TOP HEADLINES

• The EU has so far failed to agree a rescue package for virus-hit countries during a third day of talks. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has accused his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte of having a personal grudge against him.

• Czechia has announced a record number of active cases, with 4,764 topping the previous high of 4,737 in April. Many of the new cases are at a mine in the north-east of the country. However, the number of people in hospital (135) is lower than in April's peak, when the maximum was around 450.  

• UK prime minister Boris Johnson said he does not want to impose a second national lockdown in the event of another coronavirus outbreak. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Johnson compared a nationwide shutdown to a "nuclear deterrent" and said that he does not think that the country will be in that situation again.

• Millions of people remain under a stay-at-home order in the Spanish region of Catalonia. The region, which includes Barcelona, has again recorded a daily COVID-19 infection figure of 1,226. 

• More than 200,000 seafarers have been left in limbo and unable to return home due to coronavirus border closures and lockdowns.

• England's coronavirus death toll may have been overstated as Public Health England (PHE) has been including anyone who has ever tested positive for the virus, even if they died from other causes. Health secretary Matt Hancock has launched an urgent review. 

• France is watching coronavirus clusters in neighboring Spain very closely, said prime minister Jean Castex, just a month after the border between the two countries was reopened. 

• England's contact tracers have only reached about 50 percent of people who have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19 in an area of Lancashire where cases are rising. 

• The lockdown at home order for 70,000 people around Lisbon in Portugal, which has been in place since 1 July, has been extended until the end of the month. 

• Russia's ambassador to Britain, Andrei Kelin, has rejected allegations that the country's intelligence service sought to steal information about a coronavirus vaccine. Intelligence agencies in the US, Britain and Canada say the hacking group APT29, suspected to be a part of Russian intelligence, have been using malicious software to attack academic and pharmaceutical research institutions involved in COVID-19 vaccine development. 

• The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, says anyone can now use public transport at any time in England, removing previous restrictions. Government advice says that people may use public transport but encourages them to use other means of transport wherever possible. 

• A potential cluster of COVID-19 cases is being investigated in Scotland at a call centre which carries out coronavirus contact tracing for Public Health England (PHE). 

• More than 600,000 people globally have died of COVID-19, with the U.S. suffering nearly a quarter of them, according to Johns Hopkins University.

• The World Health Organization announced that Saturday's single-day increase in global COVID-19 cases was the largest so far, with a 24-hour rise of almost 260,000 taking the infection total to 14.3 million. The sharpest increases were in the U.S., Brazil, India and South Africa.

FROM OUR GLOBAL COLLEAGUES
 

CGTN Europe podcast: Notes on a pandemic: Science rules

CGTN China: Beijing downgrades COVID-19 emergency response level from II to III

CGTN America: U.S. babies infected by COVID-19, UN warns of extreme poverty

CGTN Africa: More than 2,000 health workers in Ghana test positive

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