Coronavirus news – live: Russia Covid vaccine branded ‘foolish’ as young people who vape found to be seven times more at risk

'Mandatory quarantine is a tough measure but justified' - health minister

The Dutch health minister plans to introduce mandatory home quarantine for people identified by local authorities as having been in close contact with somebody infected with coronavirus, and for travellers returning from high-risk countries.

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to politicians that mandatory quarantine could be imposed if people refuse to isolate voluntarily.

The move comes amid rising infection rates in the Netherlands and an unwillingness among some people to adhere to social-distancing measures and cooperate with contact tracing.

"Mandatory quarantine is a tough measure but justified. Quarantine stops the spread of the virus so sticking to the rules is crucial," Mr de Jonge wrote.

He added that he also wants to introduce mandatory quarantine for travellers returning from countries considered a high risk for infections.

New Zealand confirms four new domestic cases after going more than 100 days coronavirus free

New Zealand has recorded its first cases of coronavirus in more than 100 days, pushing its biggest city back into lockdown.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced four new cases in Auckland and said renewed restrictions would be enforced in the area from midday on Wednesday until midnight on Friday.

Ms Ardern said Level 3 measures will be put in place in the city, meaning that residents will be asked to stay at home and bars and non-essential businesses will be closed.

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UK reports 102 new deaths

Public Health England said 102 new deaths have been reported across the UK, with the total number of people who had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK rising to 46,628, as of 5pm on Monday.

Separate figures published by the UK's statistics agencies show there have now been 56,800 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

PHE was unable to provide a detailed breakdown of the data, with the government's coronavirus dashboard saying this was "due to technical difficulty".

Brazilian state in talks to produce untested Russian-approved vaccine

Brazil's Parana state is in talks to produce a Covid-19 vaccine approved by Russia despite not having completed mass clinical trials, but it was unclear if the state's research institute would get regulatory approval in Brazil.

Tuesday's announcement by the Parana Technology Institute (Tecpar) took Brazil's regulators and health experts by surprise, with some raising doubts about the institute's capacity to produce large volumes of a new vaccine from scratch.

With the world's biggest coronavirus outbreak outside the United States, Brazil has become a hub for mass clinical trials of potential vaccines.

Trump says college football players wouldn't die of coronavirus after season is postponed

Donald Trump says no college football players would “have a problem” if they contracted Covid-19 because they are “strong”, even as officials worry about long-term effects of the disease and the Big Ten postponed its season.

“These football players are very young, strong people, and physically, I mean they’re physically in extraordinary shape,” Mr Trump said during a radio interview on Tuesday. “So they’re not going to have a problem, you’re not going to see people, you know, could there be? Could it happen? But I doubt it.

“So I think football is making a tragic mistake,” he said of the college game.

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Obesity carries 'higher odds' of hospital admission - reports

Obesity is associated with "higher odds" of admission to hospital from severe Covid-19, a study using data from more than 300,000 people in England has suggested.

Scientists sought to build on previous smaller-scale studies which examined the potential link between being overweight and progressing to intensive care due to coronavirus infection.

Researchers from University College London and the universities of Southampton and Edinburgh drew on data from the UK Biobank study, collected between 2006 and 2010, covering 334,329 people with an average age of 56.

They used people's body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio as measures of their levels of obesity and analysed it in relation to cases of coronavirus hospital admissions recorded by Public Health England from March 16 up to April 26.

Around 0.2 per cent, or 640 people, from the large population sample ended up in hospital after contracting the virus.

Through their adjusted models, researchers found "there was a linear increase in the risk of Covid-19 with increasing BMI, that became evident from modestly elevated weight... to stage II obesity compared to normal weight".

New Zealanders prepare for Auckland lockdown

New Zealanders have scrambled to stock up on essentials as the country's biggest city prepared to go into lockdown again, following new cases of the coronavirus that ended a 102-day record run without any new infections.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced overnight that she was shutting down Auckland after four new cases of Covid-19 were discovered in the city from the same family, despite the international borders' being shut to foreigners and returning New Zealanders put in mandatory quarantine.

The government has said the source of the new infections was unknown so far.

Long queues were reported outside supermarkets in Auckland and across other parts of the country, as people raced to stock up on food and other essential items before the new restrictions took effect from noon.

New Zealand's biggest city will move back into alert level-3 lockdown, which would mean people should stay away from work and school, and gatherings or more than 10 people would again be restricted. The restrictions will be in effect for three days, until Friday.

Brazil registers 1,274 new deaths

Brazil has registered 1,274 new coronavirus deaths, bringing the total death toll to 103,026, the health ministry said.

Overall, confirmed cases rose by 52,160 to 3,109,630.

Colombia virus cases top 400,000

Colombia has topped 400,000 confirmed coronavirus cases as deaths climb toward 13,500 and intensive care units in the capital Bogota remain near capacity.

The Andean country has 410,453 confirmed cases of the virus, the health ministry said in its daily tally, while deaths reached 13,475. Active cases number 165,698.

Colombia has been in nationwide lockdown since late March, though most businesses are gradually reopening or allowed to function via delivery.

Intensive care units in Bogota are at about 89 per cent capacity, according to local health authorities. The capital is home to more than a third of Colombia's cases.

Other major cities, including Medellin, Barranquilla and Cali have also been close to ICU capacity during lockdown, but are enjoying lower hospitalisation figures.

World leaders looked to their neighbours for lockdown answers

World leaders based decisions on implementing lockdown measures on what neighbouring countries were doing to prevent the spread of the virus, a study has suggested.

In research of 36 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - including the UK, US and New Zealand - Swedish researchers examined when decisions such as school closures and restrictions on internal travel were implemented.

They found that despite differences in the spread of the virus, countries mimicked each other in a short space of time, with around 80% of OECD nations implementing multiple measures within a two week period in March.

The researchers said this was "striking" given the differences in the scale of the pandemic in each country, the preparedness of healthcare systems and the make-up of their populations.

Author Professor Karl Wennberg, from the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Linkoping University, said: "We found that the decisions were not based on, or had a very weak correlation to, standard epidemiological indicators such as number of infections, number of deaths, intensive care capacity etc.

"A much stronger determinant was whether many neighbouring countries had already implemented measures."