions are taking on mental health.
Many reported low and falling levels of happiness, below pre-pandemic levels of life satisfaction and greater anxiety, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday in a study carried out between November 11 and 15 — a few days into a national lockdown in England, which began on November 5.
Overall, 48 per cent of adults said their wellbeing was being affected, with more than one in four reporting feeling lonely often or always. Anxiety was more common, affecting one in three.
Young people’s mental health has been hit particularly hard. About 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 29 years reported feeling lonely and 41 per cent reported a high level of anxiety, both well above the shares for other age groups.
About a quarter of university students would change living arrangement plans if teaching was done online only, with the majority moving back to the family home.
Victor Mallet in Paris
Amazon has yielded to pressure from the French government and high-street retailers to delay the start of so-called Black Friday promotions in France by a week to December 4.
The US company, which has benefited from an increase in online sales of 40-50 per cent during France’s latest nationwide coronavirus lockdown, is facing Christmas boycott calls from leftwing politicians and environmentalists, including Socialist Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo. The boycotters are championing small shops that are obliged to remain closed.
“Like other distributors in France, listening to the recommendations of the government, we’ve decided to delay the date of Black Friday if that allows the opening of businesses and physical shops before December 1,” Frédéric Duval, head of Amazon France, told TF1 television. Large French groups with online operations are doing the same.
The government of President Emmanuel Macron has come under pressure from business to allow bricks-and-mortar shops to reopen to take advantage of the pre-Christmas shopping period. They are expected to be allowed to open their doors under strict health rules on November 28, a day after the original launch date for Black Friday.
The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has peaked in France in the past few days, and the number of those in hospital and being treated in intensive care is declining.
Deaths continue to mount, however, and a further 429 Covid-19 victims died in hospital in the latest 24 hours, taking the national toll since the start of the pandemic to more than 47,000.
Harriet Clarfelt
UK technology group Sage’s reliance on software subscriptions has grown as it works to boost its overall recurring revenue, which it expects to rise by up to 5 per cent over the next financial year.
But this growth was tempered by a 25.8 per cent fall in other sales, Britain’s largest tech company by market value said on Friday. The decline was in line with Sage’s strategy, it said, picking up pace as the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Its total revenue dipped by 1.7 per cent to £1.9bn.
Sage’s share price fell 10 per cent in early Friday trading, marking the biggest percentage drop since mid-March. The slide exacerbated the shares’ decline this year to 18 per cent.
Subscription sales increased by a fifth to £1.2bn for the 12 months to September 30, underpinning an 8.2 per cent improvement in recurring revenues to £1.7bn.
Sage expects organic recurring sales growth to range between 3 and 5 per cent over its next financial year, weighted towards the second half. The group anticipates organic operating margin dipping 3 percentage points from this year, but says margins will “trend upwards” beyond fiscal year 2021.
But a £17m bad debt provision linked to Covid-19, together with investment costs, knocked the accounting software group’s organic operating profits by 4 per cent to £391m.
Sage has been shifting away from one-off licensing fees and towards a subscription model with repeat sales, which should bring greater future visibility.
Chris Giles and Jim Pickard
Most of the UK’s 5.5m state workers, with the exception of NHS frontline staff, will receive pay deals in line with inflation or below for next year.
The government’s next pay review will single out NHS doctors and nurses for higher awards, owing to their work during the Covid-19 pandemic. Others, such as teachers, police and civil servants, will not receive higher awards.
The Treasury has pointed to the UK chancellor’s comments in July regarding the need for “restraint” in future public sector pay awards.
With the spending review now limited to one year, Rishi Sunak will have to decide whether to extend public sector pay curbs beyond 2021-22.
A report by the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank calculated that a three-year pay freeze excluding health could save £7.7bn annually by the end of the period, showing a modest contribution to deficit reduction.
Union leaders expressed anger at the idea of further curbs for public sector workers, who have already endured real-terms pay cuts for most of the past decade.
Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, said another pay freeze would be “economically illiterate” when the economy needed an injection of demand.
“After a decade of pay austerity in the public sector which has seen pay increases lag behind inflation and the private sector, a further pay freeze across the public sector will be seen as an insult and have a devastating impact,” he said.
Oliver Ralph
The UK health secretary said that there were “promising signs” that the latest lockdown measures were bringing the virus under control.
“Yesterday we saw for the first time the seven-day average of cases coming down, and it’s been going up throughout this second peak,” Matt Hancock told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“We still have 16,000 people in hospital with Covid right now and so we still need all of us collectively to follow the rules and try to get things under control,” he said.
The lockdown in England is due to end on December 2, and Mr Hancock said that work was under way on a common set of guidelines that would apply across the UK over the Christmas period.
“Christmas is a special time of year,” he said. “We’ve had such a difficult year in 2020. It’s been such a terrible year and having some hope, some joy at Christmas – I know that will be welcomed by so many people. So we are trying to agree across the UK a set of rules that allows for that joy but also keep people safe.”
Mr Hancock added that from the start of next month, the flu jab would be available to over-50s. “If you get flu and Covid at the same time it’s very, very dangerous,” he said.
Oliver Ralph
Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, has doubled the amount it has set aside for bad loans and reduced the benefits that it pays to its members as it deals with the fallout from the pandemic.
Low interest rates forced it to reduce the amount it pays to savers, Nationwide said as it reported first-half earnings on Friday.
“After protecting savers with average deposit rates that were higher than the market average for some years, we knew this would not be sustainable when the bank base rate fell to its lowest ever rates,” said chief financial officer Chris Rhodes.
Nationwide set aside £139m in the first half for loans that may not be repaid, more than double the £57m that was set aside in the same period last year. It said that, while the number of borrowers falling into arrears had “stayed about the same”, that could change when job support schemes are withdrawn.
Overall mortgage lending volumes fell from £16.3bn in the first half of last year to £12.7bn this time around, with the society blaming disruption caused by the pandemic.
Chris Giles in London
The UK government has borrowed more in the first seven months of the financial year than at any time since comparable records began in 1984, with central government revenues £260.8bn lower than expenditure.
But the size of the deficit is smaller than feared in the summer. It was confirmed on Friday as chancellor Rishi Sunak puts the final touches on next week’s spending review.
With tax revenues holding up better than expected in the third quarter, the total level of public sector borrowing this year is likely to fall below the £372bn forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility in August.
But even with borrowing not reaching those heights, the size of the deficit and its increase will both be the largest on record in peacetime.
In October, public sector net borrowing was £22.3bn, a rise of £10.8bn compared with the same month in 2019 and the highest October level of borrowing since monthly records began in 1993.
Valentina Romei in London
Shoppers unexpectedly increased spending last month as they started buying Christmas presents early to push UK retail sales to a sixth consecutive month of growth, ahead of November’s closure of many non-essential retailers.
Retail sales increased 1.2 per cent in October compared with the previous month, marking an uninterrupted expansion since April, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.
October’s monthly increase was stronger than the no change forecast by economists polled by Reuters.
“Despite the introduction of some local lockdowns in October, retail sales continued its recent run of strong growth,” said Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS.
“Feedback from shops suggested some consumers may have brought forward their Christmas shopping, ahead of potential further restrictions,” he added. “Online stores also saw strong sales, boosted by widespread offers.”
Online sales, household goods and department stores reported strong growth with a monthly increase above 3 per cent.
Compared with the same month a year ago, retail sales were up 5.8 per cent.
Retail sales have performed better than other parts of the economy as consumers switched from services such as going to the gym, to buying goods, such as purchasing sports equipment.
However, analysts expect sales to fall again this month as most non-essential shops closed with the lockdown introduced in England on November 5.
Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, forecast sales to drop 10 per cent in November compared with the previous month. This is a smaller fall than during the spring’s nationwide lockdown reflecting that “both consumers and retailers have adapted to placing and fulfilling orders online, while non-essential retailers can remain open for click-and-collect orders”.
In the EU, retail sales shrank in September as many economies faced an earlier increase in infections and tightening restrictions.
Stephanie Findlay in New Delhi
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has raised the fine for not wearing a mask from Rs500 ($6.75) to Rs2000 ($27) as the city struggles to control a surge in coronavirus infections.
Calling masks a “major saviour against Covid 19” Mr Kejriwal pleaded with people to observe coronavirus safety precautions in a video press briefing on Thursday.
India’s capital city of New Delhi is suffering from its third and most severe wave of coronavirus infections, as polluted winter air causes more severe respiratory complications.
Mr Kejriwal has ordered private hospitals to dedicate more than 80 per cent of their ICU beds to coronavirus patients and to postpone non-critical surgery appointments.
Delhi added more than 7,500 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the latest data available. Local media reports say that cemeteries are becoming overwhelmed.
Benjamin Parkin in Mumbai
Authorities in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad will impose a multi-day curfew to counter a rise in Covid-19 infections.
The city of more than 5m people has seen its daily case count roughly double in recent weeks to more than 200 a day. It has nearly 3,000 active cases.
The curfew will be imposed from Friday night to Monday morning, with only essential shops remaining open, and there will be an indefinite nightly curfew thereafter. It has also postponed the planned reopening of schools from next week.
It is a sign of how local authorities in India, whose national daily caseload has halved since September, are weighing the costs of reimposing restrictions as they battle new waves of infections.
In the capital New Delhi, which has experienced a sharp increase in cases, the local government has proposed curbs on wedding sizes and closing busy market areas. India’s total caseload crossed 9m on Friday after it added more than 45,000 new cases over the past 24 hours.
Primrose Riordan in Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s fourth wave of the pandemic has begun, local health authorities said on Friday, as they introduced new restrictions in the city.
Sophia Chan, health secretary, announced 26 new confirmed cases on Friday, with 21 locally acquired. “We have probably entered into a new wave of cases,” Ms Chan said.
While infections have remained low since the end of the city’s third wave, health officials have pointed to a growing number of untraced cases in recent weeks as cause for concern.
The government will introduce a two-week suspension for junior primary school classes and those in some professions will be forced to be tested for the coronavirus. There is also the possibility that the surge in cases could derail the Singapore-Hong Kong travel bubble.
The two cities agreed that if the seven day average for daily unlinked local Covid-19 cases rises over five, the travel bubble would be suspended for two weeks.
The travel bubble is set to begin on Sunday.
Henry Sanderson
Rising prospects of a Covid-19 vaccine are threatening to kill off the bull market for gold, after an epic two-year rally that pushed the precious metal to a record high in the summer.
Gold prices have already fallen about 10 per cent since their August peak above $2,000 a troy ounce, as confidence gradually returned to asset markets. This could be the start of a sustained slide for the metal, after two successful trials for Covid-19 vaccines emerged in November.
Some bulls have not given up, pointing to a possible rise in inflation that typically boosts the precious metal. But a recovering global economy dents the appeal of gold, commonly used as a haven in times of turmoil. And as investors also move out of government bonds for riskier assets, pushing yields higher, the relative attractiveness of gold — which offers no income — will be dulled.
Read more here
Clive Cookson in London
Two breakthrough vaccines that use the same revolutionary technology have been shown to be highly effective in preventing Covid-19, but differences in the way the shots are designed affect how quickly production can be increased and how they are distributed.
The vaccines — one produced by US company Moderna and the other through a partnership between Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech — both recorded efficacy rates higher than 94 per cent in clinical trials, raising global hopes they can provide a route out of the pandemic.
At the heart of both shots is a strand of messenger ribonucleic acid or mRNA — a sequence of around 2,000 biochemical letters of genetic code that carry instructions to the recipient’s immune system to recognise and fight coronavirus infection. The technology has never been used in a vaccine before.
Read more here
Robin Harding in Tokyo
Core prices in Japan fell by 0.7 per cent compared with the previous year in October as coronavirus — and the government’s response to it — created a renewed slide into deflation.
The closely-watched price index, which excludes fresh food, fell by 0.2 per cent compared with the previous month. Hotel charges were 37 per cent lower than a year ago, reflecting both a desperate scramble to fill rooms and the government’s “Go To” campaign to subsidise travel.
October was also the month when last year’s consumption tax rise, which was reflected in higher prices, dropped out of the inflation data.
“Looking ahead, we expect inflation to remain negative due to both fundamental factors, such as a large oversupply and sluggish wage growth amid economic recession,” wrote Barclays economist Kazuma Maeda in a research note. He also pointed to special factors, such as the “Go To” campaign and a sharp fall in tourism.
Christian Shepherd in Beijing and Thomas Hale in Hong Kong
China’s reliance on coal-powered industry to propel its economic recovery threatens to undermine President Xi Jinping’s goal of reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2060, new research showed.
Lockdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus have cut CO2 emissions globally, but environmentalists warn that governments must pursue climate-friendly stimulus measures to kickstart growth or risk a post-pandemic rise in greenhouse gases.
China’s recovery has been led by the state-dominated industrial sector. Construction demand has spurred a rise in steel, aluminium and cement production of 13, 11 and 10 per cent, respectively, in October compared with the same period last year.
That puts China on course to account for nearly 60 per cent of global output in the three sectors, a rise of almost 10 per cent on last year.
Read more here
Valentina Romei in London
UK consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level since the spring as coronavirus restrictions tightened across the country, pointing to a new downturn that threatens the survival of many businesses, particularly in the hospitality sector.
The GfK consumer confidence index dropped to minus 33 in November, two points lower than in the previous month and the lowest reading since May.
Consumers were particularly pessimistic about their financial situation, reflecting high uncertainty over jobs and business survival, which analysts said could point to weakening spending.
“People are clearly losing their nerve regarding their personal finances,” said Joe Staton, client strategy director at GfK. “This will deal a blow to any future rebound because bullish consumer spending fuels the UK economy and low confidence is the enemy of recovery.”
Consumer spending was the engine of the UK economic rebound in the third quarter, but falling consumer confidence and reduced spending opportunities as many businesses are shut, point to a new contraction in the autumn, usually the busiest period for many retailers.
Read more here
Edward White in Wellington
South Korea has asked citizens to stay at home as much as possible heading into the end of the year as health officials grapple with coronavirus transmission reaching its worst level in three months.
Chung Sye-kyun, the prime minister who is leading the government’s virus response, said in a televised broadcast that the public should avoid year-end social gatherings and other non-essential activities, according to a report by state-news agency Yonhap.
The warning came as the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 320 new locally transmitted virus cases on Friday. The increase in cases over recent days have been linked to small clusters and a rising number of young people — many of whom lacked severe symptoms. The resurgence has driven the infection rate to its highest since August.
In response, the South Korean government on Thursday reinstated tougher social distancing and virus-protection measures across the greater Seoul region, in which about half the country’s 52m people live.
The moves mean school attendances are capped at two-thirds of students and activities at high-risk and multi-use faculties, including restaurants, are restricted.
Asia’s fourth-biggest economy has been rated as one of the top countries in the OECD for its handling of the global pandemic.
But the latest outbreak has underscored the ongoing danger to economies despite the progress in development of vaccines for Covid-19.
Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong
South Australia will lift a lockdown early on Saturday, the state’s premier said, warning that the cluster of coronavirus infections discovered this week was still dangerous.
The stay-at-home order will be lifted from midnight on Saturday to be replaced by limits on gatherings in private homes and schools will reopen, Steven Marshall, premier of South Australia said.
“I’ve always maintained that we would not keep these restrictions for one day longer than what we needed to,” Mr Marshall said, adding that health authorities remained concerned about the situation.
A circuit breaker was imposed this week on the discovery of a cluster of coronavirus infections linked to a hotel providing quarantine for returnees from overseas. The discovery broke a months-long run of no local infections in the state.
Three new cases were added to the tally on Friday, all of whom were close contacts of existing cases and in quarantine, said Nicola Spurrier, chief public health officer. The number of cases is expected to rise in coming days as quarantined close contacts test positive for the virus.
There are now 25 people linked to the cluster and 44 suspected cases.
Prof Spurrier said the strain of the virus appeared to be highly transmissible and have a short incubation period, as all family members of the identified case had tested positive.
Testing showed the virus strain came from the UK.
Contact tracers are still trying to reach out to thousands of people who visited a pizza bar after one of the infected people deliberately misled health authorities. Mr Marshall called the man’s lie “disgraceful”.
“To say that I am fuming about the actions of this individual is an absolute understatement. The selfish actions of this individual have put our whole state in a very difficult situation,” Mr Marshall said.
Jude Webber
Mexico, with the world’s fourth highest death toll from Covid-19, passed the 100,000 fatalities mark on Thursday, well beyond the 60,000 level it had initially outlined as its “catastrophic” scenario.
Health authorities reported 100,104 confirmed coronavirus deaths, a rise of 576 from the previous day’s report, but the numbers are widely believed to be at least three times underreported based on indications of the level of excess deaths.
Accumulated deaths per million have hit 776.2, fractionally above the US. Overall, Mexico has confirmed 1,109,543 cases.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said this week that “there are infections but fortunately, and we are very happy about this, there are fewer deaths, and this is our aim, that we can reduce the number of deaths”.
Peter Wells in New York
Coronavirus cases in the US jumped by a record on Thursday, while hospitalisations topped 80,000 for the first time and deaths rose by the most in more than six months.
States reported 182,832 coronavirus cases, according to Covid Tracking Project, up from 163,975 on Wednesday and topping the previous record on November 13 by more than 10,000 infections. The country’s seven-day average of cases has doubled since the end of October to hit 161,782 on Thursday, a record rate.
The number of people currently in US hospitals stood at 80,698, a 70 per cent increase so far this month and now about 35 per cent higher than the long-standing peak in April, when northeastern states like New York and New Jersey were hit hardest.
Deaths, which lag cases and hospitalisations, are now following the record surge in those other metrics. States attributed a further 1,971 fatalities to coronavirus, up from 1,869 on Wednesday and compared with 1,141 on Thursday last week.
It was the biggest one-day jump in deaths since May 7 and took the seven-day average to 1,209 fatalities, the highest level since late May.
Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong
Asia-Pacific stocks retreated and US futures fell after the Treasury refused to extend some of the Federal Reserve’s crisis-fighting tools.
In Japan, the Topix fell 0.5 per cent, the Kospi in Seoul shed 0.2 per cent and the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia edged up 0.1 per cent.
S&P 500 futures fell 0.8 per cent on Friday morning in Asia.
Those moves came after the US Treasury on Thursday asked the Federal Reserve to return unused funds from five emergency programmes designed to support the economy through the pandemic ahead of their expiration at the end of 2020. Fed officials said the economy remained “strained and vulnerable”.
The S&P 500 ended up 0.4 per cent on Thursday and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.9 per cent. Vaccine-related optimism was tempered by the first increase in five weeks for US jobless claims as states reimposed measures to limit the spread of the virus.
Donato Paolo Mancini in London and Hannah Kuchler in New York
The World Health Organization has recommended that doctors do not prescribe Gilead’s remdesivir to patients in hospital with coronavirus, dealing another blow to the only antiviral approved to treat the disease.
Remdesivir was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month. But a landmark WHO study has cast doubt on its effectiveness.
“The antiviral drug remdesivir is not suggested for patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19, regardless of how severely ill they are, because there is currently no evidence that it improves survival or the need for ventilation,” an expert panel of the WHO wrote in the British Medical Journal on Friday.
Read more here
Delphine Strauss in London
Young people in the UK are staying in education rather than looking for work in a coronavirus-hit labour market where the odds are stacked against them finding employment, according to official data.
The number of 16-24-year olds who were not in education, employment or training fell to 757,000, or 11 per cent of the age group, in the third quarter of 2020, figures published by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday showed. This was down by 0.6 percentage points from the same period of 2019.
“More young people are staying in or returning to education, rather than trying their luck in the uncertain waters of the Covid labour market,” said Chris Goulden, director of impact and evidence at the Youth Futures Foundation, a charity tackling youth unemployment.
Read more here
Peter Wells in New York
Texas reported a record jump in new coronavirus cases on Thursday —
and its biggest one-day increase in deaths in nearly three months. A further 12,293 people tested positive over the past 24 hours, the state health department revealed, up from 8,489 on Wednesday.
The latest increase soared past the previous one-day record set on Tuesday of 10,823, according to data from the state health department, and past the summer apex of 10,791 on July 15. The state’s seven-day average of new cases is now above 9,000 for the first time since late July.
Texas has for months been adding older cases stemming from backlogs of tests at commercial laboratories to the statewide total, but excluding these from the daily tally. There were just over 200 historical cases revealed today, including 119 from El Paso county and 49 from the region around Houston.
Texas has confirmed 1.06m cases since the start of the pandemic, more than any other US state.
Authorities attributed a further 230 deaths to coronavirus, up from 187 and compared with 143 on Thursday last week. It was the biggest one-day jump in deaths since the 265 reported on August 27. The state has averaged 138 fatalities a day over the past week, the highest since early September.
Hospitalisations inched up by 24 from yesterday to 7,982, which is still the highest level since August 7.
Hannah Kuchler in New York
Eli Lilly’s rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib has received US emergency approval as a treatment for patients seriously ill with Covid-19.
The US Food and Drug Administration issued a second emergency use authorisation for an Eli Lilly drug after a trial showed that when taken with Gilead’s remdesivir, it helped patients recover faster. Anti-inflammatories may help later in the disease when a patient’s immune system goes into overdrive.
“This is an important milestone for hospitalised patients on oxygen, as baricitinib may help speed their recovery.” said David Ricks, Lilly’s chief executive.
Eli Lilly has already received an EUA for its monoclonal antibody treatment, for mild to moderately ill patients at risk of hospitalisation.
Peter Wells in New York
More than 90 per cent of California’s residents will have their late-night movements restricted for the next month after Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued a curfew covering most of the state.
The “limited Stay at Home Order” takes effect on Saturday and will apply to counties in the so-called purple tier that are currently subject to the state’s most stringent economic restrictions.
All non-essential work and gatherings must stop between 10pm and 5am in those purple tier counties, Mr Newsom said in message on Twitter this afternoon.
At a press conference on Monday, Mr Newsom revealed his team had begun considering “the notion of a curfew” by examining the efficacy of such moves via studies from France, Germany and Saudi Arabia and observing a similar move by Massachusetts.
At the same Monday press conference, Mr Newsom said that 41 of the 58 counties in the most populous US state were in the purple tier, up from 13 earlier this month. With that shift, about 94 per cent of California’s nearly 40m residents now live in a purple tier. In purple tier counties, many non-essential businesses such as restaurants, cinemas and gyms will have to halt indoor operations. California has also enhanced its mask mandate to require people to wear face coverings any time they leave their house, with a few exceptions.
On Thursday, California reported 11,478 new Covid-19 cases. That is the biggest one-day jump in infections since August 14, and ranks as the state’s seventh-biggest daily increase since the start of the pandemic.
The state also attributed a further 106 deaths to Covid-19, the biggest one-day increase in fatalities in just over one month, and more than double the average of the past week.
Michael Peel in Brussels
The coronavirus vaccines devised by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna could receive EU conditional marketing authorisation within weeks, the European Commission chief has said.
Ursula von der Leyen said the European Medicines Agency had told her it might give the go-ahead for this “very, very first step” to bringing the jabs to market next month.
The year-long conditional approval would allow the companies to start selling their vaccines while collecting further evidence of their safety and efficacy.
“This…could happen as early as the second half of December, if all proceeds now without any problem,” she told reporters after a videoconference of EU leaders on Thursday.
Clinical trials have suggested the vaccines developed by both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna could protect about 95 per cent of people from infection.
Peter Wells in New York
Several of the top 10 most populous states in the US reported single-day increases in coronavirus cases on Thursday that were at or near their highest levels of the pandemic.
California, Illinois and Ohio, which rank first, sixth and seventh in the US by population, reported among their biggest jumps in both cases and increases in fatalities, while Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the fifth and ninth-most populous states, each set record increases in infections.
Over the past week, leaders of those states, or cities within them, have announced restrictions on businesses and social gatherings in efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Illinois reported 14,612 new infections, second only to the record 15,415 cases it reported on November 13. The state’s health department logged just over 18,000 cases on November 6 when a decision to report confirmed and probable cases as a combined figure led to a one-off addition of 7,673 probable cases that were previously reported separately.
The Midwest state attributed a further 168 deaths to coronavirus. That was the biggest one-day jump in fatalities since a record 191 on May 13 and ranks as the state’s third-deadliest day since the start of the pandemic.
In nearby Ohio, the health department reported 7,787 new infections and attributed a further 63 deaths to coronavirus. The state set a record for cases last Friday, with 8,071, while the 76 deaths logged on November 11 was the biggest daily increase since early October.
California reported 11,478 new Covid-19 cases. That is the biggest one-day jump in infections since August 14, and ranks as the state’s seventh-biggest daily increase since the start of the pandemic.
The state also attributed a further 106 deaths to Covid-19, the biggest one-day increase in fatalities in just over one month, and more than double the average of the past week. Pennsylvania reported 7,126 new cases on Thursday, a record.
Deaths rose by 125, the biggest one-day jump since late May. North Carolina’s health department reported more than 4,000 cases in a single day for the first time, with 4,296 new infections.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging Americans not to travel for the forthcoming Thanksgiving holiday, with officials warning they are “alarmed” about the recent rise in coronavirus cases, hospitalisations and deaths. The public health body released new guidance recommending against all travel for the holiday next week.
New York City will probably halt indoor dining at restaurants and bars and close gyms within “a week or two”. The warning from mayor Bill de Blasio came less than a day after he ordered public schools in New York City to close and shift to online learning after the city’s seven-day average of coronavirus test positivity hit a hurdle rate of 3 per cent.
The French government is seeking to delay Black Friday shopping promotions until the country’s high-street shops reopen from lockdown at the end of the month, and big retailers with online services have agreed — provided Amazon does the same. “The delay is aimed at ensuring the reopening of businesses in France in conditions of maximum health security,” said a joint statement from the finance ministry and retail federations.
Sales of previously owned homes in the US jumped last month to the highest level in nearly 15 years as low mortgage rates and remote working continued to boost housing demand. Existing home sales jumped 4.3 per cent month on month to an annualised pace of 6.85m in October, the highest level since November 2005, the National Association of Realtors said.
Irish health officials have called for a cull of mink in the country’s three fur farms in a bid to block any potential spread of a mutated form of Covid-19. Ireland’s agriculture department said it was engaging with mink farmers “to consider the next steps” after receiving a letter from the country’s chief medical officer.
Most foreign investors have cancelled, reduced or paused their investment in the UK, pointing to lost growth potential as the economy struggles to recover, according to a survey by consultancy EY. The survey found that more than one in three investors have cut their planned 2020 investment in the UK, another 17 per cent have paused and 5 per cent have cancelled altogether.
High-level Brexit talks have been suspended after it was discovered that a member of the EU negotiating team has Covid-19. The EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said that teams of officials will continue to work on the text of a trade deal but that he and his UK counterpart David Frost had “decided to suspend the negotiations at our level for a short period”.
Surveillance cameras in the UK have risen 8 per cent, or one for every 13 people, since last year as security-conscious, housebound Britons have taken advantage of lower prices to install domestic systems. Britain may have as many as 5.2m CCTV cameras, from 4.8m in 2019, ranking behind China, the US and Germany.
Another 742,000 Americans filed for their first ever unemployment benefits last week, as the number of claims increased for the first time in five weeks while the US grapples with a record rise in coronavirus cases and new restrictions. The increase of 31,000 in weekly jobless claims came alongside an increase of 23,863 in claims for federal pandemic unemployment assistance, the US labour department said.
Countries that acted quickly to contain coronavirus and had plenty of compliance from their populations did better at limiting the spread of infections and mitigating the economic impact, according to an analysis by the OECD. South Korea, Finland, Norway and Estonia were among the best performers, the Paris-based organisation of industrialised nations concluded.
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