October 16 coronavirus news

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the rise of coronavirus cases in Greater Manchester is “grave” and “worsens with each passing day.”

Speaking at a press conference from Downing Street on Friday, the Prime Minister said cases in Greater Manchester have doubled in the past nine days and high infection rates are being seen across age groups. There were 690 per 100,000 cases in the 16- to 29-year-old bracket and 224 per 100,000 in the over 60 category. 

Johnson added that if the present trends continue, in the next two weeks there “will be more COVID patients in ICU than at the peak of the first wave.” 

He urged the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, to “reconsider his position” and “engage constructively” with the government. 

The Prime Minister did make signs of an ultimatum, saying “if an agreement cannot be reached, I will need to intervene in order to protect Manchester’s hospitals and save the lives of Manchester’s residents.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Friday morning that the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Division of Emergency Management have added resources to the Amarillo area to help combat the spread of the virus.

The Amarillo Public Health Department says the area currently stands at level red, which means to use extreme caution. The city says through their Covid-19 dashboard that hospital capacity in the region is "stressed".

The resources coming from the state will assist hospitals in Amarillo, Lubbock and the surrounding areas, according to a statement from the governor's office.

At least 171 medical personnel have deployed to the communities with an additional 100 arriving by Sunday. The release says that DSHS is sending 100 IV pumps, 56 ventilators, and 25 oxygen concentrators. 

The city's Covid-19 dashboard shows that there are at least 78,996 total cases in Randall and Potter counties. 

Note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

A closer look at the numbers:

With the World Series set to begin on Tuesday, October 20, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have jointly announced no new positive Covid-19 results among at least 5,026 tests taken the past week ending Oct. 15.

This marks 47 straight days and 55 of the past 56 with no new positives among players.

Cumulatively, there have been 169,143 tests administered during monitoring testing, with at least 91 positive results – a positivity rate of 0.05%. Of the 91 positives, 57 were players while the other 34 were staff members.

As for the playoff action, in the ALCS the Tampa Bay Rays hold a three-games-to-two lead over the Houston Astros. The series is being played in San Diego’s Petco Park.

In the NLCS, the Atlanta Braves hold a three-games-to-one lead over the L.A. Dodgers, with the series being played at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. The Texas Rangers' newly opened home field will also serve as site for the 2020 World Series.

The World Health Organization's Europe Director, Hans Kluge, said he is “very worried” about the second wave in Europe, but warned against imposing national lockdowns as cases surge in the region. 

Instead Kluge told CNN mask-wearing, together with strict control on social gatherings, could save around 281,000 lives in Europe over six months.

“The national lockdown is the last resort,” Kluge said, explaining that in March it was the default position but now “we know much better”.

New cases of the coronavirus are accelerating rapidly in much of Europe, and now far exceed the rise in new cases in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the World Health Organization. The five European countries currently most affected by the pandemic are France, the UK, Russia, Spain and the Netherlands.

Kluge said WHO Europe is calling for “local, targeted, proportional measures” that involve engaging with communities and avoiding collateral damage socially and economically. 

The idea of short, sharp "circuit breaker" lockdowns has been mooted in some countries, including the UK. Kluge said government’s should consider their social impact, including mental health and domestic violence before implementing, and the two or three week time period should be used to “buy time” to get an effective track and trace system in place. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced she was canceling the upcoming EU special summit on China due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"In the context of the pandemic, it is clear that we are not going to allow the informal summit to take place, we have to do without it," Merkel, whose country holds the six-month EU presidency, told journalists at the end of a European Council meeting in Brussels. 

"I believe this is a necessary message," she added, as European countries have been tightening health measures to cope with the second wave of the pandemic.

The summit was scheduled for Nov. 16 in Berlin.

The Vermont Department of Health is investigating a Covid-19 outbreak among members of youth and adult recreational hockey and broomball teams, leading to 18 confirmed cases so far, it said in a statement on Friday.

Officials say the outbreak is associated with individuals that practiced or played at the Central Vermont Memorial Civic Center in Montpelier earlier October. There has been no community spread of the virus beyond close contacts, the department said. 

The 18 confirmed cases are among players and their close contacts and most cases are among adults. 

The health department has also been in touch with schools that may have had cases in attendance while they were infectious and contact tracing is currently ongoing.

A pop up test clinic is scheduled for Saturday and those with direct links to the teams, the Civic Center, and close contacts are encouraged to get tested.

The city of El Paso, Texas, is reporting a new record high daily number of Covid-19 cases, just a day after setting the record for single-day cases.

El Paso reported 838 new cases on Friday. The day before they had set a daily record with 717 new cases. 

There are now 7,399 active cases in the city, according to the city's public health department. So far, there have been no new deaths reported Friday.

The city reported 423 hospitalizations as a result of Covid-19 with 112 people in the intensive care unit. On Thursday, the Texas Department of State Health Services said only 8 ICU beds were available in Region I, which includes El Paso. 

US stocks retraced some of their losses from the previous session and opened higher on Friday.

The morning brought a mixed bag of economic data: September retail sales beat economists’ predictions as Americans kept shopping, but industrial production of the same month unexpectedly contracted in what was the first decline after four months of improvements.

Here's where things opened:

Retail sales climbed in September for the fifth straight month as people spent on clothing, sporting goods, furniture and other items in stores and online.

US retail sales rose 1.9% in September, the Commerce Department reported Friday. That's well above the 0.7% rise predicted by economists surveyed by Refinitiv.

In August, retail sales grew 0.6%.

Retail sales had slumped to a seven-year low in April as coronavirus prompted stores across the country to shut their doors, though sales bounced back to pre-pandemic levels in July.

Economists and retail analysts say consumers have shifted their spending – away from travel and leisure and to areas such as home improvement and electronics. Sales at clothing and clothing accessories stores grew 11% in September from the month prior, while sales at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and book stores jumped 5.7%.