October 13 coronavirus news

European Union countries have agreed to a set of criteria to make the reporting of coronavirus cases and travel restrictions easier to understand.

The EU hopes they will make travel more predictable, and help prevent further disruption caused by the pandemic. 

The recommendations adopted Tuesday include a new weekly "traffic light" map that will be published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) showing countries' different epidemiological situations. 

The three categories for countries are:

The categories will be based on a clear set of comparable data from each country. 

The new guidelines also set out how much notice should be given when travel restrictions are to be applied when a country moves from one category to another.

A member state intending to apply restrictions should inform the affected country and the European Commission at least 48 hours in advance. Members of the public and businesses should then be given clear, comprehensive and timely information at least 24 hours before new restrictions come into place. 

The recommendations are not legally binding, and the decision whether to implement them remains up to each member state.

These European countries are seeing rises in Covid-19 cases:

Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche plans to launch a Covid-19 antigen test to support high-volume testing for laboratories by end of 2020, according to a news release from the company on Tuesday. 

Roche also agreed to obtain an emergency tax approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.

France's Covid positivity rate -- the percentage of tests that come back positive -- is continuing to rise and has now reached 12.8%, the country's health authority said on Monday evening.

The rate, a key indicator of how fast the virus is spreading, now stands at more than double what it was a month ago -- 5.4% on September 12.

As of Monday night, 1,539 Covid patients were in intensive care in French hospitals. The last time the country had more than 1,500 Covid patients in the ICU was May 27, when the tally reached 1,501.   

Paris: The capital is faring worse that the rest of the country, with an incidence rate of 413.2 cases per 100,000 in the city versus a national average of 166, according to the Paris region health authority.

More than 40% of ICU beds in the Paris region are occupied by Covid patients, well above the 30% threshold used to decide when areas or cities should be placed in the "maximum alert" category. 

The Defense Council – a meeting of key ministers chaired by President Emmanuel Macron – is due to meet later Tuesday to discuss the next measures to be taken to slow the spread of the virus. 

Government ministers have reiterated that all measures should be considered while the circulation of the virus continues to increase, including curfews and localized lockdowns.

President Macron is expected to give a primetime television interview on Wednesday evening local time.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said a second wave of coronavirus was sweeping the country, describing it as a "national outbreak" in a tweet early on Tuesday.­

Cases of Covid-19 in El Salvador reached a peak on August 9, when the country reported a record number of 449 new daily cases.

As of Tuesday, El Salvador has recorded 30,480 cases of coronavirus and 899 virus-related deaths, according to official data. 

Russia reported 13,868 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday -- another record-high daily increase, according to data from the country’s coronavirus response center.

Moscow is the worst affected city with 4,618 new cases -- also a record-high daily increase.

The total number of coronavirus cases in Russia as of October 13 is 1,326,178.

Russian officials have previously indicated that growing numbers might "require additional action" from the government, but so far haven't clarified whether they will reinstate measures similar to those imposed in the spring, when the country was officially reporting 10,000-12,000 cases a day.

Anna Popova, the head of Russia's health and consumer rights agency Rospotrebnadzor, said Tuesday the regulator sees "no sense" in shutting down the economy.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Friday that this week would be "crucial" in any decisions to impose stricter coronavirus restrictions.

"Social distance." It's a phrase that's become a mantra of the pandemic. We see the signs everywhere telling us to stay six feet apart, emphasizing the need for physical separation. While this is an important message to help keep us all safe, the phrase has it all wrong. We don't need to be socially distant. Physically apart, yes, but that social connection is exactly what we all need during this pandemic.

On September 25, 2000, when Hines was 19 years old, he walked to the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and as he stared down into the water, he waited for someone, anyone to offer a kind word or even a friendly glance. That never happened. Hines jumped.

Hines says even though we may not be able to physically reach out, put our hand on someone's shoulder, we can still offer those moments of support that could change the trajectory of someone's life.

"We have got to think of the people in our lives that don't have someone physically next to them to, to hold on to," he said. "And we've got to be the people to make that phone call and make it on a regular basis."

Here are ways Hines says we can all make sure we stay in this together:

How to get help: In the US, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.

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Like many travelers around the world, Jesse Takayama found his dream trip thwarted by the spread of Covid-19. But after an unexpected seven-month stay in Peru, he is finally crossing "visit Machu Picchu" off of his bucket list.

Takayama, a native of Osaka, Japan, arrived in the Peruvian town of Aguas Calientes on March 14. He already had his entry ticket and permit to enter the UNESCO World Heritage site on March 16.

Then, the Peruvian government opted to close the site -- and Takayama was stranded.

Since then, Takayama has become a local in Aguas Calientes, where he has been renting an apartment for the past seven months. However, as he started to run out of money, it looked like Takayama would have to head back home without ever having used his Machu Picchu ticket.

Enter Andean Roots Peru, a local tour company. With help from the national Ministry of Culture, Takayama was given special permission to enter Machu Picchu -- and to have the normally crowded site nearly all to himself. He was accompanied by two photographers who documented the experience.

"The Japanese citizen has entered together with our head of the park so that he can do this before returning to his country," Peru's Minister of Culture Alejandro Neyra told reporters.

While the world struggles to manage the initial waves of death and disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is mounting evidence accumulating that "a second wave" linked to rising rates of mental health and substance use disorders could be building, according to an article published Monday in the medical journal JAMA.

"A second wave of devastation is imminent, attributable to mental health consequences of Covid-19," wrote authors Dr. Naomi Simon, Dr. Glenn Saxe and Dr. Charles Marmar, all from New York University's Grossman School of Medicine.

"The magnitude of this second wave is likely to overwhelm the already frayed mental health system, leading to access problems, particularly for the most vulnerable persons."

This second mental health wave, the researchers suggested, will bring further challenges, such as increased deaths from suicide and drug overdoses, and will have a disproportionate effect on the same groups that the first wave did: Black and Hispanic people, older adults, lower socioeconomic groups and health care workers.

Of central concern, the authors wrote, is "the transformation of normal grief and distress into prolonged grief and major depressive disorder and symptoms of posttraumatic health disorder."

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The UK government is accused of ignoring its own scientists, who three weeks ago suggested considering a so-called “circuit-breaker,” a short lockdown to bring coronavirus incidence levels down.

The group also warned that other measures would be required if schools stayed open.

Its recommended actions included the circuit-breaker lockdown, widespread work-from-home practices, and the closure of bars, restaurants, gyms and other personal services.

This document wasn't published until after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid out new coronavirus regulations in parliament on Monday.