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Summary
Here the latest key developments at a glance:
- British prime minister Boris Johnson will inject £1.57bn into Britain’s beleaguered arts and heritage sectors in a long-awaited coronavirus rescue package described by the government as the biggest one-off investment in UK culture.
- A top health official from US president Donald Trump’s administration said it was not clear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, as Florida sees record numbers of coronavirus cases.
- Greece has announced it will prohibit Serbian tourists from entering the country as of 6 AM tomorrow. The ban, due to last until at least 15 July, follows a surge in incidents of coronavirus in the Balkan state.
- Kazakhstan on Sunday imposed a second round of nationwide restrictions that are to last at least two weeks, in a bid to counter a huge surge in coronavirus cases since the previous lockdown, which has overwhelmed the country’s healthcare system.
- Brazil has recorded 26,051 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours as well as 602 deaths, pushing cumulative deaths to a total of 64,867.
- India has withdrawn a planned reopening of the Taj Mahal, citing the risk of new coronavirus infections spreading in the northern city of Agra from visitors, as the country’s infections are rising at the fastest pace in three months.
- With Covid-19 cases still surging, polls from the presidential election held in the Dominican Republic on Sunday indicated that a businessman with no previous experience in government was favoured to oust a party that has ruled for the past 16 years.
- Dozens of military medics were deployed on Sunday to help combat the coronavirus pandemic in South Africa’s East Cape province, the country’s third most affected region, amid a surge in infections.
That’s all from me, my colleague Helen Sullivan in Australia will take over now. Goodnight from London.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday reported 2,841,906 cases of new coronavirus in the United States, an increase of 52,228 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 271 to 129,576.
The CDC reported its tally of cases as of 4 pm EDT on 4 July compared with its previous report a day earlier, Reuters reports.
The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.
Brazil has recorded 26,051 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours as well as 602 deaths, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
Brazil has registered more than 1.6 million cases since the pandemic began, while cumulative deaths total 64,867, according to the ministry.
Singapore’s government defended its stand on the testing of migrant workers, the biggest cluster of its coronavirus outbreak, issuing five corrective directions under its fake-news law to media outlets and a local graduate club that carried comments by an opposition leader on the topic, Bloomberg reports.
The government is disputing statements by Paul Tambyah, chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party, who spoke Friday at an election forum, where he said authorities had actively discouraged testing of migrant workers, among other issues.
The directions to the club, local broadcaster CNA, The Online Citizen Asia and New Naratif on Sunday would require them to each carry a notice stating that videos, a Facebook post, an online article and an audio recording they had published contain false statements of facts.
They all ran comments at the forum by Tambyah, who’s a senior consultant in the division of infectious diseases at the National University Hospital in Singapore.
With Singapore’s election set to be held 10 July amid the pandemic that has infected more than 44,000 people in the city-state, the government’s response to tackling the virus is set to be one of the defining issues in the polls.
While it was praised for its earlier containment of the outbreak, the spread among migrant workers -- making up more than nine in 10 cases -- has challenged the country’s efforts.
The fake news law, passed in October, has been invoked a number of times in the run-up to the polls in what the government said is to ensure the correct facts are stated, Bloomberg’s Joyce Koh writes.
Updated
British prime minister Boris Johnson will inject £1.57bn into Britain’s beleaguered arts and heritage sectors in a long-awaited rescue package described by the government as the biggest one-off investment in UK culture.
After weeks of desperate warnings that the UK was facing an irreversible cultural catastrophe without targeted support because of lockdown measures during the pandemic, ministers announced a package that it said would protect the future of the country’s museums, galleries, theatres and music venues.
My colleague Mark Brown has more.
Updated
A Canadian military plane headed to Latvia for a NATO mission was forced to turn around for fear that troops on board had been exposed to the coronavirus, the Defense Department said.
The decision was made after the Canadian army learned that someone on the Trenton military base in Ontario, where the plane took off Thursday, had tested positive for Covid-19, according to department spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande.
The person in question could have come in contact with the 70 passengers and crew members on the plane, she said.
“The health and well-being of our members, and that of our Allies and partners in Latvia, is a priority,” Lamirande told AFP on Sunday.
“As such, the decision was made to return the aircraft en route, rather than land in Latvia, to avoid the possible risk of spreading the disease.”
The soldiers will quarantine for 14 days at the Trenton base before being redeployed, Lamirande added, noting that the incident will not have any major effect on Canada’s mission in Latvia.
Canada has about 540 soldiers deployed in Latvia, where the North American nation has been leading a NATO battle group since 2017.
A spike in gun purchases during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic was associated with a nearly 8% increase in firearm violence in the US, according to a new estimate from researchers at the University of California, Davis.
That increase translated into an estimated 776 additional shooting injuries in the US from March through May, the researchers found.
The pandemic appears to have inspired Americans to make 2.1m more gun purchases than under typical circumstances.
The new estimates, the first to quantify the effects of coronavirus gun-buying, come from the preprint of a study conducted by one of the leading US gun violence researchers. The results have not yet gone through peer review or been published in a research journal.
“We wanted to get this research out as soon as possible, because obviously there are important implications for public health and public safety,” said Julia Schleimer, a research data analyst at the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center, and one of the study’s authors.
The researchers looked at increases in gun purchases and changes in firearms violence across 48 states and the District of Columbia.
They found that many demographic factors – including overall rates of firearm ownership, socioeconomic status, how urban a state was and levels of residential segregation by race – did not seem to make a difference in the relationship between increased gun purchases and firearms violence.
But states that had lower levels of violent crime pre-Covid saw a stronger connection between additional gun purchases and more gun violence.
The study used data from the Gun Violence Archive, which publishes information on shootings and firearms deaths based on media reports. The study did not examine the effect of firearms purchase increases on gun suicide, which represent the majority of gun deaths in the US.
States that ordered gun stores to be closed at some point during the pandemic, rather than naming them as essential businesses that could stay open, on average had smaller overall increases in gun purchases.
Updated
In a sign that rules to combat Covid-19 are never fixed, Greece has announced it will prohibit Serbian tourists from entering the country as of 6 AM tomorrow.
The ban, due to last until at least 15 July, follows a surge in incidents of coronavirus in the Balkan state.
Aristotelia Peloni, a government spokesman, said the decision was made as part of the tourist-reliant country’s “right to revise its policy in cooperation with its European Union partners.”
“The government, in collaboration with relevant authorities is constantly analysing and evaluating data so that the opening to foreign tourists happens without affecting public health,” she said.
Greece has applied stringent lockdown measures to keep coronavirus cases and casualties in the low three figures.
Belgrade’s minister of foreign affairs, Ivica Dacic, said Serbian citizens should cancel plans to travel to Greece.
The nation’s tourism minister said Athens had announced the ban after many Serbian tourists had tested positive for the virus.
Greece resumed direct international flights to all 18 of its regional airports on 1 July, but with the aid of algorithmic software health officials have been testing visitors thought to be more at risk of having the virus.
Updated
Italy on Sunday authorised charity vessel Ocean Viking to transfer 180 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to a ship in Sicily for quarantine, the ship’s operator and the government said.
Those on board celebrated the announcement that their ordeal amid the cramped conditions on the Ocean Viking would soon be over, with migrants singing, applauding and taking selfies.
“We have received instructions from the Italian maritime authorities to disembark those on board in Porto Empedocle,” a spokesman for the charity SOS Mediterranee told AFP, which has a correspondent on board.
“We’re very happy! We’ve come a long way, Libya was like hell and now at least we can see the end. I need to tell my family that I’m still alive,” said Rabiul, 27, from Bangladesh.
The Ocean Viking is now heading for the port where the migrants will be transferred to government-chartered ship the Moby Zaza for 14 days of quarantine.
Drive-in cinemas are having a big comeback this summer, as cinephiles in various countries jump at the opportunity to spend an evening in front of the big screen in the comfort and safety of a car.
Austrian daily Die Presse reports that the first film festival in the reopened Autokino Vienna in Groß-Enzersdorf will start on Monday.
A cross-genre program is shown every Monday from 8pm to midnight until 7 September.
Around 1,000 parking spaces and three screens are available in the drive-in cinema.
Incidentally, a car is not a requirement for visiting the festival, as a shuttle bus takes guests from Vienna to the cinema in Groß-Enzersdorf.
Parisians have also been promised Paris’ first pop-up drive-in cinema, which is expected to appear this month “in the middle of the city”, according to the organiser’s Facebook page.
A British consortium formed by a group of aerospace, automotive and engineering firms to build ventilators for the country’s health service during the pandemic said on Sunday it would end after delivering over 13,000 devices.
VentilatorChallengeUK said its production had more than doubled the stock of ventilators available for use in the National Health Service (NHS).
The consortium, which was formed on a not-for-profit basis by the likes of Ford, McLaren, Rolls-Royce and Airbus, said in May it was ramping up production in case of a second peak in infections.
But Dick Elsy, Chairman of VentilatorChallengeUK, said the NHS was now well-placed for the future.
“We have helped ensure the NHS has always had access to the number of ventilators it needs, and we’re pleased to have also contributed to building a resilient stock should ventilators be required in the UK in the future,” he said, Reuters reports.
Britain sought to “protect the NHS” during its coronavirus lockdown by working to flatten the curve of infections so the health service was not overwhelmed.
The availability of ventilators in the NHS had been a hot political topic as the epidemic started, but the demand for the machines never got close to the 30,000 figures initially estimated as being required.
The government has said that everyone who needed a ventilator during the pandemic has had access to one.
Bloomberg’s economics desk has put out a useful Twitter thread summarising an informative article on the economic impact of the pandemic on consumer prices, currencies and state debt in Latin America.
Coronavirus cases in Latin America are soaring, leaving the region with its worst recession since at least 1901. That downturn is reflected in consumer prices, with most countries now facing a rare period of disinflation as demand plunges https://t.co/nPVEesPEDO (THREAD) pic.twitter.com/XGgZkD1mtr
— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) July 5, 2020
Data published this week for June are forecast to show year-on-year consumer price increases in Chile and Brazil holding near May’s levels while Mexico’s probably pushed just over 3% – still well within the central bank’s target range https://t.co/nPVEesPEDO pic.twitter.com/bvsbEf511B
— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) July 5, 2020
“After 2 consecutive months of deflation, Brazil inflation is expected to have risen slightly in June, driven mostly by recovering gasoline prices,” says @dridupita. “Elsewhere, prices remains muted: core inflation readings are threading close to zero” https://t.co/nPVEesPEDO pic.twitter.com/l3FV3pLNIc
— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) July 5, 2020
In Argentina, the debt renegotiation between the government and its main bondholders approaches its third month of official talks without an agreement in sight. The week may bring additional attempts to bridge a gap that until now has been hard to close https://t.co/nPVEesPEDO pic.twitter.com/5FA41CsI4s
— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) July 5, 2020
A philharmonic orchestra performed to spectator-free Roman ruins in east Lebanon, after a top summer festival downsized to a single concert in a year of economic meltdown and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Baalbek International Festival was instead beamed live on television and social media, in what its director called a message of “hope and resilience” amid ever-worsening daily woes, AFP reports.
Festival director Nayla de Freige said most artists were performing for free at the UNESCO-listed site.
Malawi’s president Lazarus Chakwera on Sunday called off planned independence celebrations and drastically scaled back on his inauguration ceremony following a spike in coronavirus infections in the southern African country, Agence France-Press reports.
The cancellation will put a dampener on the euphoria generated by the historic opposition triumph in a recent landmark election re-run after last year’s fraudulent polls were overturned.
Chakwera comfortably won the 23 June election with 58.5 per cent of the vote - beating Peter Mutharika, whose re-election last year was anulled by the courts over “grave”, “widespread and systematic” irregularities.
His formal inauguration had been slated for Monday at a giant stadium in the capital to coincide with the country’s 56th independence celebrations.
Already on Saturday, he had slashed the stadium audience by half to 20,000 to limit the virus spread.
With Covid-19 cases still surging, polls from the presidential election held in the Dominican Republic on Sunday indicated that a businessman with no previous experience in government was favoured to oust a party that has ruled for the past 16 years.
Luís Abinader, a 52-year-old tourism industry leader who finished second in the last election, was leading in most recent surveys, with the governing party’s Gonzalo Castillo, a former public works minister, trailing.
Former president Leonel Feernández, who served three previous terms, was also on the ballot, along with three minor parties.
The spreading coronavirus prompted officials to delay the election, which had originally been scheduled for May.
It went ahead Sunday even though the Health Ministry reported the highest daily count of new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Saturday, 1,241.
The country of some 10.5 million people has reported 794 deaths from the disease.
Lines were long and many voters appeared to ignore physical distancing rules as they cast ballots for 32 senators and 190 members of the lower house of congress, the Associated Press reports.
If no candidate tops 50% of the vote, a runoff would be held on 26 July.
The new president takes ofice on 16 August.
Updated
Kazakhstan imposes 'second wave' of restrictions
Kazakhstan on Sunday imposed a second round of nationwide restrictions to counter a huge surge in coronavirus cases since the previous lockdown, which has overwhelmed the oil-rich country’s healthcare system.
Shopping centres, gyms, swimming pools, hairdressers and beauty salons have all closed down for the next two weeks, a measure that authorities may choose to extend, Agence France-Press reports.
Long queues built outside pharmacies in the country’s largest city Almaty, where demand for medicines such as paracetamol has far outstripped supply.
Yevgeny Yermin was waiting to buy medicines for his 76-year-old mother, who has coronavirus symptoms.
He said that he had not taken the virus seriously until it hit his own family.
“A week ago we lost our grandfather [to coronavirus]. We thought it was all some sort of a joke. Turns out it isn’t a joke at all,” Yermin said.
Kazakhstan imposed a strict lockdown in late March that saw important sectors of the economy grind to a halt and prevented most travel.
But it was one of the first Central Asian countries to lift restrictions in late May, when it had less than 9,000 confirmed cases.
Since then however, coronavirus cases have risen more than five-fold, reaching over 47,000 with 188 fatalities.
India sees single-day record number of infections
India’s coronavirus infections are rising at the fastest pace in three months.
On Sunday, the health ministry reported a record single-day spike of 24,850 new cases and more than 600 deaths.
That pushed India’s overall tally to 673,165 cases, closing in on Russia, the third-most affected country globally.
India has withdrawn a planned reopening of the Taj Mahal, on which we reported earlier, citing the risk of new coronavirus infections spreading in the northern city of Agra from visitors flocking to see the 17th century monument to love.
Local authorities issued a new advisory late on Sunday ordering an extension of lockdown curbs on monuments in and around Agra.
The government order did not specify the duration of the lockdown for monuments that have been closed since March.
“In the interest of the public, it has been decided that opening monuments in Agra will not be advisable as of now”, the district authorities said in a notice published in Hindi.
Agra, one of India’s first big clusters of the virus, remains the worst-affected city in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state.
It was not immediately clear whether the federal government would scrap its plan to reopen other monuments across the country, such as New Delhi’s historic Red Fort, Reuters reports.
Updated
Dozens of military medics were deployed on Sunday to help combat the coronavirus pandemic in South Africa’s third most affected province, where there has been a surge in infections.
The deployment to East Cape province comes a day after South Africa recorded more than 10,800 new Covid-19 cases, its biggest single-day jump during the pandemic, taking the cumulative infections to 187,977, Agence France-Presse reports.
Forty-seven defence force medical personnel landed in Eastern Cape city of Port Elizabeth to help shore up the health service, which is buckling under rising number of cases.
“The province is not coping. They have personnel and equipment problems,” defence force spokesman Thabo Sello said.
“The situation in the Eastern Cape is really bad with infections increasing and spreading rapidly,” he said of the province, which accounts for more than 18 percent of national infections.
The military teams include doctors, nurses, health technicians and clinical support staff.
Sello said the province, ranked the poorest in the country, was the first in the country to request military assistance to help fight the coronavirus.
A top health official from US president Donald Trump’s administration said on Sunday it was not clear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, as Florida sees record numbers of coronavirus cases.
Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, also refused to confirm president Trump’s claim that 99% of coronavirus cases were harmless and called the situation a “serious problem.”
With record numbers of people testing positive for the virus in Jacksonville and across Florida, Hahn was asked if it would be safe to hold the typically large RNC gathering in just seven weeks.
“I think it’s too early to tell,” Hahn said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program, Reuters reports.
“We will have to see how this unfolds in Florida and elsewhere around the country.”
The Republican Party moved most of the convention activities to Jacksonville from Charlotte after a battle over coronavirus safety concerns with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
Jacksonville, led by Republican mayor Lenny Curry, began requiring masks in public last week after cases continued to rise.
Israel reintroduces some lockdown measures
Israel has ordered thousands of people into quarantine on Sunday after a contentious phone surveillance program resumed, while Palestinians in the West Bank returned to life under lockdown amid a surge in coronavirus cases in both areas.
Israels Health Ministry said Sunday many messages had been sent to Israelis following the renewed involvement of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, according to the Associated Press.
The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that more than 30,000 people were notified they must enter quarantine since Thursday.
Just weeks ago, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank appeared to have contained outbreaks after imposing strict measures early on during a first wave of infections.
But after reporting just a handful of new cases a day in early May, both areas have experienced a steady uptick in cases following an easing of restrictions.
“We are at the height of a new corona offensive. This is a very strong outbreak that is growing and spreading in the world and also here,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet.
“We are in a state of emergency,” he said, adding that Israel would need to further clamp down to rein in the virus.
Israel is now reporting around 1,000 new cases a day, higher than its peak during the previous wave.
Late Sunday, the parliament’s coronavirus committee voted to impose new restrictions limiting gatherings in bars, synagogues and function halls to 50 people.
Additional restrictions are expected in the coming days. It is requiring citizens wear masks and has urged more stringent social distancing.
With its contact tracing apparatus struggling to keep up with the mounting caseload, Israel last week redeployed the Shin Bet to use phone surveillance technology to track Israelis who have come in contact with infected people and then notify them that they must enter home quarantine.
Updated
Hello, I’m taking over for the next few hours. As always, do get in touch if you have relevant updates or tips to share, either via Twitter @JedySays, or you can email me at jedidajah.otte.casual@theguardian.com.
Updated
In the UK, people have come together – at an appropriate distance – once again to clap for healthcare workers, this time on the 72nd anniversary of the NHS.
Thank you everyone, that was quite something 💙
— NHS (@NHSuk) July 5, 2020
It seems that no sphere of life has been left untouched by the coronavirus, including the arts. In today’s Observer, there are interviews with seven novelists from around the world, talking about the impact of the pandemic.
They include Tayari Jones in the US, Maxim Leo in Germany, Emily Perkins in New Zealand, Natalia Borges Polesso in Brazil, Sjón in Iceland, Domenico Starnone in Italy and Kyung-sook Shin in South Korea.
You can read their thoughts here: Planet virus - seven novelists from around the world on living with the pandemic
Richard Luscombe has the latest Covid-19 data from Florida:
Worrying figures just in from Florida: the state recorded 10,059 new cases of Covid-19 overnight, bringing the overall total past 200,000. Florida’s death toll increased by 29 to 3,731, and the number of hospitalisations statewide rose by a further 160, to 15,595 since the pandemic began. The statistics show that in three of the five days of July so far, new coronavirus cases are above 10,000.
You can follow the latest developments from the US in our dedicated live blog:
Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell from Associated Press have been reporting on Iran today as the government instituted mandatory mask-wearing as fears mount over newly spiking reported deaths from the coronavirus.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicized an image of himself in a mask in recent days, urging both public officials and the Islamic Republic’s 80 million people to wear them to stop the virus’s spread.
While pictures emerge of compliance with the new directive on the streets, they found widespread apathy over a pandemic that saw Iran in February among the first countries struck after China. Whether rooted in fatigue, dismissal or fatalism, that indifference has scared Iranian public health officials into issuing increasingly dire warnings.
The new rules mark a turning point for Iran, which has struggled in trying to balance provincial lockdowns to stop the virus’s spread with the fears of stalling out an economy already struggling under US sanctions.
To fight the virus’s spread, the Iranian government issued the mask mandate. The new rules require those in Tehran’s subway, riding buses or indoors to wear them. Rouhani said those seeking public services also will be required to wear a mask.
Up until this point, wearing a mask in Iran had been encouraged but remained a personal choice. It follows the changing views and mixed messages of the scientific community over the usefulness of masks since the pandemic began.
At two busy petrol stations, an Associated Press journalist counted only 15 of 95 drivers wearing masks, while two of the stations’ 11 employees wore them.
“It is useless to wear mask”, argued Mohammad Ghasemi, a 27-year-old employee of one of the stations. “I use the metro twice a day when it’s packed with people without (social) distancing.”
The cost and quality of masks also remains a concern. Masks range from the equivalent of 10 US cents to $3, which can be a lot, as the Iranian rial has fallen to historic lows against the dollar.
And in a nation where over half its people are under the age of 35, the virus hasn’t been an overwhelming concern for its youth. That was the feeling 23-year-old Hamid Sharifi had as he smoked a cigarette on a Tehran street.
“I think it’s not as dangerous as they said in the beginning”, said Sharifi, unmasked, before walking away into the crowds of the capital.
Samad Rostami, a 35-year-old shopkeeper, disagreed.
“If we continue like this, our hospitals will be full and patients should lie on streets,” he said. “We are getting closer to the brink of catastrophe.
At a glance
- The north-western Spanish region of Galicia imposed restrictions on about 70,000 people on Sunday following a Covid-19 outbreak. People living in A Marina along Spain’s northern coast in the region of Lugo will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday
- Iran has introduced compulsory face masks in public spaces after the government admitted its efforts to introduce effective voluntary social distancing have failed. The latest figures published by the Iranian health ministry on Sunday showed a record 163 had died in the past 24 hours, higher than any daily figure in the initial March outbreak
- In Australia, a strict lockdown has begun across nine tower blocks in Melbourne, as officials warn a local outbreak has “explosive potential”. Hundreds of police swarmed the area blocking driveways and doorways and barring people from going out
- A group of scientists are planning to write to the World Health Organization to suggest that they are underplaying the risk of airborne spread of Covid-19. Our science correspondent Hannah Devlin has a report that explains what they mean
- It is a holiday weekend in the US, and the number of new coronavirus cases reported has dipped below 50,000 for the first time in four days. The data, though, may be under-counted due to the Independence Day weekend
- The Philippines has reported its biggest single-day jump in new coronavirus case on Sunday, adding 2,434 confirmed infections and taking the total count to 44,254, the health ministry said. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates passed unwanted milestones as infections hit 200,000 and 50,000 cases respectively. Mexico and India also saw large rises in cases
- Churches opened for worship in England for the first time in three months. It followed pubs being allowed to re-open on Saturday
It isn’t just Croatia with elections today. The Dominican Republic is going to the polls today for general election that had originally been planned for 17 May but which was postponed due to the coronavirus. It might be on the other side of the world, but the scenes look much the same in Santo Domingo as in Zagreb.
Not everybody seems to have got the memo about social distancing though. Here presidential candidate for the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) Luis Abinader leaves after casting his ballot in Santo Domingo, absolutely surrounded by the media.
As has been frequently observed, the US has 4% of the world’s population, and has had around 25% of the world’s confirmed coronavirus cases. President Donald Trump will tell you that is because the country does more testing. Which makes this an interesting piece published today by Politico: Why the US still hasn’t solved its testing crisis
The nation has conducted more than 4 million tests in the past week, more than ever before. But big jumps in testing capacity have been effectively erased by record-breaking increases in new infections as states reopen their economies. The supply chain problems that hampered testing early on never entirely went away and still threaten the ability of labs to conduct testing for everyone asking.
David Lim and Alice Miranda Ollstein have identified five key reasons, including those supply chain problems, racial disparities, and increased demand due to re-opening economies.
You can read it in full here: Politico - Why the US still hasn’t solved its testing crisis
Incidentally, if you are interested in more US news about coronavirus, my colleague Tom Lutz in New York is running a live blog specifically for that.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking at a local political rally in Bilbao, has spoken about the decision to put an area of Galicia into new local coronavirus restrictions.
He urged people not to lower their guard, but called for calm as “the early detection of these outbreaks shows the health system is much better prepared” than in March.
Spain has registered 205,545 coronavirus cases and 28,385 deaths according to health ministry data, making it one of Europe’s worst-affected countries.
Residents of A Marina, along Spain’s northern coast in the province of Lugo, will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday.
Updated
I mentioned earlier that a group of scientists are planning to write to the World Health Organization (WHO) to suggest that they are underplaying the risk of airborne spread of Covid-19.
Hannah Devlin, our science correspondent, understands what they are saying rather better than I do, and has written a report for us about the conflicting views. As she puts it:
WHO guidance states that the virus is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and contact. Aerosol transmission involves much smaller particles that can remain in the air for long periods of time and can be transmitted to others over distances greater than one metre.
Members of the WHO’s infection prevention committee have said that while aerosol transmission may play some role, there is overwhelming evidence that the primary routes of transmission are through direct contact and respiratory droplets expelled during coughing, sneezing or speech. They said introducing new measures to guard against aerosol transmission was unfeasible and unlikely to make much difference to the spread of infection.
However, what this group of scientists are saying is that:
Emerging evidence, including from settings such as meat processing plants where there have been outbreaks, suggests that airborne transmission could be more important than the WHO has acknowledged.
It is well worth reading the whole of Hannah Devlin’s piece to get a better understanding of why they are disagreeing with the current assessment from WHO.
Read it here: WHO underplaying risk of airborne spread of Covid-19, say scientists
New local lockdown restrictions imposed in Galicia, Spain
The north-western Spanish region of Galicia imposed restrictions on about 70,000 people on Sunday following a Covid-19 outbreak, a day after Catalonia also introduced a local lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Reuters reports that people living in A Marina along Spain’s northern coast in the region of Lugo will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday, two days before regional elections in Galicia on 12 July.
The regional government said people will be allowed to move around A Marina but only those who need to travel for work will be allowed to leave or enter the area.
Regional health minister Jesus Vazquez Almuina told a news conference on Sunday that the biggest outbreaks were linked to bars in the area. Regional health authorities said there were 258 cases in Galicia, of which 117 were in Lugo.
Capacity in bars and restaurants will be reduced to 50% and people will have to wear a face mask, even if outdoors on beaches or at swimming pools, the authorities said.
Spain’s health minister Salvador Illa said on Sunday the ministry was following the situations in Galicia and Catalonia very closely.
“Social distancing and lockdown measures were the key to flattening the curve. Now they are needed again to stop the outbreaks,” he said in tweet.
Desde @sanidadgob seguimos muy de cerca la situación en las provincias de Lleida y Lugo. Las medidas de distanciamiento social y el confinamiento fueron la clave para doblegar la curva. Ahora vuelven a ser necesarios para atajar los brotes #COVID19
— Salvador Illa Roca/❤️ (@salvadorilla) July 5, 2020
Spain has registered 205,545 coronavirus cases and 28,385 deaths according to health ministry data, making it one of Europe’s worst-affected countries.
Updated
Speaking of prayers, there have been mass prayers in Bali as the Indonesian resort island prepares to reopen to tourists shut out due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sultan Anshori reports for Reuters that more than a thousand people attended a prayer at Besakih Hindu temple in the town of Karangasem, expressing gratitude for the handling of the new coronavirus on the island and seeking blessings for the start of a “new normal”.
Bali has reported 1,849 coronavirus infections and 20 deaths so far, while Indonesia as a whole has recorded 63,749 cases and 3,171 deaths since early March.
The idyllic Southeast Asian island will gradually reopen this month for domestic tourists, while maintaining a “strict health protocol” to prevent the spread of the virus that causes Covid-19, Bali provincial secretary Dewa Made Indra told reporters.
The local government expects to reopen Bali to foreign arrivals in September. Tourism is Bali’s main source of income. Travel restrictions due to the pandemic have hammered the local economy. The occupancy rate at Bali’s starred hotels plunged to 2.07% in May, according to Bali statistics bureau data, from 62.55% in December before the pandemic hit and down from 51.56% in May 2019.
“What I hope is the best for Bali and ... all the tourists will come to Bali and everybody will be happy and healthy again,” Robin Tesselar, a Dutch citizen staying in Bali, told Reuters after attending the Besakih prayers.
Tourism-related businesses are preparing to for the reopening by implementing the health protocols, aiming to improve them until Bali reopens for international tourists, said hospitality executive Yoga Iswara.
Churches open in England for worship for first time in 3 months
Churches have been open in England for the first time for three months. Worshippers were asked to observe hygiene and social distancing guidance, including changes to singing and Holy Communion, during services.
At York Minster, which reopened for evening prayer on Saturday after being closed since 16 March, worshippers were limited in number and asked to leave their names and contact details.
Staff and clergy wore face masks and visors to welcome visitors, a one-way system was in place and hand sanitiser was available.
Ahead of the reopening, the Minster said services will be simpler and shorter initially, with changes including no congregational singing, hand-shaking or drinking from the common cup during Holy Communion.
The Dean of York, the Right Rev Dr Jonathan Frost, said: “We are delighted to open our doors again to welcome people for public worship and to explore this magnificent sacred space.
“Over the last few weeks we have welcomed many for individual prayer, but to gather again for worship - with relevant physical distancing measures in place - will be a huge encouragement for many.”
There will be fewer people nursing hangovers in church than might have been expected - fears of widespread disorder last night as English pubs re-opened proved unfounded.
And as well as the socially distanced Sunday services, there’s also been at least one church wedding today. Hayley Collins and David D’Arcy got married at 10am this morning in a socially distanced service with 27 guests at St Anne’s Church in Aigburth.
They had originally planned to marry on 4 April, but the service had to be postponed.
The Miami Herald this morning has published a blunt editorial castigating US president Donald Trump for his coronavirus response, and urging Republican state Gov. Ron DeSantis to take drastic unilateral action on face masks in Florida.
It seems after weeks of plateauing new cases, we exhaled briefly and reopened. Now, we’re going backward, just as the nation’s head of infectious diseases, Fauci, predicted. He also has said: “Anything that favors the use of masks, whether it’s giving out free masks or any other mechanism, I am thoroughly in favor of.” With Trump exiting the stage here, DeSantis should be his own man, step up and make wearing masks in public mandatory in Florida.
On Saturday, Florida added 11,458 new cases of coronavirus, beating a previous daily record of 10,109. Of the president himself, the paper says:
[Trump] is headed to the sidelines in an effort to depoliticize the national fight against the virus and get re-elected again. This politically calculated move is simply too little, too late. Trump never should have been that daily voice [of the coronavirus response]. He has used the pandemic to purposely sow discord and division among us, downplaying and dismissing the virus, and assuring us that it will just “go away.” It’s a shame he didn’t step back more than 129,000 deaths ago.
You can read it here: Miami Herald - Trump’s leaving the Covid-19 stage. Florida’s DeSantis should assert his independence
As well as puzzles over the precise transmission nature of the coronavirus, scientists are yet to determine the long-term impacts of having the coronavirus on the human body. Cate Leighton, a physiotherapist, has previously written for us about the gruelling attempt to recover from the illness, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of the illness lingering for weeks.
With that in mind, today the National Health Service (NHS) England has announced it is launching a coronavirus recovery service to aid survivors experiencing long-term effects from the virus.
Explaining the service, NHS chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, said many survivors would experience “significant ongoing health problems” including breathing difficulties, enduring tiredness, reduced muscle function, impaired ability to perform vital everyday tasks and mental health problems such as PTSD, anxiety and depression.
My colleague Molly Blackall has more, and you can also keep up with the latest on coronavirus in the UK on our live blog.
Read more here: NHS England launches coronavirus recovery service
With so much still uncertain about the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19, even the exact method of transmission remains scientifically unknown. As far back as in May, scientists in Australia were warning the world to be on guard against airborne transmission, and studies indicate that the coronavirus can be detected on particles of air pollution.
Overnight the New York Times has written about an open letter that 239 experts are planning on sending to the World Health Organisations (WHO) this week, which the Times says makes one big claim: the coronavirus is airborne.
The WHO has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor. But in an open letter to the WHO, 239 scientists in 32 countries have outlined the evidence showing that smaller particles can infect people, and are calling for the agency to revise its recommendations. The researchers plan to publish their letter in a scientific journal next week.
It could lead to radical changes to the way that we try and prevent the infection spreading. The New York Times reports Dr. Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO technical lead on infection control, saying that the evidence for the virus spreading by air was “unconvincing”, but it also looks at how, it says, the WHO has at times been out-of-step with science with its warnings during the pandemic.
It’s a fascinating read, which you can find here: New York Times - 239 experts with one big claim: the coronavirus is airborne
Compulsory face masks in public spaces introduced in Iran
Compulsory face masks in public spaces have been introduced in Iran after the government admitted its efforts to introduce effective voluntary social distancing have failed, and that the death rate due to coronavirus is now spiralling up to record levels.
The latest figures published by the Iranian health ministry on Sunday showed a record 163 had died in the past 24 hours, higher than any daily figure in the initial March outbreak. The total number of deaths had reached 11,571. The number of new infections was 2,560 short of the daily records set at the beginning of June, but in line with the figures for the past fortnight. In fresh tests, 5 MPs have tested positive, and a number of top footballers.
The government said the number of provinces declared as red has reached 9, with a further 9 including Tehran declared amber. The level of restrictions in a province, including closure of restaurants and cafes, is dependent on the province’s classification.
The country appears to be paying the price for lifting restrictions on April 11, right after Persian New Year holidays when people went back to work.
President Hassan Rouhani said, “Anybody who doesn’t wear a mask should be refused services and if a government employee doesn’t wear one, he/she should be marked as absent”. Similarly anyone not wearing a mask will be prevented from using public transport.
The government urged the public to ring a hotline if they saw breaches in the guidelines or non-compliance with social distancing rules.
Dr. Masoud Mardani, an infectious disease specialist and a member of the Iranian National Task Force told an Iranian news agency on Saturday “Based on serological tests done across the country, we estimated about 18 million Iranians have contracted the virus, which is about 20% of total population.”
Based on ministry of health data, the current death rate in the country is 5.4%. Iranian government critics say if this rate is applied to the 18 million cases, that would lead to a figure of 972,000 deaths since the beginning of the outbreak, which is 85 times more than the “official” number.
The Observer today carries an interview with former World Health Organization director Anthony Costello about coronavirus. It focuses on the way the UK government has handled the coronavirus outbreak, but he makes a couple of wider points about the availability of vaccines and around herd immunity. On vaccines, Costello says:
The good news is that you’ve got more labs in the world looking for a vaccine for this virus than any other. They’ve got better techniques for designing vaccines and there’s a lot of money going into it. Having said that, they’ve never had a vaccine to a coronavirus. Vaccines usually take several years to develop because you’ve got to test the safety of it. And most worrying, it seems the immune response to the virus is not very good, and fades. That suggests any vaccine you come up with may have only short lasting immunity. For all those reasons I’m cautious. The people I respect say two years would be a possible time. My guess is that we may get a partially effective one a bit quicker.
On the concept of modelling ‘herd immunity’, Costello argues:
[A UCL professor called Karl Friston] thinks the herd immunity level to stop this epidemic is probably a lot lower than 60%. He thinks it’s around 25-30%. What he says is that around half your population is either sequestered or shielded, so are not exposed. Up to a half of the rest are not susceptible, like kids, because they’ve got good mucosal immunity. And others may get symptoms but not transmit it very easily. If our assumptions are right it may mean that this crisis ends earlier than we expect. But coronavirus won’t be eradicated without a vaccine.
You can read the interview in full here: Former WHO director Anthony Costello: ‘Opening pubs before schools says something about our priorities’
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There’s been a dip in the number of new coronavirus cases reported in the US. The figure was under 50,000 for the first time in four days, albeit with the caveat that data might not be complete because of under-counting due to the national holiday weekend.
My colleague Maanvi Singh has been looking at one of the states where they took early action, but are seeing a massive rise in infections, to find out what went wrong with California’s coronavirus plan.
As hospitalizations surged, the death toll climbed past 6,000, and ICU beds in some regions began filling to capacity, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, ordered bars, restaurant dining rooms, cinemas and other indoor venues in the hardest-hit counties to close back up. Now, health officials and epidemiologists sifting through the rubble are left wondering how the golden state lost its status as the public health golden child.
Singh has spoken several people including health officials and epidemiologists about what California did, and didn’t, do right.
Read it here: ‘They feel invincible’: how California’s coronavirus plan went wrong
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Pope Francis this morning has praised UN security council efforts to establish a worldwide ceasefire in order to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
In remarks following prayers delivered at St Peter’s Square from a Vatican window, the Pope said: “The call for a global and immediate ceasefire, which would allow the peace and security essential for providing the humanitarian assistance so urgently needed, is commendable.”
Speaking of the UN resolution demanding “a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations on its agenda”, he said he hoped “this decision will be implemented effectively and promptly for the sake of the many people who are suffering”.
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Coronavirus cases in Latin America have been rising dramatically. Tom Phillips reported for us earlier today on how years of social progress have been reversed by the virus, amid accusations that politicians have been fatally inept.
My colleague Emma Graham-Harrison has also written an analysis of events in the region this morning, and she argues that poverty, not just populists, is to blame for Covid-19’s impact on Latin America.
The two countries with the deadliest outbreaks share populist leaders, Brazil’s rightwing Jair Bolsonaro and Mexico’s leftwing Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Both helped turbocharge the outbreaks in their respective countries, playing down the threat of the virus when it first arrived. But it would be simplistic to present the coronavirus crisis sweeping across the continent as simply a fallout from populism. Infections in Peru and Chile, which have centre-right, technocratic governments, have outpaced those in Mexico.
Graham-Harrison examines how inequality in the region means that wealthy people have brought the virus back from their travels, and been able to afford to get tested and self-isolate, while the people who work for them pick up the disease, and begin to spread it into poorer communities to deadly effect.
You can read it here: Emma Graham-Harrison - Poverty, not just populists, to blame for Covid-19’s impact on Latin America
Philippines records highest single-day jump in new coronavirus cases
The Philippines has reported its biggest single-day jump in new coronavirus case on Sunday, adding 2,434 confirmed infections and taking the total count to 44,254, the health ministry said.
According to Reuters, the ministry said the rise could be attributed to increased contact among people as the country began easing lockdown measures to help reduce the pandemic’s damage to the economy.
The Philippines also recorded seven new deaths, the ministry said, bringing total fatalities to 1,297.
Croatia is going to the polls today, and in a familiar sight from democracies around the world, a lot of precautions are being taken at polling stations to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The country has reported a relatively small number of coronavirus infections overall. There have been about 3,000 Covid-19 cases and around 100 deaths.
However, infections have accelerated in the past two weeks, with the daily number of new cases peaking at around 80.
This has coincided with the re-opening of borders and allowing tourists back into the country. However on Thursday, health minister Vili Beroš insisted that these new cases had come from neighbouring countries, and not from an influx of infected tourists.
Polling suggests that the ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party has a slight advantage over its main rival, the Social Democrats (SDP). However, neither party is seen as having sufficient support to govern on its own, and we are yet to see how the economic impact of the pandemic plays out in voters’ intentions.
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Afghanistan reports 38 new Covid-19 deaths and 279 new cases
The number of confirmed deaths from Covid-19 has risen by 38 to 864 in Afghanistan, while the health ministry detected 279 new cases on Sunday as Kabul recorded its lowest daily infections in around two months.
The number of confirmed infections stands at 32,951, with 19,366 recoveries. The country’s health ministry, which has admitted that it has a lack of testing capacity, has tested 75,747 suspected patients since the outbreak began.
The capital, Kabul, which has been the country’s worst affected area with 235 deaths, recorded its lowest daily infections in two months, as 24 patients tested positive. Ten patients died from the virus overnight in Kabul.
Five patients died in the remote province of Khost as 43 from 50 tests came back positive in the last 24 hours. Testing capacity remains low in Afghanistan and experts warn that the actual number of infections is much higher.
Most new cases (80) were confirmed in the central province of Bamiyan. The western province of Herat has recorded 10 new deaths from the virus overnight.
Afghanistan reported the death of the first high profile official from the virus on Friday after Yosuf Ghazanfar, President Ashraf Ghani’s Special Envoy for Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, died from the virus.
We did prayers for the departed soul of @YosufGhazanfar, the most senior serving govt official who lost his life to Covid-19. He was a friend, a colleague & an election companion of us. We cherish his memories & appeal to almighty to give strength to his family. RIP my friend. https://t.co/BROVKXJcnz
— Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2) July 5, 2020
The health ministry has said that the country has reached the peak of coronavirus as daily infections are dropping in recent days while the ministry tests fewer patients. The ministry has on multiple occasions said it has the capacity of 2,000 tests a day, but has never reached the numbers.
“According to our statistics, we are now at the peak of the pandemic as the daily infections have been around the same number in the last two weeks, and the number of suspected patients decreased, so we hope daily numbers will drop soon,” said Abdulqadeer Qadeeri, deputy health minister.
Here’s some more on the sudden lockdown of the Flemington public housing in Melbourne, Australia from Margaret Simons. It seems that the authorities acted quickly - but this left them woefully unprepared for how to deal with the realities of what they were imposing and the community they were dealing with.
According to residents on the estate, there were no interpreters, no social workers and no medical staff in this first wave of government response. Community leaders had not been informed or consulted. Residents arrived home only to be told they would not be allowed out again. One mother had left her children with a relative outside the estate, and was allowed by police to do a quick U-turn and go and fetch them. Other residents arrived with large boxes of groceries, having heard of the lockdown while still outside the estate.
Simons’ report speaks of food parcels for residents being left down at the bottom of the tower blocks, but with no clear plan for whether workers were to take them up to the residents, or the residents had to come down to collect them. The towers have tiny lifts that have to be shared by all the resident.
You can read more here: Melbourne towers’ sudden hard lockdown caught police, health workers and residents off-guard
Uganda’s ministry of health has just tweeted out the country’s daily figures. There have been 12 new Covid-19 cases confirmed, bringing the total number of those infected in the country to 939.
Results from COVID-19 tests done on 04 July 2020
— Ministry of Health- Uganda (@MinofHealthUG) July 5, 2020
12 new COVID-19 cases confirmed. The cumulative total confirmed cases of Ugandans are now 939.
🔺2 truck drivers from Malaba and Mutukula
🔺7 contacts from Amuru
🔺3 Returnees; 1 from South Africa and 2 from DRC
The ministry also confirmed it had turned away 11 people at the border who had tested positive.
🔺11 foreign truck drivers tested positive for COVID-19 at the border points of entry and their entry into the country was not permitted
— Ministry of Health- Uganda (@MinofHealthUG) July 5, 2020
🔹Active cases on admission: 197 (167 Ugandans,25 foreigners and 5 refugees)
🔸Total Recoveries: 891 (Includes both Ugandans and Foreigners)
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Infection rates rise in Gulf states as Saudi Arabia passes 200,000 cases
Reuters are reporting that Saudi Arabia’s coronavirus infections have passed 200,000, while neighbouring United Arab Emirates has passed 50,000.
The number of new cases is climbing after the Arab world’s two largest economies fully lifted curfews last month. Restrictions had been in place in both countries since mid-March, and their gradual lifting has allowed commercial businesses and public venues to reopen.
Saudi Arabia, which has the highest count among the six Gulf states, reported more than 4,100 cases on Friday and on Saturday to take its total to 205,929, with 1,858 deaths. The daily tally first rose above 4,000 in mid-June, but had dipped.
The United Arab Emirates, where daily infection rates recently dropped to between 300 and 400 from a peak of some 900 in late May, registered more than 600 cases on Friday and over 700 on Saturday, taking its toll to 50,857, with 321 deaths.
Dubai, the region’s business and tourism hub is due to reopen to foreign visitors on 7 July.
Other Gulf countries have also eased restrictions, although Kuwait has maintained a partial curfew and Qatar, Bahrain and Oman did not impose one at all.
Qatar, which has the second highest regional infection rate, has seen its daily case numbers fall from a peak of more than 2,000 in late May to around 500 on Saturday, bringing it near to 100,000 cases in total.
In Oman, the health minister warned on Thursday that there had been a disturbing surge in infections in the last six weeks, and urged people to comply with health measures.
US dips under 50,000 new daily cases for first time in four days
The US has dipped under 50,000 new coronavirus cases for the first time in four days, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, although experts fear celebrations for Independence Day weekend will continue to fuel the nation’s surging outbreak.
Johns Hopkins counted 45,300 new coronavirus infections in the US on Saturday, after three days in which the daily count reached as high as 54,500 new cases. A word of caution, though, the lower figure on Saturday does not necessarily mean the situation in the US is improving, as it could be due to reduced reporting while the country enjoys a national holiday.
The US continues to have the most infections and virus-related deaths in the world, with 2.8 million cases and nearly 130,000 dead, according to the university.
Experts say the true toll of the pandemic is significantly higher, due to people who died before they were tested and missed mild cases. To show just how steep the current infection curve is in the US, the country was reporting under 20,000 new infections a day as recently as 15 June.
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One impact of coronavirus has been to distract people from the impact of the climate crisis. Despite the country having recorded a record 24,850 new virus cases in the last twenty-four hours, raising its total to 673,165, the fourth highest in the world, in Uttar Pradesh in India, officials are still trying to keep up their efforts to mitigate global heating.
Despite the new social distancing requirements, India is still planning to plant 250m trees as part of a government plan to tackle climate change. There are hopes that as many as 2 million people will take part in the programme.
“We are committed to increase the forest cover of Uttar Pradesh to over 15% of the total land area in next five years,” the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, said in inaugurating the campaign in Lucknow, the state capital.
“In today’s campaign, over 20m trees will be planted at the banks of the Ganges river, which will help in keeping this mighty river clean” Adityanath said.
Everybody taking part in the launch event for the day appeared to be wearing masks.
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More than 800 new cases reported in Israel
There are new figures on the coronavirus coming out of Israel as well. 803 Israelis tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday. The health ministry reported there were 11,189 active cases in total. Three hundred and thirty-one people have died, and according to the ministry 86 are in critical condition, of which 29 are intubated.
Tia Goldenberg has been reporting for the Associated Press on thousands of people in Israel being ordered into quarantine after the resumption of a contentious phone surveillance programme.
The health ministry said that many messages had been sent to Israelis following the renewed involvement of the Shin Bet domestic security agency. Israeli daily Haaretz reported that more than 30,000 people were notified they must enter quarantine since Thursday.
After imposing strict measures early on during a first wave of infections, Israel and the Palestinian territories appeared to have contained their outbreaks, with each reporting only a few dozen new cases a day in May. But an easing of restrictions led to a steady uptick in cases over the past month.
Israeli police have said their operations to enforce coronavirus regulations will be expanded countrywide – with thousands of police officers inspecting restaurants, event venues, shops, buses and trains.
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South Africa reports daily new case rise of more than 10,000 for first time
For the first time, South Africa is reporting more than 10,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases in a single day.
That brings the country’s total confirmed cases to more than 187,977, by far the most of any country on the African continent. South Africa also has surpassed 3,000 deaths in this outbreak.
Cases continue to rise particularly in Gauteng province, home of Johannesburg and the executive capital Pretoria, which has close to one-third of the country’s infections.
Updated
Reuters are reporting on India’s plans to reopen the Taj Mahal. Visitors will have to wear masks at all times, keep their distance, and not touch its glistening marble surfaces when the 17th-century monument to love reopens on Monday after a three-month shutdown.
Only 5,000 tourists will be allowed in a day, split into two groups, which is a far cry from the peak levels of 80,000 a day you could expect to see at the mausoleum built in the northern city of Agra by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife.
“All centrally protected monuments & sites shall be bound by the protocols like sanitization, social distancing and other health protocols,” the federal tourism ministry said in a tweet yesterday.
The move is not without controversy though. Authorities are reopening the Taj and other monuments, such as New Delhi’s historic Red Fort, just as India’s coronavirus infections are rising at the fastest pace in three months.
On Sunday, the health ministry reported a record single-day spike of 24,850 new cases and more than 600 deaths, pushing the overall case tally to 673,165.
The government has been lifting a vast lockdown of India’s 1.3 billion people that has left tens of thousands without work and shuttered businesses.
Agra, one of India’s first big clusters of the virus, remains the worst-affected city in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state.
“All around the Taj are containment zones,” a local district administration official told Reuters’ Neha Arora, requesting anonymity, ahead of the monument’s planned reopening.
Containment zones, areas identified as most affected by the virus, remain under strict lockdown, with restricted access and movement of only essential goods and services.
“We don’t expect visitors here because clusters around the Taj, including shops and hotels, are closed,” the official said.
Updated
Key events
- The World Health Organisation has reported a record 200,000 new cases in one day, amid surging outbreaks in several global hotspots
- Mexico now has the fifth highest death toll worldwide, after fatalities rose to 30,366. It has recorded 252,165 cases, though officials say this is likely an underestimate. The outbreaks in Latin America as a whole have been described as a ‘tsunami’
- Pubs, bars and restaurants re-opened in England for the first time in three months - and police said it was ‘crystal clear’ that drunk people can’t socially distance. My colleague Molly Blackall has our live UK coverage
- In Australia, a strict lockdown has begun across nine tower blocks in Melbourne, as officials warn a local outbreak has “explosive potential”. Hundreds of police swarmed the area blocking driveways and doorways and barring people from going out
- Donald Trump celebrated independence day with a string of false and misleading claims attempting to play down the coronavirus pandemic and warning that China will be “held accountable”
- The President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, has gone into 14-day precautionary self-isolation after someone close to him tested positive for Covid-19
- Russia reported 6,736 new cases of Covid-19, raising the nationwide tally to 681,251.
- In India, ministers have visited a new temporary Covid-19 hospital in New Delhi which has been constructed in 11 days. The country has also announced plans to re-open tourist attraction the Taj Mahal
India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, has been tweeting pictures of his visit to the country’s new Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Covid hospital in New Delhi, alongside home affairs minister Amit Shah and health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.
India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has built the temporary structure in 11 days. It has 1,000 beds including 250 ICU beds.
This 1000 bed COVID hospital with 250 ICU beds is to be operated by the Armed Forces Medical Services. I congratulate all the agencies working tirelessly towards making this Hospital a wonderful example in enhancing our preparedness against the menace of COVID-19.
— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 5, 2020
Shah also posted video of the visit.
Visiting the 1000 Bed Sardar Patel COVID Hospital with 250 ICU Beds built in record time by DRDO & Tata Sons along with Raksha Mantri Shri @rajnathsingh ji. https://t.co/WHvV1wtALe
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) July 5, 2020
According to the Delhi health department, the area has had nearly 100,000 cases, with about 25,000 of them active. India, as a whole, has had nearly 675,000 cases.
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My colleague Molly Blackall has just started our UK coronavirus live blog coverage for the day – I’ll obviously mention any significant UK developments as they happen here, but if you are looking for more of a detailed UK focus on events, then you can head here.
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Hi, I’m Martin Belam, and I’ll be running our live global coronavirus coverage for the next few hours. You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
One of the major developments yesterday in Australia was in Melbourne, where three thousand people living in nine public housing towers have been placed under the harshest lockdown rules of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia so far. They have banned from leaving their homes for at least five days, and hundreds of police turning up to enforce the order.
Elhadi Abass lives in the Flemington estate in one of the towers affected, and has written for us about the experience - and what needs to be done next.
We see kids playing and riding their bicycles and doing whatever they want to do. And our kids are stuck at home, inside. Imagine how hard that is for our children, to be locked in the flats and looking out of the windows at those other kids.
What we need is more testing, lots of testing, but not lockdowns. Yesterday they sent 500 police. Why? I want to ask Daniel Andrews why he sent us the police, but no medical help. This is not a police issue. Why didn’t they send us 500 nurses?
You can read it in full here: Elhadi Abass - The government sent 500 police to the towers instead of 500 nurses. We need more testing, not lockdowns
That’s all from me, I’m now handing over to my colleague in London, Martin Belam, who will keep you updated with the latest coronavirus news over the next few hours.
Tom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, reports on the devastating impact of the coronavirus, which threatens to reverse years of social progress across the region:
As coronavirus galloped through Latin America in late April, the mayor of Manaus was in despair. “The outlook is dismal,” Arthur Virgílio admitted as gravediggers in the Amazon’s largest city piled coffins into muddy trenches, Brazil’s death toll hit 5,500, and its president, Jair Bolsonaro, responded with a shrug. “It’s obvious this won’t end well.”
Two months later, Virgílio’s nightmare has come true. Brazil’s death toll has risen to more than 60,000 – the second highest in the world after the United States – with some now predicting it could overtake the US, where 130,000 have died, by the end of July.
Latin America – home to 8% of the global population but nearly half of recent Covid-19 deaths – is in the eye of the storm, with more than 120,000 of the world’s 524,000 coronavirus fatalities, and counting.
On the front of today’s Observer, British chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is accused of breaking his promise to protect the national health service. Sunak refused to provide a £10bn cash injection to avoid the health service being crippled by a second wave of the coronavirus. He had previously pledged to give the NHS “whatever it needs.”
Tomorrow’s front page pic.twitter.com/0gExujh4Ow
— The Observer (@ObserverUK) July 4, 2020
The World Health Organization has reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases with 212,326 being recorded in just 24 hours, amid a surge in the United States, Brazil and India.
The WHO’s situation report showed that just under 130,000 of those new cases were in the Americas, including the US, Brazil and Mexico, but the WHO said South-East Asia, including India stood at just under new 28,000 new cases on Saturday.
The previous biggest daily global increase had been 189,00, on Tuesday.
Read the Guardian’s latest report on the global coronavirus pandemic here.
Idris Hassan, 35, lives with his wife and three young children in one of the public housing towers that has been locked down in North Melbourne.
As of 3pm on Sunday, he said he was yet to receive any care packages or food deliveries. No one had visited the family to provide information about what to expect.
“It feels unfair that particular buildings are being locked down while across the street, people are just allowed to go to work and do their other necessities,” he told the Guardian.
Hassan works at Melbourne airport in the export industry and is frustrated he will not be able to go to work tomorrow. He was unimpressed by the $1,500 hardship payments announced by the government, saying he will still be disadvantaged by missing at least a week of work.
“You can’t throw me peanuts and then say, ‘We’re going to take your liberties and freedom and even the right to buy food,’” he said.
“Having said that, I do understand [the importance of] containing the virus... But I don’t think we’re being dealt a good hand here. It just feels like we’re really being squeezed.”
“As a minority group, it feels like we are soft targets,” added Hassan, whose background is Somali.
In his building, Hassan said residents were able to leave their unit, but could not leave the tower itself. He went down to the foyer to speak to the police on Saturday night, but found they had little information. No police are stationed on his floor, he said.
“They just relayed to me what the press release was,” Hassan said. “I mean, I don’t want to hear that. I read it. Everybody’s read it.”
While he did not support the “hard” lockdown, he was also frustrated by the fact it was implemented immediately. He was angry about what he called the “lack of information, the lack of communication, the lack of respect we are being given”.
“Right now, as we’re speaking, we don’t have milk for the kids,” he said.
Updated
Hiba Shanino, a law student, is among thousands of people who have been locked down in housing estates in Melbourne. She writes about the experience of being abruptly confined to her family home:
There are two sides to how we are feeling right now. Mixed with the sense of outrage is a bit of relief – that the government is paying attention. And we do believe that we should be locked down, that this is an important health issue. We have a lot of people here who are vulnerable, and a lot of elderly people, so now it’s good that there is an awareness of what is going on in our community, and some help. But Daniel Andrews [premier of Victoria] should understand that he can’t just put immediate lockdown on a community, when other suburbs got hours or days’ notice. For us it was immediate.”
There have been 401 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Australian state of Victoria that have been acquired through unknown transmission. There are currently 543 active cases in Victoria.
Of the new cases which have already been linked to wider clusters, the Victoria department of health has provided the following breakdown:
• Two new cases linked to the Stamford Plaza outbreak, one household contact and one contracted security guard who was already in quarantine, taking the total number of cases linked to the outbreak to 42.
• One new case linked to the Truganina family outbreak, a close contact of a known case, taking the total number of cases linked to the outbreak to 14.
• Eight new cases linked to the Al-Taqwa College outbreak, all previously identified close contacts. We have also linked some existing cases, taking the total number of cases linked to the outbreak to 59.
• One new case and one case previously under investigation have been linked to the Flemington public housing outbreak, taking the total number of cases linked to the outbreak to 14.
• Two new cases linked to the Roxburgh Park outbreak, two close contacts of a known case, taking the total number of cases linked to the outbreak to 28.
• As referred to yesterday, two new healthcare worker cases linked to the Northern Hospital Epping Emergency Department, taking the total number of cases linked to the outbreak to five.
• Two cases which were previously under investigation have also been linked to the North Melbourne public housing outbreak, taking the total number of cases linked to the outbreak to 13.
Other new cases include:
• One new case in a healthcare worker at the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital, a close contact of a known case who was already in quarantine.
• One new case of a healthcare worker at Royal Melbourne Hospital. It’s believed the worker attended the site for one day while infectious and so far, the department is not aware of any contact with patients. The contact tracing process is underway.
Western Australia has reported six new cases of coronavirus – all returned travellers in hotel quarantine. The six – four women and two men aged between 40 and 64 – were all passengers on a flight from Dubai which arrived in Perth on 1 July, and returned positive test results following WA Health screening conducted on day two after their arrival.
All the new cases are returning Western Australians from the metropolitan area.
A woman who arrived in New Zealand’s quarantine regime from Brisbane has jumped a fence and escaped, forcing a major contact-tracing effort, Australian Associated Press reports
A 43-year-old woman, who arrived from Brisbane last month, escaped from her 14-day mandatory isolation at the Pullman Hotel in central Auckland, on Saturday night.
She was apprehended by police a few blocks away, two hours later.
Housing minister Megan Woods, who has responsibility for the quarantine regime alongside defence officials, said “it was a climbing-the-fence situation”.
“She was outside in a common area, as she was allowed to be, and she climbed a fence,” she said on Sunday. The woman had previously tested negative to Covid-19, but her escape has necessitated a contact tracing effort.
Woods said police were considering charges. “If she was to be charged under the Covid Act, then the maximum penalty is six months imprisonment or a $4,000 fine,” she said.
“We will have robust procedures, but at the end of the day we’re asking individuals to follow the rules,” she said. “We are not setting up patrolled perimeters. We’re not putting up unclimbable walls at these hotels. We’re asking those [wanting to] rejoin the team of 5 million to follow the rules.”
About 3,000 public housing residents living in nine tower block estates in the Melbourne suburbs of Flemington and North Melbourne were placed into a five-day “hard lockdown” on the afternoon of 4 July. Some 23 people across the buildings have tested positive for Covid-19, while officials warn the outbreak has “explosive potential”.
A nightclub operator in the Australian state of Queensland could face a hefty fine after video emerged of a packed dance floor in breach of coronavirus restrictions, Australian Associated Press reports.
Footage of clubbers dancing shoulder-to-shoulder is alleged to have been taken on Friday night at Prohibition in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Pubs and clubs were allowed to reopen on Friday, but dance floors remain closed.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she is aware of the footage and police are investigating if the club has breached Covid-19 safe rules.
“I thank those nightclubs that did do the right thing and, from all reports, the majority of them did,” MPalaszczuk told reporters on Sunday. “It is unfortunate that some did breach those rules so that’s a matter for police. If they have breached those Covid safe plans there could be fines imposed.”
Last week a bar in Roma was fined $6,672, after plain-clothes police pointed out several breaches, including failure to collect contact details. There are concerns that the flagrant breaking of the rules could affect the entire industry.
“Hotels and clubs are desperate in to keep operating so the actions of one or two should not impact the rest of the hospitality industry,” said Bernie Hogan, Queensland Hotels Association chief executive officer. None of his members were located in the Valley, he added, and he was hoping there would be no repercussions for licensees.
Queensland again recorded no new cases on Sunday with just one active case throughout the state.
Teachers and headteachers in England are calling on the government to suspend league tables for schools next year, arguing they are unfair and will place too much pressure on staff and pupils whose routine has been disrupted by lockdown.
It would be meaningless and counterproductive to compare the performance of schools based on tests taken at the end of primary and secondary education next year, the National Education Union (NEU) the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) have warned.
“The education of the children taking these assessments has already been disrupted by the coronavirus lockdown, and it is likely that there will be further disruption next academic year with children having to self-isolate if they show symptoms of the infection, and the possibility of local lockdowns in response to infection spikes,” said Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL.
Summary
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Mexico now has the fifth highest death toll worldwide, after fatalities rose to 30,366. It has recorded 252,165 cases, though officials say this is likely an underestimate.
- Donald Trump celebrated independence day with a string of false and misleading claims attempting to play down the coronavirus pandemic and warning that China will be “held accountable”.
- In Australia, a strict lockdown has begun across nine tower blocks in Melbourne, as officials warn a local outbreak has “explosive potential”. Hundreds of police swarmed the area blocking driveways and doorways and barring people from going out. Victoria premier Daniel Andrews said the harsh lockdown measures could be expanded across all of Melbourne if containment efforts are not effective.
- The Australian Medical Association is calling for a temporary pause in the easing of all Covid-19 restrictions in the country until Victoria gets the current outbreak in Melbourne under control.
- Voters in Tokyo went to the polls on Sunday to elect their governor, as Japan’s capital struggles with rebounding coronavirus infections and prepares for next year’s Olympics.
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Up to 3.85 million Croats will go to polls on Sunday to elect a new government at a time when coronavirus infections are on the rise and the economy is facing a sharp downturn.
- Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo will isolate for 14 days on the advice of doctors after a person in his close circle tested positive for coronavirus.
Updated
Mexico's death toll now fifth highest worldwide
Mexico’s death toll from the new coronavirus rose to 30,366 Saturday, propelling it past France to become the country with the fifth-highest number of fatalities in the global pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins university figures.
Agence France-Presse reports that US remains the hardest-hit country in the world, with 129,673 deaths, followed by Brazil, Britain and Italy.
The Latin American country, with 127 million inhabitants, had surpassed Spain in the number of deaths last Wednesday.
In the Americas, the enter of the pandemic, it is the third-most affected country after the US and Brazil.
Mexico City, the capital, is the urban centre most affected by the disease - but that has not prevented municipal authorities from starting a partial economic reopening at the beginning of July.
Updated
Fears the relaxing of lockdown measures in England could lead to the emergency services being as busy as New Year’s Eve appear to not have been realised, PA Media reports. Pubs reopened on Saturday for the first time in three months.
Devon and Cornwall Police said they had received more than 1,000 reports over the so-called Super Saturday, most of which were “drink-related”, while four people were arrested and several pubs decided to close after alcohol related anti-social behaviour in north Nottinghamshire.
In London, Soho attracted a number of people on Saturday evening as establishments opened for the first time in more than 100 days and the chief constable of West Midlands Police Dave Thompson said there was a “slow steady approach to the night time economy reopening in Birmingham”.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 239 to 196,335, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Sunday.
The reported death toll rose by 2 to 9,012, the tally showed.
Updated
In the UK, new quarantine exemptions will allow major sporting events, as well as TV and film productions, to go ahead this summer, PA Media reports.
Silverstone will be able to stage races in August, and the move gives the go-ahead for international cricket, Champions League and Europa League football, the PGA British Masters Championship and the World Snooker Championships to take place.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said selected international sporting events and major movie and television productions will get the green light despite the coronavirus outbreak.
Dowden spoke to Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise this week about how the exemption will allow production to resume on Mission Impossible 7 and 8.
Also, significant darts, horse racing and other sporting events are expected to follow, ministers said.
The easing of rules will see some sports stars and their support teams, as well as international film and TV stars, directors and producers, exempt from quarantine, if they are essential to the event or production.
Outbreak in Melbourne has 'explosive potential', warns chief health officer
Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton has warned the confined nature of the public housing buildings under hard lockdown in Melbourne has a “genuinely explosive potential” for Covid-19 spread.
Sutton said authorities haven’t “turned the corner” yet in containing the outbreaks at the towers, and warned he expects some “big days ahead of us”.
He also said there was “a lot of exchange of individuals” between the nine towers, and said authorities are working on the “precautionary principle that transmission might have occurred across towers”.
“It is not about the people who are there, it is about the entire environment,” he said.
Updated
There wasn't a playbook for Covid, says Jacinda Ardern
Three new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in New Zealand, all involving people who have returned from abroad and who are staying in quarantine facilities. In total, 1,183 cases have been detected in the country, including 21 active cases.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who addressed her annual party congress on Sunday, said there had been no “playbook for Covid”.
“There wasn’t a playbook for the recovery. And speaking frankly, there hasn’t been one for much of what has happened this term,” she said, during an election-year speech.
Ardern has pledged to avoid austerity during the onset of recession, and the government’s budget has a $NZ20 billion “Covid response and recovery Fund”.
Her popularity has soared after her government’s response to Covid-19, which has seen New Zealand eliminate the virus from the community.
Lockdowns could be expanded in Melbourne, says Victoria premier
Victoria premier Daniel Andrews has not ruled out expanding harsh lockdowns across all of Melbourne if containment efforts are not effective.
Andrews also warned that because of the scale of testing in the towers, that “we’re going to see some big numbers in the days ahead”.
“It is far more likely that we are going to find what we’re looking for (than finding no infections in the towers),” Andrews said.
“I don’t want people dying in these towers...We will all feel the impact if this gets away from us comprehensively, because I won’t be looking down 12 postcodes, I will have no choice but to lockdown all postcodes”.
3,000 Melbourne residents to be given lockdown rent relief
About 3,000 public housing residents in Melbourne who have been placed under a hard lockdown will not be charged rent for the next two week, as Victoria records a further 74 Covid-19 cases.
The rent relief was announced by Victorian premier Daniel Andrews at a press conference on Sunday morning, a day after the state recorded 108 cases, which triggered a strict lockdown for residents of nine public housing buildings in the city. People have been told they cannot leave their homes for any reason for at least the next five days.
Andrews also said a $1500 hardship payment will be made to every employed resident in the tower who cannot go to work, and a $750 to all unemployed tenants.
He said public health workers, nurses and others had been working “right throughout the night” to provide food, essentials, drug and alcohol support, mental health support, family violence support, physical healthcare and support for the residents, many of whom are in “pretty poor health” with preexisting medical conditions.
There are now 543 active coronavirus cases in Victoria, with 16 of the 74 cases announced on Sunday connected to controlled outbreaks. 53 of the new cases are under investigation.
“This is not going to be a pleasant experience for those residents,” Andrews said, but noted the measures were being done to protect, not punish, residents.
Updated
Mainland China has reported eight new confirmed coronavirus cases, including two in Beijing, Chinese state media reports.
Chinese mainland reported 8 new confirmed #COVID19 cases (2 in Beijing), and 7 new #asymptomatic COVID-19 patients pic.twitter.com/soQQHjDGSE
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 5, 2020
Updated
In New South Wales, deputy chief health officer Jeremy McNulty has urged people to remain vigilant with hygiene and social distancing. The state has just reported 14 new coronavirus cases, but none involving community transmission.
“The virus is likely circulating among people in the community with mild symptoms, as such, the risk of outbreaks and a resurgence of cases remains,” he said.
“People who may show no obvious symptoms or have very mild symptoms can unknowingly pass it to others if they are incubating the infection.”
McNulty again said people who had been in one of the Melbourne hotspots could not travel to NSW and any NSW residents who had been in a hotspot location needed to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Voters in Tokyo went to the polls on Sunday to elect their governor, with incumbent Yuriko Koike forecast to clinch a victory, as Japan’s capital struggles with rebounding coronavirus infections and prepares for next year’s Olympics, Reuters reports.
Cases of the virus that causes Covid-19 rose for a fourth straight day to a two-month high of 131 on Saturday, the third day in a row over 100. The metropolis accounts for 11% of Japan’s population, but has represented half of the country’s daily infections in recent weeks.
Koike, who became Tokyo’s first woman governor in 2016, saw her popularity surge this year as her straight-talking approach to the outbreak won the public’s support.
The winner of Sunday’s election will face a difficult task of trying to curb the virus without overly stifling business in the capital, which accounts for about 20% of Japan’s economy.
Preventive measures pushed Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy, into a recession in the first quarter, with a deeper contraction expected in the April-June period.
The next governor will also be the face of the host city of the next Olympic Games, originally scheduled to start this month, but postponed by one year because of the coronavirus.
Koike, 67, has said she aims for a safe, secure and simplified event, while a survey by the Asahi newspaper showed last month that 59% of those polled believe the Tokyo Olympics should be cancelled or postponed again.
Updated
New South Wales in Australia has reported 14 new cases of coronavirus, all in returned travellers who are in hotel quarantine. The state’s health department said four residents of the Sydney aged care home Newmarch House tested negative on Saturday after displaying symptoms of respiratory illness.
The nursing home was previously the site of an outbreak in which 19 people died, Australia’s deadliest on-soil outbreak of the virus.
A passenger tested after showing symptoms on arrival in Sydney by train from regional NSW on Saturday morning also returned a negative result.
A total of 18,144 tests were reported on in the 24 hours to 8pm Saturday. NSW has added the two additional postcodes Victoria locked down at midnight to its list of hotspots subject to travel and self-isolation restrictions
Here is some analysis from Reuters, which has looked at the recent increases in case numbers across the US, as well as the upward trend in the percentage of diagnostic tests that come back positive. The latter is a key indicator of community spread that experts refer to as the positivity rate.
During the first four days of July alone, a total of 14 US states have posted daily record increases in the number of individuals testing positive for Covid-19.
And in a further sign the virus is spreading, at least 18 states, including the three most highly populated - California, Texas and Florida - have posted ominous rates of infection as a percentage of diagnostic tests over the past two weeks.
The World Health Organization considers positivity rates above 5% to be concerning, and widely watched data from Johns Hopkins University shows at least 18 states with average rates over the past two weeks exceeding that level and climbing.
Eleven states averaged double-digit rates over the past seven days Arizona (26%), Florida (18%), Nevada (16%), South Carolina (15%), Alabama (15%), Texas (14.5%), Mississippi (14%), Georgia (13%), Idaho 11%), Kansas (10%) and Utah (10%). That was up from four states with double-digit rates two weeks ago.
Even in California, which led the nation with statewide workplace closures and stay-at-home orders issued on March 19, the positivity rate has crept up to an average of 7% over the past week.President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to minimize the jump in confirmed cases as a function of greater testing and again this week predicted that the virus would “disappear.”
Updated
Trump warns China will be 'held accountable' for coronavirus
Donald Trump has celebrated independence day with a string of false and misleading claims attempting to play down the coronavirus pandemic and warning that China will be “held accountable”.
“We got hit by the virus that came from China,” the president said, prompting a strange whoop and applause from someone in the audience. “We’ve made a lot of progress. Our strategy is moving along well. It goes out in one area, it rears back its ugly face in another area. But we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned how to put out the flame.”
The number of infections now regularly tops 50,000 per day, higher than in April when the US was in the first grip of infections. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, warned this week: “I think it’s pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction.”
Trump returned to his now familiar and baseless complaint that America has a high caseload because it performs more tests. “Now we have tested almost 40m people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless. Results that no other country can show because no other country has the testing that we have, not in terms of the numbers or in terms of quality.”
Mexico’s health ministry reported 6,914 new infections on Saturday, bringing the total to 252,165 cases. The official deathtoll rose to 30,366, after 523 more deaths were recorded, Reuters reports.
The government has previously said the actual number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Citing unpublished figures from the country’s civil registry, broadcaster Milenio said that as of June 19 almost twice as many people had died from the virus than reported by deputy health minister Hugo Lopez Gatell. Reuters was unable to verify the information.
Updated
Australian Medical Association calls for pause in easing of restrictions
Australian Associated Press in Canberra reports that the Australian Medical Association is calling for a temporary pause in the easing of all Covid-19 restrictions in Australia until Victoria gets the current outbreak in Melbourne under control.
Victoria recorded 108 new cases on Saturday, the second-highest daily tally since the pandemic began, after more than two weeks of double-digit daily rises.
It prompted an emergency meeting of the nation’s top medical officials on Saturday night and an unprecedented lockdown of nine Melbourne public housing towers.
The president of the Australian Medical Association, Tony Bartone, said the new outbreaks in Melbourne were a stark reminder that the battle against Covid-19 was far from over and Australians would need to learn to live with the virus in the community.
“These new outbreaks send a strong signal that the other states should rethink the pace of easing of their Covid-19 restrictions until community transmission in Melbourne is under control to avoid the risk of a similar situation playing out in their own communities,” Bartone said in a statement on Sunday.
“Before rushing back to the pub, the footy crowds, or the big weddings and parties, Australia should pause and play it safe.
Updated
A Kansas newspaper whose publisher is a county Republican chairman posted a cartoon on its Facebook page likening an order from the state’s governor requiring people to wear masks in public to the round-up and murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust, reports Associated Press.
The cartoon on the Anderson County Review’s Facebook page depicts Democratic governor Laura Kelly wearing a mask with a Jewish Star of David on it, next to people being loaded on to train cars. Its caption is: “Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask ... and step on to the cattle car.”
The cartoon drew several hundred comments, many strongly critical.
Rabbi Moti Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, said most if not all comparisons of current events to the Holocaust are “odious” and said it was “incoherent” to equate the masks order, an action designed to save lives, with mass murder.
Finally, he said, putting the Star of David on Kelly’s mask was antisemitic because it implies “nefarious Jews” are behind her actions. “This thing is like the trifecta of garbage,” Rieber said, calling on Republican leaders to repudiate the cartoon and Hicks.
Publisher Dane Hicks, who is also Anderson county’s Republican party chairman, said he would answer questions once he could reach a computer. His newspaper is based in the county seat of Garnett, about 65 miles south-west of Kansas City. It has a circulation of about 2,100, according to the Kansas Press Association.
Anderson county, with about 7,900 residents, is part of a conservative swath of eastern Kansas. Republicans outnumber Democrats two to one and Donald Trump carried it with nearly 73% of the vote in 2016.
The state health department has reported four coronavirus cases for Anderson county, all since 8 May. There have been no reported deaths there.
Residents detained in public housing towers in Melbourne’s inner city will be barred from leaving their homes for a further 10 days if they refuse a coronavirus test, according to new public health orders introduced by the Victorian government.
The detention orders – which prevent about 3,000 people in nine public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne – were published by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services on Saturday night.
The directions apply from 4 July to 18 July, however the government has said it only intends to apply the laws for five days at this stage.
They state that people who refuse to be tested will be “detained for a further period of 10 days from the end of the initial detention period”.
People will not be able to leave their properties for reasons such as work, study or to obtain essential supplies like food, as is allowed in other Covid-19 “hot spot” suburbs which have been placed in lockdown.
However, the orders state that people can leave their home if they are granted permission by authorities to attend a medical facility, on compassionate grounds, or if there is an emergency.
“Except for authorised people, the only other people allowed in your premises are people who are being detained with you,” the order states. The government has said it will provide food and medical services to people who have been detained.
Croats advised to wear masks when they head to the polls on Sunday
Some 3.85 million Croats are eligible to go to polls on Sunday to elect a new government at a time when coronavirus infections are on the rise and the economy is facing a sharp downturn, reports Reuters.
Polling stations will open at 05.00 GMT and close at 17.00 GMT when the exit polls will be released. The first preliminary official results are expected some two hours later.
The ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has had a slight advantage in most opinion polls over its main rival, the Social Democrats (SDP), but neither party is seen being able to form a cabinet on its own.
Croatia has reported a relatively small number of coronavirus infections - 3,000 Covid-19 cases and around 100 deaths recorded so far - but infections have accelerated in the past two weeks, with new daily cases currently peaking at around 80.
Voters have been strongly advised to wear masks and respect other hygiene measures at the polling stations.
Awatif Taha, a community worker who lives in the locked down Flemington public housing towers in Melbourne, has written about being abruptly confined to her apartment.
The police have been good tonight – very polite and very respectful. But it is still a shock to see so many of them.
We are worried now about how we will get food and medication. Some people were planning to shop tomorrow and have no food. We need to know how this will be handled. People need medication, bread, milk, things for babies. We don’t know yet how that will be done. I am happy for the government to take care of us. I just want to thank Australia.
Ghana's president will self-isolate for 14 days
Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo will isolate for 14 days on the advice of doctors after a person in his close circle tested positive for coronavirus, Reuters reports.
“He has, as at today, tested negative, but has elected to take this measure out of the abundance of caution,” a government statement said, adding that the president will continue to work during the period, in compliance with Covid-19 safety protocols.
The statement did not say if the close person was a staff or family member.
Ghana has recorded 19,388 coronavirus cases, one of the highest number of cases in sub-Saharan Africa, with 117 deaths.
The West African nation’s deputy trade and industry minister Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah resigned on Friday for violating coronavirus self-isolation measures after he tested positive for the virus.
Abdirahman Ibrahim, a resident of one of the Melbourne tower blocks that has been placed under lockdown, has spoken to Australian Associated Press about the restrictions.
He learned of the lockdown while watching the 6pm news, and thinking he had until 11.59pm, ran downstairs to buy formula for his seven-month-old twins, only to be stopped by police.
Just two hours prior, Premier Daniel Andrews had announced a “hard” lockdown for nine public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington, effective immediately.
“What the Victorian government is doing is discriminating the people who don’t have a voice. We are not different from the rest of the Victorian community which is in lockdown now,” said Ibrahim, a father of five.
In other areas, people placed under lockdown have been allowed to leave the house for essentials, he added.
Ibrahim is a casual pick-packer in a warehouse in Melbourne’s west and is not paid if he doesn’t turn up. His household supplies are low as he and his wife do their weekly shop on Sundays.
The premier’s office told AAP urgent requests for food and supplies were being triaged via Victoria Police and health department officials on site and interpreters are assisting.
The government’s decision to lock down all nine towers was made because of “patterns of movement, friendship groups, family groups,” the premier said.
Updated
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus coverage with me, Rebecca Ratcliffe.
The World Health Organization reported a record increase in coronavirus infections globally on Saturday, which have risen by 212,326 in 24 hours. In total there are now 11, 185,627 cases worldwide, and 528,354 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In the US, president Donald Trump said the country is getting close to fighting its way out of this “terrible plague from China” during an Independence Day message, even as a surge in coronavirus cases was recorded. Texas reported 8,258 new cases in the 24 hours to Saturday, the highest single-day surge since the pandemic started, taking overall infections in the state to 191,790. Meanwhile, confirmed infections in Florida increased by a record 11,458 on Saturday. This is the second time in three days that the figure has increased by more than 10,000.
In Australia, a strict lockdown has begun across nine tower blocks in Melbourne, as authorities try to contain a rise in cases in the city. Hundreds of police swarmed the area blocking driveways and doorways and barring people from going out.
In other developments:
- The World Health Organization discontinued its trials of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and combination HIV drug lopinavir/ritonavir in hospitalised patients with Covid-19, after they failed to reduce mortality.
- Catalonia has put more than 200,000 people back into lockdown after more than 350 cases of coronavirus were detected.
- The Philippines recorded a record 7,027 new infections this week, pushing the overall tally in the country to 41,830.
- Brazil recorded 37,923 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours as well as 1,091 deaths.
- The 20-member cabinet in Africa’s last absolute kingdom of eSwatini has been ordered into isolation after one minister contracted coronavirus.
- In Israel, 1,008 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 over the 24 hours to Saturday, raising the number of active cases in the country to 10,060.
- Jordan on Saturday began putting electronic bracelets on travellers who have arrived recently in the kingdom to ensure that they observe home-quarantine.
- The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, is likely to face further questions after his own father refused to refute whether he had acted improperly flouting UK travel advice to visit his villa in Greece.
If you have contributions for the coronavirus global live blog please do email me rebecca.ratcliffe@theguardian.com, or I’m @rebeccarat on Twitter.
