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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Molly Blackall (now),Damien Gayle , Matilda Boseley and Melissa Davey (earlier)

UK police contradict No 10 claims over lockdown warning - as it happened

South African National Defense Forces check people’s temperature in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township on 20 May 2020.
South African National Defense Forces check people’s temperature in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township on 20 May 2020. Photograph: Jérôme Delay/AP

We’ve fired up a brand new blog at the link below – head there for the latest live news:

Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll be taking you through the latest global developments in the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours.

Please do get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or email: helen.sullivan[at]theguardian.com.

I welcome your questions, comments, tips, and news.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps appeared visibly flustered when answering journalists’ questions on government aide Dominic Cummings’s lockdown breach in March.

Pressure has been mounting for the prime minister’s top adviser to resign or be fired after reports he breached lockdown rules to travel to a family home while sick with Covid-19:

Summary: Boris Johnson faces calls to sack chief advisor over lockdown breach and govt "cover up"

I’m going to be handing the blog over to my colleagues in Australia. Thank you all for joining me, on what has been at times a nail-biting few hours. A special thanks to all those who got in touch with tips and pointers, it’s always much appreciated.

I hope you’re all able to stay safe and well, wherever you are in the world.

Before I go, here’s a quick summary of some of the key developments over the past few hours:

  • New York’s daily death toll falls below 100 for first time since March, as Trump causes controversy with golfing trip.
  • India to organise special trains for migrant workers to get at least 3.6 million people who have been stranded in the cities, often walking hundreds of miles, home.
  • More than 40 infected a German religious gathering after reopening. Six were hospitalised after the service, which was was held on May 10, a few days after the reopening of places of worship in Germany.
  • Spanish death toll falls overtakes France for first time in 10 days. After confirming several hundred deaths on Friday, Spain’s death toll stood at 28,678 on Saturday, 346 more than France. This is the first time the Spanish toll has overtaken the French for ten days, giving Spain the world’s fourth-highest death toll after the United States, Britain and Italy.
  • Cyprus beaches reopen, but with social distancing measures in place and limits on water sports, as country records first day of zero new infections.

In the UK...

  • New witnesses say UK chief advisor broke lockdown twice. After a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Mirror found police had spoken to Boris Johnson’s chief aide Dominic Cummings after he made a journey of more than 200 miles from London to Durham during lockdown when he had coronavirus symptoms, new findings suggested he made at least two trips from London to Durham, and travelled to tourist hotspots in the north east of England.
  • Police contradict UK government claims over chief advisor. After Downing Street flatly denied that Cummings had any contact with police over his trip, Durham constabulary have confirmed that they did speak to Cummings over allegations that he broke the lockdown. This came as a serious blow to the UK government, who had said that “at no stage was [Cummings] or his family spoken to by the police about this matter”.
  • Calls mount for Cummings to be sacked. The reports have led to a chorus of calls for Cummings to be sacked, including from the leaders of the Liberal Democrats and SNP, while Labour called for an urgent investigation.

Updated

Government officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo have denied manipulating the country’s figures for coronavirus cases and deaths.

The controversy came as health officials announced the latest Covid-19 figures, reporting 63 deaths out 2,025 cases, mostly in the capital of Kinshasa. So far, 312 people have recovered.

Late on Friday, the government reported that a doctor and a hospital administrator had been arrested and later released over accusations of falsely declared coronavirus cases.

The arrests were made after “a controversy over a patient who died this month”, according to a government news bulletin.

The country’s Council of Ministers met on Friday after President Felix Tshisekedi asked the health minister to investigate rumours of fake patient deaths in connection with coronavirus.

“A negative media campaign is being waged against our country by some foreign media, with the aim of tarnishing its image in connection with the management of Covid-19,” the Council of Ministers said in the minutes of the meeting.

Updated

A former political advisor to prime minister John Major and Conservative leader William Hague has criticised the government’s handling of the Cummings controversy.

Daniel Finklestein, now a columnist and Conservative member of the House of Lords, tweeted that suggesting the chief aide was not in breach of lockdown restrictions “diminishes everyone”.

Finklestein suggested a better route was to apologise.

The vaccine being trialled at Oxford University has just a 50% chance of success, project leader Adrian Hill has told the Telegraph.

I’ll update you with more information as and when I get it...

Updated

“Muslims worldwide prepared to celebrate Eid under lockdown, with the strictest governments bringing in 24-hour curfews for the holiday – but across the world the slow march is continuing out of coronavirus quarantine.”

For an overview of key stories around the world, check out this global report from Emma Graham-Harrison:

Updated

For deeper analysis of the Dominic Cummings story, you can read this piece from my colleagues at the Observer:

The UK’s trace and track system will launch at the end of the week, Reuters are reporting, attributing the announcement to Downing Street.

The statement also said the public will be updated on coronavirus next week, with Reuters suggesting this will include schools and possibly non-essential retail.

Prime minister Johnson will hold a cabinet meeting on Monday to discuss easing lockdown.

“A test and trace system allows us to isolate new infections so that we can control the spread of this virus, which will be vital while coronavirus remains present in the UK,” a Downing Street spokesman said.

Updated

The Chinese government is sending a medical expert team to the Republic of the Congo to support the country’s coronavirus response, Chinese state media are reporting.

The British government have said they will “not waste their time” responding to what they describe as “inaccurate allegations” from “campaigning newspapers”.

However, they do not specify what they claim is inaccurate.

Updated

Thanks to everyone who’s getting in touch with tips, and my apologies if I haven’t been able to get back to you.

I am keen to look at developments all over the world - as well as the nail-biting news from the UK - so please do let me know if you something you think we should be reporting on this blog. You can drop me a message on Twitter.

Here is the statement we’ve received from Durham Constabulary in full:

Following a significant number of media enquiries over the weekend, Durham Constabulary can add the following detail.

On Tuesday, March 31, our officers were made aware that Dominic Cummings had travelled from London to Durham and was present at an address in the city.

At the request of Mr Cummings’ father, an officer made contact the following morning by telephone.

During that conversation, Mr Cummings’ father confirmed that his son had travelled with his family from London to the North-East and was self-isolating in part of the property.

Durham Constabulary deemed that no further action was required. However, the officer did provide advice in relation to security issues.

Police contradict UK government claims over warning to aide

Durham police have contracted the claims made by the British prime minister’s office that his chief adviser was not spoken to by police about allegations he had broken the lockdown, seriously undermining the government’s response to the reports.

Downing Street had previously said that police had not been in touch with Cummings over the allegations.

In a statement, the prime minister’s office said: “at no stage was he or his family spoken to by the police about this matter”.

Updated

British political parties call for PM's chief aide to be sacked

The Scottish National Party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford has described the fresh allegations against the British prime minister’s senior aide as “extraordinary”, and described Downing Street’s response as a “cover up”.

“If true, they raise serious questions for Dominic Cummings - and over Boris Johnson’s judgment,” he said in a statement. “The Prime Minister must come out of hiding, sack Mr Cummings, and then answer for his own role in this mess and the Downing Street cover-up.”

“Given the seriousness of these issues, the Cabinet Office inquiry should take place regardless of when Mr Cummings is removed from post. We need to know who knew what and why the public were kept in the dark for eight weeks over the rule-breaking,” he said. “Dominic Cummings broke multiple lockdown rules, possibly on multiple occasions, and polls show the majority of the public think he should go.”

“If Boris Johnson is to salvage any public confidence in his Government he must finally act and show Mr Cummings the door,” he added.

British Prime Minister’s Chief Advisor Dominic Cummings arrives home on May 23, 2020 in London, England.
British Prime Minister’s Chief Advisor Dominic Cummings arrives home on May 23, 2020 in London, England. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty Images

Meanwhile, acting leader of the Liberal Democrats joined calls for Cummings to be sacked.

Ed Davey aid: “If Dominic Cummings is now allowed to remain in place a moment longer, it will increasingly be the Prime Minister’s judgment that is in the spotlight.

“Surely Boris Johnson must now recognise the actions of his top adviser are an insult to the millions who have made huge personal sacrifices to stop the spread of coronavirus.

“Each minute the Prime Minister allows this scandal to drag on is another minute the Government is distracted from upscaling Britain’s testing capacity, securing PPE for frontline workers and ending tragic deaths in our care homes.”

Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Rachel Reeves shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Photograph: Parliament Live

It comes after the Labour Party wrote to the head of the civil service calling for an “urgent investigation” into the movements of Cummings during the lockdown.

In the letter to Sir Mark Sedwill, the party said that Downing Street’s explanation for Dominic Cummings’ journey from London to County Durham “raised more questions than they answer”.

Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, wrote: “The British people have made important and painful sacrifices to support the national effort, including being away from family in times of need.”

“It is therefore vital that the Government can reassure the public that its most senior figures have been adhering to the same rules as everyone else.”

Updated

In what appears to be a deliberate attempt at normalcy, Donald Trump has travelled to Trump National Golf Club for a round of golf.

It is the first time he’s done this since the White House declared a national emergency in March. Despite a rising death toll, Trump is keen to promote the idea that the US is returning to normality and is encouraging states to kick start their economies.

Donald Trump walks from a SUV upon return to the White House in Washington, DC on May 23, 2020. - Trump returned to the White House after spending the day at his Virginia golf club.
Donald Trump walks from a SUV upon return to the White House in Washington, DC on May 23, 2020. - Trump returned to the White House after spending the day at his Virginia golf club. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

You can read more here:

Updated

The number of confirmed cases in France has risen by 250 to 144,806 over the last 24 hours, health ministry figures show.

This is an increase of 0.2% - below the average 0.3% increase of the past seven days and well below the average 0.8% increase seen in the last week of lockdown.

France’s coronavirus death toll stood at 28,332, an increase of 117 compared to Thursday. Friday’s death toll data were not available, the ministry said.

The number of people in hospital with coronavirus in France fell by 205 to 17,178 on Saturday, continuing a gradual decline that has been ongoing for more than five weeks since a high of 32,292 on 14 April.

The number of people in intensive care also fell by 36 (or 2.1%) to 1,665. This has been continuing to fall for six weeks since the 8 April 8 peak of 7,148.

A woman, wearing protective mask, walks along a closed fashion shop in Paris, Saturday, May 23, 2020.
A woman, wearing protective mask, walks along a closed fashion shop in Paris, Saturday, May 23, 2020. Photograph: François Mori/AP

Beaches in Cyprus have reopened, as the country marks its first day of zero new cases of coronavirus since its first cases were reported on March 9.

Before today, residents had only been allowed to swim, but can now congregate on the beaches as long as they remain spaced apart. Only members of the same family can participate in water sports together.

People gather at Mackenzie beach in the coastal city of Larnaca on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus on May 23, 2020.
People gather at Mackenzie beach in the coastal city of Larnaca on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus on May 23, 2020. Photograph: Etienne Torbey/AFP/Getty Images

We’ve put the tables two metres apart,” Panayiotis Neokleous told AFP, owner of the Ammos beach club in the southern resort town of Larnaca.

“All the staff have taken the (COVID-19) test, they are all negative. Now we are all wearing protective masks, gloves and we disinfect our hands many times,” he said.

However, he warned that the summer was not going to be as prosperous as usual due to a lack of tourism.

“We are going to see a lot of restaurants and hotel businesses not going to make it and will have to close down,” he said.

The Taliban in Afghanistan have declared a three-day Eid ceasefire starting on Sunday, a spokesman for the group has tweeted.

It comes after fighting intensified between the warring sides despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“Do not carry out any offensive operations against the enemy anywhere, if any action is taken against you by the enemy, defend yourself,” wrote spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, adding that the ceasefire was declared solely for Eid festivities.

The Afghan government has just welcomed the ceasefire.

If you’d like to read more on this issue, check out this article from Jason Burke last month:

Updated

In case you missed it, here’s an explainer from our science editor Ian Sample on the obstacles to creating a coronavirus vaccine:

New witnesses: Cummings travelled outside of Durham during his trip

New testimony suggests Cummings left the home where he was staying in Durham to visit a town 30 miles away, the Guardian can reveal. He was allegedly spotted back in Durham on 19 April, days after he was photographed in London having recovered from the virus, indicating he made more than one trip between London and Durham.

In essence, not only has Cummings left London during lockdown, he’s allegedly also left Durham, returned to London, and travelled back again.

This follows transport secretary Grant Shapps telling the UK during the coronavirus briefing today that Cummings had stayed in Durham when he travelled there, shedding serious doubt over the government’s defence of Cummings.

Read the full story here:

Updated

One of Dominic Cumming’s close friends and colleagues, who he travels in to work with each day, lives just two streets away from him, the chief political reporter at the Financial Times has tweeted.

This has raised questions about why Cummings needed to travel over 200 miles away from London to get support. Downing Street, the prime ministers office, has said that Cummings’ sister shopped for the family.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported 1,595,885 cases of coronavirus, an increase of 24,268. The number of deaths had risen by 1,852 to 96,002.

The figures, which have just been announced, were correct as of 22 May 4pm ET, and compared with the same count a day earlier.

If you’re wondering about any discrepancies, it’s possible that the CDC figures do not reflect cases reported by individual states.

Updated

Thanks to all those getting in touch with tips and pointers, it’s very much appreciated.

If you spot something you think we should be reporting on in this blog, you can drop me a message on Twitter. I won’t always be able to reply, but will try to read everything!

A police commissioner and former Conservative councillor has criticised the government’s response to allegations that the British prime minister’s top aide broke lockdown restrictions, saying its approach “only emphasises an arrogance manifested in Cummings’ action”.

Simon Hayes, police commissioner for Hampshire, tweeted that it was “time to say a mistake was made, explain why and then move on”, saying that the “volume of identical high level response” was “damaging government and party’s reputation making more difficult fight for Boris”.

A chorus of MPs and cabinet members have come out in support of Cummings’ actions.

What's the controversy about Dominic Cummings?

Unsure of what’s going on with the British prime minister’s top aide? Here’s a quick summary to bring you up to speed:

  • Back in March, Boris Johnson’s most senior advisor, Dominic Cummings, drove 264 miles north of his home in London with his family despite having symptoms of coronavirus, and met at least one family member.
  • According to a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Mirror, police spoke to Cummings over the move after a member of the public spotted him and made a complaint.
  • 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s office, have issued a statement explaining Cummings’ travel. They say he was dropping off his young child to be cared for by relatives whilst he and his wife were unwell.
  • Almost in unison, chorus of Conservative MPs have tweeted their support for Cummings, and Johnson and the Cabinet have also given their support, saying he has not broken the rules.
  • Cummings has told reporters he will “obviously not” be considering his position.
  • There has been a massive backlash and social media storm, with many calls for him to resign.

I’ll update you with any key developments on the story, as and when they unfold.

A snap poll by YouGov has found that 68% of Britons think Dominic Cummings broke coronavirus rules by taking his family to Durham, and another 52% think he should resign.

The survey of 3,707 adults, carried out on Saturday, showed just 28% think he should stay on, with 20% on the fence.

Police have arrested around 60 demonstrators at an anti-lockdown protest in Frankfurt, German newspaper Tagesspiegel report.

Two police officers were slightly injured, the paper added.

Updated

If you’d like to catch up with the key developments in the pandemic over the last few hours, here’s a summary to bring you up to speed:

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Canada has risen to 82,892 from 81,765 on Friday.

The country’s death toll now stands at 6,277, up from 6,180.

Correction: The French health ministry has said that the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has fallen by 205 to 17,178, not risen, as was previously reported. This is a continuation of its downward trend.

I’m not sure if the error has come from the news agency Reuters, or the health ministry itself, but we’ve just received the correction. Apologies on whoever’s behalf!

Updated

Dominic Cummings, the top aide to British prime minister Boris Johnson, has told reporters that we will “obviously not” consider resigning over allegations he broke lockdown rules in March.

“I behaved reasonably and legally,” Cummings told reporters outside his house after telling them to stay 2 metres apart in accordance with government guidelines, Reuters are reporting.

Asked if he would consider his position, he said: “Obviously not.”

“You guys are probably all about as right about that as you were about Brexit: do you remember how right you all were about that?” Cummings said.

You can read more on the Cummings controversy here:

Updated

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Spain has risen to 235,290 - up from 234,824 on Friday, the health ministry has said.

The death toll has risen by 48, bringing the total to 28,678.

Updated

US president Donald Trump plans to attend the launching of US astronauts into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday.

The event will mark the first time since the space shuttle program ended in 2011 that American astronauts will launch into space on an American rocket from American soil.

It is also the first time that a private company - rather than NASA - is running the operation. Elon Musks SpaceX is the conductor and NASA the customer.

The astronauts are scheduled to blast off at 4:33 p.m. EDT from launch pad 39A, the same one the Apollo astronauts used to get to the moon.

More than 40 people have been infected with coronavirus after attending at a mass in Frankfurt, Germany earlier this month.

Six were admitted to hospital. The service was held on May 10, a few days after the reopening of places of worship in Germany, the daily Frankfurter Rundschau reported.

UK daily briefing

The UK’s (rather tense) daily coronavirus briefing, hosted by deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries and and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, has just ended.

It included questions from the press and public. Unsurprisingly, many of these revolved around allegations that the PM’s advisor Dominic Cummings broke the lockdown rules back in March. Here’s a summary of the key points:

  • The government has announced it will put £283m into moving public transport back to a full timetable. However, those who can should still work from home, and those who can should still avoid all forms of public transport. Even a fully restored service will only be capable of carrying, at best, one fifth of normal capacity, to allow for social distancing.
  • There have been a further 282 recorded deaths, bringing the UK’s total death toll to 36,675. Important to note - the government publishes the death toll based on those who definitely had Covid-19; broader figures based on suspected coronavirus deaths is larger. On average, the number of deaths is starting to come down, Harries said.
  • The “steady, slow” downward trend in hospital admissions in England is continuing. Across all four nations, the percentage of mechanical ventilator beds occupied by patients with Covid-19 is also falling.
  • Testing for under 5s will be “progressed” going forward, said Harries, after a question on whether they’ll be able to get tested once early years facilities are reopened. Harries said it is known that children rarely become ill with Covid-19 and there are signals that the transmission from children is reduced.

Shapps was grilled on Cummings

  • Shapps dodged a question on whether or not the PM knew of Dominic Cummings’ 400km journey, simply saying: “the important thing is that everyone remains in the same place whilst they are in lockdown”. He also said the welfare of Cummings’ 4 year old child was “the important thing” - this is a reference to the explanation given by Downing Street for Cummings’ journey.
  • The PM gives Cummings his full support.
  • Asked if, like Cummings, those who become ill with the virus can go closer to relatives, Shapps says if you’re symptomatic, you have to get yourself locked down in the most practical way, and that this will be different depending on different family circumstances.
  • If you want more detail, you can read some of the exchanges here and here.

Updated

The death toll in Italy has risen by 119 to 32,735, the third highest in the world after the US and the UK.

There have been another 669 confirmed cases, taking the total to 229,372, the sixth highest global tally behind those of the US, Russia, Spain, Britain and Brazil. This is a marginal increase from 652 new cases on Friday.

There were 572 people in intensive care on Saturday, down from 595 on Friday, maintaining a long-running decline. Of those originally infected, 138,840 were declared recovered, against 136,720 a day earlier.

Updated

Another 84 deaths have been recorded in New York – 62 in hospitals and 22 in nursing homes. It’s “still a tragedy”, says the state governor, Andrew Cuomo, but the figure had been over 100 for the past five days, so this is a significant drop.

He is encouraging everyone to wear a mask. “I am telling you, those masks can save your life. Those masks can save another person’s life,” he said.

He said emergency room health professionals have lower rate of infection than the general public “because the masks work”.

Updated

Authorities in Sudan are working to create a police force to protect health facilities, the prime minister’s office said on Saturday. The government will also introduce a draft bill offering protection to health workers.

This development appears to be in response to a threat from doctors on Thursday to go on strike to pressure the authorities to offer greater protection for health workers and facilities.

At least two dozen attacks on healthcare workers and facilities have taken place in the past two months across the country, according to a tally by the Sudan doctors committee. Last month there was a riot at a hospital in the city of Omdurman after a rumour circulated that it would take coronavirus patients.

The prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, met the doctors on Friday in an attempt to find a solution for the repeated attacks.

Sudan has reported at least 63 deaths from coronavirus, and around 3,380 confirmed cases.

Updated

The UK’s daily coronavirus is under way, led by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps. It comes as Downing Street is under pressure to sack top adviser Dominic Cummings after reports that he breached lockdown rules in March.

My colleague Lucy Campbell is blogging the briefing here, if you’d like to follow it live. I’ll post a summary here after it’s finished.

Updated

Thailand begins vaccine tests on monkeys

Thailand has begun testing a coronavirus vaccine on monkeys after a positive trial in mice, the country’s minister of higher education, science and research and innovation has said.

Suvit Maesincee said researchers hoped to have a “clearer outcome” of the effectiveness of the vaccine by September.

“This project is for the human race, not just Thais. The prime minister [Prayuth Chan-ocha] has outlined a policy that we must develop a vaccine and join the world community workforce on this,” Suvit told reporters on Saturday.

The Thai vaccine uses messenger RNA, which prompts body cells to produce antigens that spur the immune system into action.

This vaccine is one of at least 100 in works worldwide, and is being developed by the National Vaccine Institute, the Department of Medical Science and Chulalongkorn University’s vaccine research centre.

Updated

A new coronavirus test that gives results in just over an hour is being trialled in London hospitals.

Currently, the UK is mainly relying on laboratory tests that take around 48 hours to give a result.

The new test is based on the same design as the DNA test developed at Imperial College London, and was approved for clinical use at the end of April after successful trials.

Updated

Hello everyone, I’m Molly Blackall, taking over the blog for the next few hours.

If you see something you think we should be reporting on in this blog, feel free to drop me a message on Twitter. I won’t be able to reply to everything, but will try to read it all. Thanks!

Summary

Key developments in the global coronavirus outbreak today include:

  • The coronavirus pandemic “appears to be taking a different pathway in Africa,” the World Health Organization said, after it took 14 weeks for the continent to reach 100,000 cases and 3,100 deaths. “Case numbers have not grown at the same exponential rate as in other regions and so far Africa has not experienced the high mortality seen in some parts of the world,” the agency said.
  • France has announced it will bring in a reciprocal 14-day quarantine for all visitors from the UK from 8 June, the same day that the UK imposes quarantine on all those coming into the country from abroad. However, unlike in Britain, visitors will be asked to voluntarily self-quarantine at home.
  • Spain will reopen to overseas tourists from July, the prime minister announced on Saturday afternoon, adding that the government would guarantee the safety of visitors and locals as the country emerges from one of Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns. The prime minister said central and regional governments had been planning and coordinating the return to tourism for weeks.
  • China has recorded no new confirmed cases for the first time since the outbreak began. Beijing’s National Health Commission said on Saturday there were only two suspected cases in mainland China: in Shanghai and in the north-eastern Jilin province. New asymptomatic cases fell to 28, from 35 a day earlier, it said.
  • Downing Street is facing accusations of a cover-up over a 264-mile journey by the prime minister’s chief adviser at the height of the national lockdown. There were reports that No 10 knew Dominic Cummings had made the trip to Durham, a northern city, after developing coronavirus symptoms.
  • The 102-year-old firm Hertz has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US after its business all but vanished during the pandemic. Hertz said in a US court filing on Friday it had voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 reorganisation. Its international operating regions including Europe, Australia and New Zealand were not included in the proceedings.

Updated

They’ve picked apart the holiday experience, lingering on moments such as breakfast buffets, poolside lounging and golf tee times. As officials in Spain’s Canary Islands gear up to receive tourists as early as July, every aspect of travel is being recast against the backdrop of Covid-19, writes Ashifa Kassam in Madrid.

“We call it a global laboratory for safe tourism,” Cristina del Río Fresen, of the region’s tourism ministry, told the Observer. “We’re analysing every link in the chain – everything that has anything to do with the tourist experience, we want to make it safe from a health perspective.”

Since the start of this month, she has led a team of more than 200 people, including health and industry professionals, to hammer out protocols for everything from hotels to restaurants and museums. The aim is to rebrand the islands, which include Lanzarote and Tenerife, as tourist destinations that offer safety along with the usual sun, sand and sea.

The new protocols, which begin in July, embrace physical distancing: hotel common areas are set to be enlarged and sunbeds moved apart; buffet breakfasts will be served, making use of partitions to separate guests from the food and extra serving staff; and all-inclusive vacations will rely on either automated machines or extra staff to serve drinks.

Updated

India will organise special trains to get at least 3.6 million migrant workers stranded by the pandemic lockdown back home, authorities said on Saturday, AFP reports.

With fears rising over the spread of the disease in Mumbai and other major cities, the government said 2,600 special trains would run over the next 10 days to help the workers who lost jobs when the lockdown started two months ago.

Millions of migrant workers have been stranded in the densely populated cities and many have walked hundreds of miles to get home.

Vinod Kumar Yadav, the chair of the Indian Railway Board, said about 80% of the new shamrik (labourer) trains would go to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states, the biggest source of domestic migrant workers. About 4 million people have already been moved on the special trains.

Migrant workers look out a train window at Hyderabad rail station.
Migrant workers look out a train window at Hyderabad rail station. Photograph: Mahesh Kumar A/AP

The prime minister, Narendra Modi, is gradually easing the world’s biggest lockdown, which has caused mass unemployment among India’s 1.3 billion population.

But at the same time, the number of new cases is rising each day, with at least 6,600 reported Saturday. The health ministry has confirmed at least 125,101 cases and 3,720 deaths.

Experts say the outbreak will not peak in India until June or July and authorities face an increasing struggle to contain the pandemic in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities that account for the bulk of cases.

Updated

A 77-year-old woman became the first coronavirus victim in Gaza on Saturday after she died at a field hospital set up near the Rafah border crossing after arriving from Egypt.

There have been persistent fears that a widespread outbreak in the Gaza Strip could prove disastrous.

According to the Associated Press, Gaza’s healthcare system is fraying under the weight of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, internal Palestinian division and repeated wars and skirmishes between Israel and Palestinian militant groups.

Authorities in the strip reported 35 confirmed new cases this week, bringing the total to 55. All of the infected have been in designated quarantine and isolation facilities hosting returnees from abroad. There were no reports of community transmission of the virus.

Updated

The number of coronavirus cases in the Netherlands passed 45,000on Saturday, after 176 more people tested positive for the virus.

According to the latest update from the Dutch public health institute, the total number of confirmed cases in the Netherlands since the pandemic first spread there is 45,064. Of those, 5,811 have died, with 23 more deaths announced on Saturday.

Updated

La Liga to return in June

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has given the green light for football to return in the week beginning 8 June, allowing La Liga to go ahead with plans to restart the first division with the Seville derby on Friday 12 June. A formal announcement on the date of the return to competition will be made by the league’s president, Javier Tebas, in the next couple of days.

Sánchez made the announcement during a press conference on Saturday afternoon in which he said the “worst has passed” and Spain was now at “the end of the tunnel”, allowing for a further relaxing of the state of alarm that was first declared on 14 March.

“The time has come to recover some of the activities that were suspended,” Sánchez said. “I want to inform you that, in agreement with the CSD [the sports council] and the ministry of health, the government has given the Spanish professional league the green light to return to playing. From the week of 8 June, La Liga will return.”

Updated

Medics walk past a mural depicting a nurse, a doctor and a soldier fighting against the coronavirus pandemic, painted by the street artist Slimjoe, outside the Emilie Muller hospital in Mulhouse, eastern France
Medics walk past a mural depicting a nurse, a doctor and a soldier fighting against the coronavirus pandemic, painted by the street artist Slimjoe, outside the Emilie Muller hospital in Mulhouse, eastern France. Photograph: Sébastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Beaches in Portugal were packed on Saturday as thousands flocked to the coast for the first state-sanctioned beach weekend of the year, Reuters reports.

The nation of 10 million people has reported just 30,471 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,302 deaths, a small fraction of neighbouring Spain’s 28,628 fatalities.

Restrictions imposed during a six-week state of emergency starting 18 March are being lifted in 15-day intervals, as long as the number of cases keeps falling.

Some confusion was caused after the prime minister, António Costa, announced on 15 May that beaches would open on 6 June, and a government decree two days later stated people could go to the beach from the beginning of this week.

People frolic at Carcavelos beach in Cascais
People frolic at Carcavelos beach in Cascais. Photograph: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

Updated

Vietnam recorded no new cases of coronavirus for a fifth consecutive day on Saturday, and has recorded no local transmission of the virus for 37 days straight, Xinhua reports.

The country, which took extreme measures to curb the spread of the virus, has reported no deaths from Covid-19 so far. The health ministry said 14,700 people were being monitored and quarantined, according to the report by the Chinese news agency.

In total, Vietnam has recorded 324 confirmed cases of coronavirus, of which 267 have recovered and 57 remain active patients, VN Express reported.

Women look at a phone while drink a beer at Bia Hoi corner in the Old Quarter of Hanoi.
Women look at a phone while drink a beer at Bia Hoi corner in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Photograph: Luong Thai Linh/EPA

Doctors are still battling to save the life of a 43-year-old British man who is Vietnam’s most seriously ill coronavirus patient.

The man, designated patient 91, was transferred on Friday night from the Ho Chi Minh city hospital for tropical diseases to Cho Ray hospital after he was confirmed to be free of the coronavirus. However, his condition remains critical and he has only 30% lung function, up from 10% a week ago.

Updated

Spain to reopen to foreign tourists from July

Spain will reopen to overseas tourists from July, the prime minister announced on Saturday afternoon, adding that the government would guarantee the safety of visitors and locals as the country emerges from one of Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns, write Sam Jones in Madrid and Stephen Burgen in Barcelona.

Pedro Sánchez also said a €3bn minimum basic income scheme to help families most affected by the pandemic would come into effect in the next few weeks.

Sánchez said:

As you know, Spain receives more than 80 million visitors a year. And that is why I am announcing that from July, Spain will reopen for foreign tourism in conditions of safety. Foreign tourists can also start planning their holidays in our country. Spain needs tourism – and tourism needs safety in both origin and destination. We will guarantee that tourists will not run any risks, nor will they bring any risk to our country.

The prime minister said the central and regional governments had been planning and coordinating the return to tourism for weeks, adding: “We’re sending everyone a message today: Spain will be waiting for you from July.”

He called on Spaniards to begin planning domestic holidays, and also announced that the football league would be allowed to resume from 8 June.

A demonstrator holds a sign during a Catalan separatist protest in Barcelona on Saturday.
A demonstrator holds a sign during a Catalan separatist protest in Barcelona on Saturday. Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images

Sánchez said the minimum basic income was part of the coalition government’s commitment to reducing poverty. He said:

It will cost around €3bn a year and will help four out of five people in severe poverty and benefit close to 850,000 households – half of which include children.

Neither the government now Spanish society is going to look the other way while our compatriots queue up to eat, as we are sadly seeing now in some parts of the country.

Sánchez confirmed that the government had not ruled out seeking a sixth two-week extension of the state of emergency, which has been in force since 14 March.

Updated

Mob violence has risen around the world since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled).

The US non-profit collates information on all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, south Asia, south-east Asia, the Middle East, central Asia and the Caucasus, Latin America and the Caribbean, and south-eastern and eastern Europe and the Balkans.

It said it had recorded more than 1,100 events of mob violence – violence by spontaneous, unarmed or crudely armed groups - in nearly 90 countries since 11 March. The organisation is running a Covid-19 disorder tracker, which aims to detail the pandemic’s impact on political violence and protest around the world.

Mob violence has risen around the world since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mob violence has risen around the world since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Photograph: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project

Updated

Sixty-seven more deaths from Covid-19 have been announced by Sweden, the highest number reported on a Saturday since 18 April, taking the total death toll in the country to 3,992.

According to the latest update from Sweden’s public health authority, 379 more people have tested positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of infections to 33,188 since it reported its first confirmed case on 31 January. Of those, 4,971 people have recovered.

Sweden has eschewed the kinds of compulsory lockdown measures seen elsewhere in the world. That it has again recorded a high death rate on a Saturday, a day when its numbers generally drop due to delays in reporting, will be seen as a sign that it has left its society open to the virus even as other European countries are experience drops in death rates.

Updated

The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has signed an order easing the US state’s ban on gathering in groups, allowing up to 10 people to assemble as long as they stay at least 6ft from each other or wear face masks if they must stand closer.

Cuomo signed the order on Friday night, the Associated Press reports, clearing the way for New Yorkers to gather together in time for the Memorial Day weekend.

People are seen practicing social distancing in white circles at the Madison Square park, New York City, on Friday.
People are seen practicing social distancing in white circles at the Madison Square park, New York City, on Friday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

People in New York City were also given the all-clear to visit beaches this weekend, but they may not swim, the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has said.

“I’ve been really clear about the beaches; they are closed for swimming,” de Blasio said Friday at his daily coronavirus briefing on Friday. “There will not be lifeguards. People are not supposed to go to the beach to swim.”

Memorial Day weekend usually marks the beginning of beach season in New York City, with lifeguards starting duty and swimming permitted in normal times.

The main reason the mayor has cited for the swimming ban is to curb the spread of the virus by keeping people off public transport.

Updated

Commuters wearing face masks travel on a public bus with an electronic sign reading ‘Wear a face mask’, in Curitiba, Brazil
Commuters wearing face masks travel on a public bus with an electronic sign reading ‘Wear a face mask’, in Curitiba, Brazil. Photograph: Daniel Castellano/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Iran eases lockdown on eve of Eid

Fifty-nine more people lost their lives to Covid-19 in Iran in the past 24 hours, the health ministry has said, as the country began reopening businesses, religious and cultural sites on the eve of Eid al-Fitr.

Museums and historical sites are to reopen on Sunday to coincide with the celebrations that end Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month, President Hassan Rouhani said on state television, according to Reuters.

Saints’ shrines, some of which became flashpoints at the outset of the coronavirus epidemic in Iran, will reopen on Monday. All workers in the country will return to work from next Saturday.

The health ministry’s spokesman, Kianoush Jahanpour, said in his latest coronavirus update that the death toll from the virus in Iran had reached 7,359, and the total number of confirmed cases was 133,521, after 1,869 more people tested positive in the past 24 hours. So far, 104,072 have recovered, Jahanpour was quoted as saying by the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Rouhani said on Saturday that 88% of the people who died from Covid-19 in Iran had underlying illnesses.

Updated

The Chinese city of Wuhan conducted nearly 1.5 million tests for coronavirus on Friday.

The city where the pandemic began increased its testing total by just under 50% in 24 hours, according to the local health authority.

Officials took 1,470,950 nucleic acid tests for Covid-19 on Friday, compared with 1,000,729 the previous day.

The scaling up of testing to industrial levels followed a cluster of cases being discovered in the city two weeks ago

Wuhan came out of lockdown on 8 April, but after positive cases were confirmed on 9/10 May an expanded testing programme sought to identify asymptomatic patients – infected people who show no outward sign of illness but remain capable of transmitting the disease.

Updated

Second outbreak in Malaysian refugee camps

The Malaysian health ministry has confirmed another new cluster of coronavirus cases at a detention centre for undocumented migrants.

The Semenyih detention centre near the capital, Kuala Lumpur, which houses around 1,600 detainees, has reported 21 new cases of Covid-19.

It is the second detention centre to report an outbreak. Around 60 cases were reported among the 1,400 detainees at the Bukit Jalil centre earlier this week.

Malaysia has so far reported a total of 7,185 cases of Covid-19 and 115 deaths.

This month more than 2,000 foreign nationals were arrested and accused of not having permits to allow them to remain in the country. The migrants have since been housed in centres that are crowded, with dozens often packed in a single cell.

Refugees and other foreigners have been the victims of an uptick of hate speech in the country in recent weeks, accused of spreading disease, burdening the state and taking jobs as the economy plummets. Rohingya refugees in particular have been targets of harassment and threats.

The United Nations and human rights groups have called on Malaysia to stop the crackdown and criticised authorities for going after a vulnerable community during the pandemic.

Human Rights Watch has said the new Malaysian government, which came to power at the end of February, “has completely fallen down on the job when it comes to protecting the rights of Rohingya refugees”.

Updated

Indra Gandhi airport social distancing marker

A social distancing marker at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in New Delhi, after the Indian government allowed domestic flights to resume from Monday. Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

Updated

Hallo this is Paul MacInnes, sitting in for Damien while he takes a deserved break.

A “car demo” called by the far-right Vox party in Spain to protest against the government’s handling of the pandemic led to some streets in Madrid and other cities filling with honking vehicles, Sam Jones reports from the Spanish capital.

Vox, the third largest party in the Spanish parliament, wants the Socialist-led coalition government to resign and it urged people to get in their cars and create caravans of stationary vehicles. In order to limit possible infections, participants were told to stay in their cars and wear the mandatory face masks.

Vox has accused the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, of a draconian response to the virus, which has killed 28,628 people and infected 234,824. It says the government’s response has resulted in “unemployment and misery”.

Rocio Monasterio, the leader of the Madrid branch of Vox, at a protest against the coronavirus lockdown in the city
Rocio Monasterio, the leader of the Madrid branch of Vox, at a protest against the coronavirus lockdown in the city. Photograph: Ballesteros/EPA

Vox were not the only ones out in the streets of Madrid on Saturday. Members of the Spanish Communist party gathered at the Puerta del Sol to call for a a social emergency plan to ameliorate the impact of the emergency on the poor.

Protesters wearing masks and obeying social distancing rules held up banners calling for “work, rights and and urgent social emergency plan,” as well as against the privatisation of the health service.

A protester at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid
A protester at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid holds a flag of the Second Republic (the democratically elected government that was overthrown by Franco’s coup) during a demonstration calling for a social emergency plan. Photograph: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images

Spain’s lockdown, ordered after a state of emergency was declared on 14 March, is gradually being lifted and by Monday all parts of the country will have moved to at least the second phase of the de-escalation.

The government’s latest two-week extension of the state of emergency was hard won, and nightly protests against the lockdown have spread from wealthy barrios of Madrid to other regions.

María Jesús Montero, the finance minister who serves as the government’s spokeswoman, said people had a right to protest, as long as their demonstrations did not risk spreading the coronavirus. She said on Friday:

The only things that the state of emergency limits its people’s freedom of movement and reunion.

Very often, some of the shouts you hear during these demonstrations are contradictory because people are out protesting. Some people shout ‘freedom’ when they’re actually exercising the right to criticise things and protest. But you can’t mix up freedom with the freedom to infect people.

Updated

Bangladesh has reported its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases after 1,873 more people tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours.

The south Asian country, which is still cleaning up after its worst cyclone in nearly two decades this week, now has a total 32,078 confirmed cases. Twenty more deaths over the past 24 hours took its total toll from Covid-19 to 452.

Dhaka, the capital, is by far the worst-affected area, with 13,093 cases, according to the latest data from the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).

Updated

France declares 'reciprocal' quarantine for UK visitors

France has announced it will bring in a “reciprocal” 14-day quarantine for all visitors from the UK on the same day the UK imposes quarantine on all those coming into the country from abroad, writes Kim Willsher, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent.

However, unlike in Britain, visitors will be asked to voluntarily self-quarantine at home. The French measure appears to be a tit-for-tat political move by Paris after the UK quarantine decision was announced without any apparent consultation.

In any case, France’s external borders have been closed since early April to all except those who have a “compelling” professional or family reason to enter, so the French quarantine will affect few people and, as a non-obligatory measure, will be hard to police.

From 8 June, anyone arriving in the UK by plane, ferry or train, including British nationals, will be required to give an address where they will remain for 14 days. There will be a £100 fine for anyone who does not fill in the form, and unannounced visits will be made to check those in quarantine are remaining isolated, the UK authorities announced last week. Fines of up to £1,000 could be given to those who do not self-isolate.

Updated

Kenya is to take out a €188m (£165m) loan from the African Development Bank to support its efforts to contain its coronavirus pandemic, the bank reported on Saturday.

Poorer countries around the world are being forced to take on huge amounts of debt to finance their efforts against the spread of Covid-19. The AfDB said the money would help Kenya to “strengthen the national health system to effectively respond to the pandemic, build economic resilience and ensure quick recovery,” as well as support poorer people.

The bank’s acting director general for east Africa, Nnenna Nwabufo, said:

We are very pleased to join other development partners in supporting the government of Kenya’s efforts in mitigating the financial impact of the pandemic, especially in terms of the country’s expenditure in the health, social and economic sectors. The next step will focus on helping build resilience for post Covid-19.

On Saturday, Kenya’s ministry of health said on Twitter that 31 more people had tested positive for coronavirus, increasing the country’s number of confirmed cases to 1,192. Fifty people have died from Covid-19 in Kenya.

Updated

The Philippines has reported 180 more cases of coronavirus, and six more deaths.

In a bulletin, the health ministry said total infections have risen to 13,777 and the death toll had reached 863. Eighty-five more patients have recovered, bringing total recoveries to 3,177.

Updated

Splits are already emerging in plans for the post-lockdown economic recovery in Europe.

Four EU countries calling themselves the “frugal four” presented their own proposals on Saturday, AFP reports. Restating their rejection of any jointly issued debt instruments, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden said they wanted help for badly affected countries to take the form of one-off loans, according to a proposal published by the office of the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz.

The money lent must be “directed towards activities that contribute most to the recovery such as research and innovation, enhanced resilience in the health sector and ensuring a green transition,” the proposal says.

This week the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, proposed a €500bn fund to mend the economy.

But the frugal four insist there must be no mutualisation of debt, a process they believe would allow EU economies they see as less disciplined to get an undue benefit of cheaper funding on the back of their stronger northern peers.

Updated

The deputy health minister in Afghanistan survived an assassination attempt on Saturday as the country recorded its worst day yet in the coronavirus crisis while war rages on with full intensity, Akhtar Mohammad Makoii reports for the Guardian from Herat.

Wahid Majroh escaped unharmed when armed men opened fire on his vehicle as he was on the way back to Kabul early on Saturday. He has been spending most of his time visiting medical centres and briefing the media on coronavirus since the crisis began.

“This morning I went to Khost, Paktia and then Logar provinces. On the way back, around 500 metres away from provincial capital of Logar, unknown armed men tried to stop our vehicle and when we didn’t, they opened fire,” Majroh said at a press conference in Kabul.

He said he had gone to the remote provinces to “get assured that everyone gets medical treatment”. He added: “I’m a doctor, I don’t have any military and political goals, I don’t travel with security [guards], I don’t know who they [the perpetrators] were.”

Women receive a free food ration in Kandahar.
Women receive a free food ration in Kandahar. Photograph: Muhammad Sadiq/EPA

Afghanistan reported 782 new coronavirus cases and 11 deaths in last 24 hours, taking the totals to 9,998 and 216 respectively. There have been 1,040 recoveries.

Kabul recorded 377 new cases, the biggest one-day rise yet, bringing the total to 3,460 with 29 deaths.

The western province of Herat also recorded its worst day after eight patients died of Covid-19 overnight and 150 new infections were detected. Herat borders Iran and recorded the first case of the virus in Afghanistan after thousands of Afghan migrants poured back from Iran in February and March.

Majroh said the “catastrophe” of coronavirus was spreading across the country, and people had two options for Eid, which is scheduled for Sunday: “You either stay at home and safe or go out to visit your relatives and friends, which causes everyone in your family [to get] infected.”

He said the ministry was concerned about lockdown breaches. “When people were heeding, daily number of infections was just about 250 or so a day, but now as the people continue to break the rules and we test more, the number is rising.”

Majroh said the ministry was preparing more hospital beds for Covid-19 patients. Early in the week he said beds had run out in most parts of the country.

Meanwhile, war rages on across the country. According to the office of the national security council, 576 civilians were killed or wounded in Taliban attacks in the month of Ramadan.

Updated

The 102-year-old car rental firm Hertz has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US after its business all but vanished during the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.

Hertz said in a US court filing on Friday that it had voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 reorganisation. Its international operating regions including Europe, Australia and New Zealand were not included in the US proceedings.

The firm, whose largest shareholder is the billionaire investor Carl Icahn, is reeling from government orders restricting travel. A large portion of Hertz’s revenue comes from car rentals at airports, which have all but dried up.

With nearly $19bn (£15.6bn) of debt and roughly 38,000 employees worldwide as of the end of 2019, Hertz is among the largest companies to be undone by the pandemic.

Covid-19 'taking different path in Africa', says WHO

The 54 countries of the African Union were reporting a total of 103,933 cases of coronavirus on Saturday morning, according the Africa Centres for Disease Control.

So far African nations have reported 3,183 deaths from Covid-19, and 41,473 people have recovered since the virus was first detected on the continent 14 weeks ago.

There had been apocalyptic forecasts for the potential impact of the pandemic in Africa. On Friday evening, after the 100,000th case was reached, the World Health Organization’s Africa office circulated a note saying that it now seemed clear that the pandemic “appears to be taking a different pathway in Africa.” The note continued:

Case numbers have not grown at the same exponential rate as in other regions and so far Africa has not experienced the high mortality seen in some parts of the world. Today, there are 3,100 confirmed deaths on the continent.

By comparison, when cases reached 100,000 in the World Health Organization (WHO) European region, deaths stood at more than 4,900. Early analysis by WHO suggests that Africa’s lower mortality rate may be the result of demography and other possible factors. Africa is the youngest continent demographically, with more than 60% of the population under the age of 25. Older adults have a significantly increased risk of developing a severe illness. In Europe nearly 95% of deaths occurred in those older than 60 years.

WHO also noted that African governments swiftly imposed restrictive measures on their populations in an attempt to contain the spread of the disease. However, it also said that despite “significant progress in testing”, rates of testing remain low in comparison to other regions.

It insisted that despite the relatively low number of cases, “the pandemic remains a major threat to the continent’s health systems”.

Now that countries are starting to ease their confinement measures, there is a possibility that cases could increase significantly, and it is critical that governments remain vigilant and ready to adjust measures in line with epidemiological data and proper risk assessment.

Updated

Russia said on Saturday that 9,434 new cases of the novel coronavirus had been reported in the last 24 hours, pushing its nationwide tally to 335,882, according to Reuters.

The country’s coronavirus crisis response centre reported 139 more deaths, after a record of 150 deaths the day before, bringing the death toll to 3,388.

Numbers of new cases have dipped slightly in Russia after a surge earlier in May. However, Vladimir Putin has ordered the health ministry to be prepared for a second wave of coronavirus in October and November.

The latest figures mean Russia has snatched back its position as the second worst affected country in the world by cases of coronavirus, which was briefly held by Brazil after it reported 20,803 new cases on Friday.

Updated

Singapore has reported 642 more coronavirus cases, taking its tally of infections to 31,068, Reuters reports.

The vast majority of the newly infected people are migrant workers living in dormitories, the health ministry said in a statement. Six are permanent residents.

So far the south-east Asian city state has reported just 23 deaths from Covid-19.

Updated

Here are the headlines from the UK papers this morning:

  • The Guardian says “Police spoke to Cummings about lockdown breach”, our scoop on Boris Johnson’s key adviser Dominic Cummings who is facing calls to resign after police spoke to him about breaching the government’s lockdown. He was seen in Durham, 425km (264 miles) from his London home, despite having had symptoms of Covid-19.
  • The Daily Mirror, which broke the story with the Guardian after a joint investigation, has the same story, saying “CUMMING BROKE LOCKDOWN RULES ... while he had coronavirus symptoms”.
  • The Daily Telegraph follows up the Cummings story for its splash, and also reports that “PM to scale back Huawei 5G role in wake of coronavirus crisis,” in the latest developments on the controversial deal to put the Chinese tech giant at the heart of British mobile communications infrastructure.
  • “Sunak to push the PM to lift lockdown,” the FT Weekend reports, with news that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is pressing Boris Johnson to end restrictions on businesses, with the treasury alarmed at the cost to the government and the economy.
  • “Firms must pay quarter of staff wages,” the Times reports, referring to the news that after August companies in the UK may be asked to contribute to the state wage subsidy scheme.
  • The Sun says “DON’T BOOK YET BUT JET YOUR HOPES UP” referring to the possibility of “safe corridors” for travel being opened in July.
  • The Daily Mail follows suit, with “CORONA PASSPORT TO SAVE HOLIDAYS”, claiming that the government hopes to “strike quarantine-free pacts with summer destinations – such as France, Spain and Greece.”
  • The Daily Express has its own patriotic slant, imploring readers “LET’S ALL GO ON A BRITISH SUMMER HOLIDAY” and suggesting that quarantines for international travellers could, in fact, boost the UK tourism sector.

Updated

Hi, this is Damien Gayle taking over the world news blog now, for the next eight or so hours, bringing you all the latest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak.

As ever, I am keen to hear your comments, tips and suggestions for coverage of news around the world. If you want to get in touch drop me a line either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.

Here is a rundown of some of the biggest events from the last few hours:

Updated

China has betrayed the people of Hong Kong so the west should stop kowtowing to Beijing for an illusory great pot of gold, says Chris Patten, the last governor of the former British colony.

“The Hong Kong people have been betrayed by China,” Patten was quoted as saying by the Times newspaper. Britain has a “moral, economic and legal” duty to stand up for Hong Kong, he said.

“What we are seeing is a new Chinese dictatorship,” Patten said. “We should stop being fooled that somehow at the end of all the kowtowing there’s this great pot of gold waiting for us. It’s always been an illusion.”

Mainland China has stepped up efforts to control the semi-autonomous city in recent days, with some suggesting this may spell the end of the ‘one country, two systems’ era.

Updated

Moscow doctors have described their ordeal as the city is overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases.

“Frankly speaking, I just want to be in silence for a couple of days. I would like to go somewhere in the mountains where there is no cell phone signal, so I can sit quietly and have some air,” the intensive care physician Dr Osman Osmanov told the Associated Press at the end of yet another long shift at the epicentre of Russia’s coronavirus outbreak.

Moscow accounts for about half of all of Russia’s 326,000 coronavirus cases and 3,249 deaths, a deluge that strains the city’s hospitals and has forced Osmanov to work every day for the past two months, sometimes for 24 hours at a time. The demands are intense; the rewards are gratifying.

“When a patient starts suffocating, you should calm him down. People are just scared,” he said.

“Sometimes all you need is to calm down a patient, and then he feels much better.”

In the early days of the outbreak, he said, he watched the crisis unfold with some scientific detachment.

“At first, it was interesting, of course. Everyone took it as something new,” he said. “I had an impression at first that we were fighting an invisible enemy.”

Now, after weeks of seemingly endless work, he is struggling to remain stoic.
“I am not at the end of my rope,” he said, “but I feel tired.”

There is no end in sight for Osmanov’s punishing workload. Although new case counts have begun falling, to 8,849 on Friday, down from more than 10,000 a day last week, Russia on Friday recorded its highest one-day death toll of 150.

“The current situation doesn’t allow” for rest, he said. “So we’re just hoping that soon it will all end, we will win and it will all be fine.”

Updated

Still on the UK for a moment, Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, the union that represents senior civil servants, says Boris Johnson must explain reports that his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, broke lockdown rules.

The comments come after the chief adviser was accused of travelling 260 miles during the lockdown.

Penman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “essentially, when he (Cummings) says or does something he is doing it in the prime minister’s name”.

He added: “I think the prime minister needs to understand how heartbreaking this lockdown has been for so many families and the sacrifices that have been made up and down the country.

“I think in these circumstances, if it looks like there is one rule for those at the centre of government and one rule for rest of the country, then really the prime minister has a responsibility, as well as a constitutional responsibility, to explain his actions.

“He has known about this for six weeks.”

Updated

The Dorset police and crime commissioner, Martin Underhill, has urged UK residents not to travel to Dorset, in the south of England, over the weekend after their beaches were clogged with tourists on Friday. He spoke to BBC radio today:

Yesterday was the busiest day for our police in nine weeks. It was a normal Friday ...

As the numbers increase the chances of socially distancing are reducing. And, of course, the issue of Dorset is that some of our beauty spots, the zigzag at Bournemouth beach going down to the beach, you can’t socially distance trying to get to the beach, and therefore we’re saying think twice, and please use common sense when you come to us, if you are going to come, is what you’re doing safe and is it fair.

Updated

The United Kingdom has drawn up plans to require employers to cover 20% to 30% of furloughed employees’ wages from August to reduce the burden of the coronavirus crisis on government finances, the Times newspaper has reported.

The UK on 12 May extended its job retention scheme – the centrepiece of its attempts to cushion the coronavirus hit to the economy – by four months but told employers they would have to help to meet its huge cost from August.

“The Treasury has drawn up plans that would require employers to cover between 20 and 30 per cent of people’s wages,” the Times said.

“They would also be required to cover the cost of employer’s national insurance contributions, on average 5 per cent of wages.”

Updated

Australia continues to ease restrictions in some states as case numbers there remain in single digits.

The New South Wales government has flagged the “imminent” reopening of gyms and beauty salons as the state prepares over the next two weeks for a landmark easing of Covid-19 lockdowns.

The government remains cautious yet bullish after three cases of coronavirus were recorded over the preceding 24 hours; all three were overseas acquired.

The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has announced that from 1 June, up to 50 people will be allowed in restaurants, pubs and cafes. Regional travel restrictions will also ease while museums, galleries and libraries will also be allowed to open.

That has been met with a chorus of industries clamouring for the government to allow them to resume trading.

Updated

Some news from the plane that crashed into homes in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi on Friday afternoon.

One of the two survivors has described his escape from the burning plane after it came down during a second attempt at a landing.

“All I could see around was smoke and fire,” engineer Muhammad Zubair told Geo News. “I could hear screams from all directions. Kids and adults. All I could see was fire. I couldn’t see any people – just hear their screams.

“I opened my seat belt and saw some light. I went towards the light. I had to jump down about 10 feet to get to safety.”

You can read the full report here:

Updated

Hello, Matilda Boseley here, I’ll be taking over from Melissa Davey and guiding you through all the important news from across the globe for the coming hours.

Updated

Overview

We have published a breakdown of the latest events from the past 12 hours or so.

A few of the key events:

  • Mexico has recorded another single-day record for Covid-19 deaths, with 62,527 total cases since the pandemic began. On Friday the health ministry said 479 more deaths had been recorded, and 2,960 new infections. The previous daily peak of 424 fatalities was reported by authorities on 20 May. There have been 6,989 deaths in total.
  • Ramadan travel bans are under strain in Indonesia where people are turning to smugglers and bogus travel documents to get around bans on an annual end-of-Ramadan exodus that could send coronavirus cases skyrocketing in the world’s biggest Muslim majority nation, AFP reports. Thousands are using any trick in the book to reach their home towns in time for celebrations at the end of Islam’s holy fasting month this weekend, a festival known as Eid al-Fitr.
  • In the UK, Boris Johnson’s key adviser Dominic Cummings is facing calls to resign after police spoke to him about breaching the government’s lockdown rules. He was seen in Durham, 425km (264 miles) from his London home, despite having had symptoms of coronavirus. Officers approached him days after he was seen rushing out of Downing Street when the prime minister tested positive for the virus at the end of March, a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Mirror found.

Updated

There have now been 5,213,483 confirmed cases and 338,225 deaths globally, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.

Thailand has three new cases but no deaths

On Saturday Thailand reported three new coronavirus cases and no new deaths, bringing the country’s total to 3,040 confirmed cases and 56 dead since the outbreak started in January.

The new cases are two Thai nationals recently returned from overseas and under quarantine and a 49-year-old Italian man living in Phuket, said Panprapa Yongtrakul, a spokeswoman for the government’s coronavirus task force.

There are 2,916 patients who have recovered and returned home since the outbreak started.

Updated

Australians are being invited to record their coronavirus experiences for future generations in a new campaign by the country’s postal service. Australia Post says it’s important to mark this moment in the nation’s history as the past few months have had an extraordinary impact on families, communities and our way of life.

It’s created a “national letterbox” for people to write describing how the Covid-19 pandemic affected them. The project is in conjunction with the National Archives, which will keep some of the Dear Australia letters for posterity.

Updated

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing politicians have sought to allay worries about the impact of China’s proposed national security legislation on the Asian financial hub’s business environment, saying it would boost investor sentiment, Reuters reports.

The legislation aims to tackle secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference and could see mainland intelligence agencies set up bases in Hong Kong, raising fears of direct law enforcement. The US said the legislation would end the Chinese-ruled city’s autonomy and would be bad for both its and China’s economies.

Bankers and headhunters said it could lead to money and talent leaving the city. Hong Kong stocks slumped 5.6% on Friday.

When she returned from Beijing late on Friday, Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, said the stock market “goes up and comes down” and it was in fact the large scale pro-democracy protests in 2019 which destabilised the business environment.

“Especially having gone through almost one year of disruptions, violence and uncertainties, anything particularly in safeguarding national security that will help stabilise the environment is indeed very good for local investment sentiment,” she said.

Henry Tang, a member of the standing committee of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference, said the legislation was “beneficial” for the business environment as it brings stability and strengthens the rule of law.

Updated

Tasmania calls for jobkeeper to be extended

The Tasmanian premier, Peter Gutwein, has added to calls for the Australian government to extend the jobkeeper payment scheme in which eligible employers, sole traders and other entities can apply to receive $1,500 for each eligible employee a fortnight.

It follows revelations that there have been reporting errors relating to the scheme. Rather than costing the federal budget $130bn, that figure has been slashed to $70bn. The government was also forced to downgrade its forecast that 6.5m employees would be assisted, down to 3.5m employees.

Gutwein said the massive overestimate presents an opportunity for the scheme to be extended.

“The scheme is an excellent one and is doing what was intended to with all eligible workers being paid,” he said on Saturday.

“However, now that it is apparent that it will cost significantly less than first thought, the scheme should be extended for a longer period targeting additional support at those industries such as tourism and hospitality that will take longer to recover.

“I’m certain that most states and territories will be of a similar view and I look forward to discussing this with national cabinet when we meet this week.”

Updated

Germany has reported an increase of 638 cases, taking its total to 177,850. An additional 42 deaths have been recorded, taking the death toll there to 8,216.

Updated

Boris Johnson caves in on Huawei

Boris Johnson has been forced to cave into to Conservative backbench rebels opposed to the presence of Huawei in 5G networks and has drawn up plans to reduce the Chinese company’s involvement to zero by 2023, Dan Sabbah reports:

The UK prime minister’s retreat is designed to stave off what could have been an embarrassing defeat when his existing proposal to reduce Huawei to a 35% market share was to be voted on in the Commons.

Although Johnson boasts an 80-strong majority, the number of Conservative MPs willing to rebel on the issue is estimated to be 50 – enough in theory to defeat the government – as anti-Chinese sentiment hardens in the light of the coronavirus crisis.

The mooted retreat will delight the White House which has been relentlessly campaigning against Huawei, but is likely to provoke a hostile reaction from Beijing, which has believed the UK was open to inward investment until now.

Read the full story here.

Updated

US to add 33 Chinese firms to blacklist

The US is preparing to add 33 Chinese firms and institutions to an economic blacklist for alleged ties to China’s military or persecution of Uighurs.

Seven companies and two institutions were listed for being “complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labour and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs” and others, the commerce department said. Two dozen other companies, government institutions and commercial organisations were added for supporting procurement of items for use by the Chinese military, it also said.

The blacklisted companies focus on artificial intelligence and facial recognition, markets that US chip companies such as Nvidia Corp and Intel Corp have been heavily investing in. Among those named is NetPosa, one of China’s most famous AI companies, whose facial recognition subsidiary is linked to the surveillance of Muslims.

Updated

The coronavirus crisis has forced Greece to take rapid steps to computerise its lumbering civil service and belatedly introduce e-governance in one of the EU’s worst digital laggards, experts say.

After recording its first coronavirus death on 12 March, Athens took unprecedented measures totally at odds with its previous love affair with paperwork and red tape. Diomidis Spinellis, head of the department of management science and technology at the Athens University of Economics, says the Covid-19 crisis “accelerated” Greece’s digital turn, although critics say the country has a long way to go.

Between 23 March and 4 May, when a nationwide lockdown was imposed, Greeks were required to inform authorities when leaving their homes. A special SMS service was introduced for those unable to print a special form created by the government. Eventually, some 110m messages were sent free during this period, in an initiative praised by the OECD.

Greece’s digital governance minister, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, said the platform freed thousands of users – especially high-risk groups – from having to turn up at public services as they now could sign documents digitally.

Updated

Indonesians are turning to smugglers and bogus travel documents to get around bans on an annual end-of-Ramadan exodus that could send coronavirus cases skyrocketing in the world’s biggest Muslim majority nation, AFP reports.

Thousands are using any trick in the book to reach their home towns in time for celebrations at the end of Islam’s holy fasting month this weekend, a festival known as Eid al-Fitr.

“It is a critical moment,” said Doni Monardo, head of Indonesia’s Covid-19 mitigation task force. “I’m afraid people who go to other regions will come back infected and all of our efforts will be wasted.”

Every year millions of travellers pack into airports, train stations and ports across the nearly 5,000km-long (3,100-mile) archipelago in a mass migration similar to China’s lunar new year holiday or Christmas. Fearing a public health disaster, last month the government slapped a ban on domestic sea and air travel and set up roadblocks.

It later relaxed those rules over concerns about a collapse in south-east Asia’s biggest economy, but only for those who could prove they were virus-free and had a professional reason to travel.

Updated

Event summary

To recap the latest news from around the world over the past few hours:

Updated

China reports no new cases for the first time in pandemic

Earlier we reported that China recorded no new confirmed Covid-19 cases on the mainland for 22 May, the first time it had seen no daily rise since the pandemic began in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

It has seen a sharp fall in locally transmitted cases since March as major restrictions on people movement helped it to take control of the epidemic in many parts of the country. However, Reuters reports it has continued to see an influx of imported cases, mainly involving Chinese nationals returning from abroad, while new clusters of infections in the north-eastern border provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang have emerged in recent weeks.

Wuhan also reported this month its first cluster of infections since a lockdown on the city ended on 8 April, prompting authorities to warn that counter-epidemic measures could not be relaxed and to launch a campaign to test all of Wuhan’s 11m residents.

The number of confirmed cases in the mainland stood at 82,971 and the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

Updated

Another death in Australia takes toll to 102

Australia’s death toll is now 102.

On Saturday, Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Dr Annaliese van Diemen, said 10 new cases had been recorded in the state and that a man aged in his 60s had died in hospital; 19 people have died in Victoria, where there has been 1,602 cases.

The state’s chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, said: “Today’s increase in cases illustrates once again that while we have been flattening the curve, our battle against Covid-19 is far from over.

“Restrictions around some activities have now been eased in Victoria in recognition of the current low rate of community transmission of this virus.

“While encouraging, we need to remain vigilant. We must maintain physical distancing, practise hygiene and self-isolation when ill. These are commonsense actions to ensure we don’t create a second wave of this serious disease, as we have seen in other countries once they have eased their stringent regulations.

“People with even the mildest of symptoms of coronavirus including fever, chills, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose or loss of sense of smell are encouraged to get tested.”

Meanwhile Western Australia again recorded no new cases overnight. However, the state’s total stands at 560 after three historical cases were identified through serology testing. These cases are no longer infectious and do not carry any ongoing risk to the public, the health department said.

Updated

Hertz car rental files for bankruptcy in the US

The more than a century old car rental firm Hertz Global Holdings Inc has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US after its business all but vanished during the coronavirus pandemic and talks with creditors failed. Its international operating regions including Europe, Australia and New Zealand were not included in the US proceedings.

Reuters reports that the firm, whose largest shareholder is the billionaire investor Carl Icahn, is reeling from government orders restricting travel and requiring citizens to remain home. A large portion of Hertz’s revenue comes from car rentals at airports, which have all but evaporated as potential customers eschew plane travel.

With nearly $19bn of debt and roughly 38,000 employees worldwide as of the end of 2019, Hertz is among the largest companies to be undone by the pandemic. US airlines have so far avoided similar fates after receiving billions of dollars in government aid, an avenue Hertz explored without success.

Meanwhile in North America, the company recently laid off about 10,000 employees.

Updated

Three new cases of coronavirus in NSW

The New South Wales health minister, Brad Hazzard, has just given an update in Sydney saying the state had three additional cases of the virus yesterday. That takes the state’s total to 3,086. Almost 9,000 were tested in the last recorded 24-hour period.

“I must say, as the health minister, I would love to see a lot more people coming forward,” he said. “That is absolutely essential as we move forward. As we try to relax the restrictions that we have lived under for the past two months, it is crucial, absolutely crucial, people come forward for testing if they have the slightest hint of any respiratory issues at all, a cough, a cold, temperature, whatever it may be.

“We now have a total of 411,618 people who have been tested in NSW so we are fast closing in on half a million people.”

He urged young people to be careful with social distancing and not to assume they were safe; 20% of all those who have tested positive had been in the 20-29 age bracket, he said.

Updated

Australian business subsidy bungle raises questions

In Australia the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, said the government’s massive multibillion-dollar jobkeeper mistake raises questions over how it will manage the economic recovery coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.

The payment scheme is a temporary subsidy for businesses. Eligible employers, sole traders and other entities can apply to receive $1,500 for each eligible employee a fortnight.

But on Friday, the government admitted to a $60bn reporting error to its much-heralded scheme. Rather than costing the budget $130bn, that figure has been slashed to $70bn, and is forecast to assist 3.5m employees instead of 6.5m.

“If they can’t manage a program like jobkeeper to the tune of a mistake of $60bn and three million people ... then there has got to be a great question mark over how they’ll manage the economic recovery,” he said in Sydney on Saturday.

“This is a government that’s good at boasting that the budget is ‘back in black’, that they’ve got this all under control, but when it comes to the detail they’re simply not capable of delivering.”

Labor has been calling for the jobkeeper payment to be broadened to casuals and other workers who missed out, but the government has repeatedly rejected the idea, even with the program now much smaller.

A Labor frontbencher, Amanda Rishworth, said the bungle was a “slap in the face” for close to 1m workers who were told by the government that the program was over-subscribed and they wouldn’t be allowed to enter it.

Updated

The New York Times reports that the press secretary of the White House accidentally revealed Donald Trump’s private bank account and routing numbers. At a press conference on Friday Kayleigh McEnany announced Trump would donate his quarterly pay cheque to the health and human services department as it responds to Covid-19.

As she held up the $100,000 cheque, it was complete with the relevant banking details. An administration official told the New York Times mock cheques were never used in the briefing. We have cropped out those details in the image below.

The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, holds a cheque to be donated to the department of health and human services.
The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, holds a cheque to be donated to the department of health and human services. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, has been speaking to the ABC about how the city and its public transport will manage as office workers return to the CBD.

Moore said that unlike other Australian capitals such as Adelaide and Perth, where people are being encouraged to drive rather than take public transport, Sydney’s city centre is geographically constrained. The government and the council have been encouraging workers to ride to work, and temporary bike lanes will be installed, but Moore acknowledged there were limits to what can be done.

“People are going to drive, and that will mean the air quality goes down again,” she said. “There will be tremendous congestion. And when they get into the city, you can only have two people per lift. Most of these are high-rise buildings. So how long is it going to take people to get into their workplace and get them out for lunch at home for dinner? So it’s a challenge.”

Updated

Science magazine has an interesting article by Gretchen Vogel which describes how Sweden wasted a rare opportunity to study coronavirus in schools.

Despite bucking a global trend by keeping primary schools open since Covid-19 emerged without any major adjustments to class size, lunch policies or recess rules, Swedish officials have not tracked infections among schoolchildren. This was even the case when large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools or staff members died of the disease. Vogel writes:

Emma Frans, a clinical epidemiologist at KI who also writes a regular newspaper column on science and health, says Sweden’s overall goal during the pandemic has not been to eliminate transmission completely, but to prevent the health system from becoming overburdened and to protect the elderly. (It has succeeded at the former but not the latter: Sweden has suffered very high mortality among nursing home residents.)

Regarding schools, Frans says, “Most people in Sweden are quite happy with [them] being open.” She acknowledges the lack of data is a missed opportunity. With Sweden’s centralised health system and extensive records “it would have been possible” to track cases fairly easily had there been more testing.

Updated

Australia, Canada and the UK condemn China's Hong Kong plan

Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have issued a joint statement expressing deep concern at proposals from China for introducing legislation related to national security in Hong Kong that will impinge on civil liberties.

“Making such a law on Hong Kong’s behalf without the direct participation of its people, legislature or judiciary would clearly undermine the ‘one country, two systems’ principle under which Hong Kong is guaranteed a high degree of autonomy,” the statement says.

AP reports that on Friday the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, condemned China’s move, calling it a “death knell for the high degree of autonomy” that Beijing had promised the territory. He called for Beiing to reconsider and warned of an unspecified US response if it proceeds.

Meanwhile, a White House economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said China risked a major flight of capital from Hong Kong that would end the territory’s status as the financial hub of Asia. Shortly afterwards the commerce department announced restrictions on sensitive exports to China.

The contentious measure, submitted on Friday on the opening day of China’s national legislative session, is strongly opposed by pro-democracy lawmakers in semi-autonomous Hong Kong. Pompeo called the proposal an effort to unilaterally and arbitrarily impose national security legislation on Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of liberty,” Pompeo said. “The United States strongly urges Beijing to reconsider its disastrous proposal, abide by its international obligations, and respect Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, democratic institutions, and civil liberties, which are key to preserving its special status under US law.”

Updated

Sydney drivers get free car sanitising in trial

In Australia, thousands of people in Sydney have had their vehicles sanitised for free in a trial launched and funded by the state government in April. Point-to-point vehicles were eligible, including all taxis, ride share and hire vehicles.

The trial included disinfecting outside and inside door handles, boot handle, window controls, steering wheel, visors, centre console, gear stick, handbrake, grip handles, glove box, dashboard, seatbelts, seats, headrests, mobile phone holders, cup holders, fuel door, fuel cap meters, and payment equipment. It is not a car wash service. Spot cleaning in between sanitisation is also required by drivers.

The transport minister, Andrew Constance, said the trial was the first of its kind in the country. “It has been so successful we’re now rolling it out across other metro areas and the regions,” he said.

There have been 101 deaths from the virus in Australia. Cafes, pubs and some businesses are slowly reopening, and travel within states has been gradually increasing. There has been debate in recent days about when interstate travel should restart.

Updated

Mexico deaths surge

Mexico has recorded another single-day record for Covid-19 deaths, with 62,527 total cases since the pandemic began. On Friday the health ministry said 479 more deaths had been recorded, along with 2,960 new infections.

The previous daily peak of 424 fatalities was reported by authorities on 20 May. There have been 6,989 deaths in total.

Updated

Argentina surged past the 10,000-mark of total coronavirus cases on Friday in a fourth record day of sharply rising numbers. Nearly all
are concentrated in the capital Buenos Aires and its surrounding Greater Buenos Aires area.

The Buenos Aires metropolitan area, with a population of 12m, reported 93% of Friday’s 718 new cases, bringing the
total so far to 10,649 reported cases across the country. The total
death count is now 433, with 17 deaths reported on Friday.

Unlike its neighbours Brazil and Chile, with more than 333,000 and 60,000 cases respectively, Argentina’s numbers had stayed low
after an early government lockdown went into force on 20 March.

But numbers have started rising sharply recently. Today’s record 718 new daily cases follows a record 648 cases on Thursday, a record 474
on Wednesday and a record 438 on Tuesday.

Driving the numbers are the “villas” or slums of Buenos Aires with cramped living conditions and problems in the supply of running water.

Buenos Aires city accounted for 56% of Friday’s new cases, the
province of Buenos Aires, including the city’s greater metropolitan
area, 37%, and the rest of Argentina, with a total population of 44m, accounted for only 7% of new cases.

Updated

Chinese media are reporting no new cases of the virus were detected in China on Friday. There have been 4,638 deaths from the virus in that country.

Trump orders reopening with no authority to do so

As mentioned, the US president, Donald Trump, declared churches, mosques and synagogues “essential services” and threatened to override governors who refuse to reopen them this weekend – a power he does not possess.

The Guardian’s US reporter, David Smith, reports from Washington that Trump held a two-minute press conference without taking questions from media, declaring: “The governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important essential places of faith to open right now. For this weekend. If they don’t do it, I will override the governors. In America we need more prayer, not less.”

His remarks sowed confusion, Smith reports, because the federal government does not have the constitutional right to unilaterally order individual states to reopen businesses, churches or schools. But they did seem likely to play well with his support base: Trump won four in five Christian evangelical voters in the 2016 presidential election.

About an hour ago, Trump then began posting on Facebook about the media, declaring the executive editor of the New York Times, Dean Baquet, “one of the dumbest men in the world of journalism”. Baquet is a Pulitzer prize winner.

Updated

Summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. To recap the latest developments around the world:

Updated

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