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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Alison Rourke (now); Kevin Rawlinson,Damien Gayle, Jessica Murray and Helen Sullivan (earlier)

Egypt reports 149 new virus cases – as it happened

We are going to close this live blog. But you can stay up to date on all the latest developments on our new blog here.

In the mean time, you can find all the latest developments below in our At A Glance summary:

Just back to Donald Trump’s marathon press conference and he is fielding questions on the US naval commander who was fired over his coronavirus memo, suggesting he doesn’t think his life should be “destroyed” as a result, Sam Levin writes:

He made a mistake. He shouldn’t be sending letter. He’s the captain … you don’t send letters and then it leaks into a newspaper. I may get involved ...If I can help two good people, I’m going to help him

The commander was stood down over an email in which he aired concerns about the welfare of the sailors on his ship which was docked near Guam. He has subsequently tested positive to Covid-19.

Updated

The former Conservative MP, Zac Goldsmith, now Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and minister of state in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has tweeted his support for Johnson.

The former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has tweeted a message of support for Boris Johnson.

The Guardian’s David Smith asked Trump about Boris Johnson and whether the UK PM had been wrong about his earlier relaxed attitude to social distancing.
Trump said:

Boris was looking at it differently. He was looking at it earlier. He was looking at it like: ride it out. There were many people thinking about riding it out. Meaning, you know, whatever it is, it is. But then you see what starts to happen then the numbers become monumental, and they decided not to do that.

Updated

Trump has repeatedly dodged questions about the inspector general report out today that said hospitals have not had access to the tests they need. Trump has interrupted questions about it, asking for the name of the inspector general and date of appointment. The president has attempted to suggest, without evidence, that the inspector general behind the report is politically motivated against Trump.

Here are Donald Trump’s comments on Boris Johnson:

And you can see messages of support from global leaders to the UK PM here:

Trump was asked for more details on the medicines he said he had sent to Boris Johnson’s doctors, but he gives few more details, and does not name the companies involved.

Well it’s a very, it’s a very complex treatment of things that they’ve just recently developed, and that they have a lot of experience with something else but recently for this. And .. they’ve already concurred. They’ve had meetings with the doctors, and we’ll see whether or not they want to go that route. But when you’re in intensive care it’s a big deal. So they’re there and they’re ready.

Updated

Trump on Johnson: 'Intensive care is big stuff'

Back to Trump’s briefing, where the president is now taking questions. First up about Boris Johnson. He says:

“I found Boris to be a fantastic person, a fantastic warm strong smart guy. He loves his country, you see that. He fought like hell for his country. But intensive care is big stuff, really big stuff...”

When asked about the news of the UK prime minister meant the White House would reconsider its own safety procedures, Trump said: “Mike had his test ... I had my test ... We’re here and here you are.” He said because of “questions like that”, the White House will probably do more tests, which he said are so “quick and easy”.

Updated

The UK’s former justice secretary, David Gauke, has said his thoughts are with Boris Johnson, his fiancée Carrie Symonds and Johnson’s family.

I wish him well in the personal battle he faces. I know him reasonably well. He’s someone who, even when you disagree with him, he’s a very charming, likeable figure as the public well knows.

We need him back, on a personal level and for the good of the country.

Gauke told the BBC that Dominic Raab, who is standing in for Johnson, will have an experienced and supportive team around him.

He knows what he wants to do and gets on and delivers that. He’ll be absolutely on top of the detail.

Some context on Trump’s claim he is working with the FDA and companies are ready to assist London:

In the week beginning 30 March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided hydroxychloroquine with an “emergency use authorisation” to use on coronavirus patients in some circumstances. State officials in New York have said that about 4,000 seriously ill patients are now being treated with the drug.

But critics point out a side effect is heart stoppage, meaning the drug is potentially deadly. Some medical experts have called for the drug to be used to treat the virus but others have cautioned its need for more trials and controlled testing to avoid worsening the pandemic.

Here’s a little more on Trump’s comments at his daily briefing just now. He has told reporters:

We’re very saddened to hear that [Johnson] was taken into intensive care this afternoon, a little while ago, and Americans are all praying for his recovery. He’s been a really good friend. He’s been really something very special: strong resolute; doesn’t quit; doesn’t give up.

And I’ve asked two of the leading companies – these are brilliant companies. Ebola, Aids, they’ve come with the solutions and just have done incredible jobs – and I’ve asked them to contact London immediately. They’ve really advanced therapeutics ... and they have arrived in London already, the London office has whatever they need.

We’ll see if we can be of help. We’ve contacted all of Boris’s doctors, and we’ll see what is going to take place, but they are ready to go.

But when you get brought into intensive care, that gets very, very serious with this particular disease.

So, the two companies are there. And with what they are talking about, and it’s rather complex and has had really incredible results. We’re working with the FDA and everybody else but we are working with London with respect to Boris Johnson.

The US president, Donald Trump, has said he is praying for Johnson.

We are working with London with respect to Boris Johnson. He’s been a really good friend. He doesn’t give up ... We’ve contacted all of Boris’ doctors ... When you get brought into intensive care, that gets very, very serious.

Here’s a little more reaction to the news that the UK’s prime minister has been moved to intensive care:

Updated

Egypt has reported 149 new cases; its highest daily toll since confirming the first infection in February.

The North African country, which also reported seven new fatalities on Monday, has recorded 1,322 cases including 85 deaths so far. A total of 259 people had recovered and been released from hospitals, the country’s health ministry added.

Updated

A heart surgeon who worked at University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff has died after testing positive. The Cardiff and Vale University health board said:

It is with profound sadness that we must inform you that Mr Jitendra Rathod, associate specialist in cardio-thoracic surgery at the University Hospital of Wales, has passed away.

He died early this morning on our general intensive care unit after testing positive for Covid-19.

Jitu had worked in the department of cardio-thoracic surgery since the mid-1990s and came back to UHW in 2006 after a brief stint abroad.

He was an incredibly dedicated surgeon who cared deeply for his patients. He was well-liked and greatly respected by one and all. He was a very compassionate and a wonderful human being.

His commitment to the speciality was exemplary. He is survived by his wife and two sons. We will miss him greatly.

The British pound has dropped against the US dollar after it emerged the UK’s prime minister had been moved into intensive care.

The pound had been trading higher against the dollar and the euro, but fell sharply on the announcement. Sterling was down 0.3% against the dollar to $1.2229 and down 0.1% against the euro to €1.1326 shortly afterwards.

Political leaders across the world, as well as former British prime ministers, are offering their best wishes to the UK’s prime minister. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, tweets:

All my support to Boris Johnson, to his family and the British people at this difficult time. I hope he overcomes this ordeal quickly.

Updated

Buckingham Palace says the Queen has been kept informed of the prime minister’s condition by No 10.

Coronavirus fight will continue, vows interim head of UK's government

The UK’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who is deputising for the prime minister while he receives intensive care in hospital, says government business will continue.

Appearing on BBC shortly after the news of the deterioration of Boris Johnson’s condition, Raab said the is an “incredibly strong team spirit” behind the prime minister and that ministers will focus on delivering the plans he put in place.

He says Johnson is in safe hands at St Thomas’s hospital in London and is receiving excellent care.

Raab vows that the government will bring the whole country through the pandemic.

Updated

The admission of the UK prime minister to intensive care demonstrates how “indiscriminate” the virus is and how seriously the country should take the threat it poses, an expert has warned.

Prof Linda Bauld, Bruce and John Usher Chair in Public Health at the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, has said:

Anyone anywhere, including the most privileged in our society, can be affected and can become seriously ill. It is imperative now, more than ever that the rest of us comply with government guidelines to stay at home and not put others at risk.

Duncan Smith added that he has confidence in Raab and that contingencies for such a situation are well planned.

In terms of the government, we should not have any concerns at all. It has been known for some considerable time that the prime minister appointed Dominic Raab as first secretary. He is more than capable of fulfilling this role and he has great experience in government.

And he would have been brought up to speed on all the key processes that go around the prime minister since he became ill because they would have been planning for this and just in case this happened.

All the other cabinet ministers, some very senior like Michael Gove who understand how this works, they’ve all got important jobs to do … but what they will now have to do is look to Dominic Raab for that final principle decision making process whilst the prime minister is unable to take that role.

I feel completely confident for the government as it stands tonight, my concerns are for Boris Johnson, I have personal friends for a good friend.

Our thoughts are with him and his family because that’s the most important thing because at the end of the day this is a human issue as much as it is to do with the government.

He’ll be in great hands and I know that they will be taking no risks at all and that’s why they’ve done this so they can treat him properly.

Updated

Politicians in the UK have united to wish the prime minister well:

Iain Duncan Smith, a friend and colleague of the prime minister, has said he is “shocked with the news”. He has told the BBC:

I know him very well so I am deeply saddened really that it should come to this. He has obviously worked like mad to try and get through this but it’s not good enough so far.

It doesn’t mean necessarily that he isn’t going to pull through this because they may have put him on intensive care because they can treat him and he may have a secondary infection, a serious chest infection and that will stabilise him, they can get after it, and get him through this and out the other side quicker in a more stable way.

Let’s hope and pray Boris is in the best of hands and will pull through.

Updated

It is understood Johnson was moved to the intensive care unit just short of an hour and a half ago.

The decision was made by his medical team after his condition worsened over the course of Monday. The prime minister is understood to be conscious and to have been moved as a precaution in case he needs ventilation.

UK prime minister placed in intensive care

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been moved to an intensive care unit after his condition worsened, Downing Street has said. A No 10 spokesman said:

Since Sunday evening, the prime minister has been under the care of doctors at St Thomas’ Hospital, in London, after being admitted with persistent symptoms of coronavirus.

Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the prime minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the intensive care unit at the hospital.

The PM has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is the first secretary of state, to deputise for him where necessary.

The PM is receiving excellent care, and thanks all NHS staff for their hard work and dedication.

Updated

Israel will go into a four-day national lockdown starting on Tuesday to try to stem the outbreak during the Jewish holiday of Passover.

In a televised address, he said travel restrictions will be tightened and that Israelis will be banned from leaving their homes on Wednesday evening, when families traditionally travel to festive Passover “seder” meals.

Denmark will reopen day cares and schools for children in first to fifth grade starting 15 April if the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths remain stable, the country’s prime minister has said.

Other restrictions will remain in place until at least 10 May and the ban on big gatherings will stay until August.

In the UK, two more prisoners who tested positive have died. Each had underlying health conditions. A Prison Service spokesman has said:

A 46-year-old HMP Low Newton prisoner and a 59-year-old HMP Littlehey prisoner died in hospital over the weekend. Our condolences are with their families at this time. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed.

Russia is resuming some international flights to repatriate its citizens, ending the suspension of all flights announced last week.

The operational centre monitoring the outbreak said two flights carrying Russian nationals – one from the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek and one from Dhaka, Bangladesh – were going ahead on Monday.

Russia initially exempted repatriation flights and those taking foreigners to their home countries from a ban but temporarily reversed that on Friday.

The wearing of medical masks by the general public could exacerbate the shortage for health workers on the front lines, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Lockdowns in many places are proving effective in dampening spread of the virus, but any lifting of restrictions requires a calibrated, step-wise approach based on data, the organisation added. The WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Gheybresus, has said:

Masks alone cannot stop the pandemic, countries must continue to find, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact.

Hospitalisations are down and the rate of increase in deaths has levelled off in New York; the country’s hardest-hit state. Its governor, Andrew Cuomo, has said:

While none of this good news, the possible flattening of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen. If we are plateauing we are plateauing at a high level.

While hospitalisations are down, the number of coronavirus cases in the state has increased by 7% over the past 24 hours to 130,689. Deaths rose by 599 to 4,758, roughly on par with the 594 increase reported a day earlier.

Cuomo also said he was extending an order to keep non-essential businesses and schools for another two weeks until 29 April and chided residents who he said did not adhered to guidelines in seeking to enjoy good weather over the weekend.

This virus has kicked our rear end. Now is not the time to slack off from what we are doing.

In the USA, 8,910 people have now died as a result of the pandemic, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has also reported 330,891 cases.

Over the weekend, the CDC updated its case count to 304,826 and said 7,616 people had died across the USA. But that the numbers were preliminary and had not been confirmed by individual states.

The number of people who died from coronavirus infections in French hospitals has increased by 10% in a day to a cumulative total of 6,494, the country’s health minister Olivier Véran has said.

He added that including partial data about the number of people who have died in nursing homes, the total death toll from the disease rose to 8,911 from 8,078 on Sunday, which is also a rise of 10%.

In both cases, the rate of increase has speeded up again after several days of slowing.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the latest events:

Here’s a summary of the day’s earlier developments.

Two hospitals each with a capacity of up to 1,000 beds are to be build in Istanbul, Turkey, to treat coronavirus patients, the country’s president has said, according to AFP.

In a televised speech, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had mobilised all its resources to fight the pandemic, which has so far claimed 649 lives in the country. Announcing the hospitals, he said:

We will complete them within 45 days and will open them to public service

One of the hospitals is due to be built in the area where the city’s former international airport was located on the European side, and the other one-floor hospital at Sancaktepe on the Asian side of Istanbul.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference after a meeting with the presidential cabinet via videoconferencing in Istanbul
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference after a meeting with the presidential cabinet via videoconferencing in Istanbul Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Turkey has so far suspended international flights, banned mass prayers and gatherings and shut schools. Erdogan added:

With the measures we have taken, and the additional ones, we will overcome this pandemic together with Europe and the world.

Cox’s Bazaar, the district of Bangladesh that is home to more than 3million people - including a million Rohingya refugees - has no ventilators to treat people who fall ill with Covid-19, according to Save the Children.

The NGO is calling for urgent international help to help Bangladesh meet a potential surge in demand for critical care beds as the coronavirus spreads in the region. Hospitals in Bangladesh currently have 1,169 beds in intensive care units, the Dhaka Tribune reports. However most are concentrated in urban centres.

Raising the alarm over a potential humanitarian emergency in the country, Athena Rayburn, Save the Children’s Rohingya response advocacy manager, said:

Without access to intensive care facilities in Cox’s Bazar, patients in critical condition may have to be transported to neighbouring Chittagong district more than 90 miles away, further increasing the risk to them and others.

Ventilators and people trained to operate them are urgently needed to protect the host communities and Rohingya refugees to avert a humanitarian disaster. Children are at serious risk of not only contracting the virus, but also of being orphaned or neglected if family members become infected or die.

In a release, Save the Children called for a single global plan to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, underpinned by debt relief, increased financing for public health, and social care safety nets for the most vulnerable. Dr Shamim Jahan, deputy country director for Save the Children in Bangladesh, said:

At present, it is difficult for Bangladesh to meet the expected surge in demand for ventilators to help respond to the Covid-19 outbreak. We are in this together - no single country can confront Covid-19 alone, even the richest and most powerful among us.

… It is therefore essential that world leaders – in particular the G20 countries – commit to a coordinated global plan underpinned by debt relief. We also urge the Bangladesh government to engage the public and private sectors urgently to secure ventilators for COVID-19 patients.

Angela Merkel has said it’s too early to talk about a relaxation of lockdown measures in Germany, despite expectations she might do so, Kate Connolly reports from Berlin.

The German chancellor said any talk of lifting or relaxing the lockdown was dependent on a range of factors, and one figure about which many have been focussing intently – how many days it has taken for the current figure of confirmed infections to have doubled – is only one of them.

She said even when it was considered the right time, a relaxation of the rules would only happen gradually.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking at a coronavirus press conference on Monday
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking at a coronavirus press conference on Monday Photograph: Christian Marquardt/EPA

Germany now has over 101,000 confirmed infections, a figure that has doubled in the last 10 days. Fourteen days is frequently mentioned as a desirable goal. The number to have died from the virus is 1,623.

A reported 25,280 people have recovered, though as many of those who have had it will not have been tracked, this is seen to be a considerable underestimate.

Merkel said she could not name a date for an “exit”, as she referred to it. “The worst thing would be to declare a relaxation only to have to take it back, if there are more deaths,” she said. Both the government and the 16 German states, have agreed that the current lockdown rules should stay in place until 19 April at least.

She was speaking from the chancellory in Berlin, having only recently returned from a two-week quarantine after her doctor was diagnosed with the virus. Merkel has tested negative for the virus three times.

Merkel thanked Germans for their “ongoing discipline” in keeping a physical distance from each other.

Updated

Iran’s health spokesman has been forced to backtrack after he described Chinese official figures on the coronavirus outbreak as a sick joke, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports. Chinese Iranian relations are normally warm partly since China is one of the major markets for Iranian oil.

Kianoosh Jahanpour made the remarks at a press conference and a tweet on Sunday adding China had given the impression that coronavirus was just influenza but with fewer deaths. His tweet led led to a reproach from the Chinese Ambassador to Iran Chang Hua. He said that the Ministry of Health of China has a press conference every day. “I suggest that you read their news very carefully in order to draw conclusions”.

Criticisms of Chinese coronavirus figures has in the past come exclusively from the West, but Jahanpour insisted he just making a comment on how China’s epidemiological assessment of Coronavirus was not shared by Iran.

After representations to the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs Jahanpour, a familiar face on Iranian TV screens , said on Monday “We should also see the glass half-full. At the very least, we all decided that we had to respect principles of diplomacy.” The Iranian foreign ministry also insisted it was grateful for China’s generosity.

The move came as the government’s anti-corona headquarters announced plans to ban the publication of print newspapers except on-line in a bid to stop the spread of the disease. Editors of seven newspapers, including editors of the reformist Etemad and Ebtekar protested the decision saying it would bankrupt them, and represent a further erosion of press freedom

Alireza Zali, the commander-in-chief of the anti-coronavirus HQ in Tehran warned: “Especially in Tehran province, we have witnessed a very serious change in the presence and movement of people in cities, and unfortunately, at a time when we are witnessing this increase in motor traffic, the numbers entering Tehran’s hospitals is still increasing.”

He said there had been a 25 % increase in hospital admissions and a 15 % increase in intensive care units as of Sunday, 5 April, and said public referrals to hospitals had increased by 28 % compared to the previous day.

The move came as Iran announced on Monday that 3,739 Iranians had lost their lives to coronavirus and a total of 60,500 had been infected. Over the previous 24 hours 136 had lost their lives and 2,274 had become infected.

Italy reports 636 new deaths from Covid-19

There were 636 more deaths from coronavirus in Italy on Monday, 111 more than the number registered on Sunday, bringing the death toll in Italy to 16,523, Angela Giuffrida reports from Orvieto.

The number of current new infections increased by 1,941, a rise of 2% since Sunday and the lowest day-to-day rise registered since 30 March. For the third day in a row, there was a decrease in the number of intensive care beds in use.

The total number of coronavirus cases in Italy to date, including deaths and 22,837 people recovered, stood at 132,547 as of Monday, according to figures from Italy’s civil protection authority.

Updated

A group of 24 senior diplomats and defence officials, including four former Nato secretary generals, have urged Donald Trump to ease medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran, writes Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.

The call has the backing of the former EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, the former director general of the World Health Organization Gro Harlem Brundtland, and senior American diplomats in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.

Trump reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran in May 2018 after withdrawing from an international deal that put curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Women wearing protective face masks walk in a market in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday
Women wearing protective face masks walk in a market in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images

The bipartisan group is not pressing for a generalised lifting of the sanctions but instead a targeted effort to ease US rules that prevent Tehran trading in medical and humanitarian goods. The group says the move “could potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians and, by helping to curb the virus’s rapid spread across borders, the lives of its neighbours, Europeans, Americans and others”.

Updated

Coronavirus is EU's biggest ever crisis - Merkel

The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest test the European Union has faced in its history, Angela Merkel said on Monday.

Speaking before a key eurozone finance ministers’ conference to draw up an economic rescue plan for the bloc, the German chancellor told journalists:

In my view … the European Union stands before the biggest test since its founding.

.… Everyone is just as affected as the other, and therefore, it is in everyone’s interest, and it is in Germany’s interest for Europe to emerge strong from this test.

At Monday’s press conference, Merkel reiterated her government’s stance of activating the European stability mechanism bailout fund, which German finance minister Olaf Scholz has said could be triggered “with no senseless conditions” to help struggling states, AFP reported. But she made no mention of the controversial common debt facilities dubbed “coronabonds”.

Merkel also said a lesson to be learnt from the pandemic was that Europe needed to develop “self-sufficiency” in manufacturing of crucial medical gear such as masks.

Regardless of the fact that this market is presently installed in Asia … we need a certain self-sufficiency, or at least a pillar of our own manufacturing.

Updated

The director general of the World Health Organisation has said new guidance will be issued on the use of face masks in public to support countries that have decided to implement their wider use.

Speaking in the daily WHO press briefing, Tedros Adhanom said:

If masks are worn they must be used safely and properly. [The] WHO has guidance on how to put on, take off and dispose of masks.

What is clear is that there is limited research in this area. We encourage countries that are considering introducing masks for the genera population to study their effectiveness.

... Masks alone cannot stop the pandemic. Countries must continue to find, test isolate and treat every case and trace every contact.

After falls in the daily death tolls reported by Spain and the UK today, and Italy yesterday, the latest figures released by health authorities in Greece are also offering a glimmer of hope, Helena Smith reports from Athens.

In his daily briefing the government’s spokesman on coronavirus, prominent infectious diseases expert, Sotiris Tsiodras, said data suggested the country was “flattening the curve.”

Overnight 20 new coronavirus cases had been confirmed compared to 62 on Sunday, bringing the total number to 1,755.

Similarly the death toll was also displaying signs of stabilising, rising by six to 79 – compared to the five fatalities announced on Sunday. Of those hospitalised, an additional 90 people remain in intensive care.

Shoppers pick up groceries at a street market in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Shoppers pick up groceries at a street market in Thessaloniki, Greece. Photograph: Giannis Papanikos/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

But although Greece appears to have kept transmissions of the potentially lethal virus under control – after enforcing strict restrictions on movement early on - officials have repeatedly warned that this is not the time to be less vigilant.

Addressing the same health ministry briefing, the deputy civil protection minister Nikos Hardalias predicted that what would happen this month would be key – even if there were signs that “the chain of transmission” could be broken.

“April will be the most difficult and crucial month. If we relax the measures we could pay the price and regret it,” he said.

Updated

Mahmoud Jibril, the Libyan politician most closely involved in the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Libya’s troubled transition to democracy, has died from Coronavirus in exile in Egypt, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports.

Jibril was Libya’s first post transition head of government, and was supported by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the British prime minister David Cameron.

He was critical to persuading western leaders that Gaddafi had to be stopped from trying to enter the eastern city of Benghazi to commit a massacre in 2011. He then worked especially closely with the United Arab Emirates and France on plans to liberate Tripoli from Gaddafi’s rule issuing the decisive broadcast that was the signal for the uprising in the capital.

He had been in quarantine since 26 March in Cairo, and aged 67 suffered from a complex of health issues, including a heart condition. As head of Libya’s executive office of the national transition council, he led the apologies to the British people of the new regime for the Lockerbie bombing and provision of arms to the IRA. He resigned soon after Gaddafi was ousted.

He gradually lost the support of Islamist militia and proved unable to bring the country together as the country’s battered civil institutions tried to adjust to the end of Gaddafi’s dictatorship. In 2012 he stood for the premiership only to be defeated by two votes when the national assembly voted by 96 to 94 for his rival.

Libyan former interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril , pictured in May 2018. He has died from coronavirus while in exile in Egypt
Libyan former interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril , pictured in May 2018. He has died from coronavirus while in exile in Egypt Photograph: Aidan Lewis/Reuters

The British embassy in Libya said on Monday it had heard of his passing with great sadness and said he has played an important role in helping usher Libya towards a more democratic future.

His death comes as the disease only slowly starts to take a grip in Libya itself. A total of 18 cases have been detected with only one death inside the country. There is a widespread concern that the country is badly prepared for any outbreak.

Fighting in the Libyan civil war continues with Turkish supplied drones backing the UN recognised government of national accord based in Tripoli causing damage on Sunday and Monday to eastern forces led by General Khalifa Haftar.

The World Health Organization is beginning its media briefing.

UK reports 439 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours

The department of health and social care said as of 5pm yesterday 5,373 people who had tested positive for coronavirus have died in UK hospitals.

As of 9am today, 208,837 people had been tested for the virus, of which 51,608 had tested positive.

ITV reporter Paul Brand has done the sums:

Before reading too much into the UK figures, it is worth reading this article by the Guardian’s data team about why what we think we know about the UK death toll is wrong.

Authorities in New York City may soon start temporarily burying bodies in parks as the city grapples with overrun morgues because of the coroanvirus crisis, city councilman Mark Levine said.

Levine also noted that the city is likely undercounting its coronavirus death toll because as many people are dying at home without receiving a test.

It is an interesting thread. Worth clicking through to see the rest of what he has to say. Truly apocalyptic scenes seem to be unfolding in New York City.

Dozens of doctors have been arrested in Pakistan after fighting with police during a protest over the lack of safety equipment to protect them while treating patients infected with Covid-19, AFP reports.

The arrests occurred after more than 100 doctors and paramedics rallied near the main hospital in Quetta and then moved to protest in front of the chief minister’s residence.

Police used batons to disperse the group after they tried to enter the chief minister’s home. Abdul Razzaq Cheema, a senior police official, told AFP that 53 doctors were detained for several hours until the provincial government ordered their release.

Doctors stage a demonstration in Quetta over the lack of personal protective equipment to protect them while treating Covid-19 patients
Doctors stage a demonstration in Quetta over the lack of personal protective equipment to protect them while treating Covid-19 patients Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA
Doctors and paramedics scuffle with policemen as they stage a protest against a lack of safety equipment
Doctors and paramedics scuffle with policemen as they stage a protest against a lack of safety equipment Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP via Getty Images
The arrests occurred after more than 100 doctors and paramedics rallied near the main hospital in Quetta and then moved to protest in front of the chief minister’s residence
The arrests occurred after more than 100 doctors and paramedics rallied near the main hospital in Quetta and then moved to protest in front of the chief minister’s residence Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA

Liaqat Shehwani, a spokesman for the provincial Balochistan government, told AFP that the doctors were protesting over the unavailability of personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks and goggles.

“We had assured them that the PPE would be provided soon but they started the protest,” Shehwani said, adding that authorities were planning to distribute protective equipment after receiving supplies from the federal government earlier on Monday.

Police used batons to disperse the group after they tried to enter the chief minister’s home
Police used batons to disperse the group after they tried to enter the chief minister’s home Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA
A policeman arrests a doctor during the protest in Quetta, after medical staff tried to enter the home of the local chief minister
A policeman arrests a doctor during the protest in Quetta, after medical staff tried to enter the home of the local chief minister Photograph: Arshad Butt/AP
A senior police official told AFP that 53 doctors were detained for several hours until the provincial government ordered their release
A senior police official told AFP that 53 doctors were detained for several hours until the provincial government ordered their release Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA

Yasir Achakzai, president of the doctors association in Quetta, told reporters that the government was not following the World Health Organization’s guidelines for protecting doctors and other health workers.

“So they forced us to protest for our rights,” said Achakzai.

Pakistani has recorded 3,277 COVID-19 cases and 50 deaths caused by the virus, however, the true tally is thought to be many times larger.

Black people are underrepresented in high-level decision making about tackling the coronavirus pandemic, leading to a failure to address the specific health risks faced by people of African descent, UN experts have warned.

The lack of representation also posed the risk that racism and implicit bias could creed into policies to tackle the pandemic, the UN’s working group of experts on people of African descent said in a statement.

Underlying health conditions that could place people of African descent at greater risk include hypertension, cardiovascular disease, lupus and autoimmune disorders. The working group also pointed to the disproportionate overrepresentation of black people working in service industries.

Widespread self-quarantine, physical distancing, and health mandates are heavily underwritten by the ongoing availability of a workforce that enables millions of people to reduce transmission by staying at home.

In many States, people of African descent disproportionately serve as home health aides, carers, and grocery and delivery personnel who help hospitals and health care systems focus on the most serious cases, despite no public efforts to ensure their safety and protection.

… In this respect, the treatment of people of African descent serving in this crisis as disposable recalls historical exploitation and implies a social mindset that may fail to critically analyse the assumptions it makes about the needs and the risks to people of African descent in this crisis.

The Covid-19 epidemic is under control in Norway, the country’s health minister said on Monday, pointing to the low rate of transmission of the disease, Reuters reports.

Bent Hoeie told a news conference that a person infected with the coronavirus in Norway now spreads it to an average 0.7 other individuals. The government’s goal was to limit the spread to maximum one other person.

The government will decide on Wednesday whether to extend ongoing restrictions, including the closures of schools and nurseries, beyond mid-April.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has described the coronavirus pandemic as the EU’s biggest test since its creation.

Merkel, who leads the continent’s industrial powerhouse, is calling for European self-sufficiency in mask production. Most face masks are produced in China, and there have in recent days been several well-publicised instances of shipments bound for European countries being diverted at the last minute to the US.

Updated

Thailand has extended its ban on incoming passenger flights until 18 April, the Thaiger reports.

An initial three-day ban on incoming flights imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand had been due to end tonight.

State and military aircraft, humanitarian aid and medical or relief flights, repatriation flights and cargo aircraft are exempt from the ban, as are emergency landings.

Passengers already on their way to the country will be subject to a 14-day quarantine once they arrive.

British tourists stranded in Nepal say they have had to turn to the embassies of other European countries for help, after the British government failed to rescue them, Pete Pattison reports.

Maria Terziska was trekking in the Everest region when she heard that the Foreign Office was advising British nationals to return home. By the time she reached Kathmandy, she was was unable to get any information about flights from the embassy. She arrived back in the UK yesterday on a French rescue flight. She said:

I have never felt so helpless in my life … It was a really scary situation and it felt like the British embassy did not care about anyone or anything … The British embassy did nothing to get us back to Kathmandu, it was the Nepali tourism authorities and our tour guide who got us back.

Another British trekker, Scott Hopkinson, who managed to return to the UK on a German rescue flight, said:

I felt so stressed. There was no clarity from the British embassy. It was giving out conflicting information.

The British embassy in Kathmandu announced today that rescue flights for British nationals would be leaving on Wednesday and Friday, almost two weeks after German and French tourists began to be evacuated.

A seat on the flights arranged by the British embassy costs £800, twice the cost of the French rescue flight.

James Capel, who is still waiting to leave Nepal, after a trek in the Everest region, said:

Why are we are going with an option that took two more weeks [to arrange] and costs twice as much even with a subsidy? When the friends you have made from other countries on the treks are all home having paid half of what you have, you naturally get rather angry.

Foreign secretary Dominc Raab announced last week that the government had allocated £75m for rescue flights to repatriate British citizens stranded abroad by the coronavirus.

On 22 March, the Nepal government banned all international flights. The announcement came at the height of the tourist season when tens of thousands of visitors arrive to trek and climb in the Himalayas.

Two days later the government announced a lockdown, leaving many trekkers trapped in remote regions, struggling to return the capital Kathmandu, which has the country’s only international airport.

The Foreign Office has been approached for comment.

Updated

Movement in and out of four coronavirus “infected areas” in Kenya, including the capital Nairobi, has been banned for three weeks, AFP reports.

Announcing the measures in a televised address, president Uhuru Kenyatta stopped short of a full lockdown within the areas, but issued a warning that “we must be ready to go even further if necessary.”

He ordered “cessation of all movement by road, rail or air in and out of” Nairobi, and the coastal towns of Kilifi and Kwale and the country’s second largest city of Mombasa for 21 days, starting from Monday at 7pm local time. Transport of food supplies and other cargo would be exempt, he said.

Kenya currently counts 158 cases and six deaths from the virus, most of them in the capital, with a few cases also along the coast. It is the second worst-hit nation in eastern Africa after Mauritius which has 227 cases.

A woman has her temperature measured at Penda Health Clinic Umoja II in Nairobi
A woman has her temperature measured at Penda Health Clinic Umoja II in Nairobi Photograph: Patrick Meinhardt/AFP via Getty Images

The trajectory of coronavirus infections in Iran appears to have started a “gradual” downward trend, the government said Monday, AFP reports.

In a televised news conference, health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour reported 136 Covid-19-related deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s overall toll to 3,739.

Iran registered 2,274 new cases of infection over the same period, he said, putting the total number at 60,500 across the country.

The figure shows a drop in officially reported new cases of coronavirus infection for the sixth consecutive day, after a peak of 3,111 new cases on 31 March. Jahanpour said:

Due to the intensification of the social distancing policy, we have seen a gradual and slow decline in the number of new cases in recent days ... I hope that the strongest possible adherence to these instructions ... will allow us to enter a phase of disease control and containment.

Iran, which announced its first Covid-19 cases on 19 February, is by far the country most affected by the pandemic in the Middle East, according to official tolls released by each state.

In an attempt to limit the spread of the disease, authorities have not confined the population but have adopted other restrictions such as closing most businesses deemed non-essential.

The UN’s World Food Programme is calling for an urgent $350m funding boost to help it keep going in the face of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, which it says threatens millions of people already as risk of food shortages.

In its latest weekly situation report the organisation issued a warning that humanitarian supply chains were becoming blocked by measures to contain the spread of Covid-19, just as many areas were entering their annual lean season. According to the document:

WFP is already assessing the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable communities, and estimates it may require scaling up operations to as many as 100-120 million people in 80 plus countries.

... Humanitarian supply chains are at risk as food exports are blocked, borders are closed, the price of staple foods rise, and manufacturing industries are disrupted. Many countries are entering their annual lean season when access to food is most limited and the hurricane and monsoon seasons are looming.

Securing a sufficient buffer of resources is critical to sustain operations, as well as to ensure WFP is able to shift resources and respond to changing circumstances as required. It is also vital to reinforce corridors with assets and technical assistance to ensure the continued flow of humanitarian cargo.

Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, has asked international lenders for $6.9bn to help it weather an economic crisis linked to the coronavirus pandemic, AFP reports.

As it attempts to battle the outbreak within its borders, including by locking down its two largest cities, the country, which is also Africa’s biggest oil producer, is suffering from a slump in the price of crude. Finance minister Zainab Ahmed told journalists:

We have a contribution of $3.4bn in the IMF and we are entitled to draw up to the whole of that … We have in the first instance applied for that maximum amount, but in the process, we will negotiate.

Ahmed said Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, had also requested $2.5bn from the World Bank and $1bn from the African Bank of Development.

Updated

Officials prepare US for "peak death week"

US officials on Monday girded the country for a “peak death week” from the coronavirus pandemic as the accelerating American death toll closed the gap with Italy and Spain, Reuters reports.

Admiral Brett Giroir, a physician and a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, told ABC’s Good Morning America:

It’s going to be the peak hospitalisation, peak ICU week and unfortunately, peak death week.

Giroir raised particular alarm for New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Detroit. His comments echoed in starker terms those of Donald Trump on Sunday, who said the US would in coming days “endure the peak of this terrible pandemic”, and the US surgeon general, Jerome Adams, who warned the country that this week would be “our Pearl Harbour moment”.

The number of confirmed US coronavirus cases passed 336,000 on Sunday. The IS is now the world leader by a long way with nearly twice as many cases as in Spain and in Italy, according to a tally of official data kept by Reuters.

Roughly twice as many people a day are dying in the US as Spain and Italy, according to the data. The American death roll rose by 1,144 on Sunday, to 9,573.

Updated

In Mumbai, India’s largest city, a major hospital was declared a coronavirus containment zone and closed to new patients, AFP reports.

Three doctors and 26 nurses at the Wockhardt hospital tested positive for Covid-19, according to Vijay Khabale-Patil, a spokesman for the Mumbai city authority. “Three hundred staffers have been quarantined and the hospital is shut,” he told AFP.

A man wearing a facemask stands on the front entrance of the Wockhardt hospital in Mumbai, which has been shut to new patients and declared a coronavirus containment zone
A man wearing a face mask stands on the front entrance of the Wockhardt hospital in Mumbai, which has been shut to new patients and declared a coronavirus containment zone Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/AFP via Getty Images

The United Nurses Association (UNA) in Mumbai accused hospital management of failing to protect staff by refusing to let them wear appropriate safety gear. Akash S Pillai, UNA general secretary for Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said:

They told the medical staffers to wear simple (surgical) masks... and attend to the patient ... They were thinking that if the staff wore protective gear, family members of Covid-19 patients would get scared ... Many well-known hospitals in Mumbai and Pune are putting their staffers through the same risks.

India has so far recorded more than 4,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, but experts say the real numbers are likely to be far higher, with the country carrying out little testing of its 1.3 billion population compared with many other countries.

Updated

Most days I receive emails or Twitter messages from readers who want to know more about the situation faced by refugees as the coronavirus pandemic crisis sweeps the world.

In keeping with our mission as a newspaper, my Guardian colleagues and I have been doing our best to highlight issues facing refugees and other migrant groups, who are among the most marginalised and dispossessed people on the planet.

But if you want a closer look at the issues, then you might be interested to know there is actually a coronavirus live blog kept by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). It highlights the the ways that UNHCR staff, people forced to flee and supporters around the globe are “taking action to stay smart, stay safe and stay kind.”

I’ll be returning to it now and again myself and reporting on any interesting news it highlights.

Fears over the pain coronavirus could inflict on some of Latin America’s most deprived communities have grown after four Covid-19 cases were confirmed in Brazil’s largest favela, Tom Phillips reports from Rio de Janeiro.

Health officials in Rio de Janeiro announced on Sunday that the cases had been detected in Rocinha, a densely populated and labyrinthine community in the city’s south. The patients – three men and one woman – are all under 60.

The Rocinha favela. Four Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Rocinha, the largest slum of its kind in Latin America
The Rocinha favela. Four Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Rocinha, the largest slum of its kind in Latin America. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Two elderly residents of Rocinha – aged 67 and 70 – reportedly died last week after showing coronavirus symptoms although their test results have yet to be released.

According to the Rio newspaper O Globo, coronavirus cases have also been detected in five other favelas: Cidade de Deus (City of God), Parada de Lucas, Vidigal, Mangueira, and the Complexo do Alemão, another vast tapestry of housing in the city’s north.

Rio de Janeiro has so far confirmed 64 deaths and nearly 14,000 cases of Covid-19, although low testing rates means the real figures are likely to be higher.

Updated

The Austrian government, which has introduced some of the strictest lockdown rules in Europe, has announced that it is preparing to relax them, giving an insight into what it’s calling its “exit strategy”, writes Kate Connolly in Berlin.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said any easing of guidelines would depend on citizens sticking to the existing rules, and people’s behaviour this week as well as the infection rate will be “decisive” in seeing how the country proceeds.

“We are trying to carefully shape a plan as to how we can proceed after Easter,” Kurz said in a press briefing in Vienna this morning.

Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, centre, and ministers arrive for a news conference in Vienna
Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, centre, and ministers arrive for a news conference in Vienna Photograph: Reuters

From 14 April, small shops (400 m2 or less in size) as well as DIY stores will be allowed to reopen, as well as state parks, but only with tight entry controls.

However, curfews will remain in place and the obligatory wearing of face masks or mouth and nose covering – until now intended for shoppers in supermarkets – will be extended to public transport.

“Easter week will be a decisive week for us. It will decide whether or not we will rise again after Easter,” Kurz said, referring to the resurrection of Jesus, the culmination of the Easter feast, which is widely celebrated in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

From 1 May, all shops, shopping centres and hairdressers will be allowed to open. Restaurants, hotels and bars will remain closed until further notice. When they do reopen again, staff will have to wear masks and tables will have to have a specific distance from each other.

Austria’s leaving certificate, the equivalent of the A-level exams in the UK is due to take place, with schools reopening at the start of May for those pupils. A decision as to when other pupils are allowed to return to school will be made at the end of April. Universities will have to complete their semesters via video learning, Kurz said.

The Austrian exit strategy will also include the introduction of tracking apps to trace citizens’ movements and ensure they are not breaking curfew rules. They should be used by the whole of the country. Those who don’t have a mobile phone will be required to wear a special key-ring style device, the chancellor said at the weekend. The majority of Austrians are said to be in favour of the measures.

In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute is developing a similar app to that due to be introduced in Austria. It is being developed in conjunction with a European app that 130 researchers are developing, and will warn people if they might have had contact with infected persons. Its use is expected to be anonymous and voluntary, although surveys show a large number of Germans are prepared to use it if it leads to a relaxation of lockdown rules. The ultimate aim should be to have a single, Europe-wide tracking app.

“Its use should be voluntary, but obviously with the hope that as many people as possible will use it,” Steffen Seibert, spokesman for the German government said this afternoon. “People who use it will be doing their significant bit to reduce the spread of the infection and helping measures to fight it.”

Updated

Eugen Tomac, a Romanian MEP, has tabled a written question in the European parliament asking what measures the European commission intends to take to forestall the spread of Covid-19 among refugees in the Greek islands.

Fears are growing that the conditions in which refugees are living on Europe’s borders are ripe for the spread of pandemic disease. Below I reported how two Cyprus-based NGOs had accused that country’s government of turning one migrant centre in to an effective prison camp, with inadequate provision for hygiene and social distancing to protect the health of residents and staff.

The text of Tomac’s question, posted on the European parliament website, reads:

The COVID-19 pandemic currently constitutes a huge challenge for the EU, and is a very good test of solidarity, as well of the respect for human dignity and rights. As the EU’s fight to contain the virus continues, nearly 42 000 asylum seekers are living in squalid conditions in hotspots on the Greek islands. This is likely to lead to an outbreak. Hence, can the Commission answer the following questions:

1. How does it intend to ensure the right to health in the refugee camps is respected?

2. What measures have been taken to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak within the overcrowded camps?

3. Is there a sufficient number of qualified medical personnel to cope with a possible spread of COVID-19 within hotspots, and where will those who test positive be treated?

Updated

Coronavirus-related deaths in Spain have dropped for the fourth consecutive day in a row, according to figures released on Monday, showing 637 deaths in the past 24 hours, the lowest number in nearly two weeks.

Fatalities, which were sharply down on the record 950 on Thursday, brought the total deaths in the country to 13,055, second only to Italy, AFP reports.

The number of new infections also slowed, increasing 3.3% to 135,032, down from a rise of 24.8% on 21 March. Over 40,000 coronavirus patients have been discharged from hospital – nearly 30% of all confirmed cases of the disease.

The Spanish government is studying how to gradually ease the lockdown imposed on 14 March, which is due to last until 25 April.

The government plans to ramp up testing to be able to isolate people who are infected but not showing symptoms. As for face masks, foreign minister Arancha González Laya said on Monday: “We will probably all have to learn to use them as a prophylactic, at least until there is a vaccine.”

Updated

Germany considers mandatory face masks

Wearing masks in public could soon be mandatory in Germany, according to a draft list of measures that officials think should allow life to return to normal.

The proposals, contained in a draft action plan document compiled by the interior ministry, seen by Reuters on Monday, include an obligation to wear masks in public, limits on public gatherings and the rapid tracing of infection chains.

Officials say the measures should be sufficient to keep the number of people infected by each person below one, as public life is allowed gradually to resume.

For this to be possible, mechanisms will have to be in place to track more than 80% of people an infected person had contact with within 24 hours of diagnosis, the paper said.

In return, schools will be able to reopen on a regional basis and strict border controls will be relaxed.

Two refugee NGOs have criticised what they describe as prison-like conditions at a centre for asylum seekers on Cyprus, warning that conditions at the camp increases the risk of contracting Covid-19 to those held there.

The Cyprus Refugee Council and Caritas Cyprus said the centre in Kokkinotrimithia has in the past month been turned into an effective detention centre, with conditions that place both residents and staff at risks.

Originally set up with EU funding, the Kokkinotrimithia camp was intended as a first registration reception centre to house asylum seekers for 72 hours while they were registered and underwent medical checks.

A migrant walks by the tents inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of Nicosia, Cyprus, in this picture taken last Tuesday
A migrant walks by the tents inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of Nicosia, Cyprus, in this picture taken last Tuesday. Photograph: Petros Karadjias/AP

In an online statement, the groups said:

Currently, there are over 600 people in what has effectively become a tent prison; many lack access to hygiene infrastructure or adequate Covid -19 protective measures. This has created dangerous conditions for both residents and staff.

Beyond this, in the last week, the Ministry of Interior has begun to move additional asylum seekers to Kokkinotrimithia, removing them from the hostels in which they lived in decent conditions. They now are housed communally in a closed-off section of the Kokkinotrimithia facility with little or no electricity, heat or access to showers. This has compounded their risk of contracting and spreading Covid-19 and jeopardized the wellbeing of some particularly vulnerable medical cases.

… Placing persons in such conditions and at such risk is a violation of national and EU standards and laws, but worse, it exhibits a loss of our humanity at a time where solidarity is needed more than ever, especially to keep everyone safe.

Updated

As 51 African countries report 9,198 cases of Covid-19 and 414 deaths, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has called for unity on the continent, a massive aid effort and “a new moral economy” that has “people and their welfare at its centre” when the crisis has passed, Jason Burke reports from Johannesburg.

Most experts believe the current total of cases in Africa is a very significant underestimate. There are widespread fears that not only could the death toll be very high, particularly among vulnerable communities such as refugees or HIV sufferers, but the economic impact could be devastating.

One study by the African Union found that many African states could lose up to a third of their tax revenue, with 20m jobs lost across the continent.

Medics prepare to test people for the coronavirus in a mobile testing unit in Yeoville, Johannesburg
Medics prepare to test people for the coronavirus in a mobile testing unit in Yeoville, Johannesburg Photograph: Shiraaz Mohamed/AP

In an op-ed in South African paper the Daily Maverick, Ramaphosa said:

With the necessary international support, we can bolster health infrastructure and health systems on the continent. At the same time, African countries will help each other.

If we continue in this positive vein, Africa will truly demonstrate it is more than capable of resolving its challenges. Through deeper collaboration, we will turn the tide against this virus, region by region, country by country.

Many countries across Africa have now imposed strict lockdowns. In places where there has been effective public information campaigns, these are widely observed and broadly supported despite the economic distress they inflict on many millions who have no savings or salaries.

In Kenya, where there is only a partial lockdown in forced, almost 70% of the population back stiffer measures.

A United Nations official has called on governments around the world to safeguard the health of prisoners during the coronavirus pandemic, partially through early release of inmates, Owen Bowcott, the Guardian’s legal correspondent, reports.

Sir Malcolm Evans, who is professor of international law at Bristol University and chair of the UN subcommittee on prevention of torture (SPT), has urged states to take additional precautions to reduce health risks to those in jails, immigration detention centres, psychiatric hospitals and refugee camps. He said:

In far too many countries, the response so far has been plainly inadequate or even damaging. Governments must recognise the risks posed by such settings, many of which are severely overcrowded and insanitary, and implement vital changes to prevent the spread of infection, provide access to appropriate health care, and maintain contact with loved ones and the outside world.

Inmates staging a protest inside the Poggioreale prison in Naples, southern Italy, last Wednesday, as fears of contracting the coronavirus increased inside overcrowded prisons
Inmates staging a protest inside the Poggioreale prison in Naples, southern Italy, last Wednesday, as fears of contracting the coronavirus increased inside overcrowded prisons Photograph: Ciro Fusco/EPA

Guidance issued by the SPT includes considering reducing prison populations by implementing schemes of early, provisional or temporary release of low-risk offenders, reviewing all cases of pre-trial detention, extending the use of bail for all but the most serious cases, as well as reviewing and reducing the use of immigration detention and closed refugee camps. Evans added:

This is an extraordinary situation, which necessitates an exceptional emergency response. These groups of people are often overlooked because they are invisible to society and may not elicit public sympathy. Now is not the time for moral judgement – it is a matter of life and death, and many are experiencing untold suffering or even dying as a consequence.

... Some authorities have introduced new restrictions without any explanation. This has been perceived as an additional punishment and led to riots causing more fatalities in the facility than the coronavirus itself.

In some countries, if families are unable to visit, prisoners will not be fed. The need to prevent the spread of infection should not interpreted as a licence to keep people locked up in cells for 24 hours a day. Basic human rights are being neglected, if not abandoned altogether.

Summary

Here are the latest lines in our global coronavirus coverage as we enter the afternoon here in London.

Three in four hospitals in the US are already treating patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus infections, according to a report compiled by the US government.

The federal report due to published later on Monday, but already seen by the Associated Press, finds that hospitals expect to be overwhelmed, with a range of problems feeding off each other in a vicious cycle.

Ann Maxwell, an assistant inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, told AP that problems such including insufficient tests, slow results, a scarcity of protective gear, a shortage of ventilators and burned-out medical staffs were leading to a cascade or domino effect.

The US has more diagnosed cases in the global pandemic than any other country, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Projections show the nation will see the peak impact later this month.

Paramedics were protective suits and face masks as they treat a patient in New York City
Paramedics were protective suits and face masks as they treat a patient in New York City Photograph: Ron Adar/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

The report is based on a telephone survey of 323 hospitals around the country, from March 23-27. Of the 323 hospitals in the survey, 117 reported they were treating one or more patients with confirmed COVID-19, while 130 said they were treating one or more patients suspected to have the disease. Suspected infections are treated similarly, because of the uncertainties around testing.

Only 32 hospitals said they were not treating any patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19. Another 44 hospitals did not provide that information.

With most of its people still subject to lockdown until at least the middle of this month, France is on the brink of its deepest recession since the end of the Second World War, its finance minister has said.

According to an AFP report, Bruno Le Maire told a senate panel that the current slowdown was likely to be “very far beyond” that seen during the global financial crisis of 2009. He said:

The worst growth figure in France since 1945 was -2.2 percent in 2009, after the financial crisis of 2008. We will probably be very far beyond -2.2 percent.

It’s an indication of the amplitude of the economic shock we’re facing.

Officials have said the lockdown in France, which began on 17 March, will last until at least 15 April.

Insee, France’s statistics office, said last month that the lockdown had already slashed overall economic activity by 35 percent, and that every month of shutdown would cut annual GPD by three percentage points.

European countries should start releasing low-risk prisoners to protect their health and human rights as the Covid-19 outbreak sweeps the continent, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner has said.

In a statement on Monday, Dunja Mijatovic pointed out that people held in jails, high-risk environment where protective measures such as social distancing cannot be easily followed, are among those most at risk of viral contagion.

Several countries, including the UK, have already started to release some low-risk prisoners. However, a number of Covid-19 contaminations and deaths in prison have already been reported, leading to an increase of tensions in jails. Mijatovic’s statement, published on the Council of Europe website says:

Many [countries] are adapting their criminal justice policies in order to reduce their prison population through various means, including temporary or early releases and amnesties; home detention and commutation of sentences; and suspending investigations and the execution of sentences. I strongly urge all member states to make use of all available alternatives to detention whenever possible and without discrimination.

[She adds] The decrease of the prison population is indispensable across Europe to ensure the effective implementation of the sanitary regulations and to ease the mounting pressure on prison personnel and the penitentiary system as a whole.

Updated

Hi, this is Damien Gayle taking over the live blog for the next few hours, taking you through the latest coronavirus pandemic updates from around the world.

I will be posting the latest contributions from the Guardian’s network of correspondents, as well as the news wires. But if you have a tip for us, or you think we have missed something, please let me know either in an email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via a direct message to my Twitter profile, @damiengayle.

Coronavirus cases passed 60,000 in Iran, with 2,274 new cases confirmed in last 24 hours.

A health ministry spokesman said the total number of infections now stands at 60,500 now.

136 more patients have died of covid-19 in 24 hours in Iran, pushing the total number of deaths to 3,739.

Kiyanoosh Jahanpour said 4,038 patients are in critical condition while 24,234 have recovered so far.

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has classified the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny as essential workers but said, “the Easter Bunny might not get everywhere this year”.

In her message to children, Ardern said:

You’ll be pleased to know that we do consider both the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny to be essential workers.

But as you can imagine at this time they’re going to be potentially quite busy at home with their family as well and their own bunnies.

So I say to the children of New Zealand, if the Easter Bunny doesn’t make it to your household, we have to understand it’s a bit difficult at the moment for the bunny to get everywhere.

She encouraged children to create their own Easter egg hunts at home for children in their neighbourhood by sticking Easter eggs in their windows.

Deaths in Spain decline for fourth consecutive day

In Spain, the daily number of deaths has declined for the fourth consecutive day, raising tentative hopes that the worst of the country’s outbreak is over.

The daily death toll on Monday was recorded at 637, the lowest number reported since March 24.

The country remains one of the world’s hardest-hit by the pandemic, with 13,055 deaths. Another 135,032 people have tested positive for the virus, according to the health ministry.

The country’s victims include 10 doctors, a nurse and an auxiliary nurse. More than 15,000 healthcare workers have tested positive for the virus, after a shortage of supplies forced them to resort to homemade protective gear as they battled one of the world’s fastest spreading outbreaks.

The epidemic, which has left Spain with the highest number of deaths per million, collapsed hospitals and plunged the country into a near-total lockdown that is expected to stretch for at least six weeks.

The Spanish government has said it is now studying the possibility of mass testing and isolating asymptomatic carriers of the virus.

“These figures continue to confirm the downward trend that we have been seeing,” said María José Sierra of Spain’s health emergency centre, citing a decrease in hospitalisations and critical care cases.

“We’re seeing the growth rate of the pandemic decreasing in practically all regions.”

Updated

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is poised to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other prefectures as early as Tuesday in an attempt to stem a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the capital and other major cities.

The measure, to go into effect Wednesday, will enable local authorities to urge people to stay at home except to shop for food, seek medical care, go to work if necessary, and take daily exercise.

Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe takes off his face mask as he arrives to speak to the media on Japan’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe takes off his face mask as he arrives to speak to the media on Japan’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters


Abe’s apparent reluctance to implement tougher measures had drawn criticism from the Japan Medical Association and Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, where confirmed cases have risen dramatically over the past week.
Japan has avoided the large number of Covid-19 cases and deaths that have prompted lockdowns in other countries, but there is growing alarm over the rise in infections in the capital, particularly among young people.

Tokyo reported a record 143 new cases on Sunday, taking its total to 1,003, according to public broadcaster NHK. The majority of confirmed cases over the weekend involved people aged below 50, with many in their 20s and 30s.

More than 3,500 people have tested positive and 85 have died from the new coronavirus in Japan, according to public broadcaster NHK. While the figures are low compared to the US, China and parts of Europe, officials are concerned that a surge in infections could place intolerable strain on the country’s hospitals.

Monday’s declaration will allow the governors of Japan’s 47 prefectures to call on people to stay home and businesses to close, but they will not have the legal authority to impose the kind of lockdowns seen in other countries, or to fine residents who ignore the request.

Abe is also expected to unveil “unprecedented” stimulus measures in response to the “biggest crisis” the global economy has faced since the second world war, according to a draft document.

The 108 trillion yen ($989 billion) package, which has yet to be finalised, would be bigger than the country’s response in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis.

Updated

Spain said on Monday it plans to widen coronavirus testing to include people without symptoms as a first step towards slowly easing a lockdown in the nation with the second highest death toll from the global pandemic.

As with worst-hit Italy, Spain has seen the rate of new infections and deaths slow in recent days, giving cause for hope the peak has passed.

On Sunday, it reported 674 fatalities in the previous 24 hours - a 6% increase in total, but half the pace of a week previously.

“We are preparing ourselves for de-escalation for which it is important to know who is contaminated to be able to gradually lift Spanish citizens’ lockdown,” Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez told TV station Antena 3.

People wave from their balconies as they celebrate Palm Sunday during the coronavirus lockdown, in Ronda, southern Spain.
People wave from their balconies as they celebrate Palm Sunday during the coronavirus lockdown, in Ronda, southern Spain. Photograph: Jon Nazca/Reuters

While so far only those infected or suspected of having Covid-19 have been tested, now checks will focus on the wider population to try and find carriers who may not be displaying symptoms, Gonzalez said.

Spanish companies are manufacturing 240,000 test kits per week and are boosting capacity, the minister said, while equipment is also being bought from abroad.

Spain has been in lockdown since March 14 and prime minister Pedro Sanchez said at the weekend that would remain in place until April 26.

However, Sanchez opened the door to easing some restrictions, such as keeping all non-essential workers at home, after Easter, even though shops and restaurants will stay shut.

Spain’s death toll stood at 12,418 on Sunday, with 130,759 infections.

Austria announces plans to end lockdown

The Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, has said the country is planning to let smaller shops reopen next week, with the aim of reopening all shops and malls from 1 May.

From then onwards, hotels and restaurants will open step-by-step from mid-May at the earliest, but a decision on that will come in late April. No events will be held until at least late June.

Kurz told a news conference that since Austria had acted earlier than most countries, that gave it the ability to reopen shops sooner as well.

If all goes well, it will reopen non-essential shops of less than 400 square metres and DIY shops on April 14, followed by all shops and malls on May 1, he said.

Meanwhile general lockdown measures will be extended until the end of April, and schools will remain closed until at least mid-May.

Kurz also announced that from Monday, face masks will be compulsory on public transport.

Updated

Indonesia reports biggest daily jump in new cases

Indonesia on Monday confirmed 218 new coronavirus cases, the biggest daily jump since the first cases were announced a month ago, taking the total number of infections to 2,491, a health ministry official said.

Achmad Yurianto said 11 deaths had been recorded, taking the total to 209, while 192 people had recovered.

Meanwhile, the Philippines’ health ministry reported 11 additional deaths and 414 new infections on Monday from the coronavirus outbreak.

Total deaths in the Philippines have reached 163, while cases rose to 3,660, with 73 patients recovered.

Updated

A veterinary expert has said that while it is surprising that a Bronx zoo tiger has contracted Covid-19, cat owners shouldn’t be alarmed.

Dr Sarah Caddy, veterinarian and clinical research fellow at the University of Cambridge, said initial research has shown domestic cats can be infected with coronavirus if “large doses of virus are administered intranasally”.

“Therefore the report of a tiger with the same virus is not wholly unexpected,” she added.

However, it is surprising that the tiger has become infected with what must have been a fairly low dose of virus – we can assume the tiger did not have continual close contact with the asymptomatic zoo keeper.

She added it was also interesting the tiger exhibited symptoms similar to what Covid-19 triggers in humans, such as a dry cough, and that while scientific proof is lacking, the chance this is just a coincidence is low.

What does this mean for our pet cats? Nothing new – at present there is still only one suspect case where an owner has spread the virus to their pet.

It is possible that tigers in captivity are more susceptible to the virus than household moggies as there is a 5% difference between their genomes.

The bottom line is that there is no evidence that any cat, large or small, can transmit virus back to humans.

Updated

Almost half a million Chinese businesses shuttered permanently in the first quarter of this year, South China Morning Post has reported.

Citing data technology service company Tianyacha, the report said almost half the 460,000 companies were in distribution or retail, and included 26,000 in the export sector, as well as businesses whose operating licenses had been revoked.

It said more than half the closed businesses had been operating for less than three years.

One man walks through a semi-deserted commercial street in Beijing, China.
A semi-deserted commercial street in Beijing, China. Photograph: Wu Hong/EPA

The number of new firms being set up in the same time period was 29% lower than 2019.

Economists are predicting dramatic downturns for China off the back of deeper than predicted economic damage.

Even as China reports a recovery from its own outbreak, the pandemic has affected trading partners, shipping and supply chains.

European shares rebounded on Monday as a slowdown in coronavirus deaths raised hopes that nationwide lockdowns were starting to show results.

Italy reported its lowest death toll in two weeks, Spanish fatalities dropped for the third straight day and France recorded its fewest deaths in a week.

“The curve has started its descent and the number of deaths has started to drop,” said top Italian health official Silvio Brusaferro, adding the next phase could be a gradual easing of a strict month-long lockdown.

A tweaking of tax rules to help tax exiles during the coronavirus pandemic has triggered a political row in Ireland, partially souring the mood of national solidarity.

Tax exiles who are usually limited to spending 183 days in Ireland, can stay longer this year without incurring penalties if they can prove they were forced to stay because of the crisis.

“Where a departure from the state is prevented due to Covid-19, Revenue will consider this ‘force majeure’ for the purpose of establishing an individual’s tax residence position,” said revenue authority guidelines.

The decision, first reported by the Sunday Times, prompted criticism from left-wing parties who said doing a favour for very wealthy individuals flew against the spirit of collective sacrifice and social solidarity.

“Baffling,” said Catherine Murphy, co-leader of the Social Democrats. Duncan Smith, a Labour TD, said he would ask the finance minister to reverse the decision.

Russia has recorded its largest single-day jump in new coronavirus cases. Officials said they had diagnosed 954 new cases of the disease, a nearly 18% increase from the previous day’s tally.

Russia now has a total 6,343 confirmed cases of covid-19 and has recorded 47 deaths from the virus.

The numbers follow three days of falling rates for confirmed coronavirus cases. Moscow is the epicentre of the disease in Russia, and 591 of Monday’s new cases were reported in Moscow.

Police officers wearing facemasks patrol the Red Square in Moscow, Russia.
Police officers patrol the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, where the government has introduced a regime of self-isolation of citizens. Photograph: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images

Russia has closed its borders and Moscow is entering its second week of a mandatory lockdown, with the city’s 12 million inhabitants told to stay in their apartments or homes unless they are seeking medical care, going to the store, the pharmacy, or walking a pet.

Vladimir Putin last week extended a de facto national holiday until April 30, asking Russians to remain in their homes.

Updated

Belgium’s prime minister Sophie Wilmès has warned that “a long process of reconstruction” awaits the country once the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over.

In a video address to the nation released on Sunday evening, Belgium’s prime minister said the process of exiting the lockdown would be gradual.

She also repeated that the current restrictions on movement, which are due to end on 19 April, could be extended until 3 May. Urging people to “hold on” and respect social distancing rules, she warned of “very testing” times in the weeks to come.

Unfortunately we know that after the peak of transmission comes hospitalisations and all too often, deaths. The announcements of the weeks to come will be again very testing, I fear. Despite this, more than ever, we must persevere.

The eight-minute speech was released amid some hopeful signs the transmission of the virus is slowing.

For the first time since the start of the epidemic, more Coronavirus patients left hospital (504 people) than arrived (499), according to the latest data released on Sunday. The number of hospital admissions also appears to be reaching a plateau, with Sunday marking the fourth day of successive decline and a downward trend since peak admissions of 629 one week earlier.

Since the start of the epidemic, 19,691 cases of coronavirus have been diagnosed in Belgium and 1,447 people have died.

The prime minister also hinted at how the virus might change society

A long process of reconstruction awaits us. It is clear that there will be a before and after Covid19, whether in the way of looking at our relationship with others, or the functioning of society more generally

She also addressed criticism of the government’s record in ensuring supplies of personal protective equipment for medical staff, following a spate of criticism from senior doctors that hospitals lack sufficient face masks and other kit.

A powerful tropical cyclone made landfall on the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on Monday, witnesses said, levelling buildings in a country already in a state of emergency due to concerns about the coronavirus.

Tropical Cyclone Harold, which claimed 27 lives when it swept through the Solomon Islands last week, strengthened to a scale-topping category five superstorm overnight, Vanuatu’s meteorology service said.

A man points to a collapsed building in the rain.
Tropical Cyclone Harold intensified to Category 5 as it hit Sanma province in Vanuatu. Photograph: Harrison Selmen

The cyclone approached Sanma province, an island north of the capital Port Vila, with winds of up to 215 km (133 miles) per hour. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

“There is lots of damage in Sanma, they lost lots of buildings,” said Jacqueline de Gaillande, CEO of Vanuatu Red Cross, from the capital Port Vila.

“We don’t know if we can provide any supports to the island because we are not allowed to travel inter-island and we are waiting for the government to make that decision,” added de Gaillande, referring to travel restrictions associated with the coronavirus.

Vanuatu has reported no cases of the coronavirus but has nonetheless declared a state of emergency, banned most international and domestic air travel and limited public gatherings to five people as it tries to prevent a local outbreak.

A day earlier, Solomon Islands police said they retrieved five bodies in their search for 27 people who were swept off a ferry by the cyclone as it passed over the country.

Singapore has put nearly 20,000 migrant workers under quarantine for two weeks after a growing number of coronavirus infections were detected in their dormitories.

Authorities reported 120 new virus cases on Sunday, the highest jump for the country in a single day, with many linked to foreign workers’ dorms.

Many workers from less affluent countries, particularly parts of South Asia, come to Singapore to work in construction and are typically housed in large dormitory complexes.

Meanwhile Asian markets rose as some of the world’s worst-hit countries reported falling death rates, providing some much-needed hope in the battle against the coronavirus, though oil prices were rocked after a meeting of top producers was delayed.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to craft an “unprecedented” stimulus package to respond to the downturn inflicted by Covid-19, with a draft document referring to the pandemic as the “biggest crisis” the global economy has faced since the second world war.

Abe’s government is to pledge to take “all steps” encompassing fiscal, monetary and tax policies to battle the deepening fallout from the coronavirus in a stimulus package to be approved on Tuesday, a draft document reviewed by Reuters showed.

The package would exceed the size of one compiled in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis totalling 56 trillion yen ($514 billion) in size, with fiscal spending of 15 trillion yen.

A man walks past a screen showing the news that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe plans to declare a state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak.
A man walks past a screen showing the news that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe plans to declare a state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak. Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Neither the size of the coronavirus package nor the amount of fiscal measures has yet been determined, according to the document, but features direct payments to households and financial backstops to companies.

Japan has been spared the kind of explosive surge seen in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, with some 3,500 cases and 85 deaths as of Monday, but the rate of new infections has been increasing, particularly in Tokyo itself, and the government looks set to declare a state of emergency.

Updated

The Afghan health ministry has urged migrants returning from Iran to quarantine themselves, as coronavirus cases in the country continue to surge and the number of deaths reached 10.

A heath ministry spokesman said 2,737 people have been tested for Covid-19 in Afghanistan, with 367 confirmed positive. 30 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in last 24 hours.

Testing remains low in Afghanistan, and experts fear that the full extent of the spread is not known, leaving the country vulnerable to further infection.

Afghanistan’s most affected province, Herat, recorded 16 new positive cases, raising the total number to 230. Kabul is the second most affected city, with 57 confirmed cases.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled the coronavirus outbreak in Iran and returned home to Afghanistan, sparking fears they are bringing new infections into the country.

Kabul and all three provinces which have borders with Iran are under partial curfew in a bid to contain the virus spread, but with people still walking around freely, experts warn that fighting the coronavirus will be challenging.

Three patients died of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of deaths to 10.

A doctor at a private hospital has also died of coronavirus in Kabul, the health ministry spokesman said. “Samples will be taken from 20 other doctors who were in contact with this doctor.”

Afghanistan has recorded 18 coronavirus recoveries so far.

A New York paramedic has said the US surgeon general referring to the coronavirus crisis in the country as a “Pearl Harbor moment” is not hyperbole and believes the worst is yet to come.

Michael Greco, a paramedic in New York and vice-president of the FDNY EMS union that represents emergency service workers, said on Sky News this morning: “It’s not hyperbole. This is probably some of the saddest most destructive eight days we’ve seen in a long time.

“The PPE shortage is one of our biggest challenges, country-wide as well as in New York. The amount of cardiac arrests we’re getting in any single day is unfortunately hitting a very high level.”

Greco said calls for paramedics began to spike two weeks ago, and their average 4,500 calls a day soon jumped to 7,000 a day. “We’ve been on record-breaking call volumes for nine days now,” he added.

Although New York recorded a lower number of coronavirus deaths on Sunday (594 fatalities, lower than the 630 deaths reported on Saturday), Greco said it is too soon to draw any conclusions.

“I don’t know if we’ve turned a corner yet, I think we’re going to need to see a couple of days straight of numbers declining to really feel that this has past the apex,” he said

“I still unfortunately believe we haven’t seen the worst of it yet. Our men and women are having to make decisions out in the field that nobody was trained for.”

French coronavirus figures appear to show a slight slowing of the spread of Covid-19.

There are now 70,478 confirmed cases (+1,873) and there has been a sharp rise in the number of deaths because nursing and care homes are now reporting 5,889 deaths in hospital (+357), and 2,189 deaths in homes (+161).

But experts saying it is hospital admissions and intensive care admission numbers that are important. Data from the government website appears to show the curve is beginning to flatten, suggesting the lockdown introduced on 17 March may be working.

Here’s the evolution of hospital admissions over the last seven days, plus intensive care (IC) admissions.

  • 05/04: +748 (+140 in IC)
  • 04/04: +711 (+176 in IC)
  • 03/04: +1,186 (+263 in IC)
  • 02/04: +1,607 (+382 in IC)
  • 01/04: +1,882 (+452 in IC)
  • 31/03: +1,749 (+458 in IC)
  • 30/03: +1,654 (+475 in IC)
  • 29/03: +1,734 (+359 in IC)

Updated

This is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next few hours to bring you all the latest coronavirus pandemic developments from around the globe.

Feel free to get in touch with tips, comments and questions via email (jessica.murray@theguardian.com) or Twitter (@journo_jess).

Switzerland is facing a shortage of the raw material needed to make disinfectant to tackle Covid-19, after the country abandoned its emergency reserve of 10,000 tonnes of ethanol two years ago, newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported on Monday.

Switzerland keeps emergency stockpiles of everything from coffee, wheat, rice and cooking oil. In 2018, the country ended its longtime practice of stocking ethanol as part of efforts to privatise the country’s alcohol market, the Swiss newspaper said.

The decision has contributed to shortages of disinfectant – it disappeared weeks ago from many store shelves as people stocked up – prompting distilleries, wineries and even beer brewers to begin making it.

Some Swiss politicians are frustrated by the move to give up the stockpile, the paper said.

“It just can’t be that an important raw material like alcohol is suddenly missing when a pandemic starts,” said parliament member Alois Gmuer, the paper reported.

Updated

Summary

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for now. My colleague Jessica Murray is taking over the blog. She will be bringing you rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in what looks likely to be a particularly eventful 24 hours, even by the standards of this crisis.

Here are the most important pieces of news from the last few hours:

  • Japan is expected to declare a state of emergency that may go into effect as early as Tuesday. Under a law revised in March to cover the coronavirus, the prime minister can declare a state of emergency if the disease poses a “grave danger” to lives and if its rapid spread could have a huge impact on the economy.
  • In airlines news, British Airways announced it would suspend direct flights between the UK and Japan and American Airlines Group Inc said late on Sunday it would suspend more flights in and out of New York City’s three main airports for about a month.
  • Donald Trump said the US government had ordered 29m doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria for which testing for its use to treat coronavirus is still under way. The drug has potentially harmful side-effects. Personal protective gear is also being airlifted to US affected states, including millions of masks, gloves, and sterile gowns.
  • The United Nations’ biodiversity chief called for a global ban on wildlife markets – such as the one in Wuhan, China, believed to be the starting point of the coronavirus outbreak – to prevent future pandemics.
  • UK prime minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests after showing persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after announcing that he had tested positive for the virus. The pound fell against the dollar in response to the news.
  • South Korea for the first time since 29 February reported fewer than 50 new coronavirus cases. For the last month, South Korea has been reporting around 100 new coronavirus cases per day.
  • Germany reported its fourth straight drop in daily cases. Germany’s confirmed coronavirus infections rose by 3,677 in the past 24 hours to 95,391 on Monday, the fourth straight drop in the daily rate of new cases, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.
  • Scotland’s chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood resigned after being criticised for not following her own social distancing guidance by visiting her second home.
  • Ireland’s premier Leo Varadkar re-registered as a medical practitioner and will work one shift a week during the coronavirus crisis.
  • A tiger at New York City’s Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the coronavirus, in the first known case of Covid-19 in an animal in the US, a zoo spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. Six other tigers and lions are also believed to have been infected.
  • Pakistan has quarantined 20,000 worshippers and is looking for tens of thousands of others who attended a religious event in Lahore in March. Authorities want to test or quarantine 100,000 people who were at the event held by the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary movement.
  • Daily death tolls slowed on Sunday in Italy, Spain and France. Italy registered 525 new coronavirus deaths on Sunday, the lowest daily rate since March 19. Spain recorded 674 deaths in the past 24 hours – the lowest daily death toll reported since March 26. In France, 357 people died from Covid-19 in hospitals, compared with 441 in the previous 24 hours.

Updated

‘All I think of is my brother’: UK refugee family reunions disrupted by Covid-19

After seven months of waiting, Ahmed* had everything ready for his younger brother. Finally, 18-year-old Wahid was due to arrive from the Greek island of Samos under family reunion laws.

But on 19 March, as Covid-19 took hold across Europe, the Greek authorities called to tell him the transfer had been cancelled because of the growing restrictions on flights. Greece had suspended direct flights to the UK but indirect routes are still available.

The UN refugee agency told the Guardian that most European countries have suspended transfers. According to charity Safe Passage, Greek authorities have stopped 52 family reunion transfers to the UK alone. The charity say they are concerned that the numbers of cancelled reunions could stretch into the hundreds.

UK house sales will collapse in 2020 as market goes into deep freeze, says study

House sales in the UK will collapse this year as the coronavirus pandemic puts the property market into deep freeze. But prices will fall by only 3% and will rebound next year, according to global consultancy Knight Frank.

Coronavirus cases worldwide are climbing towards 1.3 million as deaths approach 70,000.

There are 1,275,542 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide and 69,498 people have lost their lives so far in the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Below are the 10 worst-affected countries:

  1. US: 337,637
  2. Spain: 131,646
  3. Italy: 128,948
  4. Germany: 100,123
  5. France: 93,780
  6. China: 82,641
  7. Iran: 58,226
  8. United Kingdom: 48,440
  9. Turkey: 27,069
  10. Switzerland: 21,100

Updated

Here are a few of the UK front pages for Monday, 6 April 2020 following the news last night that the Prime Minister has been hospitalised and the Queen’s speech, only the fifth special televised broadcast, other than Christmas messages, of her long reign.

Here is everything we know so far about UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s admission to hospital:

Here is my colleague Sarah Bosely with a bit more on what that might mean for the PM’s health.

“Given the increasing pressure on hospitals at the moment, it is unlikely he will have been admitted unless doctors have real concerns. Minor tests could be carried out in Downing Street,” she writes.

Monday briefing: Boris Johnson in hospital for ‘as long as needed’

St Thomas’ Hospital in Central London after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests as his coronavirus symptoms persist.
St Thomas’ Hospital in Central London after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests as his coronavirus symptoms persist. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA

Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital and will stay for treatment “as long as needed” after failing to shake off the coronavirus. The prime minister was diagnosed with the disease 10 days ago and had been continuing to coordinate the government’s response to the crisis while self-isolating in Downing Street.

But No 10 said on Sunday night that Johnson had been taken to an NHS hospital in London after days of persistent symptoms, including a fever. Stressing that he was undergoing tests as a “precautionary” measure, No 10 said he would remain in charge of the government.

However, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary and first secretary of state, is expected to stand in for the prime minister while he is in hospital and will chair the government’s coronavirus meeting this morning. Our health editor writes that the hospitalisation suggests the PM’s case may have progressed to the risky second stage where the immune system overreacts to the virus and ends up attacking the body’s own organs.

Export expectations in Germany’s car sector have fallen to their lowest level since March 2009, when Europe’s largest economy was in the throes of the global financial crisis, Germany’s Ifo institute said on Monday.

“The prospects for the German car sector have significantly worsened due to the coronavirus crisis,” Ifo said.

It said business expectations in the sector for the coming months had dropped to -33.7 from -19.7 in February.

Audi and Volkswagen cars destined for export stand next to the ship onto which they will be loaded in Emden port on 13 June, 2012 in Emden, Germany.
Audi and Volkswagen cars destined for export stand next to the ship onto which they will be loaded in Emden port on 13 June, 2012 in Emden, Germany. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

If you have questions, tips or news from where you live, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Russia defies calls to halt Victory Day parade rehearsals

Russia is holding rehearsals for its Victory Day parade, scheduled for 9 May despite the coronavirus crisis, as the Kremlin resists cancelling a patriotic holiday with major political significance.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is supposed to host France’s Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders at a military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the second world war. The event is a significant historical landmark for Russia and a coveted photo opportunity to claim Putin’s re-emergence from political isolation in the west.

But with 12 million Muscovites confined to their apartments and a global pandemic ushering in a period of self-isolation, preparations for the parade have raised concerns in Russia.

Germany reports fourth straight drop in daily cases

Germany’s confirmed coronavirus infections rose by 3,677 in the past 24 hours to 95,391 on Monday, the fourth straight drop in the daily rate of new cases, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

The number of new cases was lower than the 5,936 new infections reported on Sunday.
The reported death toll rose by 92 to 1,434.

Police walk in an almost empty Volkspark Friedrichshain park during the coronavirus crisis on 5 April, 2020.
Police walk in an almost empty Volkspark Friedrichshain park during the coronavirus crisis on 5 April, 2020. Photograph: Maja Hitij/Getty Images

Thailand reported 51 new coronavirus cases and three more deaths on Monday, according to a spokesman for the government’s Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration.

That’s half as many cases as were reported the day before: on Sunday Thailand reported 102 new coronavirus cases.

A vendor wearing a protective face mask sells cold drinks during the coronavirus outbreak in Bangkok, Thailand, 5 April, 2020.
A vendor wearing a protective face mask sells cold drinks during the coronavirus outbreak in Bangkok, Thailand, 5 April, 2020. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

Thirteen of the new cases were medical personnel who attended to infected patients or had activities with them, said the spokesman, Taweesin Wisanuyothin.

More than half of the new cases were in Bangkok, he said.

Thailand has confirmed 2,220 cases and 26 fatalities since the outbreak emerged in the country in January.

Calls to seal off ultra-Orthodox areas add to Israel’s virus tensions

Oliver Holmes and Quique Kierszenbaum report for the Guardian from Bethlehem.

It wasn’t a typical police operation. Two Israeli officers were to go undercover, although not posing as drug dealers or arms traffickers. For this particular assignment, they were to disguise themselves as ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Their mission on Friday was to bust an illegal gathering in a synagogue. People were praying together, a practice that is now against the law in the era of the coronavirus. Once the officers got inside to confirm the crowd, more units barged in and dispersed people.

Forces left the area, according to police, but: “An hour later, it was reported that people had returned again.” At that point, officers handed out fines amounting to nearly £4,000 (US$4,900).

The operation in the county’s north was one small part of a sometimes fruitless nationwide effort to impose Covid-19 restrictions on a deeply religious and often cut-off community that has been slow, or even opposed, to change their way of life.

Officials fear the result has been an explosion of cases in neighbourhoods populated with the minority, which makes up more than 12% of Israel’s nine million citizens.

Updated

Summary

  • Japan is expected to declare a state of emergency that may go into effect as early as Tuesday. Under a law revised in March to cover the coronavirus, the prime minister can declare a state of emergency if the disease poses a “grave danger” to lives and if its rapid spread could have a huge impact on the economy.
  • South Korea for the first time since 29 February reported fewer than 50 new coronavirus cases. For the last month, South Korea has been reporting around 100 new coronavirus cases per day.
  • Donald Trump said the US government had ordered 29m doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria for which testing for its use to treat coronavirus is still under way. The drug has potentially harmful side effects. Personal protective gear is also being airlifted to US affected states, including millions of masks, gloves, and sterile gowns.
  • The United Nations’ biodiversity chief called for a global ban on wildlife markets – such as the one in Wuhan, China, believed to be the starting point of the coronavirus outbreak – to prevent future pandemics.
  • UK prime minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests after showing persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after announcing that he had tested positive for the virus. The pound fell against the dollar in response to the news.
  • Scotland’s chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood resigned after being criticised for not following her own social distancing guidance by visiting her second home.
  • Ireland’s premier Leo Varadkar re-registered as a medical practitioner and will work one shift a week during the coronavirus crisis.
  • A tiger at New York City’s Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the coronavirus, in the first known case of Covid-19 in an animal in the US, a zoo spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. Six other tigers and lions are also believed to have been infected.
  • In airlines news, British Airways announced it would suspend direct flights between the UK and Japan and American Airlines Group Inc said late Sunday it would suspend more flights in and out of New York City’s three main airports for about a month.
  • Pakistan has quarantined 20,000 worshippers and is looking for tens of thousands of others who attended a religious event in Lahore in March. Authorities want to test or quarantine 100,000 people who were at the event held by the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary movement.
  • Daily death tolls slowed on Sunday in Italy, Spain and France. Italy registered 525 new coronavirus deaths on Sunday, the lowest daily rate since March 19. Spain recorded 674 deaths in the past 24 hours – the lowest daily death toll reported since March 26. In France, 357 people died from Covid-19 in hospitals, compared with 441 in the previous 24 hours.

Updated

The Japanese government’s advisory panel on the new coronavirus outbreak will meet on Monday at 5am GMT (in roughly thirty minutes’ time) in preparation for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare a state of emergency, the Nikkei business daily reported.

The state of emergency may go into effect as early as Tuesday, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

Under a law revised in March to cover the coronavirus, the prime minister can declare a state of emergency if the disease poses a “grave danger” to lives and if its rapid spread could have a huge impact on the economy. The virus has already increased Japan’s recession risk.

Tokyo reported 143 cases on Sunday – its highest one-day increase – bringing the city’s total cases to 1,003. There are 6,654 cases nationally.

Updated

Ban wildlife markets to avert pandemics, says UN biodiversity chief

The United Nations’ biodiversity chief has called for a global ban on wildlife markets – such as the one in Wuhan, China, believed to be the starting point of the coronavirus outbreak – to prevent future pandemics.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the acting executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said countries should move to prevent future pandemics by banning “wet markets” that sell live and dead animals for human consumption, but cautioned against unintended consequences.

China has issued a temporary ban on wildlife markets where animals such as civets, live wolf pups and pangolins are kept alive in small cages while on sale, often in filthy conditions where they incubate diseases that can then spill into human populations. Many scientists have urged Beijing to make the ban permanent.

Using the examples of Ebola in west-central Africa and the Nipah virus in east Asia, Mrema said there were clear links between the destruction of nature and new human illnesses, but cautioned against a reactionary approach to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

“The message we are getting is if we don’t take care of nature, it will take care of us,” she told the Guardian.

Here’s a video from Trump’s press conference at the White House earlier, in which he again touted the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus.

Though the drug has not undergone tests to prove its effectiveness in treating the virus, Trump has continued to advocate for it, telling reporters: ‘What do you have to lose?’ Dr Anthony Fauci, the top doctor on infectious diseases in the US and a key member of the White House task force, told CBS Face the Nation program there was nothing to suggest the medicine had any benefit against coronavirus. ‘The data are really just at best suggestive. There have been cases that show there may be an effect and there are others to show there’s no effect’. When asked at the daily press briefing, Trump refused to allow Dr Fauci to answer questions about the drug’s effectiveness.

British Airways suspends flights direct flights between UK and Japan

British Airways is suspending direct flights between the UK and Japan starting Wednesday:

Updated

New Zealand’s foreign affairs ministry has announced that it will charter a flight for New Zealanders stranded in from Peru.

French citizens wait for a bus before a repatriation flight bound for France from Peru on 3 April.
French citizens wait for a bus before a repatriation flight bound for France from Peru on 3 April. Photograph: Reuters

“On 24 March, we advised New Zealanders overseas that they should shelter safely in place if they could not return to New Zealand commercially. However, New Zealanders in Peru are finding it increasingly difficult to shelter safely in place given the complexities of the situation in-country,” Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.

He continued:

This has been an incredibly complex operation and officials based at the New Zealand Embassy in Santiago and our team in Wellington have been working around the clock to make it happen.

We appreciate the constructive engagement we have had thus far with the Peruvian government and look forward to working with them over the coming days to bring our people home. We are also grateful to the Chilean authorities for allowing the flight to make the necessary transit through Santiago.

Japanese social media celebrity Pikotaro has returned to grace us with his cheer during these dark times.

Pikotaro has reimagined his hit 2016 song Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen (PPAP) (which has the Guinness World Record for being the shortest song to make it into the Billboard Hot 100 chart) as a hand-washing video, called Pray-for-People-and-Peace.

A view of the Coral Princess ship as it docks in Miami, Florida.
A view of the Coral Princess ship as it docks in Miami, Florida. Photograph: Marco Bello/Reuters

Fourteen people from the Coral Princess cruise ship, which docked in Florida over the weekend with coronavirus victims aboard, were hospitalised and one of them later died, authorities have confirmed. Two fatalities had been reported previously aboard the Coral Princess.

The Princess Cruises ship, which docked Saturday in Miami, also began disembarking on Sunday fit passengers who were cleared for charter flights out. Passengers with symptoms of Covid-19 or recovering from it were being kept on the ship until medically cleared.

In a statement Sunday night, the Miami-Dade County mayor’s office said one of the six people removed on Saturday from the ship had died after being taken by private ambulance to a Hialeah hospital.

Two other critical patients were hospitalised in Hialeah and three others whose conditions weren’t disclosed had been sent to a Tampa-area hospital. Eight others whose conditions weren’t disclosed were taken off the ship Sunday to hospitals.

Mexico’s president unveiled a plan on Sunday to lift the economy out of the coronavirus crisis, vowing to help the poor and create jobs, but his promise of fiscal discipline sparked criticism that the measures fell far short of what was needed.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged Mexico would create 2m new jobs in the next nine months and boost small business and housing loans. He also vowed to tighten public sector austerity to avoid debt.

Mexico’s leftist leader, targeting measures for the “most vulnerable”, said he would use a budget stabilisation fund and cash from public trusts to fund plans to shield the poor from a slump economists expect to be severe.

President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, speaks during an event held at the National Palace on the economic revival plan to try and mitigate the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic .
President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, speaks during an event held at the National Palace on the economic revival plan to try and mitigate the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic . Photograph: José Méndez/EPA



Known by his initials “AMLO”, the president said Mexico would announce investments in the energy sector worth 339 billion pesos ($13.5 billion) to boost the economy, which some private analysts forecast to contract by up to 10% in 2020.

That sum is far less than $92 billion in energy investments the private sector has proposed to the president.

“The mechanisms that AMLO is thinking about are going to be completely insufficient to deal with this type of recession,” said Viri Rios, a Mexican political analyst.

Gustavo de Hoyos, head of employers’ federation Coparmex, was scathing about the economic plan.





Hong Kongers have been warned to prepare for six months of pain, as the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic worsen.

The city has reported more than 890 cases of Covid-19, with a mother and her six-week-old baby among recent cases.

Hong Kong’s early response to the virus outbreak in neighbouring mainland China meant that it was spared an epidemic of its own, but as thousands of people returned home in recent months the daily rate of infection has risen dramatically and Hong Kong is now under harsher restrictions than ever. Gatherings of more than four people have been banned since late March, but authorities are warning of further lockdowns and closures of non-essential services.

A woman wearing a face mask walks through a clothes market in Hong Kong on 5 April, 2020
A woman wearing a face mask walks through a clothes market in Hong Kong on 5 April, 2020 Photograph: Dale de la Rey/AFP via Getty Images


Hong Kong’s economy was already suffering after more than six months of protests when the virus outbreak began. Last month it reported the highest unemployment figures in three years, with predictions it would get worse.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan said on Sunday that while sectors like tourism and retail initially bore the brunt of the outbreak’s economic impact, it had now spread to “almost all industries”. He said the government was preparing more comprehensive support measures, but didn’t detail what they were.

Writing in his blog, Chan said this meant that bail-out measures must shift focus from assisting individual industries, and become oriented to all enterprises. The main financial pressures across the board were salaries, rent, and decline in business, he said, adding that the government was working on its funding program but landlords “should actively respond to the community’s strong demand for rent reduction”.

He said the outlook was “still very uncertain”, and it was appropriate to prepare for an economic situation which might not be reversed for at least six months.

American Airlines Group Inc said late Sunday it would suspend more flights in and out of New York City’s three main airports for about a month, joining other airlines that have cut flights to the area following a spike in coronavirus cases, Reuters reports.

American Airlines planes are parked at the gate during the coronavirus outbreak in Washington.
American Airlines planes are parked at the gate during the coronavirus outbreak in Washington. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Between 9 April and 6 May, American will operate a total of 13 daily flights from New York’s JFK and LaGuardia airports and New Jersey’s Newark, it said, down from an average of 271 daily flights across all three airports in April 2019.

David Seymour, American’s senior vice president of Operations, told employees that demand for flights to the New York area “is rapidly evaporating” following an increase in Covid-19 cases and a recent advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning against all non-essential travel to and from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. New York has been the hardest-hit US state by the coronavirus pandemic.

United Airlines Holdings Inc said on Saturday that it was reducing its daily New York City area flights to 17 from 157, while JetBlue Airways Corp is cutting its schedule by as much as 80% and Spirit Airlines Inc is canceling all of its flights to the area.

The pound fell against the dollar and euro on Monday after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests after showing persistent symptoms of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.

The pound fell 0.26% to $1.2242 on Monday in Asia. Against the euro, it fell 0.27% to 88.39 pence.

Johnson was admitted in what Downing Street said was a “precautionary step” because he was showing persistent symptoms of COVID-19 10 days after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

Also weighing on sterling is Britain’s constitution – an unwieldy collection of sometimes ancient and contradictory precedents – that offers no formal deputy or caretaker who would take over if Johnson cannot continue to lead.

But, the Guardian reports, in his role as first secretary of state, the prime minister’s de facto deputy, Dominic Raab will be expected to stand in for Boris Johnson if he is unable to work because of coronavirus.

The New Zealand Police are releasing a series of coronavirus advice videos (starring actors, not actual police force members). Here is one on how to maintain a safe distance of two metres (6.5 feet) from someone:

More now on the situation in China, which on Sunday reported a higher number of cases and asymptomatic cases than the day before.

Mainland China reported 39 new coronavirus cases as of Sunday, up from 30 a day earlier, and the number of asymptomatic cases also surged, as Beijing continued to struggle to extinguish the outbreak despite drastic containment efforts.

The National Health Commission said in a statement on Monday that 78 new asymptomatic cases had been identified as of the end of the day on Sunday, compared with 47 the day before.

Imported cases and asymptomatic patients, who have the virus and can give it to others but show no symptoms, have become China’s chief concern in recent weeks after draconian containment measures succeeded in slashing the infection rate.

Medical at the Wuhan pulmonary hospital in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, 5 April 2020
Medical at the Wuhan pulmonary hospital in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, 5 April 2020 Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock


Of the new cases showing symptoms, 38 were people who had entered China from abroad, compared with 25 a day earlier. One new locally transmitted infection was reported, in the southern province of Guangdong, down from five a day earlier in the same province.
The new locally transmitted case, in the city of Shenzhen, was a person who had travelled from Hubei province, the original epicentre of the outbreak, Guangdong provincial authorities said.

The Guangdong health commission raised the risk level for a total of four districts in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Jieyang from low to medium late on Sunday.

Mainland China has now reported a total of 81,708 cases, with 3,331 deaths.

Daily infections have fallen dramatically from the peak of the epidemic in February, when hundreds were reported daily, but new infections continue to appear daily.

The country has closed off its borders to foreigners as the virus spreads globally, though most imported cases involve Chinese nationals returning from overseas.

The central government also has pushed local authorities to identify and isolate the asymptomatic patients.

In Australia, the Covid-19 stricken cruise ship Ruby Princess berthed at Port Kembla near Wollongong on Monday morning and will likely stay for 10 days as health officials and doctors continue to manage the outbreak of infection on board.

On Monday 200 of the 1,400-strong crew on board were showing symptoms.

Sick patients were being treated on board or transferred to hospital if needed, while the whole crew was being placed in isolation. The New South Wales government is now working with the ship’s owner, Carnival Australia, on plans to repatriate the crew, who come from 50 countries.

NSW police said in a statement the vessel might remain in place for up to 10 days, but the crew would not disembark unless in an emergency and approved by the police commissioner, Mick Fuller.

“The berthing will be conducted under strict health and biosecurity guidelines and will not pose a risk to employees at the port or the broader community,” the statement said.

Members of the crew could be seen waving from separate cabins as the ship pulled in on Monday morning.

Podcast: The hunt for a coronavirus vaccine

Scientists in more than 40 labs around the world are working round the clock to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. Despite early success in sequencing the virus’s genome, however, Samanth Subramanian tells Rachel Humphreys we are still some months away from knowing if one can be put into mass production.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Sunday it is seeking an injunction to block part of Puerto Rico’s strict curfew against the new coronavirus, arguing that some of its restrictions are unconstitutional as the governor imposed even tighter measures, including requiring anyone entering a business to wear a face mask.

A restaurant is closed during a government imposed curfew aimed at curbing coronavirus cases that has shuttered all non-essential businesses for two weeks in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, 19 March 2020.
A restaurant is closed during a government imposed curfew aimed at curbing coronavirus cases that has shuttered all non-essential businesses for two weeks in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, 19 March 2020. Photograph: Carlos Giusti/AP

The curfew imposed 15 March has shuttered non-essential businesses in the US territory and ordered people to stay home from 7 pm to 5 am and remain there even outside those hours unless they have to buy food or medicine, go to the bank or have an emergency or health-related situation. Violators face a US$5,000 or a six-month jail term, and police have cited hundreds of people.

It is the first time the ACLU has filed a lawsuit in a US jurisdiction related to a coronavirus curfew.

Millions of Indians switched off their lights and came out onto their balconies and doorsteps with lamps, candles and flashlights on Sunday, responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to “challenge the darkness” of the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reports.

Residents light candles and turn on their mobile phone lights in their balcony to observe a nine-minute vigil called by India’s Prime Minister in a show of unity and solidarity in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Mumbai on 5 April, 2020.
Residents light candles and turn on their mobile phone lights in their balcony to observe a nine-minute vigil called by India’s Prime Minister in a show of unity and solidarity in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Mumbai on 5 April, 2020. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/AFP via Getty Images

Modi, who last month imposed a three-week long nationwide lockdown, asked citizens to turn out their lights for nine minutes at 9 p.m. on Sunday and to display lamps and candles in a show of solidarity.

People across the country switched off lights. Some lit firecrackers, played drums, clapped and chanted slogans against the coronavirus.

In some big cities like Mumbai and New Delhi, residents of some housing associations stood in balconies and sang patriotic songs.

India has recorded 3,577 cases of the illness, with a death toll of 83. Authorities worry that the healthcare system would be overwhelmed if the disease took deep hold in the country of more than 1.3 billion.

Residents light candles and turn on their mobile phone lights in their balcony to observe a nine-minute vigil called by India’s Prime Minister in a show of unity and solidarity in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Mumbai on 5 April, 2020.
Residents light candles and turn on their mobile phone lights in their balcony to observe a nine-minute vigil called by India’s Prime Minister in a show of unity and solidarity in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Mumbai on 5 April, 2020. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/AFP via Getty Images

Japan expected to declare state of emergency as early as Tuesday

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will declare a state of emergency over the coronavirus as early as Tuesday, the Yomiuri newspaper reported, as the number of infections topped 1,000 in the capital, Tokyo.

An aerial view shows an empty pedestrian crossing at Ginza district in Tokyo.
An aerial view shows an empty pedestrian crossing at Ginza district in Tokyo. Photograph: KYODO/Reuters

Abe will likely announce his plans to declare the emergency on Monday, the paper said.

Under a law revised in March to cover the coronavirus, the prime minister can declare a state of emergency if the disease poses a “grave danger” to lives and if its rapid spread could have a huge impact on the economy. The virus has already increased Japan’s recession risk.

The move would give governors in hard-hit regions legal authority to ask people to stay home and businesses to close, but not to impose the kind of lockdowns seen in other countries. In most cases, there are no penalties for ignoring requests, although public compliance would likely increase with an emergency declaration.

More than 3,500 people have tested positive and 85 have died from the new coronavirus in Japan, according to public broadcaster NHK.

While that toll is low compared with 335,000 infections and more than 9,500 deaths in the United States, experts worry about a sudden surge that could strain the medical system and leave patients with nowhere to go.

Updated

Here is what we know so far about Nadia the Bronx Zoo tiger, who tested positive for coronavirus:

The New York Times reports that the US death toll from coronavirus is already “likely already much higher” than the 9,400 deaths officially reported.

Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers — many hundreds each day — the true death toll is likely much higher.

More than 9,400 people with the coronavirus have been reported to have died in this country as of this weekend, but hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners say that official counts have failed to capture the true number of Americans dying in this pandemic. The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision-making from one state or county to the next.

In many rural areas, coroners say they don’t have the tests they need to detect the disease. Doctors now believe that some deaths in February and early March, before the coronavirus reached epidemic levels in the United States, were likely misidentified as influenza or only described as pneumonia.

South Korea reports fewer than 50 new cases for first time since 29 February

For the last month, South Korea has been reporting around 100 new coronavirus cases per day.

On Monday, for the first time since 29 February, the Korea Centres for Disease control reported fewer than 50 cases.

The KCDC reported 47 new infections, taking the national tally to 10,284. The death toll rose by three to 186.

Updated

My colleague Alison Rourke has just pointed out that a month ago today, on 6 March, the US had confirmed just 214 coronavirus cases, according to Centers for Disease Control data.

Now it has 337,274.

Almost 10,000 Americans have died as a result of the pandemic, with the Johns Hopkins University currently listing 9,633 coronavirus-related deaths in the US.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests on Sunday in what Downing Street said was a “precautionary step” because he was showing persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after testing positive for the virus.

Here is some reaction following the news:

US president, Donald Trump, said in the White House Press Briefing:

“I want to express our nation’s well wishes to Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he wages his own personal fight with the virus. All Americans are praying for him. He’s a friend of mine, he’s a great gentleman and a great leader, and as you know he went to the hospital today but I’m hopeful and sure that he’s going to be fine. He’s a strong man, a strong person.”

Keir Starmer, newly elected leader of the UK’s Labour party tweeted:


UK health secretary Matt Hancock:

Former foreign secretary and ex-conservative leadership rival Jeremy Hunt:

Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon:

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

Acting Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey:

Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth had been informed but had no further comment, Reuters reports.

Mainland China reported 39 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, all but one of them imported from abroad, up from the 30 reported a day earlier, as the number of asymptomatic cases also surged.

People greet 17 medics supporting virus-hit Hubei Province as they come back to work at the Second Affiliated Hospital of University of South China in Hengyang, central China’s Hunan Province, 5 April 2020.
People greet 17 medics supporting virus-hit Hubei Province as they come back to work at the Second Affiliated Hospital of University of South China in Hengyang, central China’s Hunan Province, 5 April 2020. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

The National Health Commission said in a statement on Monday that 78 new asymptomatic cases had been identified as of the end of the day on Sunday, compared with 47 the day before.

Only one new death was recorded on April 5, the new data showed.

Trump touted hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19. Don’t believe the hype

Trump was influenced by a widely publicized study in France where 40 coronavirus patients were given hydroxychloroquine, with more than half experiencing the clearing of their airways within three to six days. This apparent improvement is important as it would curtail the timeframe in which infected people could spread Covid-19 to others.

However, experts have warned that the study is small and lacks sufficient rigor to be classed as evidence of a potential treatment. The French health ministry has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19, with Olivier Véran, France’s health minister, saying that it shouldn’t be used by anyone with the exception of “serious forms of hospitalization and on the collegial decision of doctors and under strict medical supervision”.

We reported a few hours ago that earlier on Sunday Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top doctor on infectious diseases and a key member of the White House task force, was adamant there was nothing to suggest hydroxychloroquine had any benefit against coronavirus.

My colleague Richard Luscombe wrote:

“In terms of science, I don’t think we can definitively say it works,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation.

“The data are really just at best suggestive. There have been cases that show there may be an effect and there are others to show there’s no effect.”

Dr James Phillips, professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University hospital, said Americans could be risking their health if they followed the president’s advice to take a drug for a condition for which it had not been tested.

“We don’t know enough to make medical recommendations,” he told CNN’s Reliable Sources.

“It’s a dangerous message for someone without a medical license to get up there and tell people to try it. You need to listen to physicians, people who understand science, before you go willy-nilly into the medicine cabinet.”

Fauci has been reluctant to directly criticise the president, with whom he speaks regularly, but has found himself repeatedly having to contradict the president over hydroxychloroquine, which has become a hobby horse at White House briefings.

On 21 March, the day after another nationally-televised Trump claim that the drug “looked promising”, Fauci was asked directly if it could be used to treat Covid-19.

“The answer is no,” he said.

Here is what happened when a reporter asked Fauci about the drug at Sunday evening’s White House press briefing.

Updated

In case you missed it, here are the main points from the White House press briefing that concluded a few minutes ago:

  • Trump said he is seeing glimmers of hope, “light at the end of the tunnel” thanks to work of medical workers and Americans’ social distancing.
  • Fauci reiterated this is going to be a very bad week as the curve flattens, but that they hope that it will get better in the weeks after. After the peak, mitigation is key to make sure it doesn’t rebound.
  • Trump repeatedly says Americans should try the untested drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus, said his administration has ordered 29m doses to be distributed across the United States.
  • Fema is airlifitng supplies to affected states, including millions of masks, gloves, and sterile gowns.
  • Trump took the opportunity to take digs at the governor of Illinois, CNN and a reporter from the Associated Press, calling CNN “fake news” for asking about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and telling the AP reporter, “You should be thanking them, not always asking wise guy questions.”

Summary

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

As global cases approach 1.3 million and China is no longer in among the five worst-affected countries, Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital, ten days after testing positive for coronavirus.

You can get in touch throughout the day directly on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

  • Donald Trump says US government has ordered 29m doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria for which testing for its use to treat coronavirus is still under way. The drug has potentially harmful side effects. Personal protective gear is also being airlifted to US affected states, including millions of masks, gloves, and sterile gowns.
  • UK prime minister Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital for tests after showing persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after announcing that he had tested positive for the virus.
  • Scotland’s chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood has resigned after being criticised for not following her own social distancing guidance by visiting her second home.
  • Ireland’s premier Leo Varadkar has re-registered as a medical practitioner and will work one shift a week during the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reports.
  • Some 1,000 migrants have been placed under quarantine after an outbreak of Covid-19 at a camp at Hal Far in the south of Malta. The camp has been was surrounded by police and army trucks.
  • Daily death tolls slowed on Sunday in Italy, Spain and France. Italy registered 525 new coronavirus deaths on Sunday, the lowest daily rate since March 19. Spain recorded 674 deaths in the past 24 hours – the lowest daily death toll reported since March 26. In France, 357 people died from Covid-19 in hospitals, compared with 441 in the previous 24 hours.
  • Sweden’s government is drawing up legislation to allow it to take “extraordinary steps” to tackle Covid-19. On Sunday, Sweden reported a total of 401 deaths – an 8% increase from Saturday.
  • Belgium’s coronavirus outbreak appears to be reaching its peak according to reports after the number of intensive care hospitalisations rose from 1,245 to 1,261, while Austria’s the daily rate of new infections has fallen significantly in recent days.
  • A tiger at New York City’s Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the coronavirus, in the first known case of Covid-19 in an animal in the US, a zoo spokesman told Reuters on Sunday.
  • Ethiopia, Haiti and Barbados have reported their first coronavirus deaths.
  • Pakistan has quarantined 20,000 worshippers and is looking for tens of thousands of others who attended a religious event in Lahore in March. Authorities want to test or quarantine 100,000 people who were at the event held by the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary movement.
  • Lebanon has started repatriating nationals in its first flights in weeks since it closed its international airport in response to the pandemic. Authorities said more than 20,000 people had signed up to be repatriated.
  • Pope Francis has celebrated Palm Sunday mass without the public due to the pandemic, which he said should focus people’s attention on what’s most important.
  • Singapore reported its highest one-day increase with 120 new cases of the virus on Sunday, compared to 75 on Saturday.

Updated

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