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Summary
Here are a few of the latest developments at a glance:
- Brazil has registered 1,022 new deaths, bringing the country’s total number of known Covid-19 fatalities from 48,954 to 49,976, while infections increased from 1,032,913 on Friday to 1,067,579 on Saturday, a rise of 34,666.
- The reproduction rate of coronavirus in Germany has jumped to 1.79, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for public health said on Saturday, far above what is needed to contain the outbreak over the longer term. The rate, published in RKI’s daily situation report, compares with a value of 1.06 on Friday.
- An Italian collective brought 67 migrants to safety on Saturday, as the first charity rescue ship reached Italian shores since authorities had decided to close all ports because of the coronavirus pandemic in April.
- The Palestinian Authority said on Saturday it was temporarily closing the cities of Hebron and Nablus in the occupied West Bank to contain the spread of coronavirus after a sharp rise in infections.
- Spain’s foreign minister Arancha Gonzalez has said that British tourists can visit the country from Sunday without facing quarantine.
- Chile’s government increased its estimated number of fatal cases to more than 7,000 on Saturday, from a previously-confirmed 4,265.
- As the number of coronavirus cases in Israel keeps growing since a number of lockdown measures have been eased, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering resuming to allow the Shin Bet secret service to track confirmed and suspected cases.
- Iran is considering making it mandatory within days to wear masks in public places and covered spaces, president Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday, as the tally of confirmed coronavirus cases continued to rise above 200,000.
- Greece has announced another extension of the coronavirus lockdown on its migrant camps, hours after 2,000 people protested in central Athens to mark World Refugee Day and denounce the government’s treatment of migrants.
- Portuguese prosecutors said on Saturday they had launched an investigation into a birthday party attended by scores of people in the town of Lagos on 7 June, which could have led to many new coronavirus infections.
Updated
Brazil death toll nears 50,000
Brazil has registered 1,022 new deaths, bringing the country’s total number of known Covid-19 fatalities from 48,954 to 49,976, the health ministry said on Saturday.
The tally of confirmed infections increased from 1,032,913 on Friday to 1,067,579 on Saturday, a rise of 34,666.
Experts say the true numbers are likely far higher due to a lack of widespread testing.
Since first arriving in the continent-sized country, the virus has spread relentlessly, eroding support for right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro and raising fears of economic collapse after years of anemic growth, Reuters reports.
Bolsonaro, sometimes called the “Tropical Trump,” has been widely criticised for his handling of the crisis.
The country still has no permanent health minister after losing two since April, following clashes with the president.
Bolsonaro has shunned social distancing, calling it a job-killing measure more dangerous than the virus itself.
He has also promoted two anti-malarial drugs as remedies, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, despite little evidence they work.
Updated
The Palestinian Authority said on Saturday it was temporarily closing the cities of Hebron and Nablus in the occupied West Bank to contain the spread of coronavirus after a sharp rise in infections.
“The government decided to close the governorate of Hebron to prevent anyone from entering or exiting, with the exception of the transport of merchandise,” Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said.
He told a news conference that Hebron would be closed for five days and Nablus for 48 hours, according to AFP.
The measures come after an increase in Covid-19 infections in both cities.
Hebron saw 48 new cases on Saturday, bringing the total to 258, while authorities have reported 23 cases in Nablus.
Updated
The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mines ministry has proposed lifting lockdowns at mining operations after workers went on strike to protest compulsory on-site confinements during the coronavirus outbreak, Agence France-Presse reports.
Human rights organisations said earlier this month that mining workers in the vast African country were being forced to stay in overcrowded, unsanitary accommodations.
During a council meeting on Friday government ministers acknowledged the “abysmal housing conditions” of employees in the mineral-rich Katanga region.
Since a lockdown was put in place on 10 March by companies producing cobalt and copper, many employees have been forced to work beyond their eight-hour shifts with no additional pay, according to a group of local and international NGOs.
An Italian collective brought dozens of migrants to safety on Saturday, as the first charity rescue ship reached Italian shores since authorities had decided to close all ports because of the coronavirus pandemic in April.
The arrival of the Mare Ionio ship in Pozzallo, Sicily, on World Refugee Day, was hailed by human rights organisations who noted the unusual speed with which Italy assigned the Mediterranea charity group a port.
“For once, the international law obliging the offer of a safe port, in a short time, has been respected,” the group’s head Alessandra Sciurba said in a statement.
The Mare Ionio rescued 67 people on Friday after their boat ran into difficulty some 40 nautical miles (70km) off Lampedusa. The group said the migrants had been without water for two days.
“For the first time for years, a ‘place of safety’ has been assigned in less than 24 hours. It should be automatic,” Italian journalist and migrant specialist Nello Scavo tweeted.
Mediterranea called for a port of safety to be extended also to the crew and migrants aboard the German Sea Watch 3 vessel, which took onboard around 100 people off the coast of Libya earlier this week.
The Italian group said it was patrolling the central Mediterranean because European governments were failing to fulfil their responsibility “to safeguard human lives”.
The International Organization for Migration’s spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo told AFP that at least 227 people had died while attempting the perilous crossing since the start of the year.
Updated
Chile’s death toll nearly doubles
Chile on Saturday increased its estimate of cases and deaths caused by the coronavirus, and reported that the official death toll had almost doubled.
Amid an effort re-organise its much-criticised reporting of virus-related deaths, the government increased its estimated number of fatal cases to more than 7,000 from a previously-confirmed 4,265, the Financial Post reports.
“In relation to those who died due to Covid-19 without laboratory confirmation, that is, deaths in which Covid-19 is a possible or probable cause, the number rises by 3,069,” said Rafael Araos, the country’s chief epidemiologist.
President Sebastian Pinera this month replaced the country’s health minister as controversy grew over the country’s coronavirus figures.
Official data show there have been 236,748 infections in Chile so far.
Israel now has 20,633 coronavirus cases, a rise of 294 since Friday evening, Haaretz reports.
One person has died, bringing the total death toll to 305.
40 people are now in a severe condition, and 27 are on ventilators.
In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 810 people tested positive; two people have died.
In the Gaza Strip, 72 people were diagnosed and one person has died.
As the number of coronavirus cases in Israel keeps growing since a number of lockdown measures have been eased, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering resuming to allow the Shin Bet secret service to track confirmed and suspected cases, sources familiar with the issue told Haaretz.
Updated
Iran is considering making it mandatory within days to wear masks in public places and covered spaces, president Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday, as the tally of confirmed coronavirus cases continued to rise above 200,000.
The health ministry announced 115 deaths in the 24 hours to Saturday, taking the total to 9,507.
There were 2,322 reported new cases bringing the total to 202,584 in what is the Middle East’s worst-affected country, Reuters reports.
“Mainly for crowded and covered areas [...] we may make [masks] compulsory in a week, more or less,” Rouhani said.
“But first, plenty of inexpensive masks should be made available for the people,” he said during a broadcast on state television.
Updated
The number of deaths in France from Covid-19 has risen by 19 from Friday to stand at 29,633, the health ministry said on Saturday.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 641 to 160,093.
France’s coronavirus death toll is the fifth-highest in the world.
Greece has announced another extension of the coronavirus lockdown on its migrant camps, hours after 2,000 people protested in central Athens to mark World Refugee Day and denounce the government’s treatment of migrants, according to Agence France-Presse.
The migration ministry said confinement for residents of reception and identification centres across the country would be extended to 5 July. It was due to have ended on Monday.
Greece was quick to introduce strict confinement measures on migrant camps on 21 March and imposed a more general lockdown on 23 March. Rights groups have expressed concern that migrants’ rights have been eroded by the restrictions.
Updated
The reproduction of rate of coronavirus in Germany has jumped to 1.79, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for public health said on Saturday, far above what is needed to contain the outbreak over the longer term.
The rate, published in RKI’s daily situation report, compares with a value of 1.06 on Friday.
A reproduction rate, or ‘R’, of 1.79 means that 100 people who contracted the virus infect, on average, 179 other people.
A reproduction of less than 1 is needed to gradually contain the disease.
Chancellor Angela Merkel had previously said that lockdown measures might be reintroduced if the transmission rate would accelerate again.
Updated
Portuguese prosecutors said on Saturday they had launched an investigation into a birthday party attended by scores of people which could have led to many new coronavirus infections.
Prosecutors in the southern Faro region said they were probing a late-night party on 7 June “gathering scores of people” in the beach town of Lagos, which took place despite a ban on gatherings of more than 20, Agence France-Presse reports.
There have been a little over 1,500 Covid-19 deaths in Portugal and 38,841 cases out of a population of some 10 million.
The party “could be the origin of an outbreak of Covid-19 infections”, they said.
Local media cited health officials as saying that the party could have caused about 100 new coronavirus cases.
“Those who think they can resume a normal life are gravely mistaken,” health minister Marta Temido said on Friday.
Most of the cases have surfaced in the capital Lisbon and surrounding areas.
On Thursday, Portugal had the highest daily rate of infections in the European Union after Sweden by population size.
“We are finding it hard to break the transmission chains,” Temido said.
There has been an outcry in Portugal over quarantine measures or coronavirus tests imposed on nationals travelling to other countries in the EU’s visa-free Schengen zone.
Updated
Like in many other countries, Black Lives Matter protests in small towns as well as big cities in the UK continued taking place this week, with people often defying appeals from the government to refrain from gathering in large numbers.
My colleagues Kyri Evangelou, Alex Healey and Katie Lamborn report.
Updated
Spain will not quarantine UK visitors
Spain’s foreign minister Arancha Gonzalez has said that British tourists can visit the country from Sunday without facing quarantine.
Spain will reopen its borders to visitors from other EU countries and the Schengen area on Sunday, with the exception of Portugal, which has asked Madrid to delay the opening of the land border until 1 July, when Spain will begin welcoming travellers from the rest of the world.
A partir del 21 de junio abrimos las fronteras y levantamos la cuarentena para los países 🇪🇺y espacio Schengen tb para el Reino Unido 🇬🇧
— Arancha González (@AranchaGlezLaya) June 20, 2020
(🇵🇹 1 julio)
con control sanitario en frontera
recordamos respetar estrictamente las recomendaciones sanitarias#SpainForSure @MAECgob
Just on Friday, Gonzalez had said that Spain may impose quarantine on British travellers, as a response to the same measure taken last week by Britain’s government.
But Gonzalez said that she expected Britain would lift its restrictions, making it unnecessary for the Spanish side to apply reciprocity.
About 12 per cent of Spain’s economy is based on the tourism sector.
According to the report of National Institute of Statistics, nearly 18 million British tourists visited Spain in 2019, more than a fifth of the overall total of nearly 84 million visitors.
Updated
Florida sees record daily rise in infections
The US state of Florida has reported 4,049 new infections on Saturday, the biggest daily increase since the beginning of the outbreak.
The state’s total number of confirmed infections is now 93,797.
Infections rose by 4.5% over the past 24 hours, compared with an average increase of 3.4% in the previous seven days, Bloomberg reports.
Deaths among Florida residents reached 3,144, an increase of 1.3%, the state health department reported.
Cumulative hospitalisations of Florida residents rose by 165, or 1.3%, to 12,939.
On Thursday and Friday, Florida also recorded daily infection records of 3,207 and 3,822 new cases, respectively, as we reported earlier.
It has been seven weeks since Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, an ally of US president Donald Trump, took a coronavirus “victory lap” and pressed ahead with a swift reopening programme in the state while berating the media for a “doom and gloom” approach to the pandemic.
Updated
Italy reported 49 deaths from Covid-19 on Saturday, compared with 47 a day earlier, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new cases rose to 262 from 251 on Friday.
The country’s official virus death toll since 21 February now stands at 34,610, the agency said, the world’s fourth-highest after the United States, Brazil and Britain.
The number of confirmed cases amounts to 238,275, the eighth-highest global tally, Reuters reports.
The agency said a recalculation in the regional count meant two fewer cases were reported in previous days.
The number of people registered as currently carrying the illness fell to 21,212 from 21,543 the day before.
There were 152 people in intensive care on Saturday, down from 161 on Friday. Of those originally infected, 182,453 were declared recovered against 181,907 a day earlier.
The agency said 3.017 million people in the country of 60 million had been tested for the virus, up from 2.987 million on Friday.
People gathered in a number of Italian cities on Friday and Saturday to protest against the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and poor conditions for workers.
In Milan, demonstrators protested against the regional government of Lombardy, the region in Italy that was worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In Naples, a rally was held in memory of Mohamed Ben Ali on Friday, a 37-year-old musician and craftsman, asylum seeker and resident of the city for over three years, who died in a fire in a migrant shanty town in Borgo Mezzanone, near Foggia, on 12 June.
Updated
Spain’s coronavirus state of emergency may come to an end, but its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has urged people not to lower their guard as the country prepares to reopen its borders to European visitors.
My colleague Sam Jones reports from Madrid.
Updated
All Germans should sign up for Covid-19 tracking app, Merkel urges
All residents of Germany should take advantage of a coronavirus app designed to “recognise and break up infection chains”, the country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, urged in her weekly video message on Saturday, as a new outbreak of the virus kept growing.
“The more people who participate, the greater its usefulness,” Merkel said, according to DPA.
The Corona Warn app was released this week after months of development. It works by storing information about the users’ movements on their phone, and also keeps track whenever it comes into the proximity of another phone carrying the app.
However, due to high data volumes, there are questions about how useful it can be, since older phones might have trouble coping. There is also resistance from privacy advocates against a system that tracks people’s movement.
Use of the app is voluntary. Germany has a strongly ingrained tradition of personal privacy due to its experiences with state spying on citizens during the Nazi era and by the government of former East Germany.
Sceptics have also questioned why the app only came out in June, after the worst rise in infection rates seemed to have passed, although several new infection clusters emerged in the last week and led to local and regional lockdowns.
Health authorities and the military are battling to get a fresh outbreak in a slaughterhouse under control in Rheda-Wiedenbrück in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where a fresh outbreak is threatening to force a new regional shutdown.
Many of the infected at the Tönnies slaughterhouse are Bulgarian and Romanian nationals. Health workers have verified more than 800 coronavirus infections in a workforce of 1,450, which has prompted all workers to be put in some form of quarantine.
However, that measure might not be enough, as workers might have infected friends and family members who might have, in turn, spread it even further.
Officials in the state are set to discuss the situation on Sunday.
Its premier, Armin Laschet, has also been one of the German leaders pushing most vigorously for a relaxation of coronavirus guidelines.
Alongside the virus concerns, the outbreak has sparked worries about food safety at Germany’s slaughterhouses, which have been the source of a steady stream of coronavirus hotspots in the last few weeks.
Health experts suspect the disease might spread more readily in the working conditions common in such facilities.
Updated
Montenegro scheduled a parliamentary election for August on Saturday despite a return of the coronavirus two weeks after it had declared the end of the epidemic, Agence France-Presse reports.
Montenegro declared itself virus-free on 2 June, but two weeks later registered a few dozen new infections. Authorities blamed citizens who attended a football match in neighbouring Serbia.
The country’s president, Milo Djukanovic, scheduled the election for 30 August in the Adriatic country of 620,000 people that became independent in 2006 following a split with Serbia.
The opposition refused to take part in talks with the president over the election date earlier this weel, claiming that the conditions for a free and fair vote were worse than four years ago.
Protests over a religious freedom law adopted in December also rattled the country. Serbian Orthodox priests and believers object to the law, which could make many of the church’s monasteries state property.
The last election in 2016 deepened political rifts between the pro-western government and a variety of opposition parties that are close to Serbia and Russia.
Two opposition leaders and a group of Serbian citizens were jailed for plotting a coup during the vote to stop Montenegro joining Naro. The country became a Nato member in mid-2017.
Djukanovic and his Democratic Party of Socialists have been in power since the fall of communism in early 1990s, when Montenegro was part of federal Yugoslavia.
The country, which aspires to join the European Union, is also facing a grim economic crisis following the pandemic.
Its income is expected to fall by up to 70 percent, particularly in tourism, which makes a quarter of Montenegro’s gross domestic product.
According to a World Bank forecast the country’s GDP will shrink up to 8.9 per cent in 2020.
So far the country has registered a total of 355 coronavirus cases, including nine deaths.
Updated
A 78-year-old woman has died of coronavirus in Hong Kong, taking the death toll from Covid-19 in the city to five, with 1,129 cases.
Hong Kong has eased physical distancing measures intended to curb the spread of the virus. The latest rules allow gatherings of up to 50 people, according to Reuters.
Chinese state media announced on Saturday that Beijing would set up a “national security agency” in Hong Kong to oversee a forthcoming new law intended to crack down on dissent in the city, according to Agence France-Presse.
The new law also would override existing Hong Kong laws that conflict with it once implemented, the Xinhua news agency said in a report on the draft legislation.
The report followed the conclusion of a meeting in Beijing of China’s top law-making committee, which reviewed draft provisions intended to snuff out the pro-democracy movement that has rocked the semi-autonomous city.
The fast-tracking of the bill, which is bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature, raised international concern that it will end the financial hub’s limited freedoms and usher in a new era of repression.
Updated
Hello, I’m taking over from my colleague Sarah Marsh. Please feel free to get in touch with relevant updates, you can either email me or message me on Twitter.
Reflecting on the protests that have swept the globe in recent weeks, the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has told the BBC: “It feels like we have passed some kind of social tipping point where people are starting to realise that we cannot keep looking away from these things. We cannot keep sweeping these things under the carpet, these injustices.”
Updated
Summary
• The head of the World Health Organization said on Friday that the pandemic is accelerating and that more than 150,000 cases were reported the day before, the highest single-day number so far. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva that nearly half of the newly reported cases were in the Americas, with significant numbers in South Asia and the Middle East.
• Vladimir Putin has hailed “hero” doctors who died during the coronavirus epidemic, comparing them to battlefield medics from past wars. It came ahead of next month’s controversial vote that is expected to extend the Russian president’s hold on power until 2036. The state health watchdog said this week that nearly 500 medics who tested positive for the coronavirus had died, a high number compared to other countries.
• French protesters doused the country’s health ministry with red paint on Saturday to symbolise the blood of those who have died of Covid-19 and to demonstrate against poor working conditions for public sector healthcare workers. “For years, health workers have been alerting us to the fact they don’t have enough resources with regards to staff, beds and equipment to be able to allow us to look after people decently,” Aurelie Trouve, a spokeswoman for the Attac activist group which was behind the protest, told Reuters.
• Sunday night’s AFL match between Essendon and Melbourne has been postponed after the Essendon player Conner McKenna tested positive for Covid-19.
• The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma is braced for Donald Trump’s first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic struck the US, claiming more than 118,000 lives so far. The indoor rally at Tulsa’s 19,000-person capacity BOK Center comes as the city and the state of Oklahoma experience a surge in Covid-19 cases and local public health officials urge the campaign to reschedule the event for fear the close contact between attendees, who will not be obliged to wear face masks, could lead to more deaths.
Updated
Hello. I am running the Guardian’s global live feed today. Please get in touch with me if you want to share any comments or news tips via any of the channels below.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin,has hailed “hero” doctors who died during the coronavirus epidemic, comparing them to battlefield medics from past wars.
Putin, who spoke ahead of next month’s controversial vote that is expected to extend his hold on power until 2036, also promised awards and more bonuses for health personnel.
The state health watchdog said this week that nearly 500 medics who tested positive for the coronavirus had died, a huge death toll compared with other countries with large outbreaks.
During a video link-up with medics across the country, Putin expressed condolences to those who had lost their colleagues and loved ones.
“The dreadful, insidious infection has not spared your colleagues,” he said, calling those who had died “true heroes.”
“The selfless feat of medical workers during the epidemic will go down in the history of our medicine and our country,” he said.
Putin said the medics’ work was on a par with “the valiant service of doctors and nurses” during the first and second world wars.
Updated
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Saturday that Turkey had lost some ground in its battle with the coronavirus but a focus on hygiene, masks and social distancing will protect people and help the economy rebound in the second half of the year.
This month, Ankara opened restaurants and cafes and lifted weekend stay-at-home orders and most intercity travel bans. But since 1 June, new Covid-19 cases have doubled to nearly 1,600 per day, raising concerns of a re-emergence.
“The numbers in recent days show that we have lost our position in the fight against the epidemic,” Erdogan said in a televised address. “But we aim to remove the pandemic from our agenda by respecting the cleaning, mask and distance rules.”
Face masks were made compulsory in major cities on Thursday. On Friday, new virus cases dipped to just over 1,200 with total cases at more than 185,000, t13th highest in the world.
Updated
A pop-up covid test station was set up in Tian Shi Ming Yuan community, Beijing offering free tests to its 8k residents after 2 residents tested positive earlier today. #COVID19 #Beijing @sloumarsh pic.twitter.com/5R0YbS7Ndg
— Hong Wang (@hongyanewang) June 20, 2020
NHS England said a further 71 people have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 28,292.
Another death has been recorded in Wales, taking the total there to 1,476. Public Health Wales said a further 25 positive cases of Covid-19 had also been reported, taking that tally to 15,026.
Find out more about the UK via our live feed here.
Updated
More than 150,000 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded on Thursday, the highest single-day number so far (see 11.09am), the chief of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said. The new cases were mostly reported in the Americas, with significant numbers from South Asia and the Middle East.
The pandemic is accelerating. More than 150,000 new cases of Covid-19 were reported to WHO yesterday – the most in a single day so far ... The virus is still spreading fast. It is still deadly. And most people are still susceptible. We call on all countries and all people to exercise extreme vigilance.
As the pandemic gathers pace, it’s the most vulnerable who will suffer the most ... Ahead of #WorldRefugeeDay, I am grateful to my brother Filippo Grandi for joining our media briefing to highlight the risks for refugees, some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
Updated
French cinemas will open at midnight on Monday and thousands will take to the streets for the annual midsummer music festival, as the country takes another major step in the reopening.
The annual Festival of Music usually brings millions of people out in towns and cities across the country with a mix of large-scale events and impromptu concerts in cafes and on street corners that go on long into the night, AFP reports.
But this year there are few big set-piece extravaganzas beyond what French electronic music legend Jean-Michel Jarre has billed as the world’s first live virtual “avatar” concert - “like in the Matrix”.
Physical distancing means that the Accord Arena in Paris will only be able to welcome 2,000 fans - a tenth of its normal capacity. Gatherings of more than 10 people are still banned in France, but the culture ministry said police would be tolerant with outdoor jamming sessions if people keep their distance.
Having rushed back to the terraces of their cafes and restaurants earlier this month, millions of French people are also waiting with bated breath for cinemas to reopen. Casinos will also welcome gamblers from Monday while stadiums and racetracks will reopen on 11 July, subject to a limit of 5,000 people.
Millions of children are also getting set to return to school for the last few weeks before summer holidays, after roughly three months at home.
Updated
Pope Francis has held his first audience for a group of people since Italy lifted its coronavirus lockdown, granting it to health workers from the Italian region most affected by the pandemic.
“You were one of the supporting pillars of the entire country,” he told doctors and nurses from the Lombardy region gathered in the Vatican’s frescoed Clementine Hall, which had not been used for months because of the crisis.
“To those of you here and to your colleagues all across Italy go my esteem and my sincere thanks, and I know very well I am interpreting everyone’s sentiments,” he said.
He thanked the health workers, who wore masks, for being “angels”, including by lending their mobile phones to dying patients so they could say their final goodbyes to their loved ones.
Italy returned to relative normality on 3 June, when people were allowed to move between regions again. Rules such as physical distancing in public and wearing masks are still in effect.
Nearly 35,000 people in Italy have died of coronavirus, the fourth highest number in the world after the US, Brazil and the UK.
Updated
The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma is braced for Donald Trump’s first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic struck the US, claiming more than 118,000 lives so far.
The indoor rally at Tulsa’s 19,000-person capacity BOK Center comes as the city and the state of Oklahoma experience a surge in Covid-19 cases and local public health officials urge the campaign to reschedule the event for fear the close contact between attendees, who will not be obliged to wear face masks, could lead to more deaths.
Trump has promised a “wild evening” for his supporters in Tulsa and used Twitter to threaten “protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes” in the city that they would “not be treated” in the same way they have in other parts of the country.
Trump’s decision to hold a mass rally in Tulsa has drawn outrage from the local black community as well as others who have poured onto the streets in protest following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
The rally will take place within a mile of the historic Greenwood district, the site of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the most violent episodes of racist violence in modern American history that still haunts the city. It also occurs the day after Juneteenth, a national day of commemoration to memorialize the ending of slavery in the United States.
The city celebrated the Juneteenth with a large rally in Greenwood on Friday evening, with a few thousand attendees. The event was headlined by the veteran civil rights campaigner Reverend Al Sharpton.
In an interview with the Guardian before he took to the stage, Sharpton, who was escorted to the stage by three police officers, said he had received death threats tied to his appearance.
“I wanted to be here, and no threat would stop me from speaking today,” Sharpton said.
Updated
Donald Trump will hold a rally with thousands of supporters in Oklahoma on Saturday in an effort to reinvigorate his re-election campaign.
Trump has come under fire for his response to the coronavirus and to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in the custody of Minneapolis police.
He drew more criticism for his decision to hold his first rally since schools and businesses were shut in March to stop the spread of coronavirus in Tulsa, the site of the country’s bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence against black Americans about 100 years ago.
Oklahoma has reported a surge in new Covid-19 infections in recent days, and the state’s department of health has warned that attendees at the 19,000-seat BOK Center venue face an increased risk of catching the virus.
The Republican president is trailing the presumptive democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, in polls ahead of the November election.
Supporters are delighted to see Trump back on the campaign trail, and those wanting to attend far outstripped the number of seats available, Trump campaign officials said.
Mike Boatman, 52, said he had arrived in Tulsa from southern Indiana on Monday to ensure he secured his spot.
“Over one million tickets being requested for this, so I wanted to be here early,” he said. “This ain’t nothing. I mean, what our president does for us every day, he sacrifices for us, every one of us, no matter who we are, whether we are black, white, Asian, yellow. He don’t care.”
The country’s racial divide remains a political vulnerability. Trump’s “law and order” reaction to the protests triggered by Floyd’s death has put him at odds with the views of most Americans.
After intense criticism, he postponed the rally by a day so that it did not coincide with the anniversary of the 19 June commemoration of the end of black slavery in the US.
He threatened on Friday to take unspecified action against any “protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes” who traveled to Oklahoma, a warning his campaign said was not aimed at peaceful demonstrators. Critics accused Trump of trying to provoke conflict.
White House and Trump campaign officials have largely dismissed concerns about the rally’s safety, saying masks and hand sanitiser will be available. Participants are required, however, to waive their right to sue if they contract the coronavirus at the event.
Outside the venue, Michigan resident Saundra Kiczenski, 40, said this would be her 36th Trump rally and her 19th state. She wondered how public health concerns would change things.
“Are they going to have, like chairs on the floor, like spread out like that? Are they going to have everybody together like we were?” Kiczenski asked. “It’s kind of a different thing for everybody, come to this one and then see how things are going to change going to November.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, told Fox News on Friday that he would probably wear a mask to the rally, but the White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters she would not. Trump has eschewed wearing a mask in public.
Strategists and former administrations officials say Trump must convince voters that his policies will pull the US out of the recession sparked by the economic shutdown triggered by the coronavirus outbreak.
Updated
It has been seven weeks since Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis took a coronavirus “victory lap”, pressing ahead with a swift reopening program while berating the media for a “doom and gloom” approach he said bore little relation to reality.
“We haven’t seen an explosion of new cases,” DeSantis insisted during a 29 April news conference, a day on which the state’s Covid-19 tally increased by 347.
“There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” the keen Trump ally said.
This week, however, it became clear that the Republican governor’s garden of roses is wilting fast in the face of a resurgent virus.
Read more here.
Updated
Zimbabwe’s health minister was expected to appear in court on Saturday to face allegations of illegally awarding a multimillion-dollar contract for Covid-19 testing kits, drugs and personal protective equipment to a shadowy company.
The country’s anti-corruption agency arrested Obadiah Moyo on Friday. Local journalists exposed on social media how Moyo allegedly chose the company to sell medical supplies to the government at inflated prices that included face masks for $28 each.
The government cancelled the contracts following public uproar. One of the sons of the country’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was forced to issue a statement denying links to the company after pictures emerged of the firm’s Zimbabwean representative in the company of the president and his wife and sons at several events.
The representative, Delish Nguwaya, and top officials of the national drugs procurement agency are already facing criminal charges related to the scandal.
Nguwaya is accused of lying in saying the company was a drug manufacturer based in Switzerland, when in reality it was merely a consulting company with no experience in pharmaceutical production, according to the charge sheet.
The scandal comes as health professionals including nurses and doctors strike to demand to be paid their salaries in US dollars. They argue that inflation that is now above 750% and the erosion of the value of local currency have rendered incomes worthless. Most traders charge for their goods in US dollars.
The health professionals have also complained about a lack of adequate protective gear as the number of coronavirus cases rises. Zimbabwe has nearly 500 cases.
Updated
The US state department says Covid-19 infections have been reported at its embassy in the Afghan capital and that those affected include diplomats, contractors and locally employed staff.
It did not say how many people were affected. An official at the Kabul embassy, who could not be identified because they were not authorised to talk to the media, said as many as 20 people had been infected, the majority Nepalese Gurkhas who provide embassy security.
The embassy is implementing all appropriate measures to mitigate the spread of Covid-19, the state department said. The infected staff are in isolation in the embassy and the remainder on the compound are being tested, the embassy official said.
Updated
Pandemic accelerating with 150,000 cases in a day, says WHO
The head of the World Health Organization said on Friday that the pandemic is accelerating and that more than 150,000 cases were reported the day before, the highest single-day number so far.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva that nearly half of the newly reported cases were in the Americas, with significant numbers from South Asia and the Middle East.
Brazil’s health ministry said the total number of cases had risen by more than 50,000 from the previous day. The country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, still downplays the risks of the virus after nearly 50,000 fatalities in three months, saying the impact of social isolation on Brazil’s economy could be more deadly.
Covid-19 has infected more than 8.5 million people worldwide and killed more than 454,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual number is thought to be much higher because many cases are asymptomatic or go untested.
Updated
Beijing recorded a further drop in coronavirus cases after tightening containment measures, while Brazil surpassed a million confirmed infections, second only to the US.
Europe continues to emerge warily from lockdown, and Britain is considering easing physical-distancing rules to make it easier for restaurants, pubs and schools to reopen.
Officials reported 22 new cases in Beijing on Saturday, along with five others elsewhere in China. There were no new deaths and 308 people remained in hospital for treatment.
South Korea recorded 67 new cases, the largest 24-hour increase in about three weeks. Most of them come from the densely populated Seoul area, where about half of the country’s 51 million people reside. Many cases have been linked to exposure in nightlife outlets.
Updated
Kyrgyzstan has shut down public transport in the capital Bishkek and the routes between all of its provinces until Monday, the country’s prime minister, Kubatbek Boronov, said on Saturday.
The move came as the number of new coronavirus cases rose by 192.
“We must ensure the country’s full readiness for a worsening of the epidemiological situation,” Boronov said. “We see daily growth in new Covid-19 cases.”
The former Soviet republic of 6.5 million people, which now has 2,981 reported cases of the virus, ended a state of emergency accompanied by curfews and lockdowns in May.
Neighbouring Kazakhstan, which has 25,000 confirmed cases, has also introduced new weekend restrictions. It has closed all shopping centres, markets and parks in major cities as it deals with a second wave of the outbreak.
Updated
The Afghan health ministry has said the next two months will be the peak of the country’s outbreak as the number infections passed 28,000 and a key testing laboratory resumed working after a week-long pause because of lack of kits.
Ahmad Jawad Osmani, the country’s acting health minister, said on Friday that Afghanistan is “near the peak of the crisis and it will continue for the coming one or two months and from then the daily infections will drop.”
Osmani said that from the $15m budget which the government allocated to help fight the virus, only $800,000 remained. “We spent $12m to buy a thousand ventilators and three million were sent to provinces.” An extra $100m in aid from the World Bank will be spent on equipping the Covid-19 laboratories and hospitals through the WHO and Unicef, Osmani said.
The health ministry announced 546 new cases from 1,459 tests on Saturday, raising the total number of infections to 28,424. The number of deaths rose by 21 to 569.
The country, which admitted it lacked testing capacity, has tested 63,951 suspected patients since the outbreak began. There have been 8,292 recoveries.
Kabul still leads new daily infections with 173 and seven deaths. The Afghan capital is the country’s worst-affected area with 11,743 cases and 133 deaths.
The remote province of Khost, which borders Pakistan, recorded its worst day of the crisis after nine patients died on Friday night and 68 new cases were confirmed. Helmand province recorded three more deaths from the virus.
Updated
The Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis has decided to halt a clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19, citing problems in recruiting enough patients for its study.
“Novartis has made the decision to stop and discontinue its sponsored HCQ clinical trial for Covid-19 due to acute enrolment challenges that have made trial completion infeasible,” the company said in a statement late on Friday.
This problem “made it unlikely that the clinical team will be able to collect meaningful data in a reasonable timeframe,” it said. “No safety issues have been reported, and there are no conclusions on efficacy from the study.”
Hydroxychloroquine and its related compound chloroquine have traditionally been used to treat malaria, and with a known antiviral potential it was seen as a possible treatment in the early days of the pandemic.
Despite recognised and serious side effects, Donald Trump touted it widely as a Covid-19 treatment at a time when there is no vaccine for the disease and other potentially effective drugs are only just beginning to be identified.
Novartis said in April that it would sponsor a phase-three clinical trial of around 440 patients in agreement with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Updated
There have been calls in the UK for clarity on what should happen for the 2.2 million people who have been shielding since the start of the pandemic.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 35% of the shielding population report that their mental health and wellbeing has worsened due to the pandemic. Recently updated government guidelines allow shielders to leave their house while taking precautions, but many are calling for more advice.
Omg still nothing at the #PressBriefing #COVID19 on #Shielders and despite being promised answers on the 15th June or this week and then very very soon, now @GavinWilliamson says the next few weeks. We really do feel like #forgottenshielders https://t.co/l50whamo30
— Vicky Foxcroft MP (@vickyfoxcroft) June 19, 2020
Follow @NicolaSturgeon @BorisJohnson @CMO_England and give us clarity! You scared us enough to keep us at home and protect the @NHSuk now what? #forgottenshielding #shieldersarestillhere pic.twitter.com/Z48fUk4lW5
— Clare Davey (@clare91393502) June 20, 2020
Updated
French protesters doused the country’s health ministry with red paint on Saturday to symbolise the blood of those who have died of Covid-19 and to demonstrate against poor working conditions for public sector healthcare workers.
“For years, health workers have been alerting us to the fact they don’t have enough resources with regards to staff, beds and equipment to be able to allow us to look after people decently,” Aurelie Trouve, a spokeswoman for the Attac activist group which was behind the protest, told Reuters.
The protesters also placed a giant “medal of contempt” on the steps of the ministry to highlight what they said was the government’s failure to listen to healthcare workers’ concerns.
The government has decided to pay a €1,500 bonus to public sector healthcare workers in recognition of their role during the coronavirus outbreak. Many in the sector, however, feel the government should do more for them, and violence broke out this week at another protest held by healthcare workers in Paris.
Updated
Hello everyone, I am now running the Guardian’s live feed. Please do share any comments and news tips with me while I work, it’s always really useful to hear from readers.
Thanks in advance.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
Indonesia reported 1,226 new coronavirus infections and on Saturday, taking its total to 45,029.
Achmad Yurianto, a health ministry official, said there were 56 more deaths reported, with total fatalities now at 2,429, the highest coronavirus death toll in East Asia outside of China.
Updated
In Yemen, 80% of the population is reliant on humanitarian aid. One in eight people have been internally displaced by the six-year conflict and 280,000 foreign refugees also live there. It hosts the world’s second-largest Somali refugee population.
After Houthi authorities announced their first coronavirus case in a Somali national found dead in a Sana’a hotel, African migrants and refugees have been increasingly stigmatised, the UN and migrants said.
“They ask ‘what’s your nationality: Yemen, Somalia?’ I say Somali and they say ‘sorry, goodbye’,” Hassan said of potential customers.
Tensions between host and refugee and migrant communities over Yemen’s scarce resources have historically been low, but the relationship is coming under strain as Yemen’s woes deepen, according to Jean-Nicolas Beuze of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
Alongside refugees, around 100,000 migrants also arrive each year by sea from the Horn of Africa hoping to trek north into Saudi Arabia and beyond.
As coronavirus concerns mount, the UN migration agency IOM says migrants are being forcibly transferred out of urban areas to hard-to-access locations, including more than 1,300 forcibly moved north to south since late April.
Ethiopian migrant Abdelaziz came by sea, but said his journey to Saudi Arabia was blocked by northern authorities. “There were 250 of us on the sea journey we paid 1,500 Saudi riyals ($400) for. Around five died,” he said from the bare roadside garden where he and dozens of other African migrants sleep on cardboard.
“We have nothing to eat and drink,” he told Reuters. “The people are tired of helping us.”
Updated
Greta Thunberg says the world needs to learn the lessons of coronavirus and treat climate change with similar urgency, which means acting “with necessary force”.
In an interview with the BBC, she said she doesn’t think a “green recovery plan” will solve the crisis alone. She said the world was now passing a “social tipping point” on climate and issues such as Black Lives Matter.
“People are starting to realise that we cannot keep looking away from these things,” she said. “We cannot keep sweeping these injustices under the carpet.”
She also said lockdown had given her time to relax and reflect away from the public gaze.
Updated
Russia on Saturday reported 7,889 new cases of the novel coronavirus, pushing its nationwide case tally to 576,952 since the crisis began. The national coronavirus response centre said 161 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 8,002.
A scientist advising the UK government’s coronavirus response said it would now be reasonable to reduce the two-metre rule to just one with “various caveats and other precautions”.
The University of Liverpool’s Professor Calum Semple, a member of the scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
The reason that I change my mind now and whereas I was of a very different opinion three weeks ago is that now we are in a position where there are low levels and sustained low levels of transmission throughout the country.
I’m still saying two metres is safer than one but in my opinion it is now a reasonable political decision to relax these rules, perhaps accelerate school opening and start opening up other parts of the economy, where it becomes harder to maintain the two-metre rule and where you might envisage going down to one metre with various caveats and other precautions and have a nuanced and flexible approach to allow parts of society to get going.
Updated
Donald Trump is set to hold a rally in Oklahoma on Saturday - his first campaign gathering since the coronavirus pandemic broke out.
The rally is shaping up to be one of the biggest indoor events in the US since large gatherings were shut down in March because of the coronavirus, and it has been scheduled over the protests of local health officials and as Covid-19 cases spike in many states.
It’s been more than three months since the nation last saw a Trump rally. The unemployment rate stood at about 3.5% that March 2. The number of coronavirus cases in the US was estimated at 91. Our country is stronger than ever before, Trump declared.
Hello everyone, I am now running the Guardian’s live feed. Please do share any comments and news tips with me while I work, it’s always really useful to hear from readers. Thanks in advance.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
On that note I am going to hand this blog over to my colleague Sarah Marsh in the UK.
Stay safe, be sensible, and if you’re in Victoria like me: stop holding big family gatherings, please, or New South Wales will laugh at us.
Japan has reported 39 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, according to Reuters.
More on the review into the 2m rule in the United Kingdom, PA reports that government ministers are working with the hospitality sector to draw up guidelines that could include encouraging pubgoers to order drinks using an app, instead of crowding around the bar.
Boris Johnson earlier flagged that it was his intention that schoolchildren should be able to return to school five days a week in England in September.
Updated
In the UK, the BBC reports that the government review of the two metre social distancing rule will be concluded “within the coming days”.
Prime minister Boris Johnson commissioned the review on Sunday, saying there was a “margin for manoeuvre” in the 2m rule, which requires people to stand 2m apart in public spaces and workplaces. The United States, for example, sets the distance at six feet, or 1.8m, and in Australia, Germany, Greece, Italy, and some other European countries the gap is 1.5m. The World Health Organisation recommends a minimum distance of at least 1m.
Some hospitality venues have warned they will be unable to make a profit if the 2m rule remains in place, because they will be forced to remain well below capacity.
The UK downgraded its coronavirus alert level from three to four on Friday, signalling a “gradual relaxation of restrictions.”
Essendon v Melbourne game postponed after Covid-19 test
Sunday night’s AFL match between Essendon and Melbourne has been postponed after Essendon player Conner McKenna tested positive to Covid-19.
The Essendon v Melbourne game tomorrow will be postponed after Essendon player Conor McKenna tested positive to the COVID-19 virus.
— AFL (@AFL) June 20, 2020
Other games scheduled for this weekend will proceed, the AFL says.
All other Essendon players and staff were tested last night and no other positive tests were returned.
Where things stand
Quite a bit happened this past hour, so let’s just recap where we are at.
- The government of Victoria, Australia, has reinstated some lockdown provisions after recording its highest daily total of new cases in two months. Premier Daniel Andrews said that half of all locally-acquired cases in the state since April had been transmitted through family groups, and that there were cases where people had socialised with extended family or gone to work after testing positive to the virus, or being told they were the close contact of a positive case.
- From midnight Sunday, the number of visitors Victorians can have in their home will go back from 20 down to five, outdoor gatherings have gone from 20 down to 10, and a plan to allow restaurants and pubs to admit 50 patrons from Monday has been shelved for three weeks. They will still be allowed to serve 20 patrons at a time. The work-from-home order will remain in place until at least the end of July.
- New Zealand has recorded two new cases of Covid-19, in a couple who caught a repatriation flight from India to Auckland. They were in mandatory quarantine at a hotel and did not have any symptoms, but the virus was detected under a new regime that requires even asymptomatic returned travellers to be tested twice over 14 days.
- The number of reported deaths from coronavirus in Mexico has topped 20,000, with 647 deaths recorded yesterday.
- The number of coronavirus cases in Brazil has passed 1 million and the country is approaching 50,000 deaths.
- South Korea has reported 67 new cases in the past 24 hours, its highest total in three weeks. China reported 27 new cases.
- Health experts in the United States have warned of “troubling spikes” of the virus in states in the south and west of the country, with 16 states recording a positivity rate of more than 5% on coronavirus tests. The worst affected were Arizona, where 17% of Covid-19 tests return a positive result, Alabama at 12%, Washington state at 11% and South Carolina at 10%. The World Health Organisation holds positivity rates of more than 5% to be concerning.
- World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world was in a “new and dangerous phase” of the pandemic as cases globally accelerate.
Updated
Fourteen of the 25 new cases reported in Victoria overnight are linked to pre-identified outbreaks.
Seven new cases today link to a family in Keilor Downs, in which cases were reported yesterday, including a primary school teacher. Those cases are across multiple households, bringing the total number of households to 10.
Two of the cases are in aged care homes, three more cases are among the Stamford Plaza hotel outbreak, which is where overseas travellers were quarantined.
One more was linked to the outbreak at H&M Northland, one to an outbreak in a family in Coburg and one to a GP who did not work while infectious.
Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, was asked if this situation could be linked to the 30,000 people who attended a Black Lives Matter protest two weeks ago. He said it was not.
I don’t think it does. Clearly we have had some individuals who have attended [the march] ... but most of the detail we are getting in the last few days of cases are these large family outbreaks without any connection to Black Lives Matter.
Some of them are very large, they have reached more than a dozen individuals and they cross multiple households and there are a number of other close contacts. That is why the actions we are announcing today are really necessary, because some of these households we have another 50 close contacts who are being followed up, and they are all potentially going to be cases in the next couple of weeks.
Updated
Andrews says a second wave of the virus will be “absolutely catastrophic to our economy”.
He said prime minister Scott Morrison and Australia’s chief medical officer Prof Brendan Murphy had repeatedly said Australia would expect to see more outbreaks as it began to open up.
That is a national part of a suppression strategy. Australia has not agreed to an elimination but a suppression strategy. That means for a period of time, and we all hope to make that as short a period of time as possible, we will see low-level new case numbers.
The reason we are here today making these announcements is that there is a concern based on data from recent days that we have more community transmission than is acceptable and if we don’t take these steps now we potentially finish up with this thing getting away from us.
Updated
Daniel Andrews was asked if the Victorian border should remain open for travellers. He said he would be speaking to NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian about whether there should be travel restrictions imposed on Victorians who live in parts of the state identified as Covid-19 hotspots.
But he said he was not proposing a closure of borders at this stage.
Updated
Two other bits of news out of Victoria, Australia.
The order that if you can work from home, you must work from home has been extended until at least the end of July.
And the AFL cancelled a planned press conference. It is unclear whether the newly re-tightened restrictions got in their way.
AFL has called a press conference for 4pm.
— Matt Thompson 🇦🇺 (@MattThompson) June 20, 2020
Updated
The global infection tally of people who tested positive to Covid-19 has now passed 8.67 million, Reuters reported. About 459,211 have died.
Andrews: You can't pretend the pandemic is over
Daniel Andrews says the Victorian government has followed the advice of public health experts “all the way”.
But you can have the best chief health officer, you can have the best public health team, but if individual families decide that they won’t isolate, they will instead go and visit in large numbers other families, then all of that is for nothing.
We’re all in this together. And whilst I am deeply frustrated by this, and saddened to have to reimpose the household gathering limits, and to make the decision not to proceed on Monday with a number of further restriction easings, that is the responsible thing to do.
He says that if he receives health advice that he can ease restrictions before 12 July, then he will.
My message is very clear: if you are sick you cannot go out. If you are sick you cannot go to work. If you are sick you cannot — even moderate symptoms, mild symptoms — you cannot go and visit family and friends. If you are told to isolate, you must isolate.
You cannot make your own decision because it is not your decision to make. You are putting the rest of Victoria at risk ... These steps are necessary. They’re challenging, but they’re necessary. I know they will add to frustration in the community.
But the one thing that I cannot do ... is join those families in pretending that this is over because we want it to be over. We just can’t do that. That would be irresponsible and that will set us back.
Updated
He also flags the idea of specific provisions to lockdown localised hotspots, which he says is something that is being considered at a national cabinet level.
It may be the case in the days ahead that we have to move to those local government areas or suburbs where some of this activity has gone on, where we have seen the data tells us a very clear story that there are extra cases, and the highest number of cases. We may need to, for instance, reinstitute the stay at home except for the four reasons [essential shopping, work or education, exercise and healthcare].
We all remember that time. It was deeply frustrating but it was very effective and we may need to go back to that setting in giving geographical areas.
The three local government areas with the highest number of new positive cases since June are Hume, with 17 cases, Brimbank, with 10 new cases, and Casey, with seven.
Updated
Victoria announces hardship payment for those who test positive
Andrews said that in some cases they saw people who did not have sick leave go to work after testing positive to Covid-19.
Their employment may well be tenuous. They are facing hardship ... It is our view that we have to try and remove that barrier where people are, sadly, making the choice that public health is less important than the welfare and the survival, in a financial sense, of their family.
They’re wrong to make that judgment but I can appreciate that that is a judgment that is being made. That’s why today we are setting up a hardship fund. Anybody who tests positive and can’t go to work or has to isolate because they’re a close contact of someone who has tested positive and can’t go to work, and for whom other arrangements are not available, then they will be eligible for a $1,500 payment.
Updated
So the changes to the lockdown provisions are:
- From midnight on Sunday, gatherings in peoples homes will be restricted to five guests, down from 20.
- Restaurants and cafes will not be able to increase their patron limit to 50. It will remain at 20 until 12 July.
- All other public gatherings are capped at 10, except for organised sport, which is permitted, and a few other exceptions.
- Gyms will still open from midnight Sunday as planned.
Andrews:
I can’t have a situation where a gathering in your home is high risk and then that is simply taken to the park or to another public place where, regardless of whether it’s inside or outside, it remains an unreasonable risk.
Updated
Daniel Andrews tells reporters that half of all the new cases in Victoria since April have been from family-to-family transmission. He says he is “disappointed” by the behaviour reported by health authorities.
I’m frustrated by it, I’m disappointed by it, but it’s appropriate that we be really upfront and describe it so people can understand what’s driving these numbers.
We have had cases of people gathering in large numbers, everybody at their home or another family member’s home or a close friend’s home, even though they had been told to isolate in their own home.
We have even had people who have tested positive and have been told to go home and isolate and instead they have gone to work. Instead, they have gone and visited loved ones in large numbers. We have had many stories, numerous stories, of families that have given it to each other and have then transmitted the virus to other families, who in turn have passed it on to a third group.
It is unacceptable that families anywhere in our state can, just because they want this to be over, pretend that it is. It is not over.
Updated
According to the press release distributed at the media conference in Melbourne this afternoon, the number of guests people can have in their home will be reduced to five, and restaurants and pubs will have to remain at the limit of 20 guests until at least 12 July.
Community non-contact sport can continue, Andrews says.
Updated
Victoria reintroduces lockdown measures as cases reach two-month high
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has announced a return of coronavirus restrictions after the state recorded 25 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours, the biggest increase in two months.
Here’s the press release:
BREAKING Huge changes #springst @10NewsFirstMelb pic.twitter.com/k6U14h3I57
— Simon Love (@SimoLove) June 20, 2020
Updated
Before Daniel Andrews gets on his feet, let’s just recap the current coronavirus situation in Victoria.
The state has recorded 81 new cases in the past seven days, almost three times more than were recorded in the previous week.
On Friday, health authorities reported 13 new cases, bringing the state’s total to 1,792. The biggest day was Wednesday, when 21 new cases were recorded.
It’s just two weeks since Victoria celebrated its first ever 24-hour period with no new cases.
Restrictions are set to ease in the state on Monday, with gyms, indoor sports centres, and bars and clubs set to reopen. Restaurants and pubs and cafes serving food were also due to be able to increase their patron limit from 20 to 50.
Updated
Western Australia, just showing off at this point, has reported no new active cases of Covid-19 overnight and just two active cases.
But the WA health department has increased its state total by one to 604 because a “historical case was identified through serology testing”.
The historic case was a woman in her 60s who had been on the cruise ship Costa Luminosa, which was sailing in the Mediterranean. Australian passengers were flown back from Italy in March.
Updated
Before we hear from Andrews, let’s contemplate the possibility of taking a holiday in Australia. Yes, leaving your own house and travelling — maybe in a plane! — to another place where you will possibly visit restaurants and go to the pub and other activities of yore.
Of course these holidays will be for domestic travellers only, because the mandatory quarantine for foreign travellers to Australia remains in place. The Northern Territory is pitching itself as the destination du jour, because it is warm and pretty and the pubs are open.
The Australian government has flagged the possibility of consumer incentives to encourage Australians to undertake domestic travel.
Read more on that here:
Updated
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, and health minister, Jenny Mikakos, will give a press conference at 2.30pm local time in Melbourne. There have been vague reports from Victorian political reporters that the state’s latest coronavirus figures have been the subject of some concern.
So we will learn what that means in about an hour.
Meanwhile, in Hungary, thousands of people made jobless by the coronavirus pandemic have applied to join the army, which is one of the few careers offering job stability.
Major Tamas Durgo, head of military recruitment, told AFP at an army office in Budapest:
Since the crisis began the number of applicants has risen by 100%.
We have loosened the admission procedure. That doesn’t mean it’s easier to get in now, just faster.
Applicants can either sign up for six months of paid training, after which they can return to civilian life, or if they qualify they can embark on a military career.
A government official said 2,500 people had applied to date and 900 had already started basic training.
Unemployment in Hungary rose to 4% in April, according to official data, but the real figure is expected to be double that.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 601 to 189,135, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Saturday.
The reported death toll rose by 11 to 8,883, Reuters reported.
Updated
China has reported 27 new cases of Covid-19.
Latest on #COVID19 in #China - China has reported 27 new cases, 4 are imported from abroad (3 in Guangdong and 1 in Shanghai) and 23 local cases (22 in Beijing and 1 in Hebei province.) There are also 4 new suspected cases and 7 asymptomatic cases.
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) June 20, 2020
The news yesterday that the Australian government would be increasing the cost of some university degrees follows months of uncertainty for and often unceremonious sacking of casual and fixed-term academics, who were not eligible for the $1,500 fortnightly jobkeeper payment.
As one academic told reporter Celina Ribeiro:
It’s awful for our intellectual life. It’s awful for our research. It’s particularly awful for a diversity of opinions. As soon as you start to have the bare minimum of researchers, the people you get are those who happen to be relatively homogenous.
Updated
To France, where cinemas will open at midnight on Sunday and the annual Festival of Music, which usually brings millions of people out on to the street and into concerts, is due to kick off.
This year the festival has been scaled down, AFP reported.
Social distancing means that the Accord Arena in Paris will only be able to welcome 2,000 fans — a tenth of its normal capacity — for a show featuring a stellar line-up of francophone talent.
While gatherings of more than 10 people are still banned in France, its culture ministry said police would be tolerant with outdoor jamming sessions on the night if people keep their distance.
Having rushed back to the terraces of their cafes and restaurants earlier this month, millions of French people are also waiting with bated breath for cinemas to reopen on Monday.
Casinos will also welcome gamblers from Monday, while stadiums and racetracks will reopen on July 11, subject to a limit of 5,000 people, the government announced late Friday, due to progress in the fight against Covid-19.
Updated
Back in Australia, former Labor senator Nova Peris and current Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy have issued their congratulations to newly announced Victorian Greens senator, Lidia Thorpe.
Hey Senator @lidia__thorpe I just tried calling to congratulate you! Bloody awesome my sista 💚 and power to you. Well done to the @VictorianGreens for electing this brilliant warrior woman into the Australian Senate. 🙌🏾 woo hoo 🥰 pic.twitter.com/ewGbp181r6
— Nova Peris OAM OLY (@NovaPeris) June 20, 2020
Congratulations @lidia__thorpe 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 I look forward to seeing you in the @AuSenate as @Greens Senator for Victoria
— malarndirri mccarthy (@Malarndirri19) June 20, 2020
You can read Lisa Cox’s full report on Thrope’s appointment here.
To the US now, where Reuters has reported “troubling spikes in coronavirus infection rates” in several US states, mainly in the south and west of the country, the day before president Donald Trump is due to preside over a campaign rally in Oklahoma.
The rally will be America’s largest indoor gathering in months.
Reuters reports:
Experts say expanded diagnostic testing accounts for some, but not all, of the growth in cases – numbering at least 2.23 million nationwide on Friday – and that the mounting volume of infections was elevating hospitalisations in some places.
Dr Murtaza Akhter, an emergency room physician at Arizona hospitals, said:
Clearly the cases are rising rapidly. It’s not just a matter of testing more. The real concern is what is coming up for us in the next week or two.
Akhter noted the lag time between a positive test and severe illness or death. He said the latest wave of cases had put Arizona’s major hospitals at or near capacity, and placed the south-western state on track to surpass New York at its peak on a per-capita basis.
More than 119,000 Americans have perished from Covid-19 to date, according to Reuters’ running tally.
Particularly alarming has been the upward trends several states are reporting in the percentage of positive tests among individuals who are screened, a metric experts refer to as the positivity rate.
The World Health Organisation considers positivity rates above 5% to be especially concerning, and widely watched data from Johns Hopkins University shows 16 states with average rates over the past week exceeding that level and climbing.
Four were averaging double-digit rates: Arizona at 17%, Alabama at 12%, Washington state at 11% and South Carolina at 10%. The dozen others were led by Utah, Texas, Mississippi, Florida and Georgia, all averaging rates of 7.5% or higher.
Updated
67 new cases of coronavirus in South Korea. A new three week high.
— Laura Bicker (@BBCLBicker) June 20, 2020
But 31 of those cases were imported. 36 were domestic.
Coronavirus deaths in Mexico pass 20,000
From Reuters:
Coronavirus deaths in Mexico surpassed 20,000 on Friday after the health ministry reported 647 new fatalities and 5,030 new confirmed cases.
Total cases now stand at 170,485, with 20,394 fatalities, though the government has said the real number of infections is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Still in NSW now, where environment minister Matt Kean is calling for volunteers assist with wildlife conservation by monitoring forest cameras — from their own homes.
This activity is not limited to Australians, so if you’re locked down in New York and want to spend your time trying to spot malleefowl, jump on board. All the details are here.
Basically, the National Parks and Wildlife Service has set up more than 75 motion-triggered cameras in bushland across NSW, and those cameras capture thousands of photos. The images can provide vital information about the movement of endangered species, but there are tens of thousands of them so parks staff need a bit of help combing through them.
Enter you, sitting at home.
Kean says it’s like a Where’s Wally for native animal conservation.
You might catch a koala enjoying happy hour in Gunnedah, mountain pygmy possums gathering for some tucker in Kosciusko national park or even a malleefowl busily moving tonnes of sand to build a 1-metre-high nest mound in western NSW. The images are important in helping us learn more about threatened species and their behaviours to shape the conservation work we are doing to save them.
For reference, we have a koala:
A mountain pygmy possum:
And a malleefowl:
Updated
New South Wales has recorded one new case of Covid-19.
The new case is a returned traveller who tested positive in hotel quarantine yesterday. It brings the number of known cases in NSW to 3,144, of which 2,771 are listed as recovered and only 56 are currently receiving active hospital care. There are no cases in intensive care.
NSW health authorities say they conducted 16,193 tests yesterday, about 1,000 fewer than were conducted the day before.
NSW Health said that only 3% of the 2,996 returned travellers placed into hotel quarantine since 29 March had tested positive, totalling 99 cases.
Anyone feeling unwell is urged to self-isolate and get a free test at their GP or one of these clinics.
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Bloomfield is being grilled by reporters who are concerned the virus could spread from people in managed isolation facilities to the broader communities.
He said:
We have not had any cases come out of our managed isolation facilities in over 19,000 Kiwis that have gone through our facilities in the past three months.
New Zealand reports two new cases of Covid-19
New Zealand has reported two new cases of Covid-19 in a couple who returned to Auckland, New Zealand, on a repatriation flight from India. Their baby, who was travelling with them, has not been tested due to its young age and may also be infected.
The director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said the couple were asymptomatic but the infection was detected under a routine testing program that was introduced on 9 June. All new arrivals to New Zealand are tested on days 3 and 12 of their 14-day mandatory quarantine, even if they don’t have symptoms.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern declared NZ Covid-free on 8 June, but that run was interrupted on 16 June when two women, who arrived from the UK and were released early from mandatory hotel quarantine, tested positive.
Bloomfield said New Zealand was “always expecting to get new cases at our borders as Kiwis return home from overseas”.
We are seeing an increasing number of kiwis returning to the country from around the globe ... there is still a global pandemic raging offshore.
There is an increased likelihood we will see kiwis coming back, especially from countries with higher rates of infection like India.
The couple, who are in their 20s, arrived on Air India flight AI1306, and transferred to a quarantine hotel in Auckland that is being used a managed isolation activity. Everyone in the hotel has been barred from leaving until contact tracing interviews take place, even if they have tested negative, to make sure the couple did not interact with anyone.
Bloomfield said the detection of the new cases showed the testing system was working. He also cautioned people against discriminating against people who had tested positive to Covid-19, saying the virus does not discriminate.
There is not now nor has there ever been stigma around Covid-19. It is a virus that does not discriminate and it has affected world leaders and health officials. We are in the fortunate position of having so few cases that those we do have get quite a lot of attention.
Please be compassionate and kind, we are in this together.
• This post was amended on 22 June 2020 to correct the spelling of Jacinda Ardern’s first name and remove an incorrect reference to the two women who tested positive on 16 June being British.
Updated
Thorpe was elected to the state seat of Northcote in a 2017 byelection but voted out in the 2018 state election. She was the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian parliament.
She’s also got a long history as an activist and advocate for Aboriginal people, particularly Aboriginal women and survivors of family violence. She’s considered a divisive figure in some circles for actions like walking out of the three-day summit that led to the Uluru Statement of the Heart. Mind you, Pat Dodson also expressed some reservations about that the model that was proposed, which deviated widely from previous reform models he had been involved in.
That’s why it’s great to have more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in parliament, to air that diversity of views and smash lazy perceptions that there’s one single view among Aboriginal people in Australia.
In a statement announcing her appointment, Thorpe said:
It’s an incredible honour and a huge responsibility to be chosen by Greens members as the next senator for Victoria. I won’t let you down.
It’s so important for kids growing up today in places I grew up to know they can do what I’ve done. Kids in the commission flats, or out in country towns, or single mums, or survivors of domestic violence. This isn’t out of your reach.
I’m ready to fight for the issues we all believe in — climate, injustice, inequality. Now more than ever, we need to not accept the old ways. This is our chance to build back better, and I’m ready to bring us together to get it done.
Updated
Thorpe’s appointment brings the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander politicians in the federal parliament to five.
That’s federal Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt, for the Coalition, his Labor counterpart Linda Burney, and Labor senators Pat Dodson and Malarndirri McCarthy.
Lidia Thorpe named new Greens senator for Victoria
Gunnai-Kurnai and Gunditjamara woman Lidia Thorpe has been named the new Greens senator for Victoria.
Victoria Greens co-convenors Effy Elden and Ella Webb said thousands of members took part in the vote over two weeks, with Lidia Thorpe securing a decisive victory.
We are delighted to announce the next senator for the Victorian Greens, who was elected directly by our membership at the culmination of a fantastic grassroots preselection process. We are proud to be the only progressive party in Victoria whose members currently have a genuine say in their parliamentary representation.
The Victorian Greens have over 3,600 members who were eligible to cast their vote in the state-wide preselection. With 65% choosing to participate, they have delivered a clear and decisive result in selecting Lidia.
We look forward to seeing Lidia Thorpe join our fellow Victorian Greens MPs Adam Bandt and Janet Rice, as well as the rest of our federal team in parliament later this year.
Updated
To Western Australia briefly, where health minister Roger Cook has announced $6.5m in medical research funding and $2.8m in infrastructure for medical research institutes.
One of the recipients is a project run out of the Fiona Stanley hospital to develop advanced dressings to help heal high-risk surgical wounds. It’s part of an international clinical trial called Sunrise into the use of negative-pressure bandages in reducing rates of infection.
The grants come from the Medical and Health Research Infrastructure Fund. The value of the medical research sector in Australia has been proved in the past few months, with a number of Australian research facilities playing key roles in the global development of coronavirus tests, treatments and the quest for a vaccine.
Cook said:
Sunrise has the potential to significantly reduce infection risk in patients undergoing emergency surgery, improving outcomes for patients here and around the world, and I commend professor Toby Richards for helping WA play a role in this project.
Funding research programs and infrastructure is crucial to creating an advanced medicine environment in WA.
Support for these programs and the recent creation of the Future Health Research and Innovation Fund demonstrate the McGowan government’s commitment to health and medical research and innovation.
Updated
Good morning. It’s Calla Wahlquist here, taking over from Lisa Cox.
The Australian Greens are announcing their new senator for Victoria at 11am. The senator will replace former party leader Richard di Natale, who announced his resignation in February.
Two high-profile candidates put their hand up to replace him: former Victorian state Greens MP Lidia Thorpe, a Gunnai-Kurnai and Gunditjmara woman, and barrister and former Greens candidate Julian Burnside.
It’s the second time Burnside has entered a political race against an Aboriginal woman: his Labor rival for the lower house federal seat of Kooyong, which was retained by treasurer Josh Frydenberg in the 2019 election, was Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wamba woman Jana Stewart.
From AAP:
China has denied it is behind cyber attacks on Australian business and government organisations, saying such suggestions are “baseless”.
Prime minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that Australia had been the target of increased cyber attacks by a foreign entity.
We know it is a sophisticated, state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting, and the tradecraft used.
But he declined to put a name on which country is carrying out the attacks, nor would opposition leader Anthony Albanese, who was briefed by Australia’s security agencies.
But Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings said the attack was “95% or more” likely to have been launched from China.
This was because of the scale and intensity of the attack, he said.
A few others have the capacity but they don’t have the scale to do it as broadly as this.
But Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian dismissed such allegations, and took particular aim at ASPI. He told reporters at a daily briefing:
The attacks coming from institute against China are totally baseless nonsense.
Updated
As Australia moves to further ease coronavirus restrictions across the nation, the rest of the world is not so lucky.
World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus believes the world is in a “new and dangerous place”.
“Many people are understandably fed up being at home, but the virus is still spreading fast,” he warned on Friday, a day after 150,000 new Covid-19 cases were confirmed globally – a record daily number.
There have been 8.5 million infections around the world, with a combined death toll of 450,000.
Meanwhile, the Australian toll remains at 102, with confirmed virus cases since the initial outbreak topping 7,400 on Friday.
However, there are some hotspots, with Victoria reporting 13 new cases on Friday. It’s the third day in a row the state has recorded double-digit infections.
Updated
From Reuters:
Unions representing 17,000 workers at Walt Disney Co’s Disneyland Resort in California have told the state’s governor they are not convinced the theme park will be safe enough to reopen by the company’s July target date.
In a letter to governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday, the unions said they had been in discussions with Disney since mid-March when Disneyland was closed to help curb the coronavirus pandemic.
The resort in Anaheim, southern California, houses the Disneyland theme park and the California Adventure Park, both of which the company aims to reopen on 17 July.
The letter from the Coalition of Resort Labor Unions said:
Unfortunately, despite intensive talks with the company, we are not yet convinced it is safe to reopen the parks.
A Disney spokeperson said on Friday that the company had put the safety of workers and guests “at the forefront of our planning”.
We look forward to continued dialogue with our unions on the extensive health and safety protocols, following guidance from public health experts.
The California Department of Public Health said theme parks would be able to welcome guests when the state reaches stage 3 of its phased reopening plan. It is currently in stage 2.
Updated
Summary
Good morning, everyone. Here are the most recent updates globally:
- The number of coronavirus cases in Brazil has passed 1 million and the country was approaching 50,000 deaths on Friday. Brazil is the country’s second-worst hit country after the United States.
- In the Brazilian Amazon, local authorities have been accused of racism after locking down a string of indigenous villages and banning indigenous people from entering a local town because of a coronavirus outbreak.
- In the UK, ministers have been accused of downplaying the gravity of the pandemic after it emerged there had been more than 1,000 deaths a day for 22 consecutive days from April.
- The World Health Organisation warned on Friday of a “new and dangerous phase” of the pandemic, with people tiring of lockdown despite the accelerating spread of Covid-19 in some countries.
- The number of coronavirus cases in Saudi Arabia exceeded 150,000 on Friday following a rise in infections.
- The New Zealand government is under pressure after three confirmed cases of coronavirus emerged this week after a failure to test returned travellers before they left quarantine.
In Australia:
- Employment service providers have warned the newly unemployed will have to wait three months to claim up to $1,200 for training and other expenses from July.
- Up to 350 international students will be able to return to university after the federal government and the ACT government approved a plan to bring them in on a charter flight.
- Authorities continue to monitor the rising number of coronavirus cases in Victoria as the state prepares to further ease restrictions from Monday.
- And, in case you missed Friday’s economic update from the Reserve Bank, Australia’s unemployment rate rose 0.7 points to 7.1% between April and May.
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