Coronavirus live news: South Africa eases restrictions; Philippines facing ‘learning crisis’, says Unicef | World news

New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, will remain under a strict lockdown for at least another week, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced, as the country battles to stamp out an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant.

The country reported 54 new cases of Covid-19 over the weekend, and 33 new cases on Monday – a slight rise from last week’s average. There have now been a total of 955 cases in the outbreak. While its overall trajectory is still moving well down from its peak, officials are concerned about a number of mystery cases that investigators and contact tracers have not yet been able to link with others.

On Monday, Ardern said that while there was no widespread transmission in Auckland, or the rest of the country, these unlinked cases may indicate there were chains of transmission in the wider community.

Tess McClure in Christchurch and Eva Corlett in Wellington:

Classrooms in the Philippines were silent on Monday as millions of schoolchildren hunkered down at home for a second year of remote lessons that experts fear will worsen an educational “crisis”.

While nearly every country in the world has partially or fully reopened schools to in-person classes, the Philippines has kept them closed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the UN says.

President Rodrigo Duterte has so far rejected proposals for a pilot reopening of primary and secondary schools for fear children could catch Covid-19 and infect elderly relatives.

More than 80% of parents are worried their children “are learning less”, said Isy Faingold, Unicef’s education chief in the Philippines, citing a recent survey:

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, on Sunday announced plans to introduce Covid-19 “vaccine passports” amid widespread scepticism of the jab, ahead of an easing of movement restrictions this week, AFP reports.

After sluggish vaccine procurement and a delayed rollout, Africa’s worst-hit country for Covid is struggling with low take-up, particularly among men.

In a televised address to the nation, Ramaphosa stressed that an immunised adult population was key to fully reopening the economy and avoiding a fourth infection wave.

In two weeks, we will “be providing further information on an approach to ‘vaccine passports’, which can be used as evidence of vaccination for various purposes and events”, he said without providing further details.

But he added that “a sustained decline in infections… over the last few weeks” would allow for an easing of confinement measures from Monday.

A night-time curfew will be shortened, starting at 11pm instead of 10, and limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings will be increased.

Restrictions on the sale of alcohol will also be relaxed, although face masks remain mandatory in public.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

A night-time curfew will be shortened, starting at 11pm instead of 10, and limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings will be increased.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said “a sustained decline in infections … over the last few weeks” meant restrictions could be eased. A night-time curfew will be shortened, starting at 11pm instead of 10, and limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings will be increased.

Restrictions on the sale of alcohol will also be relaxed, although face masks remain mandatory in public.

Meanwhile more than 80% of parents in the Philippines are worried their children “are learning less”, said Isy Faingold, Unicef’s education chief in the Philippines, citing a recent survey. While nearly every country in the world has partially or fully reopened schools to in-person classes, the Philippines has kept them closed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the UN says.

More on these stories shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:

• South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has announced plans to introduce Covid-19 “vaccine passports” amid widespread scepticism of vaccines in the country.
• Scotland’s first minister has ruled out the possibility of a second referendum on independence until all day-to-day Covid restrictions are lifted. Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly pledged to hold another poll by the end of 2023, but only if the public health crisis is over.
• Iraq has received a donation of more than 100,000 AstraZeneca doses from Italy via the Covid-19 vaccine-sharing scheme Covax, according to Unicef. More than 4 million people, around 10% of Iraq’s population, have already received at least one coronavirus vaccine jab.
• New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has purchased 500,000 doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine from Denmark.
• The US president, Joe Biden, will announce new steps to slow the spread of Covid-19 before the UN general assembly meets, the surgeon general, Dr Vivek Murthy, said.
• China reported 46 new Covid-19 cases on the mainland for 11 September, up from 25 a day earlier, the national health authority said.
• The UK health secretary, Sajid Javid, has confirmed that plans for vaccine passports in England are going to be scrapped. Javid also said he expects the booster vaccination programme for Covid-19 to start this month.
• Conservative MPs fear vaccine passports could still be made mandatory later this year amid a warning the NHS faces “the worst winter in living memory”, despite the health secretary’s announcement earlier today that they are to be scrapped.
• Sri Lanka is facing food shortages with customers in state-run supermarkets reporting long queues for items such as rice, sugar, lentils and milk powder.