World Sees Most Daily COVID-19 Deaths Yet As Greece Imposes National Lockdown:Live Updates

Summary:

• World suffers record daily deaths, cases
• Greece expands lockdown nationwide
• Germany cases come roaring back
• Poland, Czech Republic see record numbers
• AstraZeneca preparing to toll our vaccine supplies
• India reports just 50k new infections

* * *

After locking down Athens, and then Thessaloniki (Greece’s”second city”), the Greek government, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has extended the Greek lockdown country-wide as cases continue to hit records.

Greece recorded a new daily record high of 2,646 cases on Wednesday, while the occupancy rate of ICUs currently stands at 69%. The total number of infections in Greece (a country of 11 million) is now 46,892.

“If we continued to see the same rate of increase in cases as in the past week we’d have thousands in our hospitals,” Mitsotakis said in a nationally televised address.

The national lockdown is expected to begin on Saturday.

Elsewhere in Europe, cases in Germany came roaring back on Thursday after a brief respite for Europe’s biggest economy economy. The Czech Republic and Poland also saw record highs. In Belgium, ICU beds are filling at an unprecedented rate.

A similar pattern played out in the US, where hospital beds are filling up at the fastest pace in months.

In addition to reporting more than 100k new cases for the first time on Wednesday (which we first reported last night)…

… health officials revealed that daily coronavirus deaths worldwide set a new record of more than 10,000 in a single day on Thursday, while global infections passed 600,000 in a day for the first time as the pandemic worsened, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Meanwhile, here’s more COVID-19 news from overnight and Thursday morning:

Infections in Japan’s northern-most prefecture Hokkaido, where cases have spiked since October, may break through 100 for the first time today, according to local broadcaster FNN (Source: Nikkei).

China will temporarily suspend entry by non-Chinese U.K. nationals who hold valid visas or residence permits, the Chinese Embassy in the U.K. said in a statement (Source: Bloomberg)

Sweden’s economy grew less than expected in the third quarter, when a lull in the virus during the summer months allowed businesses and households to return to near normal levels. Its GDP grew 4.3% from the previous quarter, Statistics Sweden said on Thursday, less than economists’ predictions of 5% (Source: Bloomberg).

AstraZeneca Plc is poised to unveil coronavirus vaccine test results by year-end and to begin supplying the world with hundreds of millions of doses shortly afterwards if it gains approval from regulators, Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot said on Thursday. Soriot dismissed reports of delays and manufacturing snags (Source: Bloomberg).

India reported 50,210 new infections Thursday, the first time in 10 days that cases have topped 50,000. Daily infections have dropped from a peak of more than 97,000 in mid-September, but a rise in cases is expected as India kicks off its festival season – culminating in Diwali on Nov. 14 (Source: Bloomberg).