Coronavirus live news: Trump aide Stephen Miller tests positive as White House outbreak spreads

8.30pm EDT 20:30

New Zealand eliminates domestic spread of coronavirus for second time

Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian:

New Zealand appears to have, for a second time, stamped out the domestic spread of Covid-19, with no active cases recorded in the community on Wednesday, health officials said.

The country recorded three new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, all diagnosed in travellers returning to New Zealand who remain in quarantine at government-run isolation facilities. Strict rules govern who can enter New Zealand and all travellers must stay in managed quarantine for two weeks, during which they are tested twice for the virus.

There are 37 cases of the coronavirus at the isolation hotels.

But as of Wednesday, the Ministry of Health said in a statement, there are no longer any active cases in the community after the last remaining sufferers recovered.

New Zealand declared itself free of Covid-19 in June, but an August outbreak in Auckland sent the largest city back into a strict lockdown. Restrictions have gradually eased on the city and will be lifted entirely on Thursday.

After entering a stringent, early lockdown in March and April when New Zealand had recorded comparatively few cases, the country has seen 25 deaths from the virus.

There have been 1,505 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand. One person is in hospital.

8.12pm EDT 20:12

Brazil registers highest number of new cases in almost a month

Brazil on Tuesday registered 41,906 new cases of Covid-19, the highest number for a single day since 11 September, the health ministry said. The number of deaths rose by 819 to 147,494, the second highest death toll in the world.

8.09pm EDT 20:09

A reminder that Stephen Miller, the top trump aide who has just become the latest White House official to test positive for coronavirus, shared an umbrella with Hope Hicks the day before she tested positive:

Assistant to the President and Director of Oval Office Operations Nicholas Luna, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller, and counselor to President Hope Hicks walk to Marine One to depart from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on 30 September 2020. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

7.39pm EDT 19:39

Biden says debate next week should not go ahead if Trump still has Covid

AP is reporting that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says there should not be a presidential debate next week if Trump still has coronavirus:

7.33pm EDT 19:33

Stephen Miller testing positive for coronavirus places greater pressure on vice president Mike Pence to justify not quarantining.

As Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs (who broke the story that Hope Hicks had tested positive) points out, Katie Miller – Pence’s press secretary and Stephen Miller’s wife – flew to Utah with Pence.

However, she has already had coronavirus, so it is unclear whether she could pass on a new infection. While it is rare, some cases of re-infection have been recorded over the course of the pandemic.

7.23pm EDT 19:23

Record hospitalisations in six US states

Six US states reported record numbers of patients hospitalised with Covid-19, including Wisconsin, where officials on Tuesday issued a new order limiting the size of indoor public gatherings, Reuters reports.

The surge of hospitalisations and new cases in some states coincides with the president Donald Trump and several members of his White House staff testing positive for coronavirus. Trump’s doctors on Tuesday said he was not displaying any acute symptoms after he left the Walter Reed Medical Center, where he was treated for three days.

The rise in reported hospitalisations on Monday hit states in the Midwest the hardest, with Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming reporting their highest figures, according to a Reuters tally. Wisconsin has 782 hospitalised patients, compared with 433 two weeks ago.

Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services issued a directive that gatherings will be limited to no more than 25% of a room or building’s total occupancy.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said in a statement:

We’re in a crisis right now and need to immediately change our behaviour to save lives.

We are continuing to experience a surge in cases and many of our hospitals are overwhelmed, and I believe limiting indoor public gatherings will help slow the spread of this virus.

7.12pm EDT 19:12

Top Trump aide Stephen Miller tests positive for coronavirus

Senior policy adviser to President Donald Trump Stephen Miller has tested positive for coronavirus, the latest in a string of officials caught up in the White House outbreak.

In a statement, Miller said, “Over the last 5 days I have been working remotely and self-isolating, testing negative every day through yesterday. Today, I tested positive for Covid-19 and am in quarantine”.

More than a dozen White House officials and others in the president’s orbit have now tested positive for the virus. Earlier this year, Miller’s wife, Katie Miller – who is Mike Pence’s press secretary – contracted the virus.

Updated at 9.44pm EDT

7.07pm EDT 19:07

Facebook, Twitter block Trump posts for violating misinformation rules

Facebook Inc and Twitter took action on posts from the US president Donald Trump on Tuesday for violating their rules against coronavirus misinformation by suggesting that Covid-19 was just like the flu [see 5.30pm].

Facebook took the post down but not before it was shared about 26,000 times, data from the company’s metric tool CrowdTangle showed.

“We remove incorrect information about the severity of Covid-19,” a company spokesman told Reuters.

The world’s largest social media company, which exempts politicians from its third-party fact-checking program, has rarely taken action against posts from the president.

Twitter disabled retweets on a similar tweet from Trump and added a warning label that said it broke its rules on “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19” but that it might be in the public interest for it to remain accessible.

During the 2019-2020 influenza season, the flu was associated with 22,000 deaths in the United States, according to estimates from the US CDC.

Since the first case of Covid-19 was recorded in the United States at the beginning of this year, more than 210,000 people in the country have died of the disease caused by the virus, the world’s highest death toll.

6.51pm EDT 18:51

Summary

Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage with me, Helen Sullivan.

I’ll be bringing you the latest pandemic developments from around the world for the next few hours.

Get in touch with news from where you live on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Six US states reported record numbers of patients hospitalised with Covid-19, including Wisconsin, where officials on Tuesday issued a new order limiting the size of indoor public gatherings.

The rise in reported hospitalisations on Monday hit states in the Midwest the hardest, with Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming reporting their highest figures, according to a Reuters tally. Wisconsin has 782 hospitalised patients, compared with 433 two weeks ago.

Trump meanwhile suggested in posts on Facebook and Twitter that Covid-19 was just like the flu, prompting the platforms to take action against the posts for violating their rules against coronavirus misinformation.