We are closing this live blog now, but you can stay up to date with all of our coverage on our new live blog here.
New Zealand has ended its strictest lockdown phase and entered Level 3, with 400,000 Kiwis returning to work, takeaways open, and fishing, surfing and swimming permitted.
Local media reported lines outside McDonald’s drive-through from 3am on Tuesday morning, and by 10am the food app Regulr – which many local cafes and restaurants are using to allow pick-ups – had crashed nationwide.
Fast-food chains such as Dominos and Hells Pizza have warned customers to expect signficant delays as demand surges, and hired hundreds of extra employees to cope with the rush, and deliver food.
NZ Domino’s general manager Cameron Toomey said “zero contact delivery”, more frequent hygiene and sanitisation practices, and physical distancing and temperature testing were now underway in all their stores, and essential workers would have priorities for pizza.
In that press conference Trump also said that he believed China “could have stopped” the coronavirus and that the US would conduct “serious investigations” into the outbreak.
As Reuters report, Trump said: “We are doing very serious investigations ... We are not happy with China.
“We believe it could have been stopped at the source. It could have been stopped quickly and it wouldn’t have spread all over the world.”
Earlier, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the “world should have listened” to the WHO.
He said the agency sounded the highest level of alarm over the novel coronavirus early on, but that not all countries heeded its advice.
Trump’s briefing has now ended.
Trump was asked whether he has any information about Kim Jong Un’s health, which has been the subject of rumors and speculation in recent days.
He says: “I can’t tell you exactly. Yes, I do have a very good idea but I can’t talk about it now.”
Vice President Mike Pence appears to be arguing that the administration actually met its goals because millions of test kits were distributed, even though they were not given and processed. That is quite an argument.
We’re hearing a lot about very large numbers of tests that will be done during the month of May. But it’s worth remembering that we have heard big promises in the past about testing, such as the big promises of drive-through testing run by Google, that have yet to materialize.
Asked if he takes any responsibility for reports of people ingesting disinfectant after his own remarks, Trump says: “No, I don’t.”
We’ve moved on to questions from the press. A reporter asks why HHS secretary Alex Azar hasn’t been fired.
Trump says it’s an unfair question and attacks Democratic politicians.
Trump has previously denied reports he planned to fire Azar.
Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is now discussing an eight-part plan for testing. Apparently we are on step eight.
— Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) April 27, 2020
Updated
We also heard from Krogers, Walmart and Rite-Aid. Now we’re back to the president. Trump spoke again about testing, and has introduced the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx, to discuss a “blueprint” for states to expand testing.
Updated
The chief executive of CVS Health just announced that the pharmacy chain will expand testing to 1,000 CVS facilities in May. For context, there are nearly 10,000 CVS locations across the US, so this means that approximately one out of 10 CVS locations will have testing capacity by next month.
Next is the Walgreens boss, who says they will triple testing capacity, but does not provide hard numbers.
Trump spoke briefly and generally about the pandemic before introducing a group of chief executives. We’ve identified the first up as the Quest Diagnostics boss, Steve Rusckowski, who boasted that his company is now running 50,000 tests per day.
Updated
In Washington, the US president Donald Trump has just come out to start his briefing, alongside the vice-president Mike Pence.
Meanwhile, experts are calling on the government to more than double the level of Germany’s current testing levels before it considers loosening restrictions.
Germany has the capacity to carry out up to 818,000 tests every week, according to Helge Braun, the head of Merkel’s chancellery, but advisers have said that figure should rise to 2 million.
Increasing the test capacity enables a detailed picture of the pandemic’s progress and helps form a basis for the evaluation of possible relaxation measures by the government.
Whilst many countries have looked in admiration at Germany’s ability to carry out large-scale tests, the constant question being asked within the country is: Why is there not more testing?
The president of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble, waded into the debate in a provocative way with his comments to the Sunday newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.
He said Germany needed to better weigh up the social and economic costs with the desire to save lives, and decisions should not be left just to virologists.
The massive economic, social, psychological and other effects need to be weighed up. To just bring everything to a halt for two years can also have horrific consequences.
Schäuble said he did not believe the first clause in the German constitution, “human dignity is inviolable”, meant preserving human lives at all costs. The clause anchored in the basic law “does not exclude that we must die”, he said.
He stressed that, while the state should provide the best possible medical care for everyone, “people will continue to die of coronavirus”.
Schäuble warned that the mood in the nation was in danger of tipping if the restrictions stayed in place for too long. “It will be harder, the longer it lasts,” he said.
Updated
German politicians are locked in a row over how and when to relax restrictions amid grave concern expressed by Angela Merkel and leading scientific figures that the country is in danger of gambling away the advantages it has gained.
By Monday evening, there were 158,391 confirmed infections and there had been 6,088 deaths.
Germany has done well on testing and contact tracing, as well as on boosting the number of its intensive care beds. Its death rate is quite a lot lower than that of other countries.
But there are increasing references to the so-called ‘prevention paradox’ – by slowing down the virus’s spread, the impression many have is that the dangers have been exaggerated and isn’t it, therefore, about time the country got back to normal?
Updated
Argentina has banned all commercial flight ticket sales until September, one of the toughest travel bans in the world.
While the country’s borders have been closed since March, the new decree goes further by banning the sale and purchase of commercial flights to, from and within Argentina.
Industry figures have claimed it will put too much strain on airlines and airports. The decree, signed by the National Civil Aviation Administration, said it was “understood to be reasonable” to implement the restrictions, without elaborating.
The chairman of the English Premier League club Watford has said a resumption of top-level football should be off the agenda until the burden on the NHS has become less severe, adding that he does not think “football is important at the moment”.
Before the meeting of Premier League executives scheduled for Friday, and with the Bundesliga lined up to be the first major league to restart after a coronavirus lockdown, Scott Duxbury said:
I feel uncomfortable at this stage even talking about football because there are people dying every day, there are stresses on the NHS, and that has to be the priority.
Do I want to resume football? Absolutely, and when it’s safe and the government says it’s fine and all the players and support staff that follow football can return, then I’m 100% behind that. But at the moment I feel all efforts have to be on beating the pandemic and supporting the NHS.
Flaunting World Health Organization (WHO) guidance, Chile’s top health official has claimed a patient recovered from Covid-19 has little chance of contracting the disease again for at least three months.
The WHO maintains there is scant evidence for such claims.
Chile is preparing to roll out some of the world’s first “release certificates” for recovered patients this week. Health officials say they are not “immunity cards” but have previously suggested they will indicate some degree of resistance to the disease.
The health minister, Jaime Mañalich, said he and UN health agency officials have met and agreed there is no way to guarantee immunity. But he cited data from China and South Korea that point to shorter-term protection for those who survive the disease.
The probability that a person becomes ill again, or that someone else becomes ill, becomes very remote. How long? A minimum of three months.
Updated
Jordan has eased restrictions on movement aimed at containing the outbreak and allowed more businesses to reopen to help jump-start the cash-strapped economy, officials have said.
As of Wednesday, residents of the capital, Amman, can drive private vehicles between 8am and 6pm, in the first such move since a nationwide curfew nearly 40 days ago that ordered the country’s population of 10 million to stay at home.
Public transport and taxi services will also now resume with passenger restrictions and compulsory wearing of face masks and gloves, said government spokesman Amjad Adailah.
Updated
Amazon will extend the closure of its six warehouses in France to 5 May after a court rejected the US online retailer’s appeal against a ruling that restricts what it can deliver during the crisis.
The company said it continues to “assess the best way to operate given the decision of the Court of Appeal [in Versailles]”.
Updated
Nigeria to ease restrictions
Nigeria will begin a “phased and gradual” easing of more than four weeks of lockdown at the beginning of next week, its president Muhammadu Buhari has said.
Lagos and Ogun states, and the federal capital territory of Abuja, entered lockdown to tame the spread of the virus on 30 March.
Updated
Ireland’s national public health emergency team will not recommend easing its lockdown next Tuesday unless progress on the spread and impact of the virus is made this week, the chief medical officer, Tony Holohan, has said.
Some countries have announced such measures and Holohan raised hopes Ireland would join them next week when he said on 16 April the country had contained the first wave of the outbreak.
However, he has said improvements in the number of new cases, in hospitalisations, and in admissions to intensive care units have slowed down. Ireland’s caretaker government has adopted the advice of Holohan’s team in full to date.
I was saying that if the assessment was being made towards the end of last week, we wouldn’t be recommending that we had arrived at a point where we would be lifting those restrictions. If anything, I’m more firmly of that view given what we’re seeing.
We’re seeing a persistent admission rate to intensive care units, we’d like to see that number come down. We’re still reporting a significant number of cases and we still have a significant challenge in healthcare facilities ... We’re still seeing improvement, but it’s slowed down.
Updated
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 957,875 cases and said the number of deaths has risen to 53,922.
Over the weekend, the CDC updated its case count to 928,619 and said 52,459 people have died across the country as of 26 April, but that the numbers are preliminary and had not been confirmed by individual states.
French researchers are preparing to launch a human trial to test their hypothesis that nicotine can help the body combat the infection, Reuters reports.
The trial will involve groups of healthcare workers and patients wearing nicotine patches and other groups wearing placebo patches. Then they will be tested to see if there is a difference in how their bodies respond to the virus.
The trial is a follow-up to a French study, published this month, of public health data which appeared to show that people who smoke are 80% less likely to catch Covid-19 than non-smokers of the same age and sex.
There has been a surge of newly unemployed restaurant and pub workers forced to sleep on the streets of London because they can no longer afford to pay rent.
Rough sleepers such as Martin, a recently-sacked chef from Poland, are finding life under lockdown increasingly difficult and dangerous.
London has become so strange and sad. The only people who are out look like they are looking for drugs. There are a lot of crazy people with knives.
Updated
South Korean officials emphasise they have detected no unusual movements in North Korea and caution against reports that Pyongyang’s leader, Kim Jong Un, may be ill or is being isolated because of coronavirus concerns, Reuters reports.
At a closed-door forum on Sunday, South Korea’s unification minister, Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees North Korea engagement, said Seoul had the intelligence capabilities to say with confidence there were no indications of anything unusual.
Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader’s health began after he did not appear in public at a key state holiday on 15 April. He has since remained out of sight.
Experts have cautioned that Kim has disappeared from state media coverage before, and that gathering accurate information in North Korea is difficult.
Updated
Reacting to the news from the UK that families of NHS staff who die during their coronavirus work will get payments worth £60,000, the shadow health minister, Justin Madders, has said:
It is welcome that the government has listened to workforce representatives and ensured that death-in-service benefits are available to everyone working in the NHS and social care sector.
Now the government must finally get a grip over PPE supplies so that NHS and care staff aren’t putting their lives on the line to do their job and protect the rest of us.
Updated
The US House of Representatives foreign affairs committee has launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s decision to block World Health Organization funding, giving the Department of State a week to provide relevant information.
Writing to the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, the committee’s chairman said he would support reform of the “imperfect” UN health agency, but cutting its funding “while the world confronts the Covid-19 tragedy is not the answer”.
In the letter, the Democratic representative, Eliot Engel, asked the State Department to provide 11 sets of documents or other information related to the decision to withhold funding no later than 4 May.
If it did not do so, Engel said the committee would consider all measures at its disposal. A spokesman declined to provide specifics. Engel has the authority as a committee chairman to issue subpoenas to federal agencies.
The requested materials included a list of interagency meetings between 1 December and 14 April at which funding for the WHO was discussed, a list of legal authorities under which the administration will execute the suspension of funds, and documents related to the administration’s investigation of the WHO.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump suspended US contributions to the WHO on 14 April, accusing it of being “China-centric” and promoting China’s “disinformation” about the coronavirus outbreak, and saying his administration would launch a review of the organisation.
WHO officials have denied the claims and China insists it has been transparent and open. The United States is the WHO’s biggest donor.
Trump’s decision prompted immediate criticism from US allies abroad, and within the United States from health experts and Democrats.
Some Democrats accused the Republican president of using the WHO and China as scapegoats to distract from what they view as Trump’s mishandling of a pandemic that has killed nearly 55,000 Americans and cratered the economy.
But Trump’s fellow Republicans have largely backed the president, praising his handling of the health crisis and calling on WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to resign.
Updated
Summary
- More than 3 million people around the world are now confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a tally kept by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The worst-affected country is by far the US, which – with 972,969 cases alone – counts for almost a third of the global total.
- Vaccines for more than 13 million people have been delayed because of the outbreak, the World Health Organization says. The WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says vaccination drives against polio, measles, cholera, HPV, yellow fever and meningitis are affected.
- UK hospital deaths rose by 360, according to Matt Hancock, the UK’s health secretary, who said the total number of deaths in the country was now 21,902. The figure does not include deaths in other settings, which some estimates suggest will account for a significant proportion of the total.
- Italy reported 333 new deaths, a slightly accelerated increase compared to the previous 24 hours; up by 73. The number of people currently infected with the virus fell by 290 to 105,813. Italy has recorded 199,414 coronavirus cases to date.
- Mexico has managed “to tame” its coronavirus outbreak, the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said, despite widespread suspicions that Covid-19 cases are being undercounted. Mexico reported its first Covid-19 case in late February and has now registered 1,351 deaths and 14,677 infections.
- WhatsApp claimed to have cut viral messages by 70% after introducing a limit on the number of people to whom users could forward messages. WhatsApp introduced the limit earlier this month amid claims that its service was contributing to the spread of misleading information about coronavirus.
- Many shops outside shopping malls are reopening in the Czech Republic as the government brings forward its five-stage lockdown exit plan. The UK government is understood to be closely studying the country’s approach as it seeks a route out of its own lockdown.
- Switzerland also began to ease its lockdown, with dentists, hairdressers and massage salons are among the services once again receiving customers. Most shops, schools and food markets will follow suit from 11 May, followed by vocational schools and universities from 8 June.
- Afghanistan recorded its biggest one-day rise in cases, triggered by a continued surge of transmission in Kandahar, as the health ministry warns two critical weeks lie ahead.
Click below to see more at-a-glance headlines:
Updated
Confirmed cases of coronavirus pass 3m worldwide
More than 3 million people around the world are now confirmed to have been infected with Covid-19 since it first emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of last year, according to a tally kept by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
The worldwide death toll from the Covid-19 disease caused by the new virus recently passed 200,000.
The worst-affected country is by far the US, which, with 972,969 cases alone, counts for almost a third of the global total, followed by Spain with 229,422, Italy with 199,414, and France with 162,220.
However, with testing regimes differing widely around the world and questions raised about the efficacy of the tests themselves, the true number of cases is impossible to gauge. The Johns Hopkins tracker is based on official reports.
Updated
Wearing face masks should not give people a false sense of security against the new coronavirus, one of Italy’s top public health officials has warned.
Silvio Brusaferro, director of the ISS public health institute, said face masks should be worn on the street in cases when it is hard to maintain a safe distance from others. But masks “must not give a false sense of security”, Brusaferro told reporters.
“It is an additional element, but personal hygiene and distancing are more important.”
The Mediterranean country is making the use of face masks mandatory on transport and in stores as it gradually rolls back lockdown measures starting next Monday.
Updated
An aide to an influential king in Ivory Coast has said the monarch could order a procession of naked women to ward off coronavirus, AFP reports.
Amon N’Douffou V, the king of Sanwi, in the southeast of Ivory Coast, held a special exorcism ceremony last week seeking divine intervention to protect his 3 million subjects against the epidemic.
With more than 1,000 cases of Covid-19 and 14 deaths, Ivory Coast government has asked traditional rulers, who have wide authority, to help enforcephysical distancing and other measures.
Following last week’s ceremony, Ben Kottia, the king’s counsellor, said King Amon could take further measures to try counter the epidemic.
In Africa, we live in two worlds – the visible and the invisible. Only kings have the power through this libation to demand the protection of the invisible world.
The king can order women who hold this secret to perform the ‘adjalou’ - a procession through the village to protect the people.
During adjalou, these women are naked and we confine men and children in their homes.
The women erect barricades at the entrance of villages to prevent bad spirits from entering and claiming lives.
The procession is kept secret until the previous day when the royal announcer goes through the village to say it will take place.
Updated
Children are falling ill with a new and potentially fatal combination of symptoms apparently linked to Covid-19, including a sore stomach and heart problems, reports Denis Campbell, the Guardian’s health policy correspondent.
The children affected appear to have been struck by a form of toxic shock syndrome. Some have been left so seriously unwell that they have had to be treated in intensive care. At least one has undergone extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, which is used when someone’s life is at risk because they can no longer breathe for themselves.
It is not known how many such cases have appeared, though it is thought to be a small number. But NHS bosses are so concerned that they have written to doctors alerting them to the existence of the syndrome and asked them to urgently refer any children who appear to have it to hospital. In a letter to GPs in north London, reported by the Health Service Journal, NHS bosses said:
It has been reported that over the last three weeks there has been an apparent rise in the number of children of all ages presenting with a multi-system inflammatory state requiring intensive care across London and also in other regions of the UK.
The cases have in common overlapping feature of toxic shock syndrome and atypical Kawasaki disease with blood parameters consistent with severe Covid-19 in children.
There is a growing concern that a Sars-CoV-2-related inflammatory syndrome is emerging in children in the UK, or that there may be another, as yet unidentified, infectious pathogen associated with these cases.
Updated
Eighteen more people with Covid-19 have died in Ireland, bringing the total death toll to 1,102, the country’s department of health reports.
Ireland recorded 386 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Monday, bringing the total in the country to 19,648.
Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) April 27, 2020
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been informed that a total of 18 people with #COVID19 have died, of which 17 were laboratory confirmed.
There have now been a total of 1,102 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland. Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 3 deaths. The figure of 1,102 deaths reflects this.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) April 27, 2020
As of 11am Monday 27th April, the HPSC has been notified of 386 new confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 19,648 confirmed cases of #COVID19 in Ireland.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) April 27, 2020
For more detailed case information data, please visit https://t.co/RjyC3RrpgD
Updated
Argentina has infuriated the airline industry by banning ticket sales for commercial flights until September, according to a report by Reuters.
While the country’s borders have been closed since March, the new decree goes further in preventing the sale and purchase of commercial flights to, from or within Argentina until 1 September.
The spread of the coronavirus “does not allow certainties” for the end of social isolation measures, which would threaten commercial air transportation, the decree by the National Civil Aviation Administration said. It went on:
It has been understood to be reasonable to set September 1, 2020 for the purpose of rescheduling regular operations or requesting authorisations for non-regular operations of passenger air transport subject to the effective lifting of restrictions imposed on commercial air transport and operating modalities.
Part of the decree’s aim is to prevent airlines from ticketing flights not approved by the government.
“The problem was that airlines were selling tickets without having authorisation to travel to Argentine soil,” a spokesman for President Alberto Fernández said.
The decision prompted industry groups including ALTA, which lobbies on behalf of Latin American airlines, to warn that the decree represented an “imminent and substantial risk” to thousands of jobs in Argentina. It said in a statement:
It is our responsibility to express the deep concern generated by the resolution in question, which was not shared or agreed with the industry and, furthermore, runs counter to the efforts of all the actors in the sector to propose and implement a plan for responsible and safe reactivation that re-establishes commercial activities and an essential service for the population.
The presidential spokesman, however, said the decision resulted from a “consensus between the government and the airline sector”.
Updated
Six more people have died from the coronavirus in Serbia, bringing the country’s total death toll to 162, Telegraf reports.
The latest victims were three women and three men. Four of them were residents at the same care home, according to the Serbian news site.
News of the latest deaths came as Serbia reported 233 more confirmed cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of infections there so far to 8,275.
Six weeks after Serbia declared a state of emergency in response to the pandemic, including special restrictions on the elderly, the UN Population Fund has helped launch a helpline for older people suffering from feelings of isolation.
People aged over 65 in urban areas, and over 70 in smaller cities, are prohibited from engaging in habits like morning walks, coffee with neighbours or visits with relatives.
Natasa Todorovic, of the Red Cross of Serbia, said:
We know the psychological effects of isolation can have multiple negative effects, such as fear, nervousness, sadness and guilt.
With so many stress factors that have arisen from the Covid-19 pandemic, such as fear of infection, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, stigma, financial challenges, having someone to talk to is very much needed.
Updated
Here’s more from the World Health Organization’s coronavirus press briefing earlier, where Dr Mike Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies expert, said that the US seemed to have a “very clearly laid-out”, science-based federal plan for fighting its coronavirus epidemic – in spite of the bizarre outbursts of its president.
“The federal government and the system of governors are working together to move America and its people through this very difficult situation,” Reuters reported Ryan as saying, adding that the federal system linking 50 states made the situation “complex”.
Ryan repeated an earlier WHO warning against easing restrictions too soon. Speaking specifically about US plans to ease confinement measures, he said:
We believe that the over-arching federal plan seems to be very much based on science ...
We hope that the US government and its people can move through this plan, work through day-to-day how to do that and find a successful solution that reduces the impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.
Updated
In parts of Germany, people caught in public without face masks face a €1,000 fine. In Madagascar they have another way of dealing with rule breakers: forcing them to sweep the streets.
Face coverings have been made mandatory from today for everyone out in public in the Madagascan capital, Antananarivo, as well as in the cities of of Fianarantsoa and Toamasina, at the same time as other restrictions have begun to be loosened.
Authorities warned that citizens leaving the house without face masks would face community service, AFP reports. The head of anti-coronavirus operations, Gen Elak Olivier Andriakaja, said on state television:
Seventy percent of people on the street respected the rule … because they are scared of having to sweep pavements … Measures were taken before the sanctions fell into place to raise awareness and distribute mouth covers. I think that’s enough and that sanctions must now be applied.
About 500 people in Antananarivo and Fianarantsoa were penalised on Monday, said the deputy head of police, Christian Rakotobe. Antananarivo’s commissioner, Hector Razafindrazaka, said 25 people were sentenced on the spot and forced to sweep the capital’s dusty streets. Images of the embarrassed-looking offenders were widely circulated on social media.
To date, the Indian Ocean island-nation has recorded 128 cases of Covid-19. No fatalities have been recorded so far and 75 patients have recovered.
Updated
Italy reports 333 more Covid-19 deaths
Deaths from the coronavirus in Italy rose by 333 on Monday, 73 more than on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 26,977, reports Angela Giuffrida, the Guardian’s Rome correspondent.
The number of people currently infected with the virus fell by 290 to 105,813.
Italy has recorded 199,414 coronavirus cases to date, including the victims and 66,624 survivors.
Updated
New rules came into force on Monday legally requiring most people in Germany to wear face masks on public transport, long-distance trains and in shops, reports Kate Connolly, the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent.
The so-called Maskenpflicht (mask duty) was introduced in 15 of the country’s 16 states on Monday morning. The northern state of Schleswig-Holstein will on Wednesday be the last state to implement the legislation.
Fines of between €25 and €10,000 can be imposed on those who fail to wear a mask, with rates differing widely across the country, and some states, such as Berlin and Brandenburg, insisting they would not levy fines at all, but would rely instead on people showing each other mutual respect by wearing them. Other states said they would allow a few days of grace for people to get used to the new rule.
The heftiest fines will apply to shopkeepers whose staff are caught not wearing masks, and there are incremental fine systems in some states for repeat offenders.
Authorities have been quick to insist the masks do not have to be medically approved. Scarfs or cloths over the nose or mouth are adequate. Tailors across the country, as well as bands of hobby sewers, have been busy making masks to meet high demand, while there are reports of elastic shortages. Some states, such as Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, have said they will provide masks to their citizens.
Updated
More than 31,000 #COVID19 cases reported on the African continent, with more than 20,000 cases & an average of 600 new cases each day in past 11 days in the @WHO African Region. pic.twitter.com/4x2GR4quiL
— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) April 27, 2020
UK reports 360 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals
Matt Hancock, the UK health secretary, said there had been 360 new coronavirus hospital deaths in the UK.
That takes the total UK coronavirus hospital death toll to 21,092, he said.
Updated
Singapore has confirmed 799 more coronavirus infections, its health ministry said on Monday, taking the city-state’s tally of cases to 14,423.
The health ministry also reported two more deaths, of male Singapore citizens aged 82 and 81, taking the total death toll to 14.
Among the new cases, 764 are foreign workers living in dormitories in the city-state, which despite having acted early and aggressively to tackle the spread of the virus, now has among the highest number of infections in Asia.
As of 27 Apr 2020, 12pm, we have confirmed & verified an additional 799 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. Breakdown: 0 imported, 18 cases in the community, 17 Work Permit holders residing outside dorms & 764 Work Permit holders residing in dorms. https://t.co/tE8PYsZbUC
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) April 27, 2020
Of the new cases, 51% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing. Read more: https://t.co/tE8PYsZbUC
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) April 27, 2020
35 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 1,095 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged. Read more: https://t.co/tE8PYsZbUC
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) April 27, 2020
There are currently 1,451 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 20 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. Read more: https://t.co/tE8PYsZbUC
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) April 27, 2020
Updated
Turkey has detained 402 people in the past 42 days for allegedly sharing false and provocative social media postings concerning the coronavirus outbreak, officials said on Monday.
A statement from Turkey’s interior ministry said officials had inspected more than 6,000 social media accounts and that 402 people had been held, among a total of 855 account-holders sought by authorities for sharing posts deemed to be provocative.
A ministry official told AP the detainees had allegedly attempted to cause panic over the coronavirus pandemic with posts that, among other things, accused the government of not doing enough to curb the outbreak or of lying about the numbers of deaths or infections.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government regulations.
Turkey’s latest coronavirus figures are yet to be published, but the country has reported a gradual decline in daily death tolls over the past week.
Updated
Covid-19 crisis delays vaccines for 13m people
Fourteen vaccination campaigns that would have covered more than 13 million people have been postponed because of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization has said.
In his opening remarks to today’s coronavirus press conference, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said vaccination drives against polio, measles, cholera, human papillomavirus, yellow fever and meningitis had not gone ahead.
“When vaccination coverage goes down, more outbreaks will occur, including of life-threatening diseases like measles and polio,” Ghebreyesus said. “The tragic reality is that children will die as a result.”
The World Health Organization’s regular Covid-19 press conference is now beginning.
You can watch it live in the player embedded at the top of the blog.
Media briefing on #COVID19 with @DrTedros. https://t.co/7YmDn3HB2e
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 27, 2020
Switzerland begins to ease coronavirus lockdown
Queues formed in front of garden centres in Switzerland on Monday, one of a number of different kinds of businesses allowed to reopen their doors as the Alpine country loosens its coronavirus lockdown.
Dentists, hairdressers, massage parlours and beauty salons were also among the services once again receiving customers, after closing down in March to slow the spread of the new disease.
Most shops, schools and food markets will follow suit from 11 May. In a third stage, vocational schools and universities are set to reopen from 8 June, provided there is no significant increase in Covid-19 cases.
Only grocery stores, chemists and other “essential” businesses have been allowed to remain open during the lockdown.
“The number of new cases is continuing to decline, which is certainly good news on the first day we are starting to relax the measures,” Daniel Koch, the official leading Switzerland’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, told reporters in Bern.
On Monday, Switzerland reported 30 new deaths from coronavirus, taking the total death toll in the country to 1,640. The total number of confirmed cases reached 29,164, after 103 new infections were detected – far fewer than in late March, when Swiss authorities were reporting close to a thousand or more cases each day.
Outside the Schillinger garden centre, in the town of Gland on Lake Geneva, Christiane Ansermet waited to pick up some seedlings. Asked whether she thought the country was ready to emerge from its lockdown, she told Reuters:
I think it is about time. We have to live our lives, so I think it is important that we keep doing our activities and contact with people is so important, even in a queue like that.
Updated
Sweden reported 286 new cases of coronavirus and 80 more deaths on Monday, as the world watches developments there to see if its light-touch coronavirus measures prove to be effective or a disaster.
Unlike its neighbours, Sweden has allowed schools for under-16s, cafes, bars, restaurants and businesses to stay open while urging people and businesses to respect social distancing guidelines.
In an interview with Jon Henley, the Guardian’s European affairs correspondent, Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, said it was too early to judge her country’s light-touch approach to Covid-19. She said:
There’s been a lot of misunderstanding. We have pretty much the same goals as every other government … And as we have always said, we are perfectly ready to go with more binding regulations if the population does not follow.
Updated
European ministers in charge of tourism have called for common action to help the sector weather the crisis resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, reports Jennifer Ranking, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent.
Tourism represents 10% of the EU’s economic output, but more in Italy, Spain, Croatia and Greece, which are facing a heavy blow from travel bans, grounded planes and closed borders.
Gari Capelli, the minister of tourism in Croatia, who chaired the video conference, said the sector had “experienced an immense and unexpected decline in demand due to the coronavirus pandemic”.
In a statement released after the meeting, he called for “the creation of joint solutions to the crisis of the tourism sector” as well as programmes and plans for combating similar threats in future.
The minister did not spell out what he had in mind, while officials spoke of “common rules” and “protocols” expected to be defined in a forthcoming policy paper by the European commission.
Capelli also said he was pleased that EU leaders had agreed last week to create a European Recovery Fund, which will give aid to the hardest-hit countries and sectors. “I believe that we are all aware that tourism definitely falls into the category of the most affected sectors in this crisis.”
The EU industry commissioner, Thierry Breton, who also took part in the video conference call, urged countries to make use of different EU funds to provide a lifeline to businesses.
Unlike the vast majority of EU ministerial meetings, there was no press conference to allow journalists to question politicians on the substance of discussions.
The UN World Tourism Organisation predicted a month ago that tourist arrivals could fall by 20-30% in 2020, leading to losses of up to $450bn (£362bn) for the industry.
Updated
The downward trend in coronavirus deaths and new infections continues in the Netherlands, where 400 new confirmed cases and 43 new deaths were reported on Monday.
That brings the total number of cases in the country to 38,245, with a death toll so far of 4,518, according to figures reported by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
Schools, businesses and some shops remain closed in the Netherlands, but some younger children are to be allowed back to school next month.
Like Sweden, the Netherlands has made clear to the public that it is not seeking to try to eradicate Covid-19, but is pursuing an eventual goal of “herd immunity”. According to an in the coronavirus Q&A section of the RIVM website:
Most people infected with the coronavirus recover. According to WHO, people show antibodies in their blood for at least a month after recovery. This means that in the Netherlands immunity against corona is being built up. This is not a goal in itself, but a result of the fact that the virus is present in the Netherlands. One of the effects is that gradually more people become immune to the virus, which will eventually lead to herd immunity, as is the case for other viral infections. As we are dealing with a newly emerged virus, WHO correctly states that there is no certainty about the development of immunity against COVID-19, or about how long this immunity will last. More information about this will become available soon. The Netherlands will keep on adapting its policy, based on the latest findings.
Updated
Politicians in Germany are locked in a row over how and when to relax restrictions, amid grave concern, expressed by Angela Merkel and leading scientific figures, that the country is in danger of gambling away the advantages it has gained so far in dampening the spread of the virus, writes Kate Connolly, the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent.
By Monday afternoon there were just over 158,000 confirmed infections and there have been 6047 deaths.
As has been well publicised, Germany has done well on testing and tracing as well as on the number of its intensive care beds. Its death rate is much lower than other countries.
But there are increasing references to the so-called ‘prevention paradox’ – by slowing down the virus’s spread the impression many have is that the dangers have been exaggerated and isn’t it therefore, about time the country got back to normal?
The president of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble waded into the debate in a provocative way with his comments to Sunday newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, that Germany needed to better weigh up the social and economic costs with the desire to save lives and decisions should not be left just to virologists.
“The massive economic, social, psychological and other effects need to be weighed up,” he said. “To just bring everything to a halt for two years can also have horrific consequences.”
Schäuble said he did not believe that the first clause in the German constitution “human dignity is inviolable” meant preserving human lives at all costs. The clause anchored in the basic law “does not exclude that we must die,” he said.
He stressed whilst the state should provide the best possible medical care for everyone, “people will continue to die of coronavirus”.
He warned that the mood in the nation was in danger of tipping if the restrictions stayed in place for too long. “It will be harder, the longer it lasts,” he said.
Meanwhile experts are calling on the government to more than double the level of Germany’s current testing levels before it considers loosening restrictions.
Currently Germany has the capacity to carry out up to 818,000 tests every week, according to Helge Braun, head of Merkel’s chancellery, but advisers have said that figure should rise to 2 million.
“Increasing the test capacity enables a detailed picture of the pandemic’s progress and helps form a basis for the evaluation of possible relaxation measures by the government,” he said.
While many countries have looked in admiration at Germany’s ability to carry out large-scale tests, the constant question being asked in the country is: why is there not more testing?
Updated
Lopez Obrador: Mexico 'tames' pandemic
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has claimed his country has managed “to tame” the coronavirus pandemic despite widespread suspicions that Covid cases are being undercounted in Latin America’s second biggest economy.
Mexico reported its first Covid case in late February and has now registered 1,351 deaths and 14,677 infections. Experts say they believe the country is still several weeks away from the peak of infections.
But in a video message on Sunday López Obrador, or Amlo as he is widely known, claimed: “We’re doing well because we have managed to tame the epidemic”.
Amlo praised Mexico’s 126 million citizens for helping slow the disease’s advance by following social distancing guidelines “to the letter”.
Health specialists questioned Amlo’s claim Covid had been completely controlled.
“I don’t believe we should be claiming victory,” said Alejandro Macías, a leading infectious diseases specialist. “We’re still in the upward phase [of infections].”
Amlo has said he hopes Mexico can begin returning to normal from mid-May onwards, with schools possibly reopening at the start of June.
But Macías said he believed low testing meant only a “small fraction” of cases had been identified and that it was not yet time to reopen.
“To me these dates seem a little premature because we don’t yet know what the intensity of this will be,” he said. “Italy, France and Spain started this problem well before Mexico.”
In a clear indication of concern over Covid’s spread, there were reports over the weekend that authorities in Jalisco state were racing to complete a special 700-grave cemetery for coronavirus victims.
Updated
Updated
Formula One plans to start the season in Austria on 5 July and stage between 15 and 18 grands prix this year with the opening races behind closed doors.
The announcement came immediately after the French Grand Prix was cancelled and the news the British Grand Prix will be held without spectators if it goes ahead.
The French GP on 28 June is the 10th race to fall to the coronavirus outbreak and its cancellation had been expected after Emmanuel Macron banned mass gatherings until July.
F1 has been planning and discussing how and when the season may begin and Austria, where lockdown restrictions have been relaxed, was expected to host the first race.
“We are now increasingly confident with the progress of our plans to begin our season,” said Chase Carey, the chairman of the F1 group. “We’re targeting a start to racing in Europe through July, August and beginning of September, with the first race taking place in Austria on 3-5 July.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
Preparatory work has begun on restarting repairs to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Fire consumed the 850-year-old building a year ago, and donations for its restoration poured in from around the world.
Work has proven slow, however, with delays caused by toxic lead released by the fire, winter storms and then by the Covid-19 pandemic, which closed the site in March.
Today the process of making the site fit for socially distant repairs has begun. This includes adapting showers and changing rooms for workers.
Despite delays and the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the rector of the cathedral, Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, said work was still on target to hit the five-year deadline set by President Emmanuel Macron.
Updated
Hi there, this is Paul MacInnes, sitting in for Damien as he breaks for lunch. My Twitter is essentially defunct but you can get me on paul.macinnes@theguardian.com if you want
Updated
Shops begin reopening in Czech Republic
Many shops outside shopping malls are reopening in the Czech Republic after the government brought forward its five-stage lockdown exit plan, amid reports that the British government is closely watching the country’s back-to-business strategy, writes Jon Henley, the Guardian’s European affairs correspondent.
Under increasing pressure to lift parts of the UK’s lockdown and limit the damage to the economy, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is understood to be studying the Czech Republic’s approach to lifting the tight restrictions it imposed earlier than most countries further west, which have helped it limit cases to 7,400, with just 221 deaths [with the latest four cases and one death reported today - DG].
Prague was one of the few governments to declare a state of emergency before the country had recorded its first coronavirus death. By 11 March it had closed all schools, limited public gatherings, banned all public events, sealed its borders and shuttered all non-essential stores. It also made face masks obligatory in public.
Early this month it became the first European country to relax its restrictions, initially by allowing citizens to cycle, jog and walk in the countryside without wearing their masks, as long as they stayed 2 metres apart.
Two remarkable aerial pictures show hundreds of people in Kenya observing social distancing guidelines while travelling on the Likoni crossing ferry.
Social Distancing well practiced at the Likoni Crossing Channel. Let’s all observe self-responsibility, discipline, wear masks, wash hands using soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub and observe public transport regulations.#Covid_19 #COVID19 #KomeshaCorona
— Mombasa County (@MombasaCountyKe) April 27, 2020
Pics: Courtesy pic.twitter.com/qnx5c13h7C
However, such obedience comes at a price. These were the scenes at Likoni late last month, as Kenyan police began enforcing just imposed lockdown measures – with violence.
Updated
The number of daily confirmed infections of the coronavirus in Qatar has been accelerating over the past week.
Most of those cases were among expatriate workers who had had contact with other confirmed cases, the state news agency QNA said, according to a report circulated by Reuters yesterday.
It said some of the new cases had been recorded among workers outside of the capital’s old industrial zone, which was isolated in mid-March after it emerged as a hotspot for the virus.
Last week Qatar said it would gradually start to lift the lockdown there.
#coronavirus in #Qatar
— Akhtar Mohammad Makoii (@akhtar_makoii) April 27, 2020
Total number of infections: 11,244
New infections: 957
Apr26: 929
Apr25: 833
Apr24: 761
Apr23: 623
Apr22: 608
Apr21: 614
Apr20: 567
Death toll: 10
Updated
South Africa is celebrating Freedom Day under lockdown.
Happy Freedom Day South Africa 🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/zAERU6h0k9
— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) April 27, 2020
WhatsApp curbs cut viral messages by 70%
The social messaging service WhatsApp says it has cut the number of viral messages spreading across its worldwide network by 70% after introducing a limit on the number of people to whom users could forward messages.
WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, introduced the limit earlier this month amid claims that its service was contributing to the spread of misleading information about the coronavirus pandemic.
It cut the number of chats to which a user could pass on a so-called “highly forwarded message” from five to one.
On Monday, a WhatsApp spokesperson said:
WhatsApp is committed to doing our part to tackle viral messages. We recently introduced a limit to sharing ‘highly forwarded messages’ to just one chat. Since putting into place this new limit, globally there has been a 70% reduction in the number of highly forwarded messages sent on WhatsApp. This change is helping keep WhatsApp a place for personal and private conversations.
Updated
Three hundred thousand people could starve to death every day for three months if the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic stops the World Food Programme from reaching them with critical supplies, its director has said.
David Beasley said in an interview with the Associated Press he has also been telling leaders that maintaining supply chains is critical and there are many potential obstacles, including export restrictions, closed borders and ports, farms not producing and roads closed.
He said he had been spending hours every day speaking with officials in donor countries to try to keep donations coming, but that he was afraid that severe economic problems cut lead to cuts in funding at the same time as a catastrophic global recession.
Support for WFP comes from the US, the UK, Germany, the European Union, Japan and other prosperous nations, he said.
If their economies deteriorate substantially, that impacts our money, it impacts the local economies in the developing nations in a variety of different ways.
According to Beasley, a former governor of South Carolina, 821 million people go to bed hungry every night all over the world now, a further 135 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. He said:
WFP is providing food to nearly 100 million people on any given day, including about 30 million people who literally depend on us to stay alive.
And if those 30 million people cant be reached, our analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period and that doesn’t include increased starvation due to the new coronavirus.”
In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries, and in 10 of them there are already more than 1 million people per country on the verge of starvation.”
Updated
Kenya has hailed its “tremendous progress” in recoveries from Covid-19, after eight patients with the disease were discharged from hospital - the same number of new carriers identified in the past 24 hours.
Today, we continue to register tremendous progress in terms of recoveries. In the last 24 hours, an additional 8 COVID-19 patients have been discharged from hospital, bringing to total number of recoveries to 114. #KomeshaCorona update.
— Ministry of Health (@MOH_Kenya) April 27, 2020
✔️All the 8 cases confirmed today are Kenyans.
— Ministry of Health (@MOH_Kenya) April 27, 2020
✔️5 were picked by our surveillance team, while 3 are from the mandatory quarantine facilities.
✔️They are aged between 13 and 65 years.#KomeshaCorona update
✔️2 cases are from Kibra, Nairobi and the quarantine facility at Kenyatta University.
— Ministry of Health (@MOH_Kenya) April 27, 2020
✔️The Kwale case is from Tangä at Lunga Lunga border
✔️4 cases are from Mombasa, Mvita. #KomeshaCorona update
The coronavirus pandemic is likely to be followed by even more deadly and destructive disease outbreaks unless their root cause – the rampant destruction of the natural world – is rapidly halted, the world’s leading biodiversity experts have warned, writes Damian Carrington, the Guardian’s environment editor.
In an article, they write:
There is a single species responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic – us. Recent pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity, particularly our global financial and economic systems that prize economic growth at any cost. We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current crisis, to avoid sowing the seeds of future ones.
Professors Josef Settele, Sandra Díaz and Eduardo Brondizio led the most comprehensive planetary health check ever undertaken, which was published in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It concluded that human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems.
In an article published on Monday, with Dr Peter Daszak, who is preparing the next IPBES assessment, they write:
Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a ‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases.
Contrary to information in a graphic posted earlier on the blog, the Netherlands has put forward plans to begin an easing of its lockdown – and they are proving controversial.
Primary schools and daycare centres are due to reopen in the country in early May, prime minister Mark Rutte announced last week, although class sizes may be cut to accommodate health guidelines, NLTimes reported.
Controversy soon erupted, however, when a member of the Dutch outbreak management team suggested in a television appearance that the reopening of schools was part of a strategy to allow the virus to gradually spread through the population.
Speaking on school reopening plans, Ann Vossen said last Tuesday that the Dutch government’s aim was not to eradicate the epidemic, but to slow it down. She said:
It’s a common sentiment among the general public that we should ‘put a stop to it now!’ But that is not really the goal here. We just want to make sure it spreads in a gradual way, so to speak, while keeping the risk to public health the healthcare system as low as possible. But we do not want to halt it completely, because in that case we would have had to opt for a complete lockdown.
Hello, world. Here is the Dutch #COVID19 approach. Primary schools in The Netherlands are about to be gradually reopened with the explicit intent of allowing the virus to infect the populace, albeit 'gradually'. Please share. 👇 pic.twitter.com/jyHpqk0Wcb
— Jaap Stronks (@jaapstronks) April 22, 2020
Such “herd immunity” strategies have proven a difficult sell to populations, with the UK government having been forced to make a sharp U-turn after it initially said the outcome was part of its plan for dealing with the virus.
They are counter to the advice from the World Health Organization, which has called for a “test, trace and quarantine” strategy to keep outbreaks as controlled as possible until a vaccine is available.
However, in Sweden, the government has had more support for a similar approach.
The latest coronavirus statistics from the Netherlands and Sweden are due shortly and I will post them when they arrive.
Updated
Hospitals in Belgium admitted the lowest number of Covid-19 patients since the start of the lockdown almost seven weeks ago, figures showed on Monday, a week before the country starts to ease restrictions, Reuters reports.
The number of hospital admissions, a key number to monitor the disease’s evolution, fell to 127 on Sunday, the lowest level since 18 March. Daily admissions peaked at over 600 at the end of March and have hovered at around 200 for the past week.
The number of new confirmed Covid-19 cases also declined to a month low of 553, although health officials said the decline might be in part due to a weekend effect.
The nation of 11.5 million people closed restaurants, cafes, gyms and schools from 14 March and then ordered that all non-food shops close from 18 March.
The government outlined plans on Friday to allow a gradual easing of restrictions from 4 May, with a series of phases of further reopening during the course of the month.
Updated
Afghanistan records biggest one-day rise in cases
In Afghanistan, the health ministry has warned two critical weeks lie ahead as the war-torn country recorded its biggest one-day rise of new coronavirus cases, triggered by a continued surge of transmission in Kandahar.
Over the past 24 hours, 172 new cases were confirmed, bringing to total number of infections to 1,703. Of the new cases, 27 were confirmed in the country’s capital, Kabul, pushing the total number of infections 479 in what has become Afghanistan’s worst affected area. A lockdown is being implemented in Kabul in a bid to contain spread of the virus.
#Afghanistan has reported its biggest one-day rise of new #coronavirus cases, taking the total number to 1,703. Seven died in last 24 hours.
— Akhtar Mohammad Makoii (@akhtar_makoii) April 27, 2020
Total infections: 1,703
New infections: 172
Apr26: 68
Apr25: 133
Apr24: 95
Apr23: 83
Apr22: 51
Apr21: 66
Apr20: 30
Death toll: 57
Afghanistan has also recorded its biggest one-day rise in casualties to Covid-19, as seven patients died overnight, taking the total number of deaths to 57.
Herat, which had been worst affected area of the country for weeks, has recorded 33 new cases, bringing the total to 423. The region shares a border with Iran, the Middle East country worst affected by the Covid-19 outbreak, and thousands of Afghan migrants poured back from Iran in February and March.
In Kandahar, transmissions continued to surge as 21 new cases confirmed.
Speaking in Kabul on Monday, Wahidullah Mayar, a health ministry spokesman, said that the next two weeks would be “very critical” and asked the nation to stay at home. But with streets crowded with people and vehicles, experts fear fighting the virus will be challenging.
Meanwhile. the UN mission in Afghanistan said on Monday that more than 533 civilians, including 152 children, were killed in fighting in the first quarter of 2020. The UN said the figures highlighted “the urgent need for all parties to the conflict to do more to protect civilians from harm, especially in view of the looming threat posed to all Afghans by Covid-19”.
Deborah Lyons, the secretary general’s special representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, said:
I call on all parties to seize the opportunity offered by the secretary-general’s call for a global ceasefire to focus collective efforts on fighting a common enemy, the Covid-19 pandemic.
To safeguard the lives of countless civilians in Afghanistan and to give the nation hope of a better future, it is imperative that violence is stopped with the establishment of a ceasefire and for peace negotiations to commence.
Mayar, the health ministry spokesman, asked the Taliban to stop “killing brothers and instead fight against one enemy, which is coronavirus”.
But in a tweet on Thursday, the Taliban’s spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, rejected ceasefire offers, citing ongoing disagreements over a potential peace process and a delayed prisoner exchange as reasons to keep fighting.
Updated
A loophole in Ireland’s lockdown laws means police cannot detain visitors from Northern Ireland, raising concern that some people may cross the border and defy physical distancing regulations, Rory Carroll reports from Dublin.
Gardaí have been ordered not to arrest anyone from Northern Ireland because they have no powers of enforcement over people who do not live in the republic, RTE reported.
The disclosure prompted concern from politicians and residents in Donegal and other border counties that Northern Ireland residents chafing at the UK’s continued lockdown may visit holiday homes and tour beauty spots in the republic.
Residents in the republic are chafing at a ban on travelling more than 2km from home and would bristle at any sign of cross-border visitors taking advantage of the loophole.
Sinn Féin said the loophole reinforced the need for an all-island response to the coronavirus pandemic. The party has also cited the UK’s higher death rate as further reason for an all-Ireland approach. The Ulster Unionist party accused Sinn Féin of “perverse” political point-scoring.
Updated
The Philippines on Monday reported 198 new coronavirus cases and 10 more deaths, brining the country’s tally to 7,777 cases and 511 fatalities, Reuters reports.
The Department of Health also said 70 individuals have recovered from the infection, bringing the total number of recoveries to 932.
This is Damien Gayle taking over the live blog now for the next few hours, with the latest updates on the coronavirus crisis around the world, focusing in particular on Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
If you have any comments, tips or suggestions for coverage please them in to me via email at damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.
In Spain, the number of overnight deaths stood at 331 as officials continue to push forward with tentative plans to loosen one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.
The country remains one of the world’s hardest-hit, with 23,521 lives claimed by the virus. The total number of cases, as confirmed by PCR tests, rose to 209,465 from 207,634 the day before.
In recent days, the data has offered a glimmer of hope; Monday marked the fourth day in which the number of overnight deaths has hovered below 400 after reaching a high of 950 deaths on 2 April.
The number of deaths and new infections is clearly on the decline, said Fernando Simón, the head of Spain’s centre for health emergencies. “And obviously this gives us hope.”
As Spain’s outbreak appears to ease, residents have begun to get a glimpse of what health officials have described as the country’s “new normality”.
On Sunday, more than 6 million children were allowed outside for the first time in six weeks. The daily outings come with stringent rules: Children must be 13 years of age or younger, stay within one kilometre of their homes and be supervised by one adult. The outings are limited to one hour once a day.
While accusations of parents and children flouting physical distancing rules circulated on social media, the country’s health minister, Salvador Illa, said Sunday most families appeared to be following the restrictions. The government would continue to monitor the situation closely, he added, “and take steps if necessary”.
The military – deployed at the height of the crisis to help with tasks such as disinfecting care homes and setting up field hospitals – has also started to retreat from Spanish streets, with the number of officers dropping from around 3,500 last week to just over 2,000, according to the defence ministry.
The Spanish government has said it is eyeing allowing adults to exercise outdoors as of 2 May if infections continue to fall. The country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is expected to present more detailed plans on how it will cautiously ease out of the lockdown on Tuesday.
The relaxing of the emergency measures comes as officials scramble to get a better picture of how far-reaching the virus has been in Spain. On Monday, scientists began carrying out antibody tests on more than 36,000 randomly selected households across the country in a study that is expected to continue for weeks.
Updated
Summary
Confirmed cases worldwide approach 3 million
Cases are nearing the 3 million mark, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2,981,592 confirmed. At least 206,803 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic, though the true toll is likely to be much higher due to under-reporting and some countries not including deaths among those with underlying conditions in their tolls.
European countries cautiously ease lockdowns
France is due to announce plans to ease its strict lockdown measures in promised “deconfinement plan”. Germany has urged states to “go carefully” with the lifting of restrictions. Primary school children in Norway have gone back to school after the government declared it had controlled the outbreak. Spain announced 331 more deaths as it begins to loosen lockdown rules. Greece is preparing to lift restrictions on movements to the islands. European stock markets have rallied.
Boris Johnson says the UK is beginning to turn the tide
The prime minister said the UK is turning the tide on tackling coronavirus but is still facing a moment of “maximum risk” and he will not be forced to end the lockdown prematurely. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street on Monday, his first day back after recovering from coronavirus, he urged the public and business to contain their impatience to lift the restrictions.
Iran announces 96 more deaths
A further 96 people have died of coronavirus in Iran taking its death toll to 5,806, the ministry of heath announced. But Iran plans to go ahead with reopening of mosques in areas where the virus has not struck.
Russia has passed China in the number of new infections
Russia has confirmed 6,198 new coronavirus cases over the past day, bringing the total number in the country to 87,147 in all regions, the anti-coronavirus crisis centre reported on Monday. This is more than the 84,500 confirmed cases in China. Meanwhile, China has denied it is spreading disinformation about the virus.
New Zealand prepares to move out of its strict lockdown measures
The government reported only one new confirmed case of Covid-19 and said it had eliminated the virus. At 11.59pm on Monday, New Zealand will lift its level-4 lockdown which has been in place for more than four weeks. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the nation had “won the battle” against widespread community transmission.
More US states to end lockdown as economy crumbles
Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee will join other US states in the lifting of lockdown restrictions, as economists predict an unemployment rate of 16% or higher for the month of April. New York governor Andrew Cuomo said some regions of the state might qualify to open sooner “with certain precautions”, such as upstate New York, as the daily death toll was markedly lower on Sunday than it was on Saturday.
Updated
Iran announces 96 more deaths
A further 96 people have died of coronavirus in Iran, taking its death toll to 5,806 the ministry of heath announced. So far, 91,472 people in the country have been infected the ministry said.
موارد مثبت روزانه کرونا در کشور پس از ۳۶ روز به کمتر از ۱۰۰۰ رسید
— خبرگزاری ایسنا (@isna_farsi) April 27, 2020
*تعداد مبتلایان جدید: ۹۹۱ نفر
*تعداد فوت شدگان جدید: ۹۶ نفر
*تعداد کل مبتلایان: ۹۱۴۷۲ نفر
*تعداد بهبود یافتگانِ ترخیص شده: ۷۰۹۳۳ نفر
*تعداد فوت شدگان: ۵۸۰۶ نفرhttps://t.co/htylFHqjA3 pic.twitter.com/Nx6kvZjPcH
On Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani, said Iran plans to reopen mosques in parts of the country that have been consistently free of coronavirus (see earlier).
Updated
China’s foreign ministry has denied claims that Beijing is spreading disinformation about the coronavirus following a European Union report that said there was “significant evidence” of covert Chinese operations on social media, Reuters reports.
“China is opposed to the creation and spreading of disinformation by anyone or any organisation. China is a victim of disinformation, not an initiator,” said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a regular press briefing on Monday.
The report by the EU’s foreign policy arm said state-backed governments including China and Russia were responsible for spreading disinfomration on the virus.
Reuters earlier reported that senior Chinese officials pressured the EU to drop the criticisms from the report last week, stating that it would make Beijing “very angry”.
The report was published late last week after a delay and some information regarding China was changed. An EU spokeswoman declined to comment.
China has fiercely defended its handling of the novel coronavirus amid calls from some countries to initiate an independent investigation into the virus and its source.
The foreign ministry’s Geng said there was no conclusive evidence that the virus originated in China, and warned that “political manoeuvring” behind calls for an independent investigation would not be successful.
He also hit back at Donald Trump’s claims that China has been hiding the true extent of the virus. He suggested Trump was trying to shift blame for his own failings.
#FMsays Amid domestic questions about whether the US government is coping with #COVID_19 effectively, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang asked "are the US government hiding something? Why are they in a hurry to shift blame to other countries and international organizations?" pic.twitter.com/a7Swl3pYBr
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) April 27, 2020
Kings Day in the Netherlands, the Dutch national birthday party for their monarch, has been a muted affair under lockdown, AP reports.
King Willem-Alexander was celebrating his 53rd birthday with his family at home in their palace in a forest on the edge of The Hague after a mass celebration in the southern city of Maastricht was cancelled due to coronavirus.
In a nationally televised speech to the nation, he paid tribute to health care workers and others battling the virus and hoped for better times ahead.
Flanked by his wife, Maxima, and their three daughters, Willem-Alexander said the annual holiday would be “especially unique because I hope it will be absolutely the last Kings Day at home in history”.
Prime minister Mark Rutte tweeted his congratulations to the king, adding that he is celebrating Kings Day at home like the rest of the Netherlands. The best present we can give him is to follow that example, he said.
Koning Willem-Alexander viert vandaag zijn 53e verjaardag. Ik feliciteer hem van harte en wens hem een fijne, feestelijke dag toe met zijn gezin. Net als de rest van Nederland viert hij #Koningsdagthuis. Het mooiste cadeau dat wij hem kunnen geven is om dat voorbeeld te volgen. pic.twitter.com/eJrdfvMfQh
— Mark Rutte (@MinPres) April 27, 2020
Kings Day is usually a nationwide celebration involving street parties and children selling second-hand toys in makeshift garage sales known as free markets throughout the country.
But early on Monday, streets were largely deserted apart from queues of shoppers observing social distancing guidelines outside bakeries selling traditional Kings Day pastries decorated with orange frosting.
Updated
The coronavirus pandemic is likely to be followed by even more deadly and destructive disease outbreaks unless their root cause – the rampant destruction of the natural world – is rapidly halted, the world’s leading biodiversity experts have warned.
“There is a single species responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic – us,” they said. “Recent pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity, particularly our global financial and economic systems that prize economic growth at any cost. We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current crisis, to avoid sowing the seeds of future ones.”
Professors Josef Settele, Sandra Díaz and Eduardo Brondizio led the most comprehensive planetary health check ever undertaken, which was published in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It concluded that human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems.
Spain announces 331 more deaths
Spain’s heath ministry has announced a further 331 deaths from Covid-19, taking its total to 23,521. The daily figure is a slight rise on Sunday, when 288 new deaths were announced.
The total number of diagnosed cases rose to 209,465 from 207,634 the day before.
📄Actualización de datos sobre #COVID19 en España, desde el primer caso inicial: https://t.co/76zjO5KU29
— Ministerio de Sanidad (@sanidadgob) April 27, 2020
📉Más información: https://t.co/QlRL2PJQKC#EsteVirusLoParamosUnidos pic.twitter.com/KxAoHaKfla
Updated
The actors Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald got into hangover character for a lockdown sign song of Stephen Sondheim’s, The Ladies Who Lunch. It features all three of them looking reassuringly dishevelled, in dressing gowns and sipping various beverages.
The full video is here:
A shorter clip is here:
The perfection aka Christine Baranski , Meryl Streep and Audra McDonald ladies and gentlemen #Sondheim90Concert pic.twitter.com/Tr9fAqOqaa
— Olivia Colman’s Blonde Hair (@streep_lover) April 27, 2020
A proposal by the mayor of the Belgian seaside resort of Ostend for locals to get priority beach passes this summer to ensure physical distancing has ignited claims of discrimination and a debate about access to the coastline.
The Belgian government outlined a plan to gradually lift its coronavirus lockdown last week, but with holidays abroad likely to remain impossible, burgemeester Bart Tommelein has received tentative backing from the government’s top virologist for his plan of a system of passes to keep people on beaches safe this summer.
“It’s going to be an ants’ nest here,” Tommelein said when he proposed the beach passes plan, or strandpas in the local Flemish dialect used in the north of Belgium.
The mayor’s sliding scale of priority, with tax-paying locals, second home owners and hotel guests given preference, has provoked criticism among the other nine coastal municipalities, and sparked a discussion about the right of all Belgians to access the country’s sandy beaches.
Russia has more confirmed coronavirus cases than China
Russia now has more confirmed coronavirus cases than China, the news agency Tass reports.
Russia has confirmed 6,198 new coronavirus cases over the past day, bringing the total number in the country to 87,147 in all regions, the anti-coronavirus crisis centre reported on Monday.
China has recorded 84,500 confirmed cases so far.
A further 50 coronavirus patients have died over the past day, bringing Russia’s death toll to 794.
Russia overtakes China in COVID-19 caseshttps://t.co/zsRUfbeGCZ pic.twitter.com/XT3POfzoRp
— TASS (@tassagency_en) April 27, 2020
Updated
In that TV address Boris Johnson said it would be too early to ease up the lockdown in the UK because a second peak would be disaster.
He also said he wants to involve opposition parties as much as possible in future plans.
Our UK live blog has all the details.
The French government will present its schedule for bringing the country out of a strict lockdown to parliament on Tuesday afternoon.
President Emmanuel Macron and the prime minister, Édouard Philippe, have been finalising details of the “deconfinement plan” that will be announced in the Assemblée Nationale, the lower house of parliament, at 3pm local time followed by a debate and a vote.
Opposition MPs are angry they will be give only hours to discuss the plan and insist they need at least 24 hours to consider it and respond.
Ministers from each sector were asked to present concrete proposals of how to end the coronavirus lockdown in six areas: health policy, school reopenings, the return to work for adults, businesses, transport and cultural or religious gatherings.
The government is also hoping to have a Covid-19 tracking application available by 11 May, which has also raised concerns among the opposition benches.
The scientific committee that is advising the government is reported to have serious reservations about the president’s announcement that schools will reopen progressively from 11 May, describing it in a statement as a “political decision”. The committee has advised schools remain closed until September.
It has advised that the wearing of face masks be mandatory in public places and sanitising hand gel available to everyone. The health minister, Olivier Véran, has said the authorities will aim to carry out between 500,000 and 700,000 tests for Covid-19 among those showing symptoms of the virus, but insisted it was “impossible to test everyone”.
Suggestions that the lockdown will be ended by region and by age, with older people being required to remain at home, have been reportedly ruled out.
The measures in the plan will remain in place until mid-July and will be re-examined if there is a second coronavirus wave.
Here are the latest Covid-19 figures from France, that has been under one of the more draconian lockdown regimes since 17 March. Restaurants, cafes, hotels and all non-essential shops have been closed since midnight on 14 March. Note that unlike the UK, the total number of deaths includes those in care homes.
Number of cases: 124,575 (+461)
Number in hospital: 28,217 (+481 gross, -5 net)
Number in i/c: 4,682 (+79 gross, -43)
Deaths in hospital: 14,202 (+152)
Deaths in care homes: 4,815 (+90)
Total deaths: 22,856 (+242)
Discharged home: 44,903 (+318)
Updated
Germany calls for 'very careful' easing of lockdown
Germany’s economy minister has urged the country’s 16 federal states to go slowly in lifting coronavirus restrictions to avoid the outbreak spreading further and being forced to backtrack later, Reuters reports
Under Germany’s decentralised political system, the states have the power to implement and rescind the social distancing measures on which Berlin is relying to slow the virus’s spread, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is resisting pressure from some to further ease restrictions.
Germany has had around 150,000 diagnosed cases of coronavirus, according to official figures published on Monday, but has only had 5,750 deaths, a far lower proportion of fatalities than neighbouring Italy, Spain, France and Britain.
“As a person who believes in fact-based decisions, I recommend to all of us to proceed very carefully in order not to be forced into eventually rescinding easing measures,” Peter Altmaier told Deutschlandfunk radio on Monday.
Markus Soeder, the premier of Bavaria, which has imposed some of the strictest social distancing measures, said his state was only taking small steps towards easing lockdown in order not to jeopardise early successes in fighting the disease.
Soeder told BR radio that 80% of the retail sector are open again. “If it works out this week, we can think about a further easing.”
Updated
In the UK, Boris Johnson is expected to make a speech from Downing Street after returning to work following his recovery from coronavirus. Our UK live blog will have all the details:
Singapore has confirmed 799 more coronavirus infections, its health ministry said on Monday, taking the country’s tally of cases to 14,423.
Most of the new cases are among migrant workers living in dormitories in the city-state, which has among the highest number of coronavirus infections in Asia.
As of 27 Apr 2020, 12pm, we have preliminarily confirmed an additional 799 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. Read more: https://t.co/bNQkPaVT4O
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) April 27, 2020
Singapore recorded 931 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, following a rise of 618 cases on Saturday.
European stock markets are all higher in early trading, as more countries prepare to ease lockdown restrictions. Our business blog has more:
This week, the Guardian’s Age of Extinction site is looking at biodiversity in cities and urban areas around the world, shining a spotlight on the under-appreciated world of nature hidden among the highrises and busy roads.
Around 55% of the world’s population live in urban areas and that number is projected to rise to 68% by 2050. Nature’s role in the wellbeing and happiness of billions of people will be more important than ever. While urbanisation is a major driver of biodiversity loss, many conservationists and town planners are trying to make built-up areas more nature-friendly. The role of green spaces in urban areas has even been formalised in a draft UN agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, often referred to as the Paris agreement for nature.
The Covid-19 outbreak has seen cities and towns across the world go into lockdown which has enabled wildlife such as wild boar, deer, monkeys, foxes and even lions to venture into territory previously dominated by humans. It has also offered us the chance to notice and appreciate the natural world in cities in an unprecedented way.
In this special series of reports we’ll be looking at how animals and plants adapt to city life, what to look out for right now and how we can encourage more wild cities in the future.
Here’s the first piece in the series:
Primary schools reopen in Norway
Children have begun returning to school in Norway, as primary schools reopen after the government claimed the coronavirus epidemic is under control, AFP reports.
One week after nursery schools, pupils aged six to 10 started returning to their school desks after six weeks of remote learning from home. Classes were however reduced to a maximum of 15 students.
Norway has progressively begun lifting restrictions imposed on 12 March to combat the spread of coronavirus.
Hair salons and dermatologists were also authorised to resume business.
Many measures remain in place, such as bans on sporting and cultural events, as well as physical distancing and hygiene recommendations.
“We should not let down our guard, we have to work hard to keep the spread under control,” prime minister Erna Solberg said on Friday.
“If we’re not careful, this could have serious consequences for others. In the worst of cases, we’ll have to tighten restrictions again. We’ll have to make sure to avoid that.”
Some parents however find the return to school premature, noting that several staff at nursery schools have tested positive for the virus since they went back last week.
“It wouldn’t surprise me that it gets worse when the schools reopen,” one user wrote on the Facebook page “My child should not be a guinea pig for Covid-19” that has almost 30,000 members.
By Sunday, Norway had reported 7,505 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and 193 deaths, while the curve of hospitalised cases has dropped significantly in recent weeks.
Updated
Here’s a graphic showing which European countries have started to ease coronavirus lockdowns or proposing to do so:
Greece is preparing to lift restrictions on movement to islands and other parts of the country in June, media reports suggested on Monday.
In an address to the nation on Tuesday, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is expected to outline how measures enforced to curb coronavirus almost two months ago will be gradually eased.
The lockdown will be reversed in stages and is likely to require at least two months to unfold with small shops, hairdressers, beauticians and barbers opening on 4 May and secondary school students returning to class on 11 May.
Restaurants, tavernas and other eateries will follow but will only be permitted to function with outside tables. “The return to normality will likely happen in three stages, at the beginning of May, the end of May and mid June,” said one insider.
Government officials say it is essential that the economy is unlocked in a country that was only beginning to recover from a long and punishing debt crisis when the pandemic struck. The country’s tourist-reliant economy is on course to contract by as much as 10% this year, the finance minister announced at the weekend.
Greece enforced measures to combat the deadly disease “hard and early” and has, as a result, fared better than most other EU member states with a death toll of 134 and 2,517 confirmed cases of the novel virus to date.
The time gained has allowed the government to beef up the public health system – hit by successive budget cuts during the financial crisis - increasing the number of intensive care beds by 80% and employing an extra 3,200 medical staff.
But Mitsotakis has already spoken of a possible second wave in the winter. With the war against the virus not yet over, aides say he will insist on the need for vigilance in the months ahead.
Updated
Photojournalist Pablo García Sacristán spent a day and night with Madrid’s Summa crews, offering medical - and psychological – support to coronavirus patients.
German companies including ThyssenKrupp, Salzgitter, Bayer, Covestro, E.ON, HeidelbergCement, Puma, Allianz and Deutsche Telekom have called for coronavirus-related state aid to be tied to climate action, Reuters reports.
“We appeal to the federal government to closely link economic policy measures to overcome both the climate crisis and the coronavirus crisis,” more than 60 companies said in letter to the Handelsblatt newspaper, ahead of the Petersberg climate dialogue starting on Monday.
The companies are concerned that environmental issues will be put on the backburner during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Car makers are already lobbying to prevent the announced tightening of emissions limits on cars, airlines for a waiver on jet fuel taxes, and the plastics industry for an appeal of the ban on some plastics products.
“The pandemic highlights the vulnerability of our globalized economic system to threats that are not limited to regions or industries,” the appeal says. “Climate change is a comparable challenge.”
The German BDI industry association said it was sticking to the European goal of climate neutrality, or net zero greenhouse gas emissions, in 2050, but warned that governments, companies and households will in future have reduced scope for investments.
“The EU’s Green Deal must therefore become a Smart Deal, in which growth, employment and ambitious climate protection targets are linked as efficiently as possible via an intelligent investment and relief package,” said BDI deputy managing director Holger Loesch.
A team of more than 200 doctors from Cuba have arrived in South Africa to help it tackle coronavirus. They are among 1,200 healthcare workers sent to battle Covid-19 in 22 countries that have requested help from Cuba.
We welcome the Cuban delegation consists of experts in the fields of epidemiology, biostatistics, and public health; family physicians; healthcare technology & experts to provide technical assistance working with local experts to curb the spread of #COVID19SA #Day32ofLockdown pic.twitter.com/AZcrSbl80n
— South African Government (@GovernmentZA) April 27, 2020
This is Matthew Weaver picking up the global coronavirus live blog. Please send any developments that we might have missed from your part of the world to matthew.weaver@theguardian.com or tweet me @matthew_weaver .
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan. Today I leave you with a movie recommendation.
Over to you, Matthew Weaver.
Summary
- Confirmed cases worldwide approach 3 million. Cases are nearing the 3 million mark, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2,971,669 confirmed. At least 206,549 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic, though the true toll is likely to be much higher due to under-reporting and some countries not including deaths among those with underlying conditions in their tolls.
- New Zealand prepares to move out of its strict lockdown measures. The government reported only one new confirmed case of Covid-19 and said it had eliminated the virus. At 11.59pm on Monday, New Zealand will lift its level-4 lockdown which has been in place for more than four weeks. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the nation had “won the battle” against widespread community transmission.
- More US states to end lockdown as economy crumbles. Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee will join other US states in the lifting of lockdown restrictions, as economists predict an unemployment rate of 16% or higher for the month of April. New York governor Andrew Cuomo said some regions of the state might qualify to open sooner “with certain precautions”, such as upstate New York, as the daily death toll was markedly lower on Sunday than it was on Saturday.
- The UK economy will take three years to recover from coronavirus. It will take the UK economy three years to fully recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading forecasting group. As the damage to jobs and growth unfolds, the EY Item Club said it would take until 2023 for the the economy to return to the level reached at the end of last year due to the depth of the crisis, Richard Partington reports.
- British PM returns to Downing Street. Boris Johnson returned to Downing Street on Sunday night for the first time since he was admitted to hospital with Covid-19 on 6 April. The UK reported its lowest daily rise in the death toll since the end of March. The number of deaths in UK hospitals from the coronavirus has risen to 20,732 – an increase of 413 in the last 24 hours
- Trump denies he will fire his health chief. US president Donald Trump, who for a second day skipped the White House press briefing, on Twitter denied reports that he planned to fire health and human services secretary Alex Azar. He said Azar was doing “an excellent job!”. Trump also attacked the press, and was roundly mocked after tweeting about “Noble” prize for journalists, seeming to mean the Nobel prizes – which are not awarded in the field of journalism.
- Lebanon’s roads blocked in protest at dire economy. Demonstrators blocked roads through Lebanon late on Sunday to protest against the deteriorating economic situation, despite a lockdown and curfew imposed because of the coronavirus. Lebanon’s worst economic crisis since the 1975-90 civil war is now compounded by the coronavirus lockdown. Forty-five per cent of the population are in poverty, according to official estimates. Its economy is forecast to contract 12% in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund.
- A million Australians downloaded a coronavirus tracking app. Health minister Greg Hunt said 1.13 million Australians downloaded the tracing app CovidSafe as of 6am (20.00 GMT) on Monday, nearly 4.5% of the country’s population.
- European countries announce easing of lockdown measures. Italy recorded lowest daily deaths since mid-March and prime minister Giuseppe Conte told the nation “if you love Italy, maintain distance” as he announced a plan that will see the country slowly ease lockdown measures from 4 May. The prime minister of France, Edouard Philippe, will on Tuesday present a national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown to the national assembly, while Spain partially relaxed its lockdown as its daily death toll dropped below 300 for the first time in weeks.
- Egypt asks IMF for coronavirus bailout loan. Egypt declared on Sunday that it had asked the International Monitory Fund (IMF) for financial assistance to deal with the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus. Neither Egypt nor the IMF specified the size of the one-year bailout loan.
Updated
Thailand on Monday confirmed nine new coronavirus cases and one death, bringing the country’s totals to 2,931 cases and 52 fatalities, Reuters reports.
It is the first time since the outbreak started in January that there have been no new local transmissions reported in Bangkok, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration.
Of the new cases, three were linked to previous cases, two are arrivals from overseas that have been under state quarantined, and four others were reported from the southern province of Yala, where the authorities are aggressively testing the population due to high infection rates.
The latest death was of a 64-year-old Thai woman.
Since the outbreak escalated in January 2,609 patients have recovered and gone home.
Wuhan discharges all coronavirus patients as Beijing takes steps to stop second wave
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus pandemic began, has discharged all of its coronavirus patients, as the nation reported only three new cases and no new deaths.
According to the National Health Commission, as of Sunday the number of new coronavirus patients in Wuhan was at zero. “Thanks to the joint efforts of Wuhan and medical staff from around the country,” said a spokesman for the commission, Mi Feng.
Two of the three new cases on Sunday were imported infections, while the third was a locally transmitted case in the northeastern border province of Heilongjiang, which has seen an uptick in cases as Chinese nationals have rushed back home from Russia.
China, which has recorded more than 82,000 cases and a total of 4,633 deaths, has begun to gradually reopen after months of paralysis. On Monday, almost 50,000 high school students in their third year, the most important for preparing for the national university entrance exam known as the gaokao, returned to class in Beijing. Other cities and provinces have announced various dates for reopening schools.
At the same time, authorities are still worried about a second wave of infections:
Monday briefing: Pressure’s on as Johnson returns to No 10
Boris Johnson will resume control of Britain’s faltering response to the coronavirus crisis today as pressure mounts on his government to spell out how it will begin to ease the lockdown and reopen schools and businesses. The prime minister last night returned to Downing Street where the question of how to lift restrictions is the most pressing matter in an overflowing in-tray, which also includes fixing the government’s decision-making structure and dealing with the Brexit talks impasse. How to reach the target of 100,000 tests per day is also a key issue and ministers are considering ordering millions of antibody testing kits in the hope of establishing immunity levels across the country.
UK doctors finding it harder to get PPE kit to treat Covid-19 patients
Doctors working in the riskiest areas of the UK’s hospitals with Covid-19 patients are finding it harder to get protective kit, despite ministerial pledges to solve the problem, research reveals.
The Royal College of Physicians has condemned the apparently worsening availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) as “truly terrible” and warned that frontline staff’s lives are at risk as a result.
Among doctors performing aerosol-generating procedures (AGP), in which patients with the disease release droplets from their mouth, 37% cannot always access a visor to wear while 31% have not been able to obtain a full-length surgical gown. Both are key elements of the full PPE NHS staff are advised to wear when participating in an AGP, such as a patient being intubated before being ventilated.
A survey undertaken by the college, to which 2,129 hospital doctors responded last week, found medics are finding it harder generally access to any sort of PPE. Just over a quarter (27%) said they could not get the kit they needed to keep them safe while treating people with Covid-19, up from 22% who said the same when the RCP conducted the same survey at the start of April.
UK papers, Monday 27 April 2020
Here’s a look at some of this morning’s front pages:
GUARDIAN: PM returns to face critics and talk of a ‘new normal’ #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/DWZkl1XgMi
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 26, 2020
TIMES: Ministers plan how to get Britain back in business #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Rya2YJFxSA
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 26, 2020
INDEPENDENT DIGITAL: One in three doctors left without protective gear #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/deNF7Jp1D5
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 26, 2020
TELEGRAPH: @BorisJohnson to ease the lockdown this week #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/MQMaXvG3ZH
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 26, 2020
FT: @bankofengland warns banks on loan reserves #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/fA8D1ZyisC
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 26, 2020
Locked-down advertisers ask: is it too soon for jokes?
Jim Waterson and Mark Sweney report for the Guardian:
Advertisers are struggling to work out how to promote their products during an age of physical distancing, walking the tightrope between continuing to sell goods where possible, building their brands, and trying not to look insensitive.
Already there are a few basic rules of thumb that are changing how advertising looks. Footage of people socialising outside the home is out, as it may look jarring to audiences in lockdown; adverts that resemble Zoom calls are in, but may already be a cliche; and everyone’s trying to work out how to create new promotions without being allowed outside.
Fijian military leader defends government’s right to ‘stifle’ press during Covid crisis
Kelvin Anthony reports for the Guardian:
A Fijian military leader has said the government was justified in “stifling criticism” of its policies by the press during the Covid-19 outbreak, prompting warnings that Pacific leaders should not use the coronavirus crisis as an excuse to quell press freedom.
The comments have been condemned by press freedom advocates as the “kind of behaviour [that] is the prerogative of authoritative military dictatorships.”
In a Fiji Sun op-ed last week, Jone Kalouniwai, a brigadier-general in the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), defended the view that Covid-19 is a good reason to take away the media’s right to question policy decisions.
‘It’s catastrophic’: Fiji’s colossal tourism sector devastated by coronavirusRead more
“[I]n times of such national emergency, our leaders have good reasons to stifle criticism of their policies by curtailing freedom of speech and freedom of the press,” wrote Kalouniwai, who added that the fight against Covid-19, was “likely to end up violating the individual rights and rule of law that are at the heart of any liberal society.”
Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
Summary
- Confirmed cases worldwide approach 3 million. Cases are nearing the 3 million mark, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2,971,669 confirmed. At least 206,549 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic, though the true toll is likely to be much higher due to underreporting and some countries not including deaths among those with underlying conditions in their tolls.
- Trump denies that he plans to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. US President Donald Trump, who for a second day skipped the White House press briefing, took to Twitter to deny reports that he planned to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
- More US states to end lockdown as US economy crumbles. The US states Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee will join other states in the lifting of lockdown restrictions, as economists predict an unemployment rate of 16% or higher for the month of April.
- UK economy will take three years to recover from coronavirus – EY. It will take the UK economy three years to fully recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading forecasting group.As the damage for jobs and growth unfolds, the EY Item Club said it would take until 2023 for the the economy to return to the level reached at the end of last year due to the depth of the crisis.
- British PM returns to Downing Street. Boris Johnson returned to Downing Street on Sunday night for the first time since he was admitted to hospital with Covid-19 on 6 April. The UK reported its lowest daily rise in the death toll since the end of March. The number of deaths in UK hospitals from the coronavirus has risen to 20,732 – an increase of 413 in the last 24 hours
- New Zealand is preparing to move out of the strictest lockdown measures in the country’s history as the government reported only one new confirmed case of Covid-19 and said it had eliminated the virus. At 11.59pm on Monday, New Zealand will lift its level-4 lockdown which has been in place for more than four weeks.
- Lebanon roads blocked in protest at dire economy. Demonstrators blocked roads through Lebanon late Sunday to protest the deteriorating economic situation, despite a lockdown and curfew imposed because of the coronavirus, according to the official news agency.
- More than a million Australians rushed to download an app designed to help medical workers and state governments trace close contacts of Covid-19 patients.
- European countries announce easing of lockdown measures. Italy recorded lowest daily deaths since mid-March and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told the nation the country could slowly ease lockdown measures from 4 May. The prime minister of France, Edouard Philippe, will on Tuesday present a national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown to the national assembly, and Spain partially relaxed its lockdown as its daily death toll dropped below 300 for the first time in weeks.
- Egypt asks IMF for coronavirus bailout loan. Egypt declared on Sunday that it had asked the International Monitory Fund (IMF) for financial assistance to deal with the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus.N either Egypt nor the IMF specified the size of the one-year bailout loan.
- World Health Organisation clarifies statement about immunity following concern among scientists. The global health body was criticised for saying there was “currently no evidence” that people who recover from Covid-19 will have some immunity from reinfection.
- Russia could experience a new spike in cases if people flout lockdown measures during public holidays scheduled for early May, a top health official said on Sunday, after total reported infections in Russia topped 80,000.
Asian stock markets have had a positive start to the week ahead of some momentous-looking data due in the coming days.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.2% in early trade, taking back some of last week’s 2.6% decline. Japan’s Nikkei gained 2.1%, and Chinese blue chips 1%. In Australia, the ASX200 has risen 1.21%.
It’s been helped by the Bank of Japan announcing yet more stimulus for the country’s battered economy. The central bank has pledged to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds and it has raised purchases of corporate and commercial debt, and eased rules for what debt would qualify.
The Bank of Japan going all in pretty much:
— David Ingles (@DavidInglesTV) April 27, 2020
- removes limits on JGB buys
- raises limits on corporate bond, CP buys
- removes price momentum from forward guidance
Looks like one of the world's biggest "bond funds" is about to get bigger. pic.twitter.com/Iv4TxmO5xn
later in the week the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank meet to decide on what further measures they might take. The United States and European Union also release GDP for the first quarter and around 173 companies in the S&P 500 report quarterly figures thisweek including Apple, Amazon , Facebook, Microsoft, Caterpillar , Ford, General Electric and Chevron .
New cases rise by 1,018 in Germany
The number of Germany’s confirmed coronavirus cases increased by 1,018 to 155,193, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases shows today.
The death toll rose by 110 to 5,750, according to the tally.
An in case you missed it, here’s is an excellent Q&A with the scientist in charge of Germany’s much-lauded response. Christian Drosten says he has ahunch that China’s huge trade in raccoon dogs could be linked to the outbreak.
British Bosses appeal to the government for a lockdown exit plan
The UK government must set out its lockdown exit plans to restore confidence among British businesses that have become increasingly bleak about the economy’s future, a leading employers’ group has warned.
The Institute of Directors said its 28,000 members were “clamouring” for information so they could start drawing up return-to-work plans. Jon Geldart, its director general, said it was in everyone’s interests to kickstart the economy again once it is safe to do so.
Mexico has begun removing staff from Gulf of Mexico oil platforms to limit the spread of the coronavirus, leaving essential personnel on board, state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said on Sunday.
Pemex said in a statement that workers had started coming off the rigs as Mexico implements stricter measures to combat the coronavirus since entering the highest phase of a public health alert last Tuesday, Reuters reports.
Some 259 rig workers disembarked on Sunday at the Gulf port city of Ciudad del Carmen, Pemex said in a statement. Of them, 76 worked for Pemex, while the rest were employed by firms working for the state oil firm, the company said.
A source at Pemex, speaking on condition of anonymity, earlier said the oil platforms would be left with between half and a quarter of their normal personnel.
Pemex has so far confirmed 248 cases of the coronavirus and 28 deaths. Five of the dead were current Pemex workers, 14 were retired employees, one an external employee and eight were relatives of workers.
OPEC+ had pressed Mexico to make cuts of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), but Lopez Obrador agreed only to 100,000 bpd in May and June and said the United States had pledged to make up most of the difference.
The Pemex source told Reuters the personnel reductions on platforms would likely lead to a drop in oil output considerably more than the cuts Mexico had agreed to.
Offshore areas in the Gulf produce around 1.4 million bpd of Mexico’s total output of some 1.7 million bpd.
Fried chicken and bento: New Zealanders dream of takeaways as lockdown prepares to lift
On Tuesday, New Zealand’s restaurants, cafes and takeaways will be back in business.
Under the move to level-3 restrictions, which come into force at midnight on Monday, New Zealanders have been told to work and study from home, “unless that is not possible”. Anyone going out must obey social distancing rules. Businesses can open, but cannot physically interact with customers and “low-risk” recreation activities will be allowed.
Restaurants will be required to follow a number of public health measures to protect the safety of staff, including physical distancing which must be in place in all kitchens. Customers will not be allowed inside restaurants, bars and cafes and businesses will have to sell prepared food and non-alcoholic drinks by contactless delivery and collection.
Lebanon roads blocked in protest at dire economy
Demonstrators blocked roads through Lebanon late Sunday to protest the deteriorating economic situation, despite a lockdown and curfew imposed because of the coronavirus, according to the official news agency.
Police quickly intervened to reopen the highways where the demonstrators burned tyres to block roads, the ANI national news agency said.
Protesters have staged several daytime demonstrations recently, including a convoy of cars in the capital last week, despite the coronavirus lockdown and nighttime curfew.
A nationwide protest movement erupted in October last year, with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the ruling elite and the rampant graft critics say has brought the economy to its knees.
Lebanon’s worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war is now compounded by the coronavirus lockdown. Poverty has risen to 45% of the population, according to official estimates.
Its economy is forecast to contract 12% in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The Lebanese pound has also plummeted against the dollar, resulting in high inflation.
Updated
New Zealand’s director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, on Donald Trump’s bleach comments:
That pause. pic.twitter.com/cAffNQqaKL
— Tim McCready 🇳🇿 (@Tim_McCready) April 27, 2020
New Zealand prepares to lift strict lockdown after 'eliminating' coronavirus
More from New Zealand now:
New Zealand is preparing to move out of the strictest lockdown measures in the country’s history as the government reported only one new confirmed case of Covid-19 and said it had eliminated the virus.
At 11.59pm on Monday, New Zealand will lift its level-4 lockdown which has been in place for more than four weeks. During that time, almost all businesses have been closed, along with schools while the population has been asked to remain in their homes for all but supermarket visits and short walks.
At a press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in level-3 there were new risks – namely people coming into more contact with others.
Are female leaders more successful at managing the coronavirus crisis?Read more
Level 3 will see retailers, restaurants and schools allowed to reopen on a smaller scale. Schools will reopen on Wednesday for children up to Year 10 who cannot study from home, or whose parents need to return to work.
Workers will also be able to resume on-site work, provided they have a Covid-19 control plan in place, with appropriate health and safety and physical distancing measures. It is expected one million New Zealanders will return to work on Tuesday.
Updated
French police have seized 140,000 face masks intended for the black market in a record haul since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, AFP reports.
It is the largest seizure since the French government banned the resale of protective masks to prioritise their distribution to health workers in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Two individuals were arrested while they were unloading boxes in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, a police source said on Sunday.
One of them said he was a business owner and had bought the masks, including 5,000 high protection FFP2 masks, in the Netherlands for a total of €80,000 (US$87,000).
The masks were to be sold to construction workers for a large profit, according to police.
In March, 32,500 masks from China were seized from a warehouse near Paris and 28,800 masks were discovered in a shop in a district of Chinese wholesalers, also in the Paris region.
New Zealanders will be allowed to go fishing, surfing, hunting and hiking this week for the first time in more than a month as the country begins to ease its way out of a strict lockdown that successfully slowed the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
Around 400,000 people will return to work after the country shifts its alert level down a notch at midnight on Monday, but shops and restaurants will remain closed as several social restrictions remain in place.
New Zealand’s 5 million residents were subjected to one of the strictest lockdowns in the world in response to the pandemic, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern closing offices, schools, bars and restaurants, including take away and delivery services, on March 26.
While Ardern has generally received public support, there has been growing criticism that similar results may have been achieved with less stringent lockdown measures, as in Australia.
Getting the $200 billion trade and tourism dependent economy running again from a standing start will be a major challenge for Ardern as she faces national elections in September.
Mexico has almost entirely cleared out government migrant centres over the past five weeks to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, returning most of the occupants to their countries of origin, official data showed on Sunday.
In a statement, the National Migration Institute (INM) said that since 21 March, in order to comply with health and safety guidelines, it had been removing migrants from its 65 migrant facilities, which held 3,759 people last month.
In the intervening weeks, Mexico has returned 3,653 migrants to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador by road and air, with the result that only 106 people remain in the centres, it said.
Most of the migrants passing through Mexico to reach the U.S. border are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
More than 80 Guatemalan migrants deported to their homeland from the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Podcast: Covid-19’s continued spread into South America
From his temporary home in Rio de Janerio, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, can hear the nightly protests against Brazilian president Jair Bolsorano’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, where cases are steadily rising. He discusses how Brazil and other South American countries are trying to deal with the pandemic:
Japan’s Osaka Prefecture said it will name and shame more pachinko parlour gambling outlets that are defying coronavirus lockdown requests after three out of six locations it identified on Friday subsequently closed, Reuters reports.
“A lot of places have closed down after we named the six last week. We are now conducting a survey of pachinko parlours and will announce the results accordingly,” a spokesman for Osaka Prefecture said.
The continued operation of some noisy gambling halls is a conspicuous reminder of the limits of Japanese government’s ability to lock down cities with requests rather than orders backed up with fines.
Japan declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other areas on April 7 that it later extended to the rest of the country.
Pachinko parlours, where players sit back-to-back at long rows of machines with bouncing steel balls and garish lights, are a common sight in Japan and easy for health officials to identify.
For the second time this month, Saturday Night Live made a surprise return to deliver a new episode filmed remotely. This time, virtual hosting duties fell to Brad Pitt, playing lead member of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr Anthony Fauci.
The raspy voiced physician thanks “all the older women in America who have sent me supportive, inspiring and sometimes graphic emails”, before clearing up a number of President Trump’s false claims about coronavirus:
Dr. Anthony Fauci joked to CNN that Brad Pitt should play him on Saturday Night Live and last night he got his wish in the cold open. Pitt broke character at the end to thank Fauci for his "calm and clarity in this unnerving time." pic.twitter.com/uGTKu1pOAi
— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) April 26, 2020
Coronavirus is making Australia’s drug crisis a whole lot worse
In Australia, earlier this month, the Victorian state government issued new guidelines for dispensing methadone and buprenorphine during the Covid-19 crisis. Commonly used as replacement substances for opioid addiction, most users are required to travel daily to pharmacies to access their prescriptions. But the new guidelines mean that, with some restrictions, pharmacies are able to offer takeaway doses earlier in a patient’s therapy. Other states are trying similar things. In New South Wales, addiction specialists are pushing for earlier access to longer-acting replacement therapies to reduce the need for patients to visit clinics.
Across Australia, the Covid-19 crisis has prompted a seismic reckoning in addiction medicine. While people like George are managing to find a way through the crisis, experts are concerned that rising substance abuse fuelled by the virus, coupled with new restrictions on an already over-burdened drug and alcohol rehabilitation system, could see Australia staring down a crisis in addiction.
More than a million Australians rushed to download an app designed to help medical workers and state governments trace close contacts of Covid-19 patients, Reuters reports, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval rating soared on his pandemic response.
Australia has been one of the most successful countries in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, recording just 83 deaths and 6,700 cases, due to border closures, movement restrictions and a stay-at-home policy. It has lowered its infection rate to currently around 1% from 25% in March.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said 1.13 million Australians downloaded the tracing app CovidSafe as of 6am (20.00 GMT) on Monday, nearly 4.5% of the country’s population.
The first one million came within five hours of launching the app, he added.
When asked how many people need to download the app for it to be successful, Hunt said “there is no magic number.”
“As many as possible is our real goal,” he added.
“It is about assisting our disease experts find people who might have been exposed and we are well ahead of our best hopes and expectations already.”
Here’s an explainer about how the app works – and the privacy concerns involved:
The surge in downloads come as a Newspoll conducted for The Australian newspaper (paywalled) showed Morrison enjoyed the best approval rating for a leader since end-2008.
Updated
The Bank of Japan is expected to expand monetary stimulus on Monday for the second straight month to ease corporate funding strains and finance huge government spending aimed at combating the deepening economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Such a move would put the BOJ in line with other major central banks that have unleashed unprecedented amounts of monetary support amid the health crisis.
Sources have told Reuters the BOJ is likely to take further steps to ease funding strains for companies whose sales have collapsed, such as boosting purchases of corporate bonds and commercial debt.
The central bank may also clarify its commitment to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds by scrapping loose guidance to buy them at an annual pace of ¥80tn (US$744bn) per year, say sources familiar with its thinking.
Removing the guidance will be largely symbolic, they say. The BOJ has only purchased less than ¥20tn per year, as the bank’s huge presence in the market allows it to control yields with fewer purchases.
China has reported no new coronavirus deaths on 26 April – the same as the day before.
It reported three new mainland cases, compared to 11 the previous day and 25 asymptomatic cases, compared to 30 the day before, and two new imported cases, compared to five the day before.
Mainland China now has an accumulated total of 82,830 cases. It also recorded a total of 4,633 deaths as of the end of April 26, including one more death in Beijing in the tally that was previously unaccounted for.
Updated
From China – social distancing but make it fashion:
But don’t worry. Certain measures, such as these surely very effective “distancing hats,” are being employed in some schools pic.twitter.com/8AsyYvhCRt
— Tanner Brown (@luoshanji) April 26, 2020
A look at cases in Panama and Mexico now:
Confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in Panama reached 5,779 on Sunday, a rise of 241 from the previous day, and deaths climbed by six to 165, the health ministry said.
Director of Epidemiology Lourdes Moreno announced the Central American country’s latest data at a news conference.
Mexico’s cases, meanwhile, rose by 835 to 14,677. There were 46 more deaths, bringing the total to 1351, according to the health ministry.
Iran plans to reopen mosques in parts of the country that have been consistently free of the coronavirus outbreak as restrictions on Iranians gradually ease, President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday.
Iran is one of the Middle Eastern countries hit hardest by the pandemic. It will be divided up into white, yellow and red regions based on the number of infections and deaths, Rouhani said, according to the presidency’s website. Activities in each region will be restricted accordingly, so an area that has been consistently free of infections or deaths will be labelled white and mosques could be reopened and Friday prayers resumed, Rouhani said.
He said the label given to any region in the Islamic Republic could change and he did not specify when the colour-coding programme would come into force.
Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi said in an interview with state TV on Sunday that 116 counties in the country could be considered white at the moment and 134 yellow.
Iranians have returned to shops, bazaars and parks over the past week as the country eases coronavirus restrictions, with the daily increase in the death toll below 100 since April 14. The toll rose by 60 over the past 24 hours to 5,710, with 90,481 confirmed cases, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur told state TV on Sunday.
UK economy will take three years to recover from coronavirus – EY
It will take the UK economy three years to fully recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading forecasting group.
As the damage for jobs and growth unfolds, the EY Item Club said it would take until 2023 for the the economy to return to the level reached at the end of last year due to the depth of the crisis.
One month on from the imposition of lockdown measures across Britain, effectively bringing large swathes of the economy to a halt, the group warned that almost half of all consumer spending in 2020 – the major engine of UK growth over recent decades – is at risk of either being delayed or lost completely.
The group of economists said GDP was set to collapse by 6.8% in 2020, before returning to positive growth of 4.5% in 2021 as businesses try to make up for lost time and consumers ramp up their spending again.
The emirate of Dubai said on Sunday it has lifted its full lockdown on two commercial districts which have a large population of low-income migrant workers, after the United Arab Emirates eased nationwide coronavirus curfews over the weekend, Reuters reports.
Dubai on Friday cut its emirate-wide 24-hour lockdown back to a 10.00pm to 6.00am curfew. It has now taken the same step in the Al Ras and Naif districts, which had been sealed off as part of efforts to contain the spread of the virus.
The Supreme Committee of Crisis and Disaster Management took the decision since no new Covid-19 cases were recorded in the two areas in the last two days, the government media office said in a statement. It said more than 6,000 tests were conducted among Al Ras and Naif residents in less than a month.
The UAE has reported more than 10,300 cases and 76 deaths resulting from the virus, the second-highest count among the six Gulf Arab countries after Saudi Arabia. It does not give breakdowns for each of the seven emirates that make up the country.
Updated
Donald Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx, has cautioned that social distancing measures are likely to stay in place throughout the summer, as she sought to downplay the president’s dangerous suggestion that injected disinfectant and ultraviolet light could play a role in the medical treatment of Covid-19.
Birx made a number of appearances on the Sunday morning TV news shows, where she was asked about Trump’s outlandish comments made at a White House briefing on Thursday, which prompted immediate backlash from medical experts and industrial manufacturers who cited the potentially fatal outcome of such a process. Trump has falsely claimed the comments were sarcastic.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Birx was asked if she was bothered by the fallout from the president’s remarks.
“It bothers me that this is still in the news cycle, because I think we’re missing the bigger pieces of what we need to be doing as an American people to continue to protect one another,” Birx said. “As a scientist and a public health official and a researcher, sometimes I worry that we don’t get the information to the American people that they need when we continue to bring up something that was from Thursday night.”
Trump denies that he plans to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar
US President Donald Trump, who for a second day skipped the White House press briefing, took to Twitter to deny reports that he planned to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar:
Reports that H.H.S. Secretary @AlexAzar is going to be “fired” by me are Fake News. The Lamestream Media knows this, but they are desperate to create the perception of chaos & havoc in the minds of the public. They never even called to ask. Alex is doing an excellent job!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2020
Trump also attacked the press, and was roundly mocked after tweeting about “Noble” prize for journalists, seeming to mean the Nobel prizes – which aren’t awarded in the field of journalism – or Pulitzers. Several 2019 Pulitzer winners interrogated his administration.
“When will all of the “reporters” who have received Noble [sic] Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to have been proven totally wrong (and, in fact, it was the other side who committed the crimes), be turning back their cherished “Nobles” so that they can be given ....to the REAL REPORTERS & JOURNALISTS who got it right.”
Trump later tweeted that he had meant “Noble” as in “having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals,” and that he was being sarcastic in the earlier tweet. He has also claimed sarcasm as the intention behind is comments about injecting disinfectant.
Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, “having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.” Does sarcasm ever work?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2020
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live global coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Remember that you can get in touch with questions, comments, tips or news from where you live on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to Downing Street, Italy has seen its lowest daily death toll since mid-March and announced that lockdown restrictions will be eased from 4 May. The UK reported its lowest daily rise in the death toll since the end of March and Spain’s daily deaths fell to below 300 for the first time in weeks.
More US states will end their lockdowns, too, as US employment is expected to reach at least 16%.
Meanwhile Trump, who again did not hold a White House press briefing, has tweeted denying reports that he was planning to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
-
At least 206,055 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2,964,543 confirmed cases.
- More US states to end lockdown as US economy crumbles. The US states Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee will join other states in the lifting of lockdown restrictions, as economists predict an unemployment rate of 16% or higher for the month of April.
- British PM returns to Downing Street. Boris Johnson returned to Downing Street on Sunday night for the first time since he was admitted to hospital with Covid-19 on 6 April. The UK reported its lowest daily rise in the death toll since the end of March. The number of deaths in UK hospitals from the coronavirus has risen to 20,732 – an increase of 413 in the last 24 hours
- Italian PM announces easing of lockdown as it records lowest daily deaths since mid-March. Giuseppe Conte told the nation “if you love Italy, maintain distance” as he announced a plan that will see the country slowly ease lockdown measures from 4 May. However, the number of people currently infected with the virus rose by 256 to 106,103 after falling for six days in a row.
- French PM to present strategy for emerging from lockdown. The prime minister of France, Edouard Philippe, will on Tuesday present a national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown to the national assembly, his office told AFP.
- Egypt asks IMF for coronavirus bailout loan. Egypt declared on Sunday that it had asked the International Monitory Fund (IMF) for financial assistance to deal with the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus.N either Egypt nor the IMF specified the size of the one-year bailout loan.
-
Spain’s partially relaxed the lockdown as its daily death toll dropped below 300 for the first time in weeks. On Sunday, children under 14 were allowed out to exercise for the first time since mid-March, and the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that adults could also be allowed to exercise outside from next weekend.
- World Health Organisation clarifies statement about immunity following concern among scientists. The global health body was criticised for saying there was “currently no evidence” that people who recover from Covid-19 will have some immunity from reinfection.
- Russia could experience a new spike in cases if people flout lockdown measures during public holidays scheduled for early May, a top health official said on Sunday, after total reported infections in Russia topped 80,000.
- Chile is to push ahead with immunity passports and is planning to issue previously announced “release certificates” for recovered Covid-19 patients ‘“soon”, despite a World Health Organization warning that it is not clear whether people have immunity after becoming infected.
- New York governor outlines lifting of restrictions for parts of the state. Andrew Cuomo said some regions of the state might qualify to open sooner, “with certain precautions”, such as upstate New York, as the daily death toll was markedly lower on Sunday than it was on Saturday.
- India’s PM urges citizens to abide by the lockdown amid “war” on the coronavirus, as new cases continue to rise. Narendra Modi gave a radio address to urge its 1.3 billion citizens to strictly comply with the nationwide lockdown as the number of confirmed cases increased steadily despite the month-long curfew.
- White House considers replacing health and human services chief. Reports have emerged that Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacing its secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, because of early missteps in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Kim Jong-un’s train possibly spotted in resort. As rumours about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continue to circulate, including reports that he is sheltering from Covid-19, a US-based monitoring group released satellite images of what may have been his train parked at an exclusive resort town in the country’s east.
Updated
