The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging Americans not to travel for the forthcoming Thanksgiving holiday, with officials warning they are “alarmed” about the recent rise in coronavirus cases, hospitalisations and deaths. The public health body released new guidance recommending against all travel for the holiday next week.
New York City will probably halt indoor dining at restaurants and bars and close gyms within “a week or two”. The warning from mayor Bill de Blasio came less than a day after he ordered public schools in New York City to close and shift to online learning after the city’s seven-day average of coronavirus test positivity hit a hurdle rate of 3 per cent.
The French government is seeking to delay Black Friday shopping promotions until the country’s high-street shops reopen from lockdown at the end of the month, and big retailers with online services have agreed — provided Amazon does the same. “The delay is aimed at ensuring the reopening of businesses in France in conditions of maximum health security,” said a joint statement from the finance ministry and retail federations.
Sales of previously owned homes in the US jumped last month to the highest level in nearly 15 years as low mortgage rates and remote working continued to boost housing demand. Existing home sales jumped 4.3 per cent month on month to an annualised pace of 6.85m in October, the highest level since November 2005, the National Association of Realtors said.
Irish health officials have called for a cull of mink in the country’s three fur farms in a bid to block any potential spread of a mutated form of Covid-19. Ireland’s agriculture department said it was engaging with mink farmers “to consider the next steps” after receiving a letter from the country’s chief medical officer.
Most foreign investors have cancelled, reduced or paused their investment in the UK, pointing to lost growth potential as the economy struggles to recover, according to a survey by consultancy EY. The survey found that more than one in three investors have cut their planned 2020 investment in the UK, another 17 per cent have paused and 5 per cent have cancelled altogether.
High-level Brexit talks have been suspended after it was discovered that a member of the EU negotiating team has Covid-19. The EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said that teams of officials will continue to work on the text of a trade deal but that he and his UK counterpart David Frost had “decided to suspend the negotiations at our level for a short period”.
Surveillance cameras in the UK have risen 8 per cent, or one for every 13 people, since last year as security-conscious, housebound Britons have taken advantage of lower prices to install domestic systems. Britain may have as many as 5.2m CCTV cameras, from 4.8m in 2019, ranking behind China, the US and Germany.
Another 742,000 Americans filed for their first ever unemployment benefits last week, as the number of claims increased for the first time in five weeks while the US grapples with a record rise in coronavirus cases and new restrictions. The increase of 31,000 in weekly jobless claims came alongside an increase of 23,863 in claims for federal pandemic unemployment assistance, the US labour department said.
Countries that acted quickly to contain coronavirus and had plenty of compliance from their populations did better at limiting the spread of infections and mitigating the economic impact, according to an analysis by the OECD. South Korea, Finland, Norway and Estonia were among the best performers, the Paris-based organisation of industrialised nations concluded.