CORONA VIRUS GLOBAL CASES

CONFIRMED 29,624,865 DEATHS 936,313 RECOVERED 20,129,145

■ A LOCAL lockdown will be imposed in the Rhondda Cynon Taf, south Wales The measures come into force after a cluster of cases were identified at a rugby club and pub in the area, following an outing to Doncaster Races. People will not be allowed to enter or leave the area without a reasonable excuse from 6pm tonight, the government announced yesterday.

■ SIR Keir Starmer missed Prime Minister’s Questions due to virus test results not being returned in 24 hours, deputy Angela Rayner told Boris Johnson as she stood in for the Labour leader yesterday. Sir Keir had been self-isolating since Monday, after one of his children fell ill. But he tweeted just before PMQs that the child’s test had come back negative that morning and he was in the clear.

■ MORE than 20million people who contracted Covid-19 have now recovered. That includes nearly 4million in India, 3.8million in Brazil and 2.5million in the US, reports Johns Hopkins University, which has tracked the disease worldwide since the first outbreak. But data for the UK is patchy, and the government has previously been criticised by scientists for not recording the number of recoveries here. Across the globe there have been nearly 30million cases, while the death toll is expected to top one million in the coming days.

■ HOSPITAL admissions for coronavirus patients have hit their highest levels in two months. A total of 153 people with Covid-19 were admitted on Sunday – the most since July 1 when it was 201. There were 866 confirmed Covid patients in hospital on Tuesday. Of those, 101 were in mechanical ventilation beds – the first time it has been above 100 since July 23, data shows.

■ THE UK’s revenge porn helpline has dealt with more cases so far this year than in the whole of 2019. A record 2,050 reports of sexual images of a person being shared without their consent had been made as of Monday – up 22 per cent from 1,685 last year. David Wright, of the UK Safer Internet Centre, said: ‘It’s worrying to think this could be the new normal.’