Coronavirus: Spain insists country is safe as two British ministers on holiday are caught out by sudden quarantine rule

Australia records largest number of deaths in one day

Government's handling of Spain quarantine 'shambolic', says Jonathan Ashworth

Spain‘s foreign minister has insisted the country is safe after the UK’s sudden imposition of a mandatory two-week quarantine for travellers, and said that any retaliatory measure would be taken “on the basis of epidemiological data”, adding: “This is not a political exercise.”

British foreign secretary Dominic Raab defended the move, described by Labour as “shambolic”, which also caught out two government ministers as they holidayed in Spain – transport secretary Grant Shapps and the minister for London, Paul Scully.

It came as North Korea identified what is believed to be its first case of Covid-19, in a defector who returned after three years, state news agency KCNA reported.

Australia recorded its largest number of deaths in one day, with all 10 taking place in Victoria, which suffered its second-highest tally of new cases despite a lockdown in Melbourne.

Please see below for how the day's events unfolded:

[26 July 2020 17:48 · Andy Gregory]

Colombian guerrillas are using coronavirus curfews to expand their control

Lorena Paredes sat in the passenger seat of a silver SUV as it sped through the night roads of Colombia’s Pacific coast. The 28-year-old lawyer was nervous. She was returning from a doctor’s appointment late – well past the start of a coronavirus curfew that can be as deadly as the virus itself, Anthony Faiola reports.

Armed groups in this violence-fraught nation of 50 million are imposing new levels of control during the coronavirus outbreak and enforcing some of the strictest lockdown measures in the world – with harsh penalties for violators. In the port city of Tumaco, a narco-trafficking hub in the Colombian southwest, guerrillas posted pamphlets declaring all curfew violators “military targets”. In a warning to all, a medical transport responding to a call after curfew was torched in early May, its driver and patient killed.

Ms Paredes, driven by a friend, thought she might get lucky. Then she saw the roadblock.

Enforcers with shotguns and automatic weapons opened fire, piercing the SUV. Ms Paredes felt stabs of pain as three bullets struck her leg. Her friend, hit in the face and arm, nevertheless managed to pull over, where the pair begged for their lives. They were released with a warning, to seek assistance on their own.

“Absolutely no one helped us,” Ms Paredes, a prosecutor in Tumaco who handles domestic abuse cases, said from the safety of a neighbouring city. “One person approached us because I screamed. I begged for help because my friend was bleeding out horribly. He came close to the window of our car and told us: ‘Hey, quiet, because here, it is prohibited to help.’”

Human rights groups, community leaders and government officials say a toxic slate of leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartels are using the outbreak to consolidate control over parts of a country still reeling from the aftermath of five decades of armed conflict. The increasingly violent competition shows the power of the pandemic to deepen pre-existing societal challenges and loosen the grip of government in fragile states.

[26 July 2020 18:05 · Andy Gregory]

Our reporter Kate Ng has more on the Spanish foreign minister's insistence that Spain is currently safe to visit - despite the UK's sudden decision to re-impose a quarantine on arrivals from the country.

“As in every other country, we are seeing outbreaks, which are perfectly under control,” Arancha Gonzalez Laya told reporters. “Most new cases are asymptomatic. This shows the great effort in identifying and controlling them.”

[26 July 2020 18:20 · Andy Gregory]

Mexican state health minister dies with Covid-19

Chihuahua's health minister, Dr Jesus Grajeda, has died, the state's governor has said, nearly two weeks after Grajeda was hospitalised with coronavirus.

"I have no words to express all my feelings in this moment, except for profound sadness," Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral wrote on Facebook on Sunday morning, saying Grajeda had died of heart failure.

With more than 385,000 confirmed cases and nearly 43,500 deaths as of Saturday, Mexico has the world's fourth-highest death toll from the coronavirus. Latin America is overtook North America on Sunday as the region most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

[26 July 2020 18:35 · Andy Gregory]

North Korea announces state of emergency and lockdown in border town after first suspected case

According to state media, North Korea has announced a state of emergency and a lockdown in a border town after someone with suspected coronavirus illegally crossed the border with South Korea, Maya Oppenheim reports.

Kim Jong-un has imposed a lockdown on the city of Kaesong which is close to the border with South Korea - warning “the vicious virus” may now have infiltrated the secretive country, state media said on Sunday.

The patient will be North Korea’s first official coronavirus case if the authorities confirm they definitely have tested positive for the virus.

North Korea, which is one of the most secretive and isolated countries in the world, has firmly stated it has had no cases of people with coronavirus but the claims have been challenged by experts.

The so-called hermit kingdom's lockdown was announced on Friday afternoon - with the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) saying the suspected virus patient was a runaway who fled to South Korea three years ago before illegally crossing the border back into the North early last week.

[26 July 2020 18:41 · Jane Dalton]

As hundreds of thousands of British holidaymakers in Spain prepare for two weeks of self-isolation on their return home, the travel industry is responding with fury to what is seen as another severe blow to its prospects, reports our travel correspondent, Simon Calder.

Charlie Cornish, chief executive of Manchester Airports Group, said: “The government is right to respond when infection rates spike in particular regions, as they are in Catalonia. But applying these changes to the whole of Spain is unnecessary and will cause huge disruption for passengers.

Gloria Guevara, chief executive of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said: “Painting an entire country with the same brush does not benefit anyone."