Coronavirus live news: Jacinda Ardern says Trump’s ‘patently wrong’ on New Zealand’s Covid cases | World news

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake has struck central Philippines, killing at least one person and damaging roads and buildings including a hospital and a sports complex being used as a novel coronavirus quarantine centre.

It was the strongest earthquake in eight months in the Philippines, Reuters reports. It struck the central town of Cataingan, which has a population of more than 50,000 people and is near the epicentre

The Philippines, which has a population of 107 million, has the most coronavirus cases in Southeast Asia with more than 164,000 confirmed infections and 2,681 deaths

Australia has recorded its lowest one-day rise in new Covid-19 infections in a month, Reuters reports, boosting hopes that a stringent lockdown in the country’s second-most populous state has prevented a fresh wave of cases nationally.

Led by cases in Victoria state – the epicentre of Australia’s latest COVID-19 outbreak – Australia said it has detected 226 new infections in the past 24 hours, the lowest since July 18 when 212 cases were recorded.

The national figure is well below the more than 700 infections detected in a single day earlier this month, almost all of which were in Victoria.

“We have seen numbers going up and down recently, but by and large what we are seeing is a continuing downward trend,” Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd told reporters in Canberra.

Older and vulnerable people in Ireland are to be told to limit their time outdoors and indoor gatherings limited to six people, the Irish Independent is reporting.

The paper reports that Ireland’s National Public Health Emergency Team believes more curbs must be introduced to control a resurgence of Covid-19 just two weeks before schools are due to reopen.

Ireland’s cabinet is due to meet later on Tuesday to consider the recommendations, which include a restriction on outdoor gatherings to 15 people, the paper added.

Restrictions in the country are already among the strictest in Europe and currently limit outdoor gatherings to 50 people, while 10 visitors from no more than four different households are allowed in the homes of anyone else, so as to limit house parties.

The number of daily confirmed cases in Ireland has been rising steadily since the end of July, from around 20-30 per day to 66 on Monday. The country’s infection rate now stands at 22.3 cases per 100,000 people, above the important benchmark of 20 in which the UK will consider introducing quarantine measures on all arriving travellers.

India’s interior minister Amit Shah has been hospitalised again after complaining of fatigue and body ache, four days after he said he had recovered from Covid-19, Reuters reports.

Shah, a close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the virtual number-two in his cabinet, was admitted to the government-run All India Institute for Medical Sciences in the capital New Delhi, the hospital said in a statement.

“He is comfortable and continuing his work from the hospital,” it said, adding he had tested negative for Covid-19.

India has reported the world’s third-largest number of coronavirus infections after the United States and Brazil, with cases topping 50,000 every day since July 30. India’s cases jumped by 55,079 on Tuesday, taking the total to 2.7 million, while deaths rose by 876 to a total of 51,797.

That’s it for me for now. I’m handing you over to my colleague in the UK, Josh Halliday.

India has carried out nearly 900,000 coronavirus tests in a single day, a record for the country, as it fights a surge of Covid-19 cases. It comes as the South Korean cluster linked to church in northern Seoul grew to 400 cases.

India’s health ministry said a record 899,000 tests were conducted in the 24 hours to Tuesday. Only the US has ever carried out more daily tests, conducting 926,876, on 24 July.

India’s tests returned 55,079 cases positive cases, taking its total tally to more than 2.7 million – behind only the US and Brazil. The daily death toll of 876, took total fatalities in the country to 51,797.

The ministry said that even with such a high rate of testing, “the positivity has remained low”, currently 8.81% compared with the weekly national average of 8.84%. The US has a 9% test positivity rate, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

You can get up to speed on this and on all the day’s other top stories in our global report below:

New Zealand, prime minister, Jacinda Ardern hit back on Tuesday against Donald Trump for saying her country is experiencing a “big surge” in Covid-19, calling the remarks “patently wrong”.

Trump sparked uproar in New Zealand when he told a crowd in Minnesota that the country of 5 million people was in the grip of a “terrible” upsurge in COVID-19 cases, having earlier succeeded in eliminating the disease.

Thirteen new infections were confirmed in New Zealand on Tuesday, taking the country’s total number of cases since the pandemic began to 1,293, with 22 deaths. This compares with the U.S. tally of more than 5.2 million cases and 170,000 deaths.

“Big surge in New Zealand, you know it’s terrible. We don’t want that,” Trump said.

Ardern said there was no comparison between New Zealand’s handful of new cases a day and the “tens of thousands” reported in the United States.

“I think anyone who’s following Covid and its transmission globally will quite easily see that New Zealand’s nine cases in a day does not compare to the United States’ tens of thousands, and in fact does not compare to most countries in the world,” she told reporters.

“Obviously it’s patently wrong,” she said of Trump’s comments.

“We are still one of the best-performing countries in the world when it comes to COVID … our workers are focused on keeping it that way.”

New Zealand’s death rate per 100,000 people, at about 0.45 (according to Johns Hopkins data), is one of the lowest in the world thanks to strict lockdowns enforced early in the pandemic. The United States has a death rate of 51.98 per 100,000, one of the highest in the world.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he would be among the first to receive a Russian coronavirus vaccine if it is shown to be effective.

Russia’s announcement last week that it was the first in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine was met with caution from Western scientists who said it still needed to be proved safe and effective.

“I would be the first to get vaccinated, because it matters a lot to me, but we have to … ensure that it’s something effective and that it’s available to everyone,” Lopez Obrador said at his daily news conference.

The Mexican leader added that he would personally reach out to Russia or China if they are first to develop an effective vaccine.

“In this important matter, there should be no ideologies… health comes first,” he said.

The Latin American country has recorded more than 56,000 coronavirus deaths – the world’s third-highest toll – and over half a million infections.

Mexico announced a deal last week with British-Swedish pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca to manufacture its vaccine now under development if clinical trials show it to be effective.