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Dan Tehan, Australia’s minister for education, has also spoken about the government wanting to shake up the university sector including doubling the cost of an arts degree.
He told: ABC News Breakfast:
What we want to do is first make sure that we’ve got additional places in the system because we know as a result of the coronavirus pandemic we’re going to see more demand for places in the higher education system and also we want to incentivise students to undertake courses that will give them the skills to take the jobs of the future.
“We need young Australians to help us grow our economy through the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic and what this is all about is incentivising people to look at teaching, to look at nursing, to look at allied health, to look at engineering and to look at IT because we know that the jobs of the future will be in those areas.”
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A poll of Black immigrant domestic workers in New York, Miami-Dade and Massachusetts found that 70% had lost their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The survey conducted by The Institute for Policy Studies and the National Domestic Workers Alliance includes responses from 800 workers.
Half of those surveyed said they were afraid of seeking assistance from the federal or local government due to their immigration status.
Just as the pandemic hit the US, the Trump administration’s public charge rule, which allows the government to deny green cards and visas to immigrants who rely on public benefits, took effect.
Dan Tehan, Australia’s minister for education, has been asked about the future of the wage subsidy JobKeeper scheme while speaking to the ABC.
So what the Government is doing at the moment is having a review of JobKeeper. It’s methodical. We are getting all the data that we need to make the key decisions going forward, which will strengthen our economy as we come out of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Now we said that we would review JobKeeper in June and that’s been undertaken.
“I know that the Treasury are giving a lot of thought to the recommendations that will go into that review and then the Government will consider it in July. So that will be done in a very considered, method call way and in a way that we think will ensure that we continue to grow our economy and grow jobs out of this coronavirus pandemic.
The UK will deploy royal influence in a bid to garner international support for its proposals to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in the wake of the global coronavirus outbreak.
The Countess of Wessex, alongside human rights minister Lord Ahmad, will present the draft Murad Code at a virtual United Nations event on Friday.
Sophie’s involvement is part of her work with the Foreign Office on tackling war-related sexual violence, something she has undertaken since March 2019.
The Murad Code, created alongside Nobel Laureate Nadia Murad, is designed to strengthen justice for survivors around the world and recognise the difficulties in accessing support during the Covid-19 crisis.
Lord Ahmad, the UK prime minister’s special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict, will urge UN members to collaborate on the Murad Code in a bid to build international consensus in eradicating rape and other forms of sexual violence as weapons of war.
He will also push for countries to do more to listen to survivors on what support should be put in place to aid recovery
Lord Ahmad is expected to say at the UN meeting: “We are determined to tackle these abhorrent crimes.
“Covid-19 is an unprecedented threat to how we respond to these crimes. The impacts of this pandemic are stark.
“Crucial medical and psychological services are at risk, as governments divert resources towards their response.
“Restrictions on movement limit physical routes for survivors to report crimes, or to move to safety.
“And stay-at-home measures mean those in abusive situations are even more vulnerable to violence.”
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The US has questioned China’s credibility on reporting fresh coronavirus cases in Beijing and called for neutral observers to assess the extent of the outbreak.
China has locked down the capital as it seeks to prevent a second wave of Covid-19, reporting 158 cases since a fresh cluster was detected last week.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an outspoken critic of China, urged greater transparency during talks Wednesday in Hawaii with senior Chinese official Yang Jiechi.
“I would hope that their numbers and their reporting are more accurate than what we saw in the case of Wuhan and other places in the PRC, but that remains to be seen,” said David Stilwell, the top US diplomat for East Asia who accompanied Pompeo.
“As far as numbers, it would be good to have folks on the ground to get confirmation” in Beijing, he told reporters.
Stilwell pointed to reports in scientific journals that gave higher estimates for Covid-19 cases in Wuhan, the metropolis where the global pandemic was first detected late last year.
“So once your credibility is lost, you will have to find a way to re-establish that,” Stilwell said.
“I think the only way to do that is by bringing in neutral observers to help understand exactly what happened there.”
China has accused President Donald Trump’s administration of politicising the pandemic to deflect from its own handling of the virus in the US, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any country.
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Piloted in May, ditched in June: here is a deeper look at the failure of the Covid-19 contact-tracing app being developed in England.
Brazil nears 50,000 coronavirus deaths and 1 million cases
Brazil has registered 978,142 cases of coronavirus, up from 955,377 yesterday.
The death toll has increased to 47,748, compared to 46,510 yesterday, according to the country’s health ministry.
Friday’s front page of the UK edition of The Guardian.
Friday’s Guardian: Revealed: the dysfunctional ‘toxic culture’ that led to Labour defeat #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/GJZs9BcFJN
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) June 18, 2020
The Times’ front page for Friday.
Friday’s The Times: Tech failure leaves virus tracing plan in disarray #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/soNS9HLhGV
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) June 18, 2020
Egypt surpasses 50,000 coronavirus cases
Egypt said it registered 1,218 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday, edging the total number of cases up to more than 50,000, a fortnight before it is set to further ease restrictions.
The health ministry said it registered a total of 50,437 cases of the coronavirus and 1,938 deaths. The country’s higher education minister cited a study on June 1 estimating that the actual number of cases could be up to five times higher than the figure reported.
The Arab world’s most populous nation closed itself off in March to curb the spread of the disease, shutting schools, restaurants and halting almost all international flights.
It hopes to be able to welcome tourists back for the summer season and has said it plans to reopen its airports to scheduled international flights from July 1.
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Friday’s Daily Telegraph front page in the UK.
Friday’s Daily Telegraph: Extra £1bn for children to catch up on learning #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/3nUSyR5UM5
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) June 18, 2020
Governments and businesses must do more to integrate refugees into the economy and stop them falling through the cracks during the coronavirus pandemic, a top United Nations official said.
The global refugee population has risen to nearly 30 million people - almost twice the number a decade ago, according to new figures released by the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR).
Refugees have been first to feel the economic impact of the pandemic because they often work in the informal economy.
“When the lockdown occurred, we saw very, very quickly that refugees ... lost their jobs,” the UNHCR’s Gillian Triggs told an online discussion hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation on challenges facing refugees in the Covid-19 era.
Half of refugees in Lebanon and Colombia have lost their income source, and almost two thirds of recently settled refugees in the United States may have lost their jobs, panelists said.
The pandemic has also increased xenophobia and discrimination and led to a big rise in evictions, added Triggs, the UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection.
She said refugees must be included in national health systems, not just for their own safety but for everyone’s. “If one person is sick with Covid, we all are,” she added.
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President Trump just concluded a roundtable at the White House on reopening the economy alongside Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt.
Stitt told Trump that the state of Oklahoma “can’t wait to see you” on Saturday, when the president holds a campaign rally in Tulsa.
“Oklahoma’s ready for your event,” Stitt said. “It’s gonna be safe.”
But public health experts have expressed serious concerns about the potential spread of coronavirus at the large indoor rally, and Tulsa’s top health official has said he thinks the Trump campaign should postpone the event.
A selection of Friday’s UK newspaper front pages now.
The Independent is going on the contact-tracing app U-turn.
Friday’s Independent: Ministers’ U-turn on contact-tracing app #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/3PlcqsZ5DI
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) June 18, 2020
President Trump pulled out his phone to look at it while Oklahoma business owners were describing how their businesses have suffered as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
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The S&P 500 stock market closed nominally higher on Thursday as investors weighed a resurgence in coronavirus infections and the possibility of a new round of shutdowns as well as data that suggested the US economy might not bounce back with quick, V-shaped recovery.
All three major U.S. stock indexes were range-bound and oscillated through much of the day, but the S&P ended the session in the black along with the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
The blue-chip Dow lost ground.
While several U.S. states have reported surges in new virus cases after re-opening their economies, President Donald Trump insisted the United States would not enact a new round of restrictions to curb the pandemic’s spread.
Initial jobless claims declined slightly last week to a still-bruising 1.51 million, according to the Labor Department. The number was worse than consensus, and continuing claims remain stubbornly high at 20.54 million, suggesting the labor market has a long road to recovery.
A summary of today's developments
Global death toll from Covid-19 passes 450,000
The global death toll from coronavirus has passed 450,000.
The figure stands at 450,716, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University.
Canada reaches 100,000 Covid-19 cases
Canada reached 100,000 cases of coronavirus on Thursday.
The province of Ontario announced another 190 cases a day after public health agency data showed 99,853 people had been diagnosed positive. That pushed the country over the 100,000 mark and into 17th place on the global list.
Iran nearing 10,000 deaths from Covid-19
Iran is approaching 10,000 deaths from the coronavirus outbreak in the country, according to official figures from the Ministry of Health.
There have been nearly 200,000 people infected with the new coronavirus in the Islamic Republic and the number deaths in a single day from the pandemic topped 100 for the first time in two months on Sunday.
WHO condemns football celebrations in Italy as ‘reckless’
The World Health Organization has condemned as “reckless” celebrations on the streets of Naples in Italy after Napoli’s 4-2 penalty win over Juventus in the Coppa Italia. Large crowds of fans congregated in the city, ignoring social distancing rules in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Chinese medical expert says coronavirus under control in Beijing
“The epidemic in Beijing has been brought under control,” said Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Diseases Prevention and Control, although he said the capital can still expect sporadic new cases.
The city has recorded 158 infections since confirming the first on 11 June in its worst outbreak since early February, which has been traced to the sprawling wholesale food centre of Xinfadi in the south-west of the city.
WHO hopes hundreds of millions of vaccine doses can be produced this year
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said: “I’m hopeful, I’m optimistic. But vaccine development is a complex undertaking, it comes with a lot of uncertainty”.
She added: “The good thing is, we have many vaccines and platforms so even if the first one fails, or the second ones fails, we shouldn’t lose hope, we shouldn’t give up.”
Thousands quarantined in Germany after local outbreak
In Germany’s western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, around 7,000 people have been placed in quarantine and schools and kindergartens have been closed after an outbreak of coronavirus.
The spread is believed to have come from Tönnies, a meat processing plant in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, where there have been 657 confirmed cases of the virus. Elsewhere, Martin Hikel, mayor in the southern Berlin district of Neukölln, has said authorities are trying to trace the origins of a worrying new spread of the virus there, which has so far infected around 70 local residents.
New York to reopen hairdressers, shops and outdoor dining spaces
The city will begin phase two of reopening on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday, citing continued improvements in coronavirus data.
Offices, in-store retail, outdoor dining, hair salons and barbershops are among the businesses allowed to reopen their doors during phase two.
India has fully lifted an export ban on hydroxychloroquine, a drug favored by US President Donald Trump as a treatment against coronavirus, as questions remain over the malaria medicine’s effectiveness against Covid-19.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade said in a notice that “hydroxychloroquine and its formulations” were now “free” to be exported. India accounts for 70 percent of global production of hydroxychloroquine, which is also used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The nation in late March banned exports of the drug, citing domestic needs. But it partially lifted the prohibition in early April after Trump hinted at “retaliation”, allowing for licensing for export of the drug to countries in need.
California health officials have ordered residents to wear face masks in “most settings outside the home,” saying the new rule was necessary because too many Californians were neglecting to cover their faces.
“Science shows that face coverings and masks work,” governor Gavin Newsom said.
“They are critical to keeping those who are around you safe, keeping businesses open and restarting our economy.”
The Beale Street Music Festival, the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest and other Memphis in May events which have been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak in the Tennessee city.
Both the music festival and the barbecue cooking contest are the cornerstones of the city’s month long tourist event in May. They attract music fans and barbecue cooking teams from around the world.
In March, Memphis in May events were pushed to late September and October in hopes that the virus outbreak would have slowed down.
But virus cases and hospitalisations in Memphis have risen in recent days, delaying a planned move to ease restrictions on businesses such as restaurants and retail stores this week.
Memphis in May’s board of directors met Thursday and decided to cancel this year’s events due to public safety concerns, a statement posted on its website said.
“The annual Memphis in May is an important part of the cultural fabric of our city, but this pandemic has impacted large scale public events worldwide and Memphis is no exception.” said James L. Holt, president of the Memphis in May International Festival.
Pope Francis has no plans for trips abroad this year, the Vatican said with the coronavirus pandemic presenting too high a risk for the pontiff to travel.
Francis only had one official trip scheduled before the virus hit Italy and the Vatican, a day-trip to Malta at the end of May which was cancelled.
The 83-year old had been formally invited to visit Iraq, Cyprus, Indonesia and Montenegro.
He had also expressed an interest in visiting South Sudan, where he has personally interceded in efforts to end the civil war there.
But Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told journalists none of those would be happening in the near future and “the Holy Father has no foreign trips planned this year”.
Updated
A rogue Russian priest who denies the existence of Covid-19 has seized a convent in the Urals region and announced that he will only be removed by force.
Father Sergei Romanov stormed the Sredneuralsk convent this week, after being banished by church leaders in April for protesting the closure of churches due to the coronavirus epidemic, which he called a “pseudo-pandemic”.
Updated
Zimbabwe’s main opposition coalition condemned alleged state corruption following suspicions around a $2m payment to a medical company contracted to provide anti-coronavirus equipment.
The government has come under fire for granting two-month-old company Drax Consult SAGL a contract to supply $20m worth of drugs, personal protective equipment and Covid-19 test kits.
The deal was allegedly signed without the legal consent of Zimbabwe’s procurement registration authority.
In March, authorities in Hungary, where Drax Consult SAGL is registered, flagged a suspicious $2m deposit into the company’s accounts, drawing anger from the Movement for Democratic Change opposition party bloc.
“Look at the big cars being driven by the ministers and their children,” said MDC-Alliance spokeswoman Fadzayi Mahere.
“Instead of paying health workers, they are busy putting the money into their pockets,” she added.
The government has not commented on the allegations.
To date the southern African country has recorded 401 coronavirus cases, including four deaths, although that figure is believed to be underestimated due to lack of testing.
Updated
Global death toll from Covid-19 passes 450,000
The global death toll from coronavirus has passed 450,000.
The figure stands at 450,435, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University.
There have been an estimated 118,029 fatalities in the US, the most of any country, followed by 46,510 deaths in Brazil and 42,373 in the UK.
Updated
Canada reaches 100,000 Covid-19 cases
Canada reached 100,000 cases of coronavirus on Thursday.
Authorities admit they were not prepared for how fast the pandemic ripped through nursing homes, where more than 80% of the deaths occurred.
While the 10 provinces are slowly reopening their economies, major restrictions remain in place in Montreal and Toronto, Canada’s two biggest cities.
“We haven’t done brilliantly, we’ve done acceptably,” said University of Toronto epidemiologist Camille Lemieux, saying the outbreak was “a very big wake-up call” about shortfalls in a fragmented health care system.
The province of Ontario on Thursday announced another 190 cases a day after public health agency data showed 99,853 people had been diagnosed positive. That pushed the country over the 100,000 mark and into 17th place on the global list.
Canada has recorded at least 8,266 deaths, in 12th place worldwide according to data compiled by Reuters.
Updated
A person’s blood type and other genetic factors may be linked with the severity of a coronavirus infection, according to European researchers.
The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, suggest people with type A blood have a higher risk of being infected with the coronavirus and developing worse symptoms.
The risk for severe Covid-19 was 45% higher for people with type A blood than those with other blood types. It appeared to be 35% lower for people with type O.
At the peak of the epidemic in Europe, researchers analysed the genes of more than 4,000 people to look for variations that were common in those who became infected with the coronavirus and developed severe Covid-19.
A cluster of variants in genes that are involved with immune responses was more common in people with severe Covid-19, they found.
These genes are also involved with a cell-surface protein called ACE2 that coronavirus uses to gain entry to and infect cells in the body.
Updated
Iran nearing 10,000 deaths from Covid-19
Iran is approaching 10,000 deaths from the coronavirus outbreak in the country, according to official figures from the Ministry of Health.
There have been nearly 200,000 people infected with the new coronavirus in the Islamic Republic and the number deaths in a single day from the pandemic topped 100 for the first time in two months on Sunday.
After gradually relaxing its lockdown since mid-April, Iran has seen a sharp rise of new infections in recent weeks, with five provinces currently considered to be red zones where infections have been on the rise.
Iran recorded 87 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 9,272. The total number of cases in the country has reached 197,647, of whom 156,991 people have recovered.
“The statistics show that in recent days every 12 to 15 minutes an Iranian lost their life because of £corona,” Mizan, the news agency of the Iranian judiciary, tweeted on Thursday.
The United Nations said it was resuming resettlement travel for refugees, which was suspended in March due to coronavirus, delaying departures for some 10,000 refugees.
The UN agencies for refugees and for migration jointly announced “the resumption of resettlement departures” by people already living as refugees who have been approved to move to third countries.
“Resettlement remains a life-saving tool for many refugees and we look forward to working with our partners in host and resettlement countries to resume movements in a safe manner,” UNHCR said.
The agencies announced on 17 March the temporary suspension of resettlement as dramatic restrictions around international air travel complicated departures and raised the risk of travellers becoming stranded along the way.
This had “delayed the departures of some 10,000 refugees to resettlement countries”.
Nearly 80 million people globally have been forced by conflict, persecution, violence and abuses to flee their homes, including more than 26 million refugees, according to new UN data.
Updated
Kuwait will ease curfew hours to 7pm-5am from this Sunday, according to state television.
It comes after Vietnam’s health ministry on Thursday reported seven new coronavirus infections, all among Vietnamese citizens held in quarantine upon their arrival from Kuwait.
Updated
Summary of the news
WHO condemns football celebrations in Italy as ‘reckless’
The World Health Organization has condemned as “reckless” celebrations on the streets of Naples in Italy after Napoli’s 4-2 penalty win over Juventus in the Coppa Italia. Large crowds of fans congregated in the city, ignoring social distancing rules in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Chinese medical expert says coronavirus under control in Beijing
“The epidemic in Beijing has been brought under control,” said Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Diseases Prevention and Control, although he said the capital can still expect sporadic new cases. The city has recorded 158 infections since confirming the first on 11 June in its worst outbreak since early February, which has been traced to the sprawling wholesale food centre of Xinfadi in the south-west of the city.
WHO hopes hundreds of millions of vaccine doses can be produced this year
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said: “I’m hopeful, I’m optimistic. But vaccine development is a complex undertaking, it comes with a lot of uncertainty”.
She added: “The good thing is, we have many vaccines and platforms so even if the first one fails, or the second ones fails, we shouldn’t lose hope, we shouldn’t give up.”
Swaminathan described the ambition for hundreds of millions of vaccine doses this year as optimistic, and the hope for up to 2 billion doses of up to three different vaccines next year as a “big if”.
Thousands quarantined in Germany after local outbreak
In Germany’s western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, around 7,000 people have been placed in quarantine and schools and kindergartens have been closed after an outbreak of coronavirus. The spread is believed to have come from Tönnies, a meat processing plant in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, where there have been 657 confirmed cases of the virus. Elsewhere, Martin Hikel, mayor in the southern Berlin district of Neukölln, has said authorities are trying to trace the origins of a worrying new spread of the virus there, which has so far infected around 70 local residents.
New York to reopen hairdressers, shops and outdoor dining spaces
The city will begin phase two of reopening on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday, citing continued improvements in coronavirus data. Offices, in-store retail, outdoor dining, hair salons and barbershops are among the businesses allowed to reopen their doors during phase two.
Updated
The number of people who have died from coronavirus infection in France rose by 28 to 29,603 on Thursday, the same increase as Wednesday.
In a statement, the health ministry said the number of confirmed cases of the virus was up 467, at 158,641, nine more than 24 hours earlier.
Updated
The World Health Organization has condemned as “reckless” celebrations on the streets of Naples after Napoli’s 4-2 penalty win over Juventus in the Coppa Italia. Large crowds of fans congregated in the city, ignoring social distancing rules in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Ranieri Guerra, the WHO’s assistant director general for strategic initiatives, compared the celebrations to the notorious first leg Champions League match between Atalanta and Valencia in February, which is thought to be among the main factors contributing to an escalation of cases in Italy’s worst-affected province.
Updated
Canada is introducing a contact-tracing smartphone app that will notify Canadians of exposure to the coronavirus.
The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Thursday the app will be voluntary and that if someone tests positive, other users who have the app and have been in proximity will then be alerted they’ve been exposed to someone who has tested positive. Trudeau said privacy will be respected.
At no time will personal information be collected or shared, and no location services will be used, Trudeau said.
Governments around the world have been turning to smartphone technology to help battle fresh virus flare-ups as they ease lockdown restrictions. But technical problems and privacy concerns have dogged the development of virus tracing apps.
Health authorities in Britain announced Thursday they are scrapping plans to launch their own coronavirus contact-tracing smartphone app because of technical problems and will now work on building one using technology supplied by Apple and Google.
Other European nations such as Switzerland, Germany and Italy, are using a decentralized approach based on the Apple-Google smartphone interface, which experts say is better for privacy because it keeps data on phones.
Ontario will soon begin testing the app which is being developed with the help of Canadian technology companies Shopify and BlackBerry. Trudeau said Apple and Google recently put out major upgrades to their operating systems and that the app will be available in July.
Updated
Azerbaijan has extended coronavirus lockdown restrictions, including the closure of its borders, until 1 August, the government said on Thursday.
It said people in big cities, including the capital Baku, would be allowed to leave their homes only with special permission from 21 June until 5 July, after the number of Covid-19 infections rose.
Shopping malls, cinemas, restaurants and cafes, beauty salons and museums in those cities will be closed again after having reopened on 31 May.
Azerbaijan introduced measures to stem the coronavirus on 24 March and has extended them several times, most recently 1 July. The South Caucasus country of about 10 million people had registered 11,329 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and 139 deaths as of Thursday.
Updated
Hello, I am continuing on the Guardian’s live feed today from London until 7pm (BST). Please do share your views, comments and – importantly – news tips with me while I work.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
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Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
A World Health Organization (WHO) official described the celebrations following Napoli’s victory against Juventus on Wednesday, in the Italian Cup final, as “reckless’’.
After the match, big crowds of fans celebrated in the streets of Naples, ignoring social distancing and other rules to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Ranieri Guerra, the WHO’s assistant director general for strategic initiatives, said the fans’ behaviour was reckless and compared the celebrations to the notorious first leg Champions League match between Atalanta and Valencia in February, which is thought to be among the main factors that contributed to an escalation of cases in Italy’s worst-affected province and has been described as the “biological bomb” that turned the north of the country into the centre of the country’s outbreak.
“I wouldn’t like that to happen again,” said Guerra. “Seeing those images hurts”.
Updated
Johnson & Johnson is in talks with multiple governments and global organisations as it seeks to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, it said on Thursday, after Reuters reported that the US company is in talks over a potential EU supply deal.
“We are committed to making our Covid-19 vaccine accessible globally to populations at greatest risk and where it could provide the greatest good according to our vaccine’s profile,” a Johnson & Johnson spokesman said in an email.
“As part of that, we are in ongoing discussions with many stakeholders, including national governments and global organisations.”
Updated
The United Nations security council is considering a proposal to reopen a border crossing from Iraq into Syria for six months to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to help millions of Syrian civilians combat the coronavirus pandemic.
The 15-member council in January allowed a six-year-long cross-border aid operation to continue from two places in Turkey until 10 July, but dropped crossing points from Iraq and Jordan due to opposition by Syrian ally Russia and China.
Germany and Belgium gave the council a draft resolution on Wednesday that would extend approval for the Turkish border crossings for one year and reopen the Iraq crossing for six months.
The draft text also gives the council an option to extend the approval for the Iraq crossing for another six months based on an evaluation of the impact of the coronavirus in Syria by UN chief, António Guterres, later in the year.
Updated
New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, signed an executive order on Thursday launching the “Open Restaurants” initiative that will allow restaurants, cafes and bars that serve food to apply to use certain spaces such as sidewalks for outdoor dining.
Backyard and patio seating will also be allowed. De Blasio said the initiative would help an estimated 5,000 restaurants and save about 45,000 jobs. The mayor also announced that playgrounds would reopen on Monday across the city.
Updated
New York to reopen hairdressers, shops and outdoor dining spaces
New York City will begin phase two of reopening on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday, citing continued improvements in coronavirus data.
Offices, in-store retail, outdoor dining, hair salons and barbershops are among the businesses allowed to reopen their doors during phase two.
“We’ve seen consistent progress and it is time to say to everyone get ready for phase two,” De Blasio told a daily news conference.
Updated
The UK death toll from confirmed cases of the coronavirus has risen to 42,288, an increase of 135, the latest daily figures from the government showed on Thursday.
Updated
Stock markets eased back on Thursday as worries that the world has not seen the last of the coronavirus pandemic caused nervous investors to take profits after a recent strong run.
US numbers showing that 1.5 million workers filed for unemployment benefits last week added to jitters about the economic outlook.
In Europe, investors were underwhelmed by the Bank of England’s latest monetary policy decisions, which undermined both the pound and London stocks.
Wall Street fell around 200 points at the opening bell, while European stocks were down by a percent or more, having extended opening losses.
“US stocks are lower in early action, after snapping a string of gains yesterday, with the global markets remaining a bit cautious as uncertainty regarding a second wave of Covid-19 continues to simmer, countering recent economic data that has suggested improvement as economies reopen,” said analysts at Charles Schwab.
Earlier, Asian equity indices had closed mixed after a two-day rally.
The Bank of England on Thursday unveiled an extra £100bn of cash stimulus to prop up Britain’s coronavirus-hit economy, a figure in line with expectations, but analysts said the market had hoped for some forward-looking reassurance.
“BoE watchers could feel a little short-changed,” said Kallum Pickering at Berenberg.
“The market had expected a clear signal that the BoE would ease policy significantly further at a later date or that the bank was seriously contemplating further expanding its toolkit in response to the Covid-19 mega-recession,” he said.
While countries are slowly reopening their economies - with flights resuming, bars, cafes and restaurants serving people and professional football returning - new infections continue to surge in some places and are flaring up again in others.
Beijing has imposed new lockdowns, closed schools and banned flights again after the emergence of new clusters, while there have also been massive spikes in Texas and Florida.
Updated
The central German city of Göttingen has once again been labelled a coronavirus hotspot after 100 new coronavirus infections were traced to a residential block of flats.
The 700 residents of the entire block have been placed under quarantine for the next two weeks, city officials said on Thursday. The measure comes just two weeks after scores of city residents went down with the illness after attending a series of family get-togethers, after which an 18-storey high-rise on the northern edge of the university city was kept under close observation and several families went into quarantine.
Authorities said the drastic measures in the most recent case were necessary because a high number of people believed to have been in direct contact with the confirmed infected cases lived there. A mobile test centre was set up for the residents in front of the complex. Sixty test results are thought to be outstanding. The number of new infections in the city per 100,000 inhabitants over the past seven days has risen to 44.86. Fifty cases per 100,000 is the level at which authorities would be forced to place the whole city into lockdown, reverting to conditions as they stood in May.
Updated
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Switzerland’s central bank has warned the nation is facing a “sharp recession” due to the coronavirus crisis, with its economy expected to shrink by around six percent this year, AFP reports.
“This would be the strongest decline since the oil crisis in the 1970s,” the Swiss National Bank (SNB) said in a statement detailing its quarterly monetary policy decisions.
“Most economic indicators have deteriorated drastically in recent months,” the bank said, pointing among other things to a sharp rise in unemployment and “record low” consumer sentiment.
During the first quarter of the year, Switzerland’s gross domestic product (GDP) had already shrunk by 2.6%, the bank said.
The worst economic impact of the measures put in place to halt the spread of Covid-19 had come after that, in April, it added. “The decline in GDP is therefore likely to be even stronger in the second quarter,” it said.
While economic activity has begun picking up again since late last month, when most restrictions were lifted, the SNB warned that, as in other countries, it was expecting “only a partial recovery for the time being”.
The bank said it was clear that “GDP will not return quickly to its pre-crisis level,” adding that overall, “GDP is likely to contract by around six percent this year”.
But things look brighter after that: the bank said it expected to see an “economic revival” in the second half of the year, which would likely be reflected in “clearly positive growth” next year.
Updated
The UK’s failure to report how many people have recovered from Covid-19 has been criticised by public health experts, who say that a huge proportion of cases have remained “invisible” to the health service.
Britain is an outlier internationally in not reporting the number of people who have recovered from Covid-19 alongside statistics on deaths and numbers of identified cases. Chile is the only other nation not to share this information out of the 25 countries with the highest reported incidence.
More details here:
Updated
The Austrian low-cost airline Level Europe has announced it is filing for insolvency, AFP reports.
“Level Europe has been impacted by the unprecedented crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the airline said in a statement, adding that it had “ceased trading with immediate effect”.
“Once insolvency proceedings are filed, an Austrian court will appoint an administrator,” the statement added.
About 200 jobs in Vienna are thought to be at risk, along with roughly 40 in Amsterdam.
The airline had been launched in 2018 by its parent company, IAG, which owns British Airways and Iberia.
Level Europe was designed to serve short- and medium-haul routes within the continent.
IAG also runs long-haul flights using the Level brand from Paris and Barcelona which are not affected, the company has said.
Updated
Hydroxychloroquine can be ruled out as a treatment for hospitalised Covid-19 patients but the World Health Organization said on Thursday it was aware of ongoing trials into its value as a preventative measure, AFP reports.
A decades-old malaria and rheumatoid arthritis drug, hydroxychloroquine has been at the centre of political and scientific controversy.
On Wednesday, the WHO decided to halt its trials of the drug for coronavirus patients in hospital, after evidence from its own work and others that it had no effect on reducing the mortality rate.
But the UN health agency said on Thursday that evidence from non-WHO trials into whether it might or might not be useful in preventing against the virus had not yet concluded.
Updated
Hi. This is Caroline Davies taking over the live blog for a short while. You can contact me at caroline.davies@theguardian.com
Iran on Thursday announced 87 new deaths from the coronavirus as authorities moved to tighten measures to stop its spread in some of the country’s worst-hit provinces.
The health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said in a televised interview that the deaths in the past 24 hours had taken the overall toll in Iran’s outbreak to 9,272.
She said another 2,596 people had tested positive for Covid-19, bringing to 197,647 the total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak emerged almost four months ago.
Five of Iran’s 31 provinces – Bushehr, East Azerbaijan, Hormozgan, Kermanshah and Khuzestan – were currently “red”, the highest level on the country’s colour-coded risk scale.
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The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, discussed the need for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak with his Australian counterpart, Downing Street said on Thursday.
“The leaders discussed the coronavirus pandemic and agreed on the need for an independent investigation through the World Health Organization into the origins of the outbreak,” a spokeswoman for Johnson’s office said in a statement.
“They committed to coordinate closely on this issue in the weeks and months ahead.”
Updated
Vietnam’s health ministry on Thursday reported seven new coronavirus infections, all among Vietnamese citizens held in quarantine upon their arrival from Kuwait.
The south-east Asian country has been 63 days without a domestically transmitted infection due to successful programmes to contain the virus. Vietnam has registered no deaths and a total 342 cases, about 90% of which have recovered.
Updated
Sweden said on Thursday that, following the downturn caused by the coronavirus, it is beginning to see the first positive signals and its economy will not contract by as much as initially expected this year.
The finance minister, Magdalena Andersson, said the government now expected the Swedish economy to shrink by 6% in 2020, instead of by around 7% as projected in April.
“Lately we’ve seen some positive signals that suggest that we’ve reached the bottom and that we are now seeing a turn upwards,” Andersson told a press conference.
She stressed that the improvement had started from an unusually low level and there was still considerable uncertainty over the projections.
Updated
Five foreign nationals who took part in a protest in Nepal against the government’s pandemic response will be deported as soon as international flights resume, the country’s top immigration official said Thursday.
The three Chinese, one American and one Australian were not being detained but are required to report to officials regularly until they leave the country, immigration chief Ramesh Kumar KC said.
The five were also fined for taking part in Saturday’s protests against the government’s handling of the coronavirus situation.
All five will be banned from returning to Nepal for two years.
Amnesty International has demanded that Egypt stop its “harassment and intimidation” of frontline medics for speaking out during the coronavirus pandemic.
The rights group documented the cases of eight healthcare workers, including six doctors and two pharmacists, arbitrarily detained since March for online and social media posts expressing their concerns.
It also interviewed seven doctors who said they witnessed security and administrative threats against their health worker colleagues for complaining on social media.
“Amnesty International is calling on the Egyptian authorities to put an immediate end to their campaign of harassment and intimidation against healthcare workers who are speaking out,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director.
“The campaign not only further undermines freedom of expression in the country, but also hamstrings the efforts of those tackling the health crisis and puts their and others’ lives in danger,” he added.
Frontline medics have been vocal in their requests to Egypt’s health ministry to provide healthcare workers with coronavirus tests, personal protective equipment and adequate access to health care if they contract the disease.
“Healthcare workers in Egypt have been arrested, criminalised and prosecuted simply for daring to express their personal safety concerns and, in some cases, have been denied access to adequate health care,” Amnesty said.
Earlier in the week, Egypt’s top doctors union urged authorities to immediately release its detained colleagues.
The coronavirus crisis has claimed the lives of around 70 Egyptian doctors so far working in an overstretched healthcare system.
Egypt has recorded nearly 50,000 Covid-19 cases nationwide including 1,850 deaths, according to official figures.
Updated
Pope Francis’s impassioned appeal to protect nature is growing increasingly urgent as the global pandemic alters lifestyles and makes painfully plain the fragility of life, the Vatican has said.
The worldwide Covid-19 outbreak struck as various Vatican departments were well into drafting a document calling on the faithful to carry out concrete local actions to mark the fifth anniversary of Francis encyclical that denounced the environment’s exploitation and strongly recommended caring for the Earth.
The coronavirus crisis, the Vatican said in Thursday’s anniversary appeal, renders ever more evident, five years from its publication, the value of the pope’s encyclical.
Updated
Hello everyone. I am running the Guardian’s global live feed today. Please do get in touch with me as I blog to share any comments or news tips. It is always really useful to hear from readers about what is happening where you are.
Thanks in advance.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
WHO hopes hundreds of millions of vaccine doses can be produced this year
The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes hundreds of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine can be produced this year and 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Thursday.
The WHO is drawing up plans to help decide who should get the first doses once a vaccine is approved, she said.
Priority would be given to frontline workers such as medics, those who are vulnerable because of age or other illness, and those who work or live in high-transmission settings such as prisons and care homes.
“I’m hopeful, I’m optimistic. But vaccine development is a complex undertaking, it comes with a lot of uncertainty,” she said. “The good thing is, we have many vaccines and platforms so even if the first one fails, or the second ones fails, we shouldn’t lose hope, we shouldn’t give up.”
Around 10 potential vaccines are now undergoing trials in humans, in the hope that a shot to prevent infection can become available in coming months. Countries have already begun making deals with pharmaceutical companies to order doses, even before any vaccines have been proven to work.
Swaminathan described the ambition for hundreds of millions of doses this year as optimistic, and the hope for up to 2 billion doses of up to three different vaccines next year as a “big if”.
She added that genetic analysis data collected so far showed that the new coronavirus has not yet mutated in any ways that would alter the severity of the illness it causes.
Updated
Beijing expert says latest outbreak under control
Beijing has brought its latest coronavirus outbreak under control, a Chinese medical expert said on Thursday, although the capital can still expect sporadic new cases.
The city has recorded 158 infections since confirming the first on 11 June in its worst outbreak since early February, which has been traced to the sprawling wholesale food centre of Xinfadi in the south-west of the city.
Despite just a few cases compared to numbers outside China, authorities have acted quickly to curb contagion risks in the capital, which had recently won praise for its tough countermeasures.
A mere few days after the first case, the city returned to a level two alert, the second-highest in a four-tier virus emergency response system, leading to new curbs on residents’ movements.
“The epidemic in Beijing has been brought under control,” said Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Diseases Prevention and Control.
Going by recent case numbers, 13 June was the peak of the current outbreak, Wu told a regular news conference a day after new confirmed cases fell to 21, from 31 the previous day.
“When I say that it’s under control, that doesn’t mean the number of cases will turn zero tomorrow or the day after,” he warned, however.
“The trend will persist for a period of time, but the number of cases will decrease, just like the trend that we saw (in Beijing) in January and February.”
Updated
The European Commission is in advanced talks with pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson to reserve or buy up-front doses of its Covid-19 vaccine under development, two officials familiar with the talks told Reuters.
The move would be the first arranged by the European Union executive since it was mandated last week by the 27 EU national governments to use an emergency fund with more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) available to reach advance purchase or call-option deals with up to six vaccine makers.
The Commission’s deal with the US firm is “in the pipeline”, a top health official from an EU member state said, asking to remain anonymous.
A second EU source said the Commission had a call with Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday over the possible agreement on its potential vaccine.
Commission spokesman had no comment. Johnson & Johnson was not immediately available for comment outside US business hours.
It was unclear whether any deal would involve an advance purchase of the vaccine in testing, or an option to buy it.
Johnson & Johnson plans next month to start human clinical trials for its experimental vaccine against the highly contagious coronavirus, which has infected more than 8.36 million people worldwide, with 447,985 deaths.
Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands said last week they had acquired 400 million potential vaccine doses, in principle available to all member states, from British drugmaker AstraZeneca, which is developing a Covid-19 shot in conjunction with Oxford University.
AstraZeneca signed a similar deal in May with the United States.
The Spanish government has unveiled a €4.3bn (£3.9bn) plan to help the country’s lucrative and important tourist sector as it emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic and prepares to welcome visitors from EU and Schengen areas countries this Sunday.
Spain, which relies on tourism for 12% of its GDP, has been one of the countries hardest hit by the virus and is keen to reactivate its tourism industry as quickly as possible.
On Thursday, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced a 28-point plan intended to restore confidence in Spain as a safe destination, improve its competitiveness and boost its image abroad.
“Spain is opening up for tourism again,” said Sánchez. “We are world leaders and that’s why every step we take will be a safe step. Through prudence and responsibility we will show that Spain is a safe and healthy destination.”
Under the plan, €200,000 has been spent on 21 health and hygiene guides to help those in the sector prevent the spread of the coronavirus. New credit lines worth €2.5bn will also be made available to help the struggling sector.
Thursday’s announcements bring the total the government has pledged to the sector to €19.5bn.
Updated
7,000 people quarantined in German state after local outbreak
In Germany’s western state of North Rhein Westphalia, around 7,000 people have been placed in quarantine and schools and kindergartens have been closes after an outbreak of coronavirus.
The spread is believed to have come from Tönnies, a meat processing plant in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, where there have been 657 confirmed cases of the virus.
Elsewhere, Martin Hikel, mayor in the southern Berlin district of Neukölln, has said authorities are trying to trace the origins of a worrying new spread of the virus there, which has so far infected around 70 local residents.
Police are reportedly guarding seven neighbouring residential blocks , in which over 370 separate households, many of them living in very cramped conditions, are currently under quarantine.
Hikel said the incidences were extremely concerning, not least because “we still don’t know the full extent of it,” he told Der Spiegel in an interview.
Hikel said social workers were helping out the families, informing them of the importance of the quarantine and assisting them where possible. A group of locals has formed a network of volunteers, providing the affected residents with packages of food and toys, and going shopping for them.
Hikel said many of those in quarantine are Roma families “who already struggle on a daily basis to make ends meet” and for whom the current situation is a “catastrophe”.
It is believed the spread might have happened during a religious gathering, possibly at a picnic organised by the church. “It is proof that the pandemic is still very much alive,” Hikel said.
The latest scandal at the meat processing plant which has been closed down by authorities, is one of several similar incidents over the past few weeks, to have thrown light on the precarious working conditions of many of the industry’s workers, mainly from southern and eastern Europe, who typically work cheek by jowl, live in close quarters, and regularly travel in large groups to visit their families in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria in particular. As well as concern over the workers’ welfare, the outbreaks have triggered a renewed debate over the meat industry, amid widespread calls for an improvement in standards, including better wages and the introduction of a minimum price policy for meat, particularly in supermarkets.
A video put on YouTube a month ago, from the campaign group Arbeitsunrecht (unfair work) which allegedly shows Tönnies workers sitting in their works canteen shoulder to shoulder even as company bosses insisted they were abiding by physical distancing rules, has gone viral as a result of the latest coverage.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a roundup of the latest key developments:
Beijing records 21 new cases.
Beijing confirmed 21 new Covid-19 cases, amid fears that a new cluster in the city may have begun a month earlier than first thought. There are now more 150 new cases in the Chinese capital. China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said the new outbreak probably did not occur in early June or late May, but a month earlier, according to state media.
Increase in surveillance
Extensive surveillance measures introduced around the world during the coronavirus outbreak have widened and become entrenched, digital rights experts have said, three months after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. Top10VPN, a pro-digital privacy website, said digital tracking was in use in 35 countries, with contact tracing apps in at least 28 countries, half of which use GPS location data. Meanwhile, more than half of the apps do not disclose how long users’ data is stored.
The global death toll from coronavirus nears 450,000
The Johns Hopkins University tracker is recording more than 449,273 deaths from Covid-19 across the world on Thursday. More than one in four fatalities are in the US, making it by far the worst-hit country. There are 8,349,950 cases worldwide.
‘National leader’ of Kazakhstan tests positive
Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former president of Kazakhstan who remains its national leader, has tested positive for coronavirus. A spokesman for the 79-year-old statesman said there was ‘no reason for concern’.
Denmark to relax border restrictions
Denmark will allow citizens from European countries with low infections to enter the country from 27 June. EU and Schengen countries, including the UK, would be individually assessed based on objective criteria, the foreign ministry said. Sweden and Portugal did not meet the criteria, it said.
Brazil’s cases near 1 million
Brazil recorded 1,269 additional Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday, bringing its official death toll from the novel coronavirus to 46,510, the most in the world outside the United States. The Health Ministry also registered 32,188 new cases of the virus since its Tuesday update, for a total of 955,377 confirmed cases, also second to the United States globally.
Honduras president admitted to hospital with pneumonia
President Juan Orlando Hernández announced late Tuesday that he and his wife had tested positive for the virus. Just hours later he was taken to hospital after doctors determined he had pneumonia. From March to 7 June, Honduras confirmed 6,327 coronavirus infections. In the 10 days since, it added 3,329 more, a surge that has come after the government began a gradual reactivation of the economy.
New Zealand confirms one new case
One more case has been confirmed in the New Zealand after two women who had travelled to the UK tested positive earlier this week. More reports have emerged in New Zealand of people leaving isolation without being tested and going on to meet friends, placing government officials under increasing scrutiny over the rigour of their Covid-19 quarantine rules. Police revealed that six people absconded from managed isolation after being granted compassionate leave from Covid-19 quarantine to attend a funeral in Hamilton.
Updated
In England, the number of contacts of positive Covid-19 cases identified by the test and trace system rose to 44,895 in its second week, Britain’s health ministry said on Thursday.
The government’s test-and-trace system is seen as key to helping to monitor the spread of the new coronavirus and ease lockdown measures.
The Department of Health said that 5,949 people who tested positive for coronavirus (Covid-19) had their case transferred to the contact tracing system in its second week of operation.
It said that 44,895 contacts were identified, up from nearly 32,000 last week. Of those identified in the second week, 40,690 people, were reached and advised to self-isolate.
Updated
The Kremlin on Thursday described accusations by Britain that Russia, along with China and Iran, was looking to exploit opportunities created by the coronavirus, as “absurd”.
“We categorically disagree with such statements,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “As far as disinformation is concerned, we consider such accusations absurd.”
Peskov said Russia and China were cooperating with the international fight against the coronavirus in response to the assertions made by UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
Nearly 500 Russian medics who tested positive for the coronavirus have died, the head of the state health watchdog has said, a far higher figure than given before.
“Four hundred and eighty nine – that is medics, unfortunately we have lost almost 500 of our colleagues,” the Roszdravnadzor watchdog chief Alla Samoilova said at an online conference, Tass state news agency reported.
Previously a health ministry official on 26 May gave a confirmed death toll of 101.
The new number is even higher than that given by an independent website set up by medics where colleagues report deaths, the Remembrance List, which lists 444 deaths.
Updated
Hello everyone. I am taking over the Guardian’s global live feed from my colleague Matthew Weaver. Please do get in touch with me as I blog to share any comments or news tips. Thanks.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Denmark will allow citizens from European countries with low infections to enter the country from 27 June, Reuters reports citing the Danish foreign ministry.
EU and Schengen countries, including the UK, would be individually assessed based on objective criteria, the ministry said. Sweden and Portugal did not meet the criteria, it said.
A country would be classified as open if it has less than 20 infected people per 100,000 inhabitants a week.
Denmark’s strict border policy sparked protests last week from employees in the aviation industry.
Updated
The World Health Organization is looking at interim data from its large multi-country trial of the combination of HIV drugs Lopinavir and Ritonavir to treat Covid-19 patients, the UN agency’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan has said.
Her comments come after the WHO stopped testing of the malaria drug in the trial of treatments for Covid-19 patients, after studies indicated it showed no benefit in those who have the disease. She said more study was needed to see whether hydroxchloroquine could prevent infection.
The malaria drug had been championed by Donald Trump for treating Covid-19. But earlier this week, the US Food and Drug Administration, revoked the emergency authorisation for hydroxychloroquine amid growing evidence that is doesn’t work and could cause serious side effects.
The Solidarity Trial's hydroxychloroquine arm is being stopped, on the basis of evidence showing it does not reduce mortality for hospitalised #COVID19 patients.
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) June 17, 2020
Updated
The authorities in Turkey have made the wearing of face masks mandatory in three major cities following an uptick in confirmed cases since the reopening of many businesses, AP reports.
The governors of Istanbul, Ankara and Bursa announced the mask rule late on Wednesday in line with a recommendation by the country’s scientific advisory council.
Masks are now obligatory in 47 out of 81 provinces. The statements said masks would be worn in all public spaces.
Turkey has seen an upward trend in the daily number of infections after the government authorised cafes, restaurants, gyms, parks, beaches and museums to reopen, lifted inter-city travel restrictions and eased stay-at-home orders for the elderly and young at the start of June.
The health minister, Fahrettin Koca, announced that confirmed daily infections were about 653 in the past month in Istanbul, Turkeys most populous city with more than 15 million residents, and noted that the daily average fell to 616 in the past three days.
In the capital, Ankara, the range in one month has been between 127 and 177 new infections a day with an uptick in the past week.
Turkey has reported 182,727 confirmed cases and 4,861 deaths from Covid-19 since March.
Updated
Indonesia announces record rise in infections
Indonesia has reported 1,331 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, its biggest daily increase since the outbreak started locally, taking its total number of cases to 42,762.
Achmad Yurianto, a health ministry official, said 63 more deaths were reported on Thursday, with total fatalities now at 2,339, the highest coronavirus death toll in east Asia outside of China.
Indonesia on Wednesday overtook Singapore with the largest number of Covid-19 cases in south-east Asia.
Updated
Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has urged the European Union to agree a €750bn stimulus package by the end of July to help the European economy recover from the impact of the pandemic, AFP reports.
“It would be best if we could reach an agreement before the summer break,” Merkel said, calling for compromise from member states to enable the deal to be ratified by the end of the year.
“We must act quickly and decisively,” she said.
The European commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, proposed the huge fund to help the EU out of its deepest-ever recession, but the plan was immediately met with fierce opposition from fiscally conservative member states including Austria and the Netherlands.
The proposed package consists of €500bn in grants and €250bn in loans, but requires unanimous EU approval.
“The starting position is far from easy but I hope that all member states will act in a spirit of compromise in the face of this unprecedented situation,” Merkel said.
“Cohesion and solidarity have never been more important than today. The crisis can only be overcome if we act for and with each other,” she said.
The European Council is due to hold a video summit on 19 June on the controversial stimulus package, the EU’s largest to date.
However, a decision is not expected until the leaders have met in person, said Merkel, whose country assumes the EU presidency in July.
The German chancellor had in late May stunned observers by proposing along with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the plan for €500bn in grants to help the hardest hit EU members to get their economies back on track.
That proposal, now making up the bulk of von der Leyen’s package, shattered a long-standing German taboo as it included taking on shared debt, a dramatic U-turn after years of obstinate German opposition to joint borrowing.
Updated
'National leader' of Kazakhstan tests positive
Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former president of Kazakhstan who remains its national leader, has tested positive for coronavirus.
#UPDATE Kazakhstan's 79-year-old former president and official 'Leader of the Nation' Nursultan Nazarbayev has tested positive for the #coronavirushttps://t.co/PcL154d5v0 pic.twitter.com/tizxKKAQiR
— AFP news agency (@AFP) June 18, 2020
At 79, Nazarbayev retains sweeping powers as national leader, chair of the security council and head of the ruling party.
“There is no reason for concern,” his spokesman, Aidos Ukibay, said on Twitter.
В настоящее время Первый Президент Казахстана находится на самоизоляции. К сожалению, последний тест Елбасы на коронавирусную инфекцию показал положительный результат. Повода для беспокойства нет. Нурсултан Назарбаев продолжает работать дистанционно. https://t.co/G6zH75j3E1 pic.twitter.com/KMkYwOob4h
— Aidos Ukibay (@Aidos_Ukibay) June 18, 2020
Several members of Kazakhstan’s government self-isolated earlier this week after the health minister, Yelzhan Birtanov, and lower house speaker, Nurlan Nigmatulin, tested positive for Covid-19.
Kazakhstan announced a tightening of restrictions for the coming weekend amid fears that outbreak is worsening, according to Reuters.
Shopping malls, markets and parks will be closed in big cities on 20-21 June and additional hospital beds will be made available for Covid-19 patients, the government said. It also ordered all provinces to broaden testing for the disease.
The spread of the virus has accelerated in the nation of 19 million since it ended a nationwide lockdown last month. Kazakhstan had reported about 23,000 cases as of Friday, with 100 deaths, up from about 5,000 at the end of its lockdown.
Updated
Afghanistan announces a record 42 deaths
Afghanistan has announced 42 new Covid-19 deaths, its highest daily toll in an outbreak that has now killed 546 Afghans.
The country’s health ministry also announced 658 new cases bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 27,532.
The country, which has admitted it has a lack of testing capacity, has tested 61,599 suspected patients since the outbreak began. There have been 7,660 recoveries.
Most of the new cases (415) have been reported in the capital, Kabul. It is the country’s worst-affected area so far, with 11,339 cases and 126 deaths.
Most of the new deaths reported in the western province of Herat where its laboratory – which is responsible for testing samples of patients in Herat and nearby areas – has halted work due to a lack of kits for Neara week.
The health ministry recorded 19 deaths of Covid-19 in the province on Thursday. Herat which borders Iran has so far recorded 4,304 confirmed cases and 108 deaths.
Wahid Qatali, the governor of Herat recently said that the actual number of infections may be more than 60,000 in the province. The first case of the virus was reported in the province after thousands of Afghan migrants returned from the neighbouring country in February and March, fanning out across the country without being tested or quarantined.
The Afghan health ministry has previously said it was unable to increase testing for coronavirus due to a lack of laboratories and an overload of suspected patients.
Updated
The UK’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said the case of two women who had reintroduced Covid-19 to New Zealand after travelling to the UK, showed how important it was for people to follow guidelines.
The two women infected with Covid-19 were allowed to leave quarantine without being tested and then met up with friends in New Zealand.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Raab said:
It shows how careful we need to be, but the travel advice for a while now has been to advise against all but essential global travel. We need to see it applied consistently. Overall, the public have been terrific in following the guidelines. And it gets trickier as you come out of lockdown because the changes are incremental. But we do need to keep following the guidance as we take those careful steps out of the previous regime.
The New Zealand officials said the women had “done everything right” after they were released from quarantine, but the New Zealand government is facing questions about why they were not tested before being allowed to leave an Auckland hotel after they arrived from the UK on 7 June. The women had received a compassionate exemption to the compulsory 14-day isolation period for returning travellers in order to visit a dying relative 400 miles (650km) away in Wellington. The compassionate dispensation policy has been suspended.
Updated
Extensive surveillance measures introduced around the world during the coronavirus outbreak have widened and become entrenched, digital rights experts have said, three months after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.
The measures have often been billed as temporary necessities rushed into place to help track infections, but governments have been accused of denting civil rights with the widespread use of techniques such as phone monitoring, contact tracing apps, and physical surveillance such as CCTV with facial recognition.
Top10VPN, a pro-digital privacy website that reviews secure internet connection software, has maintained a database since March of digital and physical surveillance measures implemented to fight the virus.
As of Wednesday, it showed digital tracking was in use in 35 countries, with contact tracing apps in at least 28 countries, half of which use GPS location data. Meanwhile, more than half of the apps do not disclose how long users’ data is stored.
Three more coronavirus deaths have been announced in El Salvador.
Informamos tres decesos por #COVID19:
— Ministerio de Salud (@SaludSV) June 18, 2020
-Paciente femenina, en el rango de 40 a 60 años
-Paciente femenina, mayor de 70 años
-Paciente masculino, grupo etario de 60 a 70 años y personal de primera línea
En nuestras manos está evitar más víctimas.
Nuestro sentido pésame.
Central America’s smallest and most densely populated country has recorded more than 80 deaths from the virus and more than 4,000 cases.
In neighbouring Honduras, the president Juan Orlando Hernández, has been admitted to hospital two days after testing positive for the virus.
This is Matthew Weaver picking up the global coronavirus live blog from Helen. Please send any developments that you think we may have missed from your part of the world to matthew.weaver@theguardian.com or tweet me @matthew_weaver
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thank for following along.
Before I head off, here’s what it is like to be able to go to the pub again (it is even better than the night, early on in lockdown, when I listened to a group of women singing Abba from a nearby apartment while a man across the way yelled “SOCIAL. DISTANCING.” at them from his window, repeatedly):
Norwegian salmon exports to China fell by a third last week to 240 tonnes, Norway’s state-owned seafood marketing organisation said on Thursday.
The 34% decline came as imports of salmon to China were halted towards the end of the week when the novel coronavirus was discovered at stalls processing the fish at a major Beijing wholesale food market.
“It’s too early to tell which consequences the new outbreak in Beijing will have for salmon exports in the time ahead,” the Norwegian Seafood Council said in a statement.
Norway and China have both concluded that the salmon itself was not the source of the virus, Norway’s fisheries minister said on Wednesday.
At a video-conferenced summit on Wednesday with leaders of African nations, Chinese president Xi Jinping pledged they would be “among the first” to benefit from a Chinese-developed vaccine.” China will continue to do whatever it can to support Africa’s response to Covid-19,” Xi said, according to an English translation of his speech on Xinhua.
“Together, we will build a China-Africa community of health for all. We pledge that once the development and deployment of Covid-19 vaccine is completed in China, African countries will be among the first to benefit.”
China currently has five vaccine candidates for Covid-19 in human trials, the most in any country. It recently asked for volunteers from among state-owned firms and who were planning to travel, to test candidates in phase three trials.
The Chinese government has been pushing hard to build relations with African countries, particularly as its relationships with other nations like the US, UK and Australia, have soured.
Global report: Beijing Covid-19 cluster may have begun a month earlier – China health official
Beijing’s cluster of new cases may have begun a month earlier than first thought, partly due to asymptomatic infections, according to the director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Amid tight restrictions to stop the spread of the capital’s cluster, which now numbers more than 150 cases, Gao Fu said the outbreak probably did not occur in early June or late May, but probably a month earlier, according to state media.
Gao said the volume of asymptomatic cases detected in the outbreak may be partially responsible, but that further investigation was needed.
“A lot of asymptomatic or mild cases were detected in this outbreak and that is why the environment has such amount of virus,” said Gao at a seminar in Shanghai on Tuesday.
On Thursday, Beijing reported 21 new cases of Covid-19, down slightly from the 31 reported on Wednesday. There were two additional cases in Hebei province that were also linked to the Beijing cluster.
The city on Thursday ordered all hotels be shut down, as well as restaurants in high-risk areas. Officials said Beijing was not under lockdown but urged all residents not to travel or gather unnecessarily, and pledged to ensure continued food supply.
As always, it would be great to hear from you on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com – questions, comments, tips and news from your part of the world are most welcome.
An interesting initiative here from China Eastern Airlines:
China Eastern Airlines announced its “fly free weekend” on Thurs, encouraging travel amid the #COVID19 pandemic. Passengers can fly China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines for an "unlimited" amount of times to major Chinese cities on any weekend in 2020 with the ticket. pic.twitter.com/zHkSQjQOmV
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) June 18, 2020
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
-
The global death toll from coronavirus is nearing 450,000, with more than 8.2 million confirmed cases of the disease worldwide. The Johns Hopkins University tracker is recording more than 448,959 deaths from Covid-19 across the world, as of Wednesday evening UK time. More than one in four fatalities are in the US, making it by far the worst-hit country. There are 8,349,950 cases worldwide.
- Brazil cases near 1 million. Brazil recorded 1,269 additional Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday, bringing its official death toll from the novel coronavirus to 46,510, the most in the world outside the United States. The Health Ministry also registered 32,188 new cases of the virus since its Tuesday update, for a total of 955,377 confirmed cases, also second to the United States globally.
- India sees highest one-day case spike. India has reported its highest cases in the pandemic so far, with 12,881 confirmed in the last 24 hours, for a total of 366,946 cases. There have been 334 additional deaths, bringing the toll to 12,237.
- UK cases pass 300,000. The number of coronavirus infections in the UK has passed 300,00, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with the current total standing at 300,717.At least 42,238 people have died in the UK so far.
- WHO hails steroid treatment ‘hope’. The cheap steroid British researchers believe can help save lives should be used only for the most serious cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.The WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said research was at last providing “green shoots of hope”.
- Arizona governor to let mayors require masks as Covid-19 cases surge. As coronavirus cases surge across the state, Arizona’s Republican governor said he would no longer block mayors from being able to require local residents to wear masks.But governor Doug Ducey held off from issuing a statewide mask-wearing requirement, even after hundreds of Arizona medical professionals sent him an open letter this week, outlining the evidence that masks save lives and asking him to require citizens to wear them.
- Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández has gone into voluntary isolation, amid growing concerns over a surge of coronavirus infections, including several cases among the country’s political elite.The decision to quarantine the president – whose popularity is riding high on his no-nonsense response to the pandemic – was taken due to the “significant increase in the circulation of the virus,” presidential doctor Federico Saavedra said in a statement on Wednesday.
- Honduras president hospitalized with pneumonia, Covid-19. President Juan Orlando Hernández announced late Tuesday that he and his wife had tested positive for the virus. Just hours later he was hospitalised after doctors determined he had pneumonia. From March to 7 June, Honduras confirmed 6,327 coronavirus infections. In the 10 days since, it added 3,329 more, a surge that has come after the government began a gradual reactivation of the economy.
- New Zealand confirms one new case; defences under scrutiny as more breaches emerge. More reports have emerged in New Zealand of people leaving isolation without being tested and going on to meet friends, placing government officials under increasing scrutiny over the rigour of their Covid-19 quarantine rules.Police revealed that six people absconded from managed isolation after being granted compassionate leave from Covid-19 quarantine to attend a funeral in Hamilton.
- Australia’s Qantas cancels most international flights until October. Qantas Airways said on Thursday it had cancelled most international flights until late October, after the Australian government indicated its border closure because of the coronavirus was likely to extend to 2021.
- Australian unemployment reaches 7.1%. Australia’s unemployment rate has jumped to 7.1% after another 227,700 people lost their jobs thanks to coronavirus. The jobless rate had already climbed from 5.2% in March to a revised 6.4% in April, as the deadly global pandemic gripped the country. May’s monthly drop in the number of people employed is the second largest on record after nearly 600,000 got sacked in April. Another poor set of figures had been expected as a result of nationwide lockdowns.
- Beijing records 21 new cases. Beijing confirmed 21 new Covid-19 cases as of June 17, China’s health authority said on Thursday, down from 31 a day earlier. Beijing logged its first case in the current outbreak, the worst in the city since early February, on 11 June. The total number of infections has risen to 158 over the past week.
Thailand on Thursday reported six new coronavirus infections and no new deaths, bringing its total to 3,141 confirmed cases, of which 58 were fatalities.
The new cases were quarantined Thais returning from Saudi Arabia and India, said Panprapa Yongtrakul, a spokeswoman for the government’s Covid-19 Administration Centre.
Thailand has eased many of its restrictions and has recorded no new local transmissions for 24 days in a row, while 2,997 patients have recovered.
India sees highest one-day case spike
India has reported its highest cases in the pandemic so far, with 12,881 confirmed in the last 24 hours, for a total of 366,946 cases.
There have been 334 additional deaths, bringing the toll to 12,237.
India reports the highest single-day spike of 12881 new #COVID19 cases in last 24 hours; 334 deaths reported. Total number of positive cases now stands at 366946 including 160384 active cases, 194325 cured/discharged/migrated & 12237 deaths: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare pic.twitter.com/Q65oGr1rH0
— ANI (@ANI) June 18, 2020
Updated
Armies of workers in protective masks are racing to complete the mammoth Dubai Expo 2020 site despite the coronavirus that has sickened some employees, forced a one-year postponement, and created a logistical headache, AFP reports.
The six-month world fair, a milestone for the emirate which has splashed out $8.2bn on the eye-popping venue in the hope of boosting its soft power and resetting the economy, will now open its doors in October 2021.
But organisers grappling with the complexities of rescheduling the event are intent on delivering the main buildings of the Expo by the original start date.
As well as the onset of the scorching Gulf summer, organisers have had to contend with coronavirus infections and layoffs among a large workforce recruited from across the world.
Elmo, Cookie Monster and Muppets from Asia and the Middle East are joining forces for a special episode of “Sesame Street” aimed at helping kids cope with a world turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.
“Elmo’s World News,” airing over the next few weeks in 13 languages across Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, will share activities, play, and advice on how to manage “big feelings” like frustration and sadness.
In the 25-minute special, Elmo hosts a news show from his bedroom, with Cookie Monster playing a special correspondent showing his “Things That Make Me Happy” activity box.
Grover plays a weather reporter who learns how to play inside, while Basma and Jad, the stars of the “Ahlan Simsim” Arabic version of “Sesame Street,” show how to manage feelings with dance.
Honduras president hospitalized with pneumonia, Covid-19
The hospitalisation of Honduras president with Covid-19 and pneumonia Wednesday has drawn attention to another country struggling under the pandemics strain as cases rise sharply in the capital, AP reports.
President Juan Orlando Hernández announced late Tuesday that he and his wife had tested positive for the virus. Just hours later he was hospitalised after doctors determined he had pneumonia.
From March to 7 June, Honduras confirmed 6,327 coronavirus infections. In the 10 days since, it added 3,329 more, a surge that has come after the government began a gradual reactivation of the economy.
The full story on Australia’s unemployment rate now:
Australia lost a further 227,000 jobs between April and May, resulting in a total loss of 835,000 jobs in seasonally adjusted terms since March and a 0.7% jump in unemployment to 7.1%.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released the statistics on Thursday, revealing that 85,700 more people are unemployed and the proportion of people aged 15 years and over in jobs has shrunk from 62.5% to about 58.7% in two months.
The numbers suggest Australia is on track to reach unemployment of 8% as the government debates how to rebalance its policies between the 3 million people receiving wage subsidies, excluded from unemployment figures, and the 1.7 million Australians on jobseeker unemployment benefits.
In the currency market, the safe-haven yen rose about 0.3% to 106.72 per dollar while the US dollar also firmed against risk-sensitive currencies, Reuters reports.
The euro dipped 0.1% to $1.1235 while the Australian dollar lost 0.4% to $0.6852, also hit by worse than expected employment data.
Australia’s unemployment rate jumped to the highest in about two decades in May as nearly a quarter of a million people lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic-driven shutdowns.
Oil prices also dropped with US crude futures falling 1.9% to $37.49 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent lost 1.4% to $40.14 a barrel.
Asian stocks and Wall Street futures fell on Thursday as spiking coronavirus cases in some US states and China crushed hopes of a quick global economic comeback from the pandemic, Reuters reports.
S&P 500 mini futures fell 1.2% in early Asian trade while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost as much as 1%.
Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.3% while in mainland China, bluechip CSI300 shares shed 0.1% in early trade.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 lost 0.36% on Wednesday but tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.15% due to hopes of increased demand for various online services due to the epidemic.
Several US states including Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump plans a campaign rally on Saturday, reported a surge in new coronavirus infections.
The daily count of infections also hit a new benchmark in California and Texas, while Florida and Arizona also recorded the second-highest daily increases.
China’s capital cancelled scores of flights, shut schools and blocked off some neighbourhoods as it ramped up efforts to contain a coronavirus outbreak that has fanned fears of wider contagion.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 580 to 187,764, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.
The reported death toll rose by 26 to 8,856, the tally showed.
The Bank of England, confronted by Britain’s collapsing coronavirus-ravaged economy, will later Thursday reveal the outcome of its latest monetary policy meeting, with analysts predicting more stimulus.
The British central bank has been at the forefront of economic fire-fighting over this year’s deadly Covid-19 emergency - and could expand its quantitative easing stimulus in an attempt to kickstart growth.
The pandemic has so far killed more than 41,000 people in Britain, making it the third worst hit country in the world, while the nationwide lockdown shrank the size of the UK economy by more than a fifth in April alone.
In response to the crisis, the BoE in March slashed interest rates to a record-low 0.1 percent and pumped an extra £200 billion ($247bn, 220bn euros) in a bid to get retail banks lending to fragile businesses. That took the bank’s QE total to £645bn.
Australian unemployment reaches 7.1%
Australia’s unemployment rate has jumped to 7.1% after another 227,700 people lost their jobs thanks to coronavirus, AAP reports.
The jobless rate had already climbed from 5.2% in March to a revised 6.4 per cent in April, as the deadly global pandemic gripped the country.
May’s monthly drop in the number of people employed is the second largest on record after nearly 600,000 got sacked in April. Another poor set of figures had been expected as a result of nationwide lockdowns.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed full-time employment had decreased by 89,100 while part-time employment dropped by 138,600. The participation rate of people either in or seeking work fell by a further 0.7% to 62.9%.
Monthly hours worked fell 0.7% in May, to be down 10.2% since March.
Updated
“Children interrupting Zoom meetings could be the reboot corporate culture needed,” writes Catharine Lumby:
The other day I was in a Zoom meeting with colleagues I don’t know that well. The tone was serious and formal when suddenly everything changed. The door behind the man chairing the meeting burst open and his toddler ran in, jumped on his lap and smeared Vegemite all over his computer screen.
It reminded me of the video that went viral in 2017. Prof Robert Kelly was being interviewed live by the BBC when his small daughter strutted into the room behind him. His toddler spotted the open door and followed his sister in with great delight. The clip ends with a frantic mother removing the kids.
We may not be seeing each other at work these days but in some ways we’re seeing a lot more of each other than we anticipated. That revelation is making me think that screens might be perversely better at connecting us than face-to-face workplace life.
China’s Vice Premier Liu He said the country’s economic situation has gradually improved, and that various indicators have shown marginal progress, in prepared remarks delivered on Thursday by the chief securities regulator.
Liu also said in the remarks that China and the United States should create the conditions and atmosphere to implement the Phase 1 trade deal reached earlier this year.
The coronavirus lockdown has put a strain on Australian couples, new data has confirmed, with family therapists and lawyers noting a jump in clients seeking counselling or divorce.
A study on the impacts of Covid-19 by Relationships Australia, the leading national provider of relationship support services, found that 42% of people had experienced a negative change in their relationship with their partner during the last few months.
Its national executive officer, Nick Tebbey, said this statistic was directly related to the finding that 55% of people reported feeling challenged by their living arrangements during this time:
Podcast: the crew members trapped on cruise ships
Guardian US reporter Erin McCormick describes why thousands of crew are still stranded on cruise ships after coronavirus bought the industry to a standstill in March. Will Lees describes how it took him 82 days to get back to Canada while Perry, who hasn’t had a salary since March, is still stuck and doesn’t know when he will get home to his family in Mauritius:
As always, it would be great to hear from you on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com – questions, comments, tips and news from your part of the world are most welcome.
That press conference is now over.
“Over the last few months, our team has dealt with hundreds of compassionate leave applications - some of which have been profiled in the media and have been very tragic,” says Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
New Zealand Director General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, is speaking now at a press conference.
The two women recently arrived from Britain who were infected with Covid-19 and allowed to leave quarantine without being tested, did not break any laws, he says.
New Zealand confirms one new case
New Zealand has confirmed another coronavirus case, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has announced.
The case is a man in his 60s, who is in quarantine, the New Zealand Herald reports:
New Zealand has another new Covid-19 case.
The man is in his 60s and is now in a quarantine facility in Auckland - the Jet Park Hotel.
He flew from Pakistan to Doha and on to Melbourne on June 11, and then to Auckland on Flight NZ124 on June 13.
The man wore a mask on the flight.
He developed symptoms on June 15.
The Ministry of Health is in the process of contacting all people on the flight.
Updated
Mexico’s near-record level rise in coronavirus cases on Wednesday came as officials acknowledged the country is on a plateau with few signs of decrease, even as the economy starts reopening.
The Health Department reported that confirmed cases rose by 4,930, the second-highest daily increase to date, to reach an accumulated total of 159,793.
Deaths rose by 770, the third-highest daily number, after one-day increases of 1,092 and 816 earlier this month. Those death tolls rivaled those of the United States. Mexico’s overall death toll now stands at 19,080.
Both case and death totals are clearly undercounts because Mexico does very little testing. Moreover, reporting has been slow and faulty.
The Mexican Social Security Institute, the nation’s largest health care provider, said Wednesday that 957 confirmed Covid-19 deaths had not been added to official counts because the information had not been typed into computer systems. Mexicos official toll will probably also rise when deaths at home, or deaths where no test were performed, are added.
Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell said the numbers indicate a “progressive tendency of prolonging the epidemic ... longer than originally predicted.”
López-Gatell had originally predicted a peak in the epidemic in May, but the latest figures show a peak in early June. However, because of delays in testing and reporting and the large number of suspected coronavirus deaths and cases that may later be confirmed it is unclear when the peak occurred or it if is still to come.
He also predicted the first wave of the epidemic may not go into definitive decline until September or October, especially in some states are just starting to be hit hard.
Norway and Ireland won contested seats on the powerful UN Security Council Wednesday in a series of UN elections held under dramatically different voting procedures because of the Covid-19 pandemic, AP reports.
In the most closely watched race, Canada lost out to the two European countries for two Western seats on the 15-member council. It was Canadas second consecutive defeat in a bid for a seat and a blow to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In previous years, ambassadors from all UN member states have gathered in its vast chamber to vote by secret ballot, but the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world body to adopt new rules.
While the UN headquarters complex overlooking New Yorks East River remains open for essential workers, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has ordered staff to work from home until 31 July because of the pandemic.
On Wednesday morning the new rules went into operation a few ambassadors arriving at the assembly during spaced-out time slots to avoid a large gathering and ensure social distancing.
And instead of voting separately for the next General Assembly president, five new members of the Security Council and 18 new members of the Economic and Social Council, the three elections were held at the same time by secret ballot.
Each arriving ambassador wore a mask, presented a voting card to a UN staff member, received three different colored paper ballots in an envelope, and went up an escalator into the nearly empty chamber where Assembly president Muhammad-Bande presided over the elections.
New Zealand coronavirus defences under scrutiny as more breaches emerge
Charles Anderson reports for the Guardian from Nelson:
More reports have emerged in New Zealand of people leaving isolation without being tested and going on to meet friends, placing government officials under increasing scrutiny over the rigour of their Covid-19 quarantine rules.
Police revealed that six people absconded from managed isolation after being granted compassionate leave from Covid-19 quarantine to attend a funeral in Hamilton.
TVNZ reported that a birthday party for a girl in isolation brought people together who should not have been mingling.
A Christchurch funeral director told Stuff that about 10 people had been let out of quarantine early to attend one of the funerals it had arranged on Tuesday. Steve Parkyn, chief executive of funeral directors Lamb and Hayward, said he refused to let them attend the service after being contacted by health authorities, but they joined mourners at the burial, accompanied by a health official. Around 200 people attended the funeral.
On Tuesday, New Zealand recorded its first new cases of the virus for 24 days after two New Zealanders, sisters returning after travelling to the UK, were found to be infected. The pair, who were permitted to leave their managed isolation early to visit a dying parent, but had not been tested.
Beijing records 21 new cases
Beijing confirmed 21 new Covid-19 cases as of June 17, China’s health authority said on Thursday, down from 31 a day earlier.
Beijing logged its first case in the current outbreak, the worst in the city since early February, on 11 June. The total number of infections has risen to 158 over the past week.
Mexico’s health ministry reported on Wednesday 4,930 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections and 770 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 159,793 cases and 19,080 deaths.
The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Qantas cancels most international flights until October
Qantas Airways said on Thursday it had cancelled most international flights until late October, after the Australian government indicated its border closure because of the coronavirus was likely to extend to 2021.
“We will still have some flights scheduled across the Tasman in the coming months with the expected travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand,” the airline said in a statement, referring to the Tasman Sea between the countries.
“Should travel between Australia and other countries open up and demand return, we can add more flights back into our schedule,” it added.
UK cases pass 300,000
The number of coronavirus infections in the UK has passed 300,00, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with the current total standing at 300,717.
At least 42,238 people have died in the UK so far.
Argentina's president enters voluntary isolation amid coronavirus surge
Uki Goñi reports for the Guardian from Buenos Aires:
Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández has gone into voluntary isolation amid growing concerns over a surge of coronavirus infections, including several cases among the country’s political elite.
The decision to quarantine the president – whose popularity is riding high on his no-nonsense response to the pandemic – was taken due to the “significant increase in the circulation of the virus,” presidential doctor Federico Saavedra said in a statement on Wednesday.
Until now, Argentina’s strong coronavirus lockdown, had been a standout success in the containment of the pandemic that is ripping through its South American neighbours Brazil and Chile.
But that may start changing after Argentina’s reported cases more than quadrupled in the last month following the gradual lockdown relaxation that began on 10 May.
The sudden spike in cases has also struck a number of current and former senior politicians, including former Buenos Aires governor María Eugenia Vidal, 46, a presidential hopeful for the 2023 elections for the opposition PRO party.
Confirmed coronavirus cases in Panama reached 22,597 on Wednesday, up 635 from the previous day, and deaths climbed by 13 to 470, the health ministry said.
Director of Epidemiology Lourdes Moreno gave the Central American country’s latest data at a news conference.
Updated
Arizona governor to let mayors require masks as Covid-19 cases surge
As coronavirus cases surge across the state, Arizona’s Republican governor said he would no longer block mayors from being able to require local residents to wear masks.
But governor Doug Ducey held off from issuing a statewide mask-wearing requirement, even after hundreds of Arizona medical professionals sent him an open letter this week, outlining the evidence that masks save lives and asking him to require citizens to wear them.
Mask-wearing has become a charged partisan issue in Arizona, one of the key swing states in the 2020 election. Donald Trump is expected to visit the state for a rally next week, even as coronavirus cases and deaths are rising rapidly.
For days, the Democratic mayors of Phoenix and Tucson, the state’s two largest cities, have been speaking out, asking Ducey to change the executive order that has blocked them from mandating any public health guidelines in addition to the ones that the governor himself had approved.
WHO hails steroid treatment 'hope'
The cheap steroid British researchers believe can help save lives should be used only for the most serious cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
The WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said research was at last providing “green shoots of hope”.
Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, a generic drug used since the 1960s to reduce inflammation in diseases such as arthritis, cut death rates by around a third among the most severely ill patients admitted to hospital.
The head of the WHO’s emergencies programme, Dr Mike Ryan, said the drug should only be used in the cases where it has been shown to help.
It is exceptionally important in this case, that the drug is reserved for use in severely ill and critical patients who can benefit from this drug clearly.
Brazil cases near 1 million
Brazil recorded 1,269 additional Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday, bringing its official death toll from the novel coronavirus to 46,510, the most in the world outside the United States.
The Health Ministry also registered 32,188 new cases of the virus since its Tuesday update, for a total of 955,377 confirmed cases, also second to the United States globally.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s global live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
I’m Helen Sullivan and I’ll be with you for the next few hours.
It would be great to hear from you on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com – questions, comments, tips and news from your part of the world are most welcome.
The cheap steroid British researchers believe can help save lives should be used only for the most serious cases, the World Health Organization has said. WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said research was at last providing “green shoots of hope”.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s Covid-19 cases, the second highest in the world after the US, are nearing 1 million, with 923,189 currently confirmed. Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has resisted strong measures to stop spread of what he calls a “little flu”, with devastating consequences.
- The global death toll from coronavirus is nearing 450,000, with more than 8.2 million confirmed cases of the disease worldwide. The Johns Hopkins University tracker is recording more than 445,000 deaths from Covid-19 across the world, as of Wednesday evening UK time. One in four fatalities are in the US, making it by far the worst-hit country.
- The cheap steroid British researchers believe can help save lives should be used only for the most serious cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. The WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said research was at last providing “green shoots of hope”.
- America’s top public health expert has warned the nation it is “still in the first wave” of coronavirus infections and deaths, as six states report record numbers of new cases amid continued rapid easing of lockdown restrictions. However, the state of New York recorded 17 coronavirus deaths on 16 June, its lowest daily death toll since the start of the outbreak. Just 10 weeks ago 800 New Yorkers died in a single day, so the decline is extraordinary.
- Germany has agreed to ban large events for another four months to guard against a second spike in cases. Chancellor Angela Merkel held a meeting of all 16 state premiers where they agreed to extend the ban on big events until at least the end of October.
- Millions of people in Beijing are living under renewed restrictions as a spike in virus cases continues. The city reported another 31 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 137 in the past week. Before the recent spike, the Chinese capital had gone 57 days without a locally-transmitted case.
-
The World Health Organization (WHO) has halted trials of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug championed by Donald Trump for treating coronavirus. WHO said it had stopped testing hydroxychloroquine as part of its multi-country trial because it had showed no benefit. It comes two days after US regulators revoked the emergency authorisation for its use, amid growing evidence it doesn’t workand could cause serious side-effects.
- WHO welcomed the UK’s successful trial of dexamethasone, the low-cost anti-inflammatory drug found to save lives when used on coronavirus patients. The global body said it marked a “lifesaving breakthrough” in the fight against the virus and ordered its own analysis on the drug. However, some scientists - including South Korea’s top public health official - expressed caution on the drug.
Updated
