Coronavirus news – live: Shoppers risk fines as face masks become mandatory in England on 24 July

Barnard Castle businesses credit Dominic Cummings' alleged lockdown breach with upturn in tourism

Businesses in Barnard Castle have noted an upturn in visitors as lockdown eased after it was made famous by Dominic Cummings' controversial family trip.

While the mayor has noted that the headlines it created "put us on the map", TV antiques expert David Harper, who has a shop in the market town, told the PA news agency that local businesses could never have afforded the exposure Barnard Castle received from the affair.

"I don't know how many emails I've received from people saying Barnard Castle looks so lovely," Mr Harper said. "I've heard of people thinking of relocating and checking out property prices.

"When I reopened my shop earlier this month, if I had a pound for every time someone mentioned it, or cracked a joke about eyesight or calling me Dominic, I would be super-rich.

"If everyone in Barnard Castle got together and wrote a cheque for the cost of the marketing, we still couldn't pay for it all. Thank you Dom."

Mayor John Blissett, 73, said: "The crowds have been coming in and obviously the curiosity is there. I don't know whether the opticians have had any more trade though."

'Please tax us' to help coronavirus recovery, beg group of super-wealthy

A number of the world's wealthiest people, including heiress Abigail Disney and the co-founder of Ben & Jerry's have urged governments to raise their taxes to help impoverished populations to survive the impacts of the coronavirus crisis.

In an open letter, 83 individuals with net worths of tens or hundreds of millions of US dollars called for a permanent wealth tax to fuel economic relief, the Thomson Reuters Foundation reports.

"Unlike tens of millions of people around the world, we do not have to worry about losing our jobs, our homes, or our ability to support our families," the group said.

"So please. Tax us. Tax us. Tax us."

The letter was released before G20 finance ministers and central bank governors are set to meet online on Saturday to discuss how best to tackle the global economic fallout.

The world's wealthiest owe a "huge debt" to the world's essential workers, who confront the deadly virus every day and are "grossly underpaid", the group said, writing: "We must rebalance our world before it is too late. There will not be another chance to get this right.

"Humanity is more important than our money."

Government issues e-scooter rules as trials begin in UK

E-scooter trials have been given the go-ahead by the government a year earlier than planned as part of a drive to encourage fewer people to use public transport during the coronavirus crisis, Samuel Osborne reports.

The e-scooters in the trial will be limited to 15.5mph and others may be capped at a lower speed.

However, it remains against the law to use a privately owned e-scooter, and users elsewhere could be fined, given penalty points on their licence and have their e-scooter impounded.

The trials will take place in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area, which includes Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees.

Zimbabwe fires hospital chiefs week after health minister embroiled in corruption row axed

Zimbabwe has fired top executives of the country's five biggest state hospitals as part of a restructuring exercise, the health services board said, a week after the health minister was dismissed following corruption allegations.

Millions of Zimbabweans rely on government hospitals for healthcare, but the institutions face perennial shortages of drugs and basic equipment. Nurses have been on strike for better pay since June.

Health Services Board chair Paulinus Sikhosana told state broadcaster ZBC on Monday that the dismissals in Harare and Bulawayo were meant to improve "operational efficiency, effectiveness, accountability", describing them as "part of a restructuring exercise".

Last week, Obadiah Moyo was fired as health minister by president Emmerson Mnangagwa for inappropriate conduct. Mr Moyo, who has made no public comment since his dismissal, was arrested in June over corruption allegations related to the government's procurement of some £45m worth of medical equipment.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is experiencing a rise in coronavirus infections, having identified 985 cases so far and just 18 deaths.

Government releases weekly coronavirus figures by local authority

The government has updated its weekly coronavirus figures, which are based on tests carried out in laboratories and in the wider community, and show the number of new cases per 100,000 people.

In Leicester last week the rate fell slightly, from 117.7 in the seven days to 3 July to 114.3 in the seven days to 10 July. It was 156.8 in the seven days to 26 June.

Second on the list is Pendle, where the rate has gone up from 14.2 to 67.8.

The jump in the rate for Herefordshire from 1.6 to 36.4 is due to 63 cases being recorded on Thursday, linked to an outbreak on a farm near Worcester.

Other areas reporting notable week-on-week jumps include:

- Braintree (up from 2.6 to 19.8).

- Peterborough (up from 13.4 to 29.8)

- Blackburn with Darwen (up from 29.5 to 41)

Hit to UK GDP 'already twice as big as initial impact of 2008 financial crash', MPs told

 The UK's GDP could fall by 13 per cent this year as the prospect of second spike in coronavirus cases leads to further economic uncertainty, the Office for Budget Responsibility's prospective new chair has warned MPs.

Speaking to the Treasury Select Committee, Richard Hughes said the decline would be "twice as big" as the initial impact of the 2008 financial crisis, and outlined the "exceptional economic shock" the UK had suffered during the pandemic.

"Based on the OBR's latest forecast, we think GDP is going to fall by anywhere between 10 per cent and 13 per cent in 2020," Mr Hughes said. "The global financial crisis saw GDP fall by around 5 per cent at its trough. So this is already twice as big as the initial impact of the 2008 financial crisis."

In May, the OBR - Britain's fiscal watchdog - predicted the GDP for the year would fall by 12.8 per cent - assuming a recovery in the second half of the year.

But Mr Hughes, a research associate at the Resolution Foundation and an adviser to the IMF, said the prospect of a second wave of coronavirus had "increased the level of uncertainty" around the UK's economic recovery.

"Usually you can assume in the course of a recession that once you've turned the corner things are going to gradually get better. And it's all about the pace of that recovery," he said. "In this context you have divergent possibilities."

A resurgence in the transmission of Covid-19 and future lockdowns would act as a "drag on the [economic] output", while a vaccine could result in a "very rapid recovery of economic activity", he said.

Additional reporting by Reuters

White House denies Trump undermining Dr Fauci despite sending 'opposition research' to reporters

The White House has denied sending campaign-style opposition research to reporters to discredit Anthony Fauci, the federal government's top infectious disease expert who has at times contradicted Donald Trump on coronavirus, our Washington Bureau Chief John T Bennett reports.

There is no opposition research being dumped to reporters," press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters, contending that emails were sent from White House press aides to The Washington Post in response to a "straightforward question".

Mr Trump's aides "provided straightforward information" in response pointing out when Dr Fauci has been incorrect about the coronavirus. What's more, the president's top spokesperson contended Mr Trump and the infectious disease experts get along swimmingly.

"Dr Fauci and the president always had a good working relationship," she said, notably in the past tense, adding: "The notion that there's Dr Fauci vs the president couldn't be further from the truth."

Bolivian sex workers search for post-Covid safety measures

Bolivian sex workers in the capital La Paz are preparing for life in the age of the coronavirus with new equipment, including bottles of bleach, gloves and see-through raincoats, all of which they say will help them resume work safely.

"Biosecurity suits" are among a number of recommendations in a 30-page coronavirus security manual drawn up by the Organisation of Night Workers of Bolivia (OTN). The group is urging authorities to lift the day-time business restrictions put in place during the lockdowns, even if a strict nighttime curfew still impedes their more habitual evening work.

Lily Cortes, a representative of Bolivia's sex workers union, told Reuters in March that some women may have no option but to work on the streets if they could not work in cooperative-run brothels. Prostitution is legal in Bolivia, but procuring it is not. One sex worker, Antonieta, showed Reuters last week the paper face mask, plastic visor, gloves and raincoat she planned to wear to work.

She gave a demonstration of how she sprays a bleach solution on the pole she uses to dance for clients at the brothel that she operates with several other women.

"The biosecurity suit will allow us to work and protect ourselves," she said, while her colleague, Vanessa, a single mother to two children who said she had to work to be able to fund their studies, said she felt confident the proposed changes would keep everyone happy, adding: "Our clients respect the issue of safety, that we are taking these measures for our security, but also for theirs."

Reuters

Three escape from quarantine at Herefordshire farm

Three workers - one of whom has tested positive for coronavirus - have left the site of vegetable farm AS Green & Co, where some 200 staff had been ordered to isolate after at 74 workers tested positive for Covid-19.

West Mercia Police confirmed the escape and said the force was assisting PHE's efforts to track down the infected individual.

The force's Herefordshire commander, Supt Sue Thomas, said: “Within the constraints of the current legislation, we continue to support our partners in Public Health England and Herefordshire county council as they work with the farm owner and those working there to keep them all safe and to provide reassurance to the local community.

“In relation to an individual who has left the site after testing positive with the virus, we are assisting our colleagues at Public Health England, as required, in order to trace them.”

"Herefordshire Council continues to deploy the local response in Mathon, in accordance with our outbreak control plan," said Director of Public Health, Karen Wright. 

"There are three workers who have left the site without permission - one of whom tested positive. Workers who have left the premises have been asked to self-isolate. We are working with West Mercia Police to ensure they are safe and well, and taking the appropriate public health advice."

Pop-up cycle lanes across London could be made permanent after pandemic, says transport boss

London's new transport boss has said that most "if not all" of the new emergency cycle lanes built in the aftermath of the coronavirus lockdown could become permanent, our policy correspondent Jon Stone reports.

Andy Byford, who took over as commissioner of Transport for London at the end of June, told the Evening Standard newspaper that the pop-up cycle lanes were "fantastic" and that they represented a "good start".

TfL and the city's borough councils have laid down miles of new protected cycle track on the capital's roads since lockdown, with more in the planning stages – as they scramble to provide for commuters displaced from public transport by the pandemic.