Wave of new cases crashes across US, Europe as winter looms

The United States, Russia, France and many other countries are setting records for coronavirus infections as a tidal wave of cases washes over parts of the Northern Hemisphere, forcing some countries to impose new curbs, report agencies.
More than 43.91 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,166,418 have died, according to Worldometers tally.
With a jump of 36,370 fresh COVID-19 cases in a day India reported the lowest number of new coronavirus infections in the country since mid-July, taking its tally to 7.95 million, government data shows. July 18 was the last time India reported less than 36,000 cases with 34,884 cases.
Daily infections in Brazil are also declining.
The gloom weighed on global financial markets on Monday as surging infections clouded the economic outlook.
US stocks had their worst day in four weeks over the double whammy of record coronavirus cases and political deadlock in negotiations to provide more economic aid.
Report that a vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca produced immune responses in both elderly and young people offered some positive news as autumn turns to winter in northern countries and more people socialise indoors.
But British Health Secretary Matt Hancock cautioned that the vaccine would not be widely available until next year and said, "We're not there yet".
Any vaccine faces both scientific and public relations hurdles. Surveys have shown only about half of Americans would get a COVID-19 vaccination due to concerns about safety, effectiveness and the approval process.
In the United States, the number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients is at a two-month high, straining health care systems in some states.
The number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States last week rose 24 per cent while the number of tests performed rose 5.5 per cent, according to a Reuters analysis.
In Europe the picture was unrelentingly grim as a string of countries reported record increases, led by France, which posted more than 50,000 daily cases for the first time on Sunday, while the continent passed the threshold of 250,000 deaths.
Governments have been desperate to avoid the lockdowns which curbed the disease earlier in the year at the cost of shutting down their entire economies. But the steady rise in new cases has forced many in Europe to tighten curbs.
Meanwhile, Japan's cabinet approved a plan on Tuesday to use public funds to provide novel coronavirus vaccines to the public for free.
The plan also calls for the government to bear the cost of any health damage caused by a vaccine, according to a document posted on the health ministry's website.
Another report adds: Among health care workers, nurses in particular have been at significant risk of contracting COVID-19, according to a new analysis of hospitalised patients by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The findings were released Monday as a surge of new hospitalizations swept the country, with several states hitting record levels of cases.
About 6% of adults hospitalised from March through May were health care workers, according to the researchers, with more than a third either nurses or nursing assistants. Roughly a quarter, or 27%, of those hospitalised workers were admitted to the intensive care unit, and 4% died during their hospital stay.
Meanwhile, another report adds: The hope for long-term immunity from COVID-19 was thrown into doubt on Tuesday as a large UK study concluded that protective antibodies in people fall "quite rapidly" after a coronavirus infection.