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British families falling out of work during the coronavirus crisis will get £1,600 less on average in benefits than they would have done without a decade of austerity imposed by the Conservatives.
Even after taking account of emergency additions to the welfare safety net launched as the virus spread to Britain earlier this year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said benefits for out-of-work households were worth 10% less than in 2011.
A decade on from George Osborne’s first austerity budget in June 2010, the analysis from Britain’s leading tax and spending thinktank showed the impact was worse for families with children. For an average out-of-work household with children, the shortfall jumps to £2,900 a year or 12%, less than was available in 2011 before the cuts kicked in.
Texas Covid-19 cases hit all-time daily high as Houston hospitals near capacity
Texas recorded an all-time daily high of 5,489 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday as hospitals neared capacity in Houston.
The dramatic increase in cases prompted the governor, Greg Abbott, to tighten public health restrictions after resisting calls to slow the state’s reopening process.
Cases have steadily increased in Texas since March, but a surge in the past two weeks has activated concerns about the state’s ability to respond.
To cope with the surge, some adult ICU patients are being treated at Texas Children’s hospital in Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city.
“Just like that – in Houston we, the pediatricians at Texas Children’s Hospital, will now start seeing adult patients,” tweeted pediatrician Shubhada Hooli. “I’m up for the challenge, but please help us out. #WearAMask and stay home. I guess its time to retire my giraffe reflex hammer…”
Turkey isn’t considering tightening its lockdown restrictions even though the number of daily coronavirus infections registered since they were eased is “higher than anticipated”, the health minister said on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters following the weekly meeting of the country’s scientific advisory council, Fahrettin Koca blamed the uptick in cases on widespread complacency and failure to comply with physical distancing, AP reports.
“We can say that the numbers are higher than what we anticipated,” Koca said. “We see that many people are under the perception that we have returned to normal. This perception must rapidly be deactivated.”
Turkey has witnessed an increase in the daily number of infections after the government authorised cafes, restaurants, gyms, parks, beaches and museums to reopen and eased stay-at-home orders for the elderly and young at the start of June.
The country has been registering average daily infections of around 1,260 since 12 June, up from around 800 to 900 previously.
Koca on Wednesday reported 1,492 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total infections registered in the country since March to 191,657. He also said there were 24 new Covid-19 deaths, taking the total to 5,025.
Updated
Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now. I’ll be bringing you the latest pandemic news for the next few hours and, as always, would be delighted to hear from you. Tips, news, good tweets, comments and questions welcome:
Twitter: @helenrsullivan
Email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com
Brazil recorded 42,725 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours as well as 1,185 new deaths resulting from the disease, the country’s health ministry has said.
The country has registered nearly 1.2 million cases since the pandemic began, while cumulative deaths total 53,830, according to the ministry.
Summary
Here are the latest key developments in our global coronavirus coverage so far on Wednesday:
- The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he expects the number of coronavirus cases around the world to reach 10 million in the next week. Nearly 9.3 million people have tested positive for the Sars-CoV-2 virus, and 478,289 have died of Covid-19, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University in the US.
- Pandemic rule enforcement in Europe disproportionately impacted racialised individuals and groups, who were targeted with violence, discriminatory identity checks, forced quarantines and fines, according to a report by Amnesty International on 12 European countries.
- Volunteers in Brazil and South Africa began to receive injections of an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford University. The vaccine, developed together with AstraZeneca, is one of dozens that researchers worldwide are racing to test and bring to market. It is already being tested on volunteers in Britain.
- The award-winning poet and children’s author Michael Rosen has returned home after 47 days in intensive care with Covid-19. He went into intensive care in March, with his family at the time warning that he was “very poorly”. On 6 June he took his first steps, and by 12 June he was back on Twitter, sharing his progress as he began walking again.
- The International Monetary Fund has said the global economy will take a $12tn (£9.6tn) hit from the Covid-19 pandemic after slashing its already gloomy growth projections for the UK and other developed countries in 2020. The IMF said it would take two years for world output to return to levels at the end of 2019.
- Americans and Russians could be kept out when the EU reopens its borders to outsiders, according to documents seen by Reuters. Draft recommendations from the EU’s current presidency, Croatia, suggest allowing non-EU nationals in from countries with stable or decreasing infections, and those with a “comparable or better epidemiological situation”.
- Iran’s deputy health minister has called for mask wearing to be made compulsory, as the country reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll in more than two-and-a-half months on Wednesday. The health ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday that 133 fatalities in the past 24 hours brought the country’s overall virus death toll to 9,996.
- Portugal has tightened restrictions in and around Lisbon after recording thousands of new cases in recent weeks. From 21 May to 21 June, the country has documented more than 9,200 new cases – a rate per 100,000 inhabitants that ranks among the highest in Europe, behind only Sweden, according to data compiled by news agency AFP.
- India has recorded its highest one-day rise in new coronavirus cases, with 15,968 infections detected in the past 24 hours. India has recorded its highest one-day rise in new coronavirus cases, with 15,968 infections detected in the past 24 hours. So far, 456,183 people in India have tested positive for the virus.
- Latin America’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to Reuters, while the number of infections, at 2.2m, doubled in less than a month. The region has seen a spike in cases and deaths even as the tide of infection recedes in Europe and parts of Asia.
- France’s coronavirus contact-tracing app has alerted just 14 people that they have been near someone with the virus in three weeks since its launch, with only 68 people signalling they have tested positive on the app. Digital minister Cédric O said the app was installed 1.8m times since 2 June, but had been subsequently uninstalled by 460,000.
- Austria has issued a warning against travel to the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia after a coronavirus outbreak at a meatpacking plant there, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday.
- Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far. Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas – which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.
- UK medical leaders warned of “real risk” of a coronavirus second wave just a day after the biggest lifting yet of lockdown restrictions in England. “While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk,” said the experts.
Updated
In the Canadian province of Ontario, some people who test positive but who are asymptomatic will be allowed to return immediately to their workplaces with precautions, separated from those who do not have the virus, according to guidance released on Wednesday.
Reuters reported that the guidance document said “work self-isolation” outside of healthcare settings would be allowed for asymptomatic employees “deemed critical to operations” at local public health workers’ discretion and that employers would be responsible for ensuring they do not put others at risk.
The province is battling outbreaks that have killed three migrant farmworkers, and has started mass-testing asymptomatic farmworkers. The change could send some of them back to their jobs.
It was prompted by a cluster of farmworkers who tested positive but were all asymptomatic, said Ontario’s chief medical officer of health David Williams. “As we learn more, we change things, we adapt,” he told a briefing in Toronto.
The United Arab Emirates’ government has lifted its curfew, it has announced. “All members of society are allowed to freely enter and exit throughout the day without restrictions,” it said in an announcement also tweeted by the country’s National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority.
The Mexican health authorities are trying to understand how a set of newborn triplets became infected even though neither of their parents tested positive. Health authorities called the case “unheard of”.
The triplets, a girl and two boys, were tested four hours after being born last week in the central state San Luis Potosi, health authorities said.
Initially, health authorities said the mother was believed to be an asymptomatic carrier. But her tests later showed that neither she nor the father were infected.
Updated
The number of deaths in France has risen by 11 to 29,731 on Wednesday, down sharply from Tuesday when the weekly data for nursing homes were included. That is the lowest increase in fatalities in five days. France’s death toll is the fifth-highest in the world.
The US has suffered 784 more deaths and recorded 34,313 cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has said. That takes the respective totals to 121,117 and 2,336,615.
Summary
Here are the latest key developments in our global coronavirus coverage so far on Wednesday:
- The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he expects the number of coronavirus cases around the world to reach 10 million in the next week. Nearly 9.3 million people have tested positive for the Sars-CoV-2 virus, and 478,289 have died of Covid-19, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University in the US.
- Pandemic rule enforcement in Europe disproportionately impacted racialised individuals and groups, who were targeted with violence, discriminatory identity checks, forced quarantines and fines, according to a report by Amnesty International on 12 European countries.
- Volunteers in Brazil and South Africa began to receive injections of an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford University. The vaccine, developed together with AstraZeneca, is one of dozens that researchers worldwide are racing to test and bring to market. It is already being tested in volunteers in Britain.
- The award-winning poet and children’s author Michael Rosen has returned home after 47 days in intensive care with Covid-19. He went into intensive care in March, with his family at the time warning that he was “very poorly”. On 6 June he took his first steps, and by 12 June he was back on Twitter, sharing his progress as he began walking again.
- The International Monetary Fund has said the global economy will take a $12tn (£9.6tn) hit from the Covid-19 pandemic after slashing its already gloomy growth projections for the UK and other developed countries in 2020. The IMF said it would take two years for world output to return to levels at the end of 2019.
- Americans and Russians could be kept out when the EU reopens its borders to outsiders, according to documents seen by Reuters. Draft recommendations from the EU’s current presidency, Croatia, suggest allowing non-EU nationals in from countries with stable or decreasing infections, and those with a “comparable or better epidemiological situation”.
- Iran’s deputy health minister has called for mask wearing to be made compulsory, as the country reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll in more than two-and-a-half months on Wednesday. The health ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday that 133 fatalities in the past 24 hours brought the country’s overall virus death toll to 9,996.
- Portugal has tightened restrictions in and around Lisbon after recording thousands of new cases in recent weeks. From 21 May to 21 June, the country has documented more than 9,200 new cases – a rate per 100,000 inhabitants that ranks among the highest in Europe, behind only Sweden, according to data compiled by news agency AFP.
- India has recorded its highest one-day rise in new coronavirus cases, with 15,968 infections detected in the past 24 hours. India has recorded its highest one-day rise in new coronavirus cases, with 15,968 infections detected in the past 24 hours. So far, 456,183 people in India have tested positive for the virus.
- Latin America’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to Reuters, while the number of infections, at 2.2m, doubled in less than a month. The region has seen a spike in cases and deaths even as the tide of infection recedes in Europe and parts of Asia.
- France’s coronavirus contact-tracing app has alerted just 14 people that they have been near someone with the virus in three weeks since its launch, with only 68 people signalling they have tested positive on the app. Digital minister Cédric O said the app was installed 1.8m times since 2 June, but had been subsequently uninstalled by 460,000.
- Austria has issued a warning against travel to the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia after a coronavirus outbreak at a meatpacking plant there, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday.
- Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far. Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas –which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.
-
UK medical leaders warned of “real risk” of a coronavirus second wave just a day after the biggest lifting yet of lockdown restrictions in England. “While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk,” said the experts.
And that’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for the day.
Updated
The World Health Organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said he expects the number of coronavirus cases around the world, now at approximately 9.3 million, to reach 10 million next week.
Dr Mike Ryan, head of the WHO emergencies programme, said the pandemic for many countries in the Americas had not yet peaked, and that it was ‘still intense’, especially in Central and South America.
Ireland is set to become the latest European country to launch a voluntary phone-tracking app next week to alert users if someone they have been in contact with develops Covid-19, the head of its health service operator said, Reuters reports.
Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE) announced plans to roll out the phone app in late March, just as the country went into lockdown, and initially expected it to be launched within 10 days.
HSE’s chief executive, Paul Reid, told a news conference on Wednesday that it has been approved by Ireland’s data protection agency and was awaiting final signoff by the government.
So far, 1,720 people have died from Covid-19 in Ireland, which has had a manual contact-tracing programme in place since its outbreak began at the end of February.
The number of confirmed cases has fallen to an average of 11 a day over the past week as the economy prepares to almost fully reopen next week, with just 37 patients in hospital compared to a peak of nearly 900 that threatened to overwhelm the health service in mid-April.
Ireland will adopt a decentralised model for its tracing app where the data will be held on the person’s mobile phone and not centrally by the health service, which authorities hope will alleviate privacy concerns.
“We’ve done our own research in the early stages of the trial, there is pretty much a positive pick-up, that people feel they will use it and would use it in the future. We’d be strongly encouraged by that,” Reid said.
Updated
In South Africa, nervous volunteers were also receiving some of the first injections of an experimental coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
The large-scale trial of the vaccine is being conducted in South Africa, Britain and Brazil (see previous post).
South Africa has nearly one-third of Africa’s confirmed cases with more than 106,000, including more than 2,100 deaths. The country reported its biggest one-day death toll so far on Tuesday, with 111 new fatalities recorded.
“I feel a little bit scared but I want to know what is going on with this vaccine so that I can tell my friends and others what is going on with the study,” one of the vaccine trial volunteers, Junior Mhlongo, said in Johannesburg.
Volunteers receive first doses of experimental vaccine
Volunteers in Brazil have begun to receive injections of an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford University, AFP reports.
The vaccine, developed together with pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca, is one of dozens that researchers worldwide are racing to test and bring to market.
Known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, it is already being tested in volunteers in Britain, and was due to start being administered this week in South Africa as well.
The Federal University of Sao Paulo (UNIFESP), which is coordinating the study in Brazil, said in a statement its researchers had begun issuing the first doses on Tuesday to health workers, including doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers, who were deemed to be likely to come into contact with the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
Researchers “began triaging volunteers [on] Saturday ... following the protocols established for the study. Participants must test negative for Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19,” the university said in a statement.
“Starting Tuesday, volunteers with a negative blood test were administered the vaccine.”
Volunteers must be between 18 and 55 years old and work “on the frontline” of the pandemic at the Sao Paulo-UNIFESP hospital, it said.
The vaccine will be administered to 2,000 volunteers in Brazil, while more than 4,000 participants are enrolled in the clinical trial in Britain, with another 10,000 due to be recruited, according to Oxford.
Brazil was selected because it is one of the countries where the virus is spreading fastest. It has the second-highest caseload and death toll worldwide after the United States, with more than 1.1 million people infected and 52,000 killed so far.
Brazil’s acting health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, said on Tuesday the country was close to signing a contract to produce the vaccine domestically.
Updated
The coronavirus crisis is likely to speed up the development of central bank digital currencies, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said in an except of its annual report released on Wednesday, according to AFP.
Since the beginning of the pandemic and the implementation of physical distancing measures in many countries, along with high street shutdowns, contactless payment methods have boomed, said the bank.
“The Covid-19 crisis, and the attendant rise of electronic payments, are likely to boost CBDC (central bank digital currency) development across the globe,” the BIS said in a chapter on central banks and payments in the digital era, released ahead of its full annual report.
Established in Basel in Switzerland in 1930, the BIS is owned by 62 central banks, representing countries that together account for about 95% of global gross domestic product.
“Central banks, as guardians of the safety and integrity of the payment system, must keep evolving to meet the challenge of rapidly accelerating digital innovation,” the BIS said in its report.
With the rise of cryptocurrencies, a handful of central banks have looked into the idea of launching digital versions of their own currencies.
“Central banks around the world are stepping up their efforts to study CBDCs and, whether wholesale or retail, the goal is to create safe and reliable settlement instruments for transacting in the digital economy,” said Benoît Cœuré, head of the BIS Innovation Hub.
Hyun Song Shin, the BIS head of research, added: “As innovations increasingly emerge from outside the traditional two-tier structure provided by central banks and commercial banks, it is essential that policymakers meet the challenges of these new innovations to maintain the integrity of the payment system.
“While the private sector is well placed to draw on ingenuity and creativity to serve customers better, this is best done on solid central bank foundations.
Updated
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said he expects the number of coronavirus cases around the world to reach 10 million in the next week.
Nearly 9.3 million people have tested positive for the Sars-CoV-2 virus since the outbreak was first recognised at the beginning of the year, and 478,289 have died of the disease it causes, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Tedros said the rate of new infections was accelerating:
In the first month of this outbreak, less than 10,000 cases were reported to WHO. In the last month, almost 4 million cases have been reported. We expect to reach a total of 10 million cases within the next week.
This is a sober reminder that even as we continue R&D into vaccines and therapeutics, we have an urgent responsibility to do everything we can with the tools we have now to suppress transmission and save lives.
Updated
Amnesty documents racist lockdown enforcement across Europe
The “disinfecting” of Roma communities by low-flying planes and the high number of fines handed to minority groups has been cited in a report as evidence of the racial bias in the policing of the coronavirus lockdowns in Europe, writes Daniel Boffey, the Guardian’s Brussels bureau chief.
The report by Amnesty International, examining the enforcement of physical distancing measures in 12 European countries, concludes that the pandemic has led to greater “marginalisation, stigmatisation and violence”, echoing the long-standing concerns aired by the Black Lives Matter movement.
An increase in the stopping and searching of black people in London – from 7.2 out of 1,000 in March to 9.3 out of 1,000 in April – is referenced in the report, along with the lengthy curfews imposed specifically in areas in France where black, Asian and minority ethnic communities live.
In the département of Seine-Saint-Denis in Paris, home to a high proportion of black residents, the number of police checks was more than double the national average. The number of fines issued was also three times higher than in the rest of the country, despite respect of lockdown measures being comparable with other regions in France.
Amnesty said it had verified 15 videos of unlawful use of force or racist and homophobic insults by law enforcement officials from 18 March to 26 April 2020 in 15 French cities. Six of these involved enforcement of lockdown rules.
Some of the more shocking examples cited by the report, Policing the Pandemic: Human Rights Violations in the Enforcement of Covid-19 Measures in Europe, concern the mistreatment of Roma communities, often spurred on by populist politicians.
Michael Rosen has returned home after 47 days in intensive care with Covid-19, writes Alison Flood.
The award-winning and popular poet and children’s author began charting his illness on Twitter in March, writing of “bed-breaking shakes” and “freezing cold sweats”, of “deep muscle exhaustion” and the “image of war hero biting on a hankie, while best mate plunges live charcoal into the wound to cauterise it”. He went into intensive care at the end of the month, with his family warning that he was “very poorly” at the time.
It took 47 days for him to leave ICU, but on 6 June he took his first steps, and by 12 June he was back on Twitter, sharing his progress as he began walking again.
“Just as I was beginning to love my stick, Sticky McStickstick, I’m told, ‘You mustn’t become totally stick-reliant.’ Oh noooooooo!!!” he wrote on 22 June. “This wasn’t a snide dig at the physios! They are progressives. They see me walking the corridors with Sticky McStickstick, then walking a bit without, so they want me to go on. Quite right. Physios are the best!”
The World Health Organization’s regular coronavirus briefing is starting now. You can watch it in the player embedded at the top of the blog.
Slovenia has reinstated the mandatory use of face masks in indoor spaces after recording a rise in coronavirus cases following the lifting of restrictions earlier this month, AFP reports.
People will once again be required to wear face masks in all indoor public spaces and on public transport – and disinfect their hands when entering those spaces.
“This measure is urgent, it’s necessary, since it has proved to be effective in the past,” the health minister, Tomaž Gantar, said after a government meeting.
The decision to reimpose restrictions would be revisited in 14 days, he added.
The measures had been lifted at the beginning of June after weeks of comparatively good coronavirus news for Slovenia.
The Alpine EU state of two million people, which borders Italy, has so far registered just 1,541 cases and 109 deaths. But officials were concerned at 38 new infections recorded last week, up from 15 the week before.
Updated
For the first time in nearly four months, residents at a care home in Barcelona have been able to kiss, hug and hold hands with their loved ones – safely shielded from the virus by thin sheets of plastic, writes Ashifa Kassam.
As it prepared to open its doors to visitors, the Ballesol Fabra i Puig care home set up plastic curtains to allow residents some form of physical contact, echoing a strategy adopted by care homes in Brazil and Argentina.
In this Monday, June 22, 2020 photo, Agustina Canamero, 81, and Pascual Pérez, 84, hug and kiss through a plastic film screen to avoid contracting the new coronavirus at a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, June 22, 2020. @EmilioMorenatti pic.twitter.com/WAvJb7uPZh
— AP Images (@AP_Images) June 24, 2020
Among the first visitors to arrive was 81-year-old Agustina Cañamero. For the past 102 days she had been gripped by fear as Spain’s death toll rose to one of the highest in Europe, worried constantly about how her husband, Pascual Pérez, was faring at the care home where he lives. On Monday the couple of 59 years was reunited, trading kisses through layers of surgical masks and plastic.
Other photos captured by the Associated Press showed tears falling freely as visitors hugged and tightly grasped the hands of their loved ones and parents through the plastic.
Tras 4 meses de ausencia, Dolores Reyes, 61 y su padre José Reyes Lozano, 87, se abrazan por primera vez a través de una lamina de plástico para evitar el contagio del Coronavirus, en la residencia Ballesol Fabra i Puig de Barcelona el Lunes 22 de Junio de 2020. pic.twitter.com/lVNYi0VTD5
— Emilio Morenatti (@EmilioMorenatti) June 22, 2020
In March, as Spain battled one of the world’s fastest spreading outbreaks, officials barred visitors from care homes across the country. Stories soon began circulating of the virus silently stalking the halls of care homes across the country, with regional data suggesting the coronavirus has claimed more than 19,000 lives in Spanish care homes.
Egypt’s public prosecution says a prominent human rights activist will be held in pre-trial detention for allegedly “spreading fake news” about Covid-19 in Egypt, writes Ruth Michaelson.
Plainclothes security bundled Sanaa Seif into an unmarked van outside the Egyptian public prosecutor’s office yesterday when she, along with her family members went to report an assault that occurred earlier this week outside the Tora prison complex in Cairo.
Seif, her sister and mother were attacked and violently beaten in full view of the prison as guards looked on, after staging a sit-in as they attempted to receive a letter from Seif’s brother, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a prominent activist.
Fears are mounting for thousands held inside the vast Tora prison, including Abd El-Fattah, over reports of Covid-19 cases inside the complex. Rights groups including Amnesty International have demanded a list of infected prisoners and staff, as well as the release of prisoners to ease overcrowding.
Seif appeared before Egypt’s supreme state security prosecution, a specialist national security court. Prosecutors decreed she be held for at least 15 days in pre-trial detention.
She is charged with “disseminating false news and rumours about deteriorating health conditions in the country and the spread of the coronavirus in prisons,” after allegedly making statements on her personal Facebook page. The prosecutor also accused her of “calling for demonstrations,” after she demanded prisoners be released to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Egypt criminalised “spreading false news,” in 2018, using a sweeping new media law which specifically targets anyone with over 5,000 social media followers. The controversial charge is often arbitrarily applied, especially by the supreme state security prosecution, to anyone making public statements even on benign topics. In recent years, charges of “joining a terrorist group,” and “spreading false news,” have been handed out to doctors, journalists, activists, civil servants and ordinary citizens.
Amnesty International says at least 12 journalists have been jailed in a crackdown on news related to Covid-19. Egypt’s public prosecutor warned in May that anyone accused of “spreading false news,” about the virus faces up to five years imprisonment and large fines.
Updated
Belgium’s prime minister Sophie Wilmès has condemned recent street parties held by young people after bars close, in defiance of anti-virus restrictions.
Wilmès warned that, while the latest figures still show Belgium emerging from the worst of the epidemic, recent new surges in neighbouring countries like Germany could herald a feared second wave.
“Directly or indirectly, these people risked putting months of our joint effort at risk,” Wilmès said.
“Basic health protection rules were not followed.”
Over the weekend, amateur footage on social media showed large crowds of young people gathered around a sound system in Place Flagey, a popular late-night gathering spot in Brussels.
Last night’s “Second Wave Rave” on Place Flagey in #Brussels. One speaker and the students of the city partied hard. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/6pDYohnkp5
— Jack Parrock (@jackeparrock) June 21, 2020
Police intervened to break up the impromptu rave, but there were no arrests. Belgium has reopened its bars and restaurants under distancing rules, but public gatherings are still banned.
In a separate incident reported by the Belga news agency, students celebrating the end of term at the prestigious College of Europe in Bruges held a banned house party.
Updated
Vaccines for Covid-19 are coming. Billions of dollars are flowing in, over 100 efforts are under way, and at least 13 leading candidates are already being tested on humans. But how will these vaccines reach the poorest people on the planet?
Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa and Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser at the Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign, discuss Gavi, the marriage of markets and philanthropy rich countries are putting all their trust in.
Pharmaceutical companies say they will make no money off the pandemic, that they will supply vaccines at a cost. Yet, they have already seen multibillion dollar increases in their market capitalisation, and are unwilling to relinquish the monopolies that drive their outsize profits.
Leaders of rich countries (apart from the US) have said all the right things about equitable access to vaccines. Yet they are entering into multiple advance deals to stock up on possibly far more vaccines than they will ever need.
They cannot have it both ways, and neither can Gavi. Seth Berkley, the Gavi CEO, cannot claim to want “the world to come together” with “no barriers” while failing to tackle both rich country nationalism and pharmaceutical industry greed.
New York City marathon cancelled due to Covid-19
The New York City marathon, which had been scheduled for 1 November, has been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
New York Road Runners announced the cancellation of the world’s largest marathon on Wednesday after coordinating with the mayor’s office and deciding the race posed too many health and safety concerns for runners, volunteers and spectators.
Michael Capiraso, president and CEO of New York Road Runners, said in a statement:
Canceling this year’s TCS New York City Marathon is incredibly disappointing for everyone involved, but it was clearly the course we needed to follow from a health and safety perspective.
Marathon day and the many related events and activities during race week are part of the heart and soul of New York City and the global running community, and we look forward to coming together next year.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said he hoped to welcome the race back in 2021.
While the marathon is an iconic and beloved event in our city, I applaud New York Road Runners for putting the health and safety of both spectators and runners first.
We look forward to hosting the 50th running of the marathon in November of 2021.
Last year’s marathon included a world record 53,640 finishers. Entrants for the 2020 race will be offered a full refund of their entry fee or a guaranteed entry to either the 2021, 2022 or 2023 marathon.
The 2021 New York City marathon is scheduled for 7 November.
Updated
South Africa says economy to shrink 7.2% in 90-year low
South Africa’s economy is projected to shrink by a 90-year low of 7.2% in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the finance minister has said.
Presenting a supplementary budget in parliament, Tito Mboweni said South Africa’s economy, the most developed in the continent, “is now expected to contract by 7.2% in 2020.” He said:
This is the largest contraction in nearly 90 years.
South Africa has the highest recorded numbers of coronavirus infections in sub-Saharan Africa, with 106,108 cases, including 2,102 fatalities.
It had already slipped into recession in the final quarter of 2019 before the virus arrived.
The pandemic prompted president Cyril Ramaphosa to impose a strict lockdown, which kicked in on 27 March and has gradually been eased in phases since 1 May to allow economic activity to pick up.
The country’s statistics agency announced on Tuesday that the unemployment rate rose one percentage point to 30.1% in the first quarter of this year compared with the last three months of 2019.
The jobless rate is a record high, said statistics boss Risenga Maluleke.
The World Bank has already warned that sub-Saharan Africa could slip into its first recession in 25 years because of the pandemic.
Croatia will re-instate mandatory 14-day self-isolation for travellers from Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia due to an increase of coronavirus infections in the Balkans, the government has said.
The measure, which takes effect at midnight, will not apply to travellers who are only transiting through Croatia, interior minister Davor Božinović told reporters.
Home to 4.2 million people, Croatia has largely kept its coronavirus outbreak in check, limiting deaths to around 100 and known infections to slightly over 2,300.
But after registering only a few or no cases of the disease daily since mid-May, in the past week it has seen a rise up of to 30 infections a day.
The four Balkan nations have had a higher rate of infections since early June, with up to nearly 200 infections daily in North Macedonia.
In late May Croatia reopened its borders without restrictions to citizens from 10 EU countries – Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – that have had similarly successful results in containing the virus.
Zagreb made the move to salvage its key tourism industry hit by the pandemic.
Croatia and the entire region came under global spotlight after a Balkan tennis tournament spread the infections and its organiser Novak Djokovic, world number one, tested positive.
Apart from Djokovic, Grigor Dimitrov, Borna Ćorić and Viktor Troicki have all tested positive after participating in the Croatia leg of the event last weekend.
Critics blamed the organisers and health authorities for weak enforcement of social distance at the matches.
Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenković, who attended the event in Zadar last Saturday and patted Djokovic on the shoulder, has also come under fire for not going into self-isolation.
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Job losses in Mexico could reach as high as 130,000 by the end of the month, president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, with some 85,000 formal jobs already gone.
López Obrador also said it was “very probable” he would meet US president Donald Trump in Washington in early July.
His comments came after Trump called López Obrador “a really great guy” on Tuesday, adding that he expected the Mexican leader to visit the White House “pretty soon”.
López Obrador said he would like the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to join the meeting, which he framed in the context of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal taking effect between the three countries on 1 July.
The meeting would not take place on 1 July, but could come “immediately after”, López Obrador said.
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China’s appetite for salmon and other seafood has crashed after a resurgence in coronavirus infections in Beijing was traced to chopping boards for imported salmon in a wholesale food market in the capital, Reuters reports.
Exporters all the way to Europe are feeling the pinch as the virus scare prompts supermarkets and e-commerce players such as Taobao, JD.com and Meituan in China, the world’s top consumer of frozen and fresh seafood, to slash salmon sales.
“I have cleaned out frozen fish from the refrigerator at home and won’t buy more,” said Ma Xuan, a government employee.
“I will wait till the origin of this new wave of virus is clear,” the 40-year-old added. “Maybe I overreacted, but who knows? I don’t want to risk the health of my family.”
Barron Qin, owner of a fish hotpot restaurant called Yufu Yuzai, said customers had been lining up everyday but now the restaurant was half empty despite not serving salmon.
“My hope is like a soap bubble, burst by the new round of the outbreak,” he said.
More than 250 people have been infected in Beijing in the past two weeks, the city’s worst outbreak since the virus first emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
“Seafood consumption in June will collapse due to public panic that seafood may be the culprit for the second wave of virus,” said Dan Wang, an Economist Intelligence Unit analyst.
She expects China’s seafood imports to drop 3% this year.
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In spite of some early predictions of a baby boom, many American women want to delay pregnancy and have fewer children because of the coronavirus pandemic, a new survey from the reproductive rights-focused Guttmacher Institute has found, writes Jessica Glenza for the Guardian US.
But whether they will have the access to the reproductive health services they need to fulfil those wishes is another question. The same survey reported women are having increased difficulty accessing contraception. Shutdown orders to slow the spread of Covid-19 cost millions of women their jobs and temporarily closed health clinics they relied on.
“In a relatively short time, the Covid-19 crisis and its unprecedented economic and social impacts have already changed when women want to get pregnant, how many children they want and if they’re able to get the contraception they need to make these fundamental life choices,” said Laura Lindberg, principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, which focuses on reproductive rights policy.
The International Monetary Fund has said the global economy will take a $12tn (£9.6tn) hit from the Covid-19 pandemic after slashing its already gloomy growth projections for the UK and other developed countries in 2020, writes Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor.
The IMF said it would take two years for world output to return to levels at the end of 2019 and said governments should be cautious about removing financial support for their fragile economies.
In an update to forecasts published in April, the Washington-based IMF said it now expected the global economy to contract by 4.9% this year, compared with a 3% drop expected in the spring.
“The Covid-19 pandemic pushed economies into a Great Lockdown, which helped contain the virus and save lives but also triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression,” said the IMF’s economic counsellor, Gita Gopinath. She added that there would be a fall in living standards for 95% of countries this year.
The revised World Economic Outlook said the lockdown had dealt a “catastrophic hit” to the global labour market, adding that rising share prices were out of kilter with the deepest recession of the postwar era.
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Tens of millions of migrant workers thrown out of work by the coronavirus crisis may end up returning home to poverty and unemployment, the UN has said.
Manuela Tomei, the director of the International Labour Organization’s conditions of work and equality department, said:
This is a potential crisis within a crisis. We know that many millions of migrant workers, who were under lockdown in their countries of work, have lost their jobs and are now expected to return home to countries that are already grappling with weak economies and rising unemployment. Cooperation and planning are key to avert a worse crisis.
There are thought to be 164 million migrant workers worldwide, nearly half of them women, comprising 4.7% of the global labour force.
Not all will return home, but informal ILO research in more than 20 countries indicates that many millions are expected to do so.
Nepal is expecting around 500,000 people who have lost their jobs abroad to return home, mainly from the Middle East and Malaysia.
India has already repatriated more than 220,000 migrant workers, mostly from Gulf states.
About 250,000 have headed back to Bangladesh, more than 130,000 to Indonesia and more than 100,000 to Myanmar, AFP reported Michelle Leighton, the head of the ILO’s labour migration department, as saying.
Ethiopia is expecting between 200,000 and 500,000 to return by the end of the year.
The ILO said many workers’ countries of origin have “very limited scope to reintegrate such large numbers”, especially given that labour markets are now further weakened serious business disruptions due to the pandemic.
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The governor of Sicily has said that 28 migrants tested positive for coronavirus after they were rescued at sea, according to the Associated Press.
The positive tests represent the largest cluster yet among newly arrived migrants, after a handful were recorded among new arrivals in Greece in May.
They were being held on a ship off the Sicilian town of Porto Empedocle where some asylum seekers are taken to undergo quarantine after being rescued at sea.
SeaWatch, the German aid group active in migrant rescues, had flagged an asymptomatic migrant it had rescued earlier in the week who turned out positive.
SeaWatch said it was then ordered to undergo at-sea quarantine and more tests among other migrants.
It said tests among the crew were negative, and insisted it had followed all relevant health protocols designed to prevent transmission. It also acknowledged, however, that it was operating in the context of a pandemic and that cases of coronavirus were increasing in Libyan migrant camps.
Sicily’s governor, Nello Musumeci, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that the 28 positive tests confirmed that he was right to demand special at-sea quarantine measures for migrants to prevent new virus clusters from forming in Italy.
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All African countries have developed laboratory capacity to test for coronavirus, Reuters quoted the head of the World Health Organization as saying on Wednesday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said the pandemic was accelerating.
“The most recent one million cases of Covid-19 were reported [across the world] in just one week,” he said during a virtual conference on vaccine development and access across the continent.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control said on Wednesday that the continent’s 54 countries had reported 324,696 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 154,170 recoveries and 8,618 deaths.
324,696 people in Africa have tested positive for coronavirus so far, of whom 154,170 have recovered and 8,618 have died, the @AfricaCDC reported on Wednesday.https://t.co/8k1lizups2 pic.twitter.com/kclThTtUBO
— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) June 24, 2020
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Thousands of people gathered near the Kremlin to see tanks, artillery pieces and intercontinental ballistic missiles make their way through Moscow and to Red Square, where the parade marked the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Few people wore face masks as the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hosted foreign leaders and war veterans, now in their 90s, at the country’s Victory Day military parade. It was held as the number of coronavirus cases in Russia exceeded 600,000
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Covid-19 EU border rules could bar US visitors
Americans and Russians could be kept out when the EU reopens its borders to outsiders, according to documents seen by Reuters.
Draft recommendations from the EU’s current presidency, Croatia, suggest allowing non-EU nationals in from countries with stable or decreasing infections, and those with a “comparable or better epidemiological situation” than Europe.
That epidemiological criterion is defined as between 16-20 new cases of infection reported over 14 days per 100,000 people.
Nations would also be assessed for their records on testing, contact-tracing and treatment, reliability of data, and reciprocal travel arrangements for EU residents, according to the document, to be debated by envoys in Brussels on Wednesday.
Based on the latest update by the bloc’s European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), here the proposed methodology could rule out travellers from the US and Mexico, most of South America, South Africa, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, among others.
The US, whose president, Donald Trump, banned European visitors at the start of the crisis, has by far the highest number of deaths and cases in the world.
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Iran’s deputy health minister has called for mask wearing to be made compulsory, as the country reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll in more than two-and-a-half months on Wednesday .
“It is certainly required that the wearing of masks becomes mandatory,” said Alireza Raisi. “If we use masks, especially in closed spaces and gatherings, we can very much reduce the virus’s spread,” he added, according to Reuters.
After reporting its first cases of coronavirus on 19 February, the Islamic republic went on to close schools, cancel public events and ban movement between its 31 provinces, but stopped short of imposing a mandatory lockdown on people. Use of masks and protective equipment is optional in most areas.
The measures seemed to work, with a decline in cases until early May. But since then, and following a gradual reopening of the economy beginning in April, official figures have shown a rising trajectory in new confirmed cases.
The health ministry spokeswoman, Sima Sadat Lari, said on Wednesday that the 133 fatalities in the past 24 hours brought the country’s overall virus death toll to 9,996.
That made it the deadliest day in Iran since 6 April, when the government reported 136 virus fatalities. It was also the sixth consecutive day that Iran has reported more than 100 virus deaths.
Lari added that Iran’s virus infection caseload had jumped by 2,531 to a total of 212,501 in the past day.
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Soldiers have been called in to manage coronavirus treatment centres in Delhi, after the Indian capital recorded is highest single-day increase in cases, Reuters reports.
More than 3,900 people tested positive for the virus in the city of more than 20 million in 24 hours, according to the latest update from health officials. Local government data showed that of the 13,400 beds allocated to Covid-19 patients in the city, around 6,200 were occupied.
The federal home ministry said Delhi would have around 20,000 additional beds at temporary facilities run by army doctors and nurses available by next week, including at a 10,000-bed facility in a religious centre and railway coaches turned into wards.
“Armed forces personnel have been detailed for providing medical care and attention to Covid-19 patients housed in the railway coaches in Delhi,” the home minister, Amit Shah, said.
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HAPPENING NOW!
— Africa CDC (@AfricaCDC) June 24, 2020
AFRICA’S LEADERSHIP ROLE IN COVID-19 VACCINE DEVELOPMENT AND ACCESS
Virtual Conference.
Catch the conference on Youtube: https://t.co/2KUq4JVNk9
and
Facebook: https://t.co/NzAz3YvssV pic.twitter.com/n9Hm0HDxm8
A state of emergency in Bulgaria will be extended until 15 July after a jump in coronavirus cases, the health minister, Kiril Ananiev, has said.
Bulgaria began to relax restrictions to stop the spread of the virus earlier this month, but last week it reported 606 new coronavirus cases, its highest weekly rise since the beginning of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
On Wednesday, 130 new cases were reported, bringing the total to date to 4,114, with 208 deaths. The latest jump prompted Ananiev’s decision to reimpose mandatory mask wearing at all indoor public spaces, including trains and buses.
“We have an increase of the intensity of the epidemic and an increase of coronavirus spread,” Ananiev told a government meeting.
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Portugal has tightened restrictions in and around Lisbon after recording thousands of new cases in recent weeks, writes Ashifa Kassam in Madrid.
From 21 May to 21 June, the country has documented more than 9,200 new cases – a rate per 100,000 inhabitants that ranks among the highest in Europe, behind only Sweden, according to data compiled by news agency AFP.
As the pandemic engulfed the EU, officials in Portugal were hailed for their swift response, with the decision to close schools and universities in mid-March and impose a lockdown credited with limiting the number of lives claimed to 1,540.
The latest outbreaks are contained within 15 neighbourhoods, António Costa, the prime minister, told a news conference earlier this week. For the 2.8 million people who live in these areas, gatherings are now restricted to 10 people while stores will close at 8pm. Restaurants will be allowed to remain open, though they are banned from serving drinks after 8pm.
Costa hinted at a link between the uptick in infections and reports of parties flouting the country’s ban on gatherings of more than 20 people. A recent beach party near Lisbon attracted some 1,000 revellers, while a birthday party in the southern Algarve attended by 100 people three weeks ago resulted in 76 new cases.
“We can’t allow the irresponsibility of a few to compromise all the hard work and sacrifices we’ve made to combat the pandemic,” said Costa, who earlier this month argued that new infections were to be expected as Portugal is testing more people than other EU countries.
In neighbouring Spain health officials are monitoring 12 outbreaks. Among the most serious is in the northeastern region of Aragon, where more than 70 new cases have prompted authorities to reimpose limits on public gatherings for the about 68,000 residents in the area.
Spain remains one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe with 28,325 lives claimed by the virus, according to data from the health ministry. The figure, however, only reflects those who tested positive for the virus, said Fernando Simón, the health official heading the country’s response to the outbreak.
“We know that the number of excess deaths recorded is higher – 12,000 or 13,000 more deaths – but there is no confirmation that they died because of the coronavirus,” Simón told a news conference last week. “Many likely did, but others may have died due to other causes.”
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France is sending doctors and medical aid to French Guiana, its South American territory, in response to a surge in the number of infections, the Associated Press reports.
French Guiana, which shares a long border with Brazil, has been hard-hit. It reported more than 2,500 infections, compared to 161,000 in all of France.
The number of virus patients admitted to hospital has been rising steadily in recent days as the number in France and in other territories falls.
Annick Girardin, France’s minister for overseas territories, travelled to French Guiana on Tuesday and promised more aid, saying “the state will be there for you,” according to local broadcaster Guyane la 1ère.
She said she would discuss the possibility of reimposing confinement measures for the territory’s 300,000 people and cancelling upcoming elections to stem the spread.
The R number, which indicates how many people on average an infectious person will contaminate, is above 2 in French Guiana, according to the national health agency, which said the situation was very worrying.
Updated
Summary of key developments
- France’s coronavirus contact-tracing app StopCovid has alerted just 14 people that they have been near someone with the virus in the three weeks it has been launched. Only 68 people have signalled they have tested positive for the virus on the application. Digital minister Cédric O said the application had been downloaded and activated 1.8m times on the Android and Apple devices since it was launched on 2 June, but had been subsequently uninstalled by 460,000.
- Austria has issued a warning against travel to the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia after a coronavirus outbreak at a meatpacking plant there, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday.
- Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far, as cases surge in the country following the easing of restrictions. Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas –which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.
- The number of people who have died from coronavirus in Latin America surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally of registered deaths, while Mexico announced a record one-day total for new infections. In recent weeks Latin America has emerged as the centre of the pandemic, with a spike in cases and deaths even as the tide of infection recedes elsewhere on the planet.
- UK medical leaders warn of “real risk” of a coronavirus second wave just a day after the biggest lifting yet of lockdown restrictions in England. “While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk,” said the experts in an open letter printed in the British Medical Journal.
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India records its highest one-day rise in new cases
India has recorded its highest one-day rise in new coronavirus cases, with 15,968 infections detected in the past 24 hours, the Associated Press reports.
The health ministry also reported a record 24-hour increase of 465 deaths due to Covid-19 on Wednesday, driving fatalities to 14,476.
So far, 456,183 people in India have tested positive for the virus, making it the fourth hardest-hit country by the pandemic in the world after the US, Brazil and Russia. However, the true extent of the outbreak is thought to be much wider as, like elsewhere in the world, access to testing remains limited.
Maharashtra, New Delhi and Tamil Nadu are the worst-hit states, accounting for nearly 60% of all cases in the country.
New Delhi is emerging as a cause of concern for the federal government and is being criticised for its poor contact tracing and a lack of hospital beds. The government estimates it will have nearly 550,000 cases by the end of July.
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Latin America Covid-19 death toll passes 100,000
Latin America’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to Reuters, while the number of infections, at 2.2m, has doubled in less than a month.
The region has seen a spike in cases and deaths even as the tide of infection recedes in Europe and parts of Asia.
This week Latin America’s largest and most populous nation, Brazil, became the second country to reach 50,000 deaths, after the US. Mexico on Tuesday registered a one-day record for confirmed infections. Many officials concede the death toll is likely to be far higher.
Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez, Mexico’s deputy health minister and the country’s coronavirus tsar, signalled on Tuesday that his nation was in for a long battle against coronavirus.
“We must learn to live with the Sars-CoV-2 virus and permanently incorporate hygiene and prevention practices into the new reality,” said Ramírez, urging the Mexican society to adapt its response to the threat.
Brazil registered an additional 1,374 deaths from the virus on Tuesday and 39,436 new cases, pushing the coronavirus death toll to 52,000. More than 1.1 million have been infected.
Mexico, the worst hit-nation in the region after Brazil in terms of overall figures, registered 6,288 new infections and on Tuesday 793 additional deaths. That brought the totals for the country to 191,410 cases and 23,377 deaths.
The virus also appears to be on the rise in Central America, with Guatemala recording on Tuesday more than 700 new infections for the first time. An additional 35 deaths were registered in the country, taking its death toll to 582.
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The Covid-19 pandemic is disrupting health services for millions of women and children in poor countries, from neonatal and maternity care to immunisations and contraception, a World Bank global health expert has warned.
Monique Vledder, head of secretariat at the bank’s global financing facility (GFF), told Reuters that the agency was gravely worried about the numbers of children missing vaccinations, women giving birth without medical help and interrupted supplies of life-saving medicines like antibiotics.
“We’re very concerned about what’s happening – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa,” Vledder said as she unveiled the results of a GFF survey, one of the first seeking to assess the impact of Covid-19 on women’s and children’s health.
“Many of the countries we work in are fragile and so, by definition, already have very challenging situations when it comes to health service delivery. This is making things worse.”
From late March, GFF has conducted monthly surveys with local staff in 36 countries to monitor the impact of Covid-19 on essential health services for women, children and adolescents.
Sharing the survey findings with Reuters, GFF said that of countries reporting, 87% said the pandemic, fears about infection or lockdown measures designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, had led to disruptions to health workforces.
More than three-quarters of countries also reported disruptions in supplies of key medicines for mothers and babies, such as antibiotics to treat infections and oxytocin, a drug for preventing excessive bleeding after childbirth.
The number of GFF countries reporting service disruptions nearly doubled from 10 in April to 19 in June, and the number reporting fewer people seeking essential health services jumped to 22 in June from five in April.
“We are seeing declining vaccination rates among children. We’re seeing women accessing services less for ante- or post-natal care. We’re seeing a decline in babies being born in health facilities. And we’re also seeing a slide in outpatient services – for treatments for diarrhoea, malaria, fever, pneumonia for example,” Vledder said.
Updated
At a glance, the countries worst hit by COVID-19, as the global case load pushes past 9.2 million@AFP pic.twitter.com/zjiht78fNI
— AFPgraphics (@AFPgraphics) June 24, 2020
This is Damien Gayle taking the reins on the live blog now. For the next eight or so hours I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus-related news and headlines from around the world. If you have a comment, or a tip or suggestion for something I could cover on here, please drop me a line either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.
Updated
Indonesian authorities complained on Wednesday that hundreds of people had refused coronavirus testing with social taboos emerging as another obstacle to stopping the spread of the epidemic in the world’s fourth-most populous nation.
The country has the highest number of reported infections in Southeast Asia, surpassing 49,000, while at least 2,573 people have died, according to official data, the highest Covid-19 death toll in east Asia outside China.
Despite an acceleration in infections, this week hundreds of traditional traders in Bali and Sumatra refused to get tested, even as bustling, densely packed markets have emerged as common coronavirus infection points, officials said.
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Ukraine opens more hospitals to Covid-19 patients amid new high of cases
Ukraine is opening more of its hospitals to coronavirus cases as the ones initially chosen to accept patients no longer have enough beds to cope with a surge in infections, the health minister has said.
The daily rise of coronavirus cases hit a new high of 940 on Wednesday, bringing the total to 39,014, with 1,051 deaths. Most new cases were registered in west Ukraine and the capital.
At the start of the epidemic, Ukraine divided hospitals into categories, with the best prepared institutions taking patients in the first wave. Second-line hospitals would accept cases once the other institutions had no more places.
Officials say some citizens have not stuck closely enough to guidance on social distancing and other precautions to prevent the virus spreading, leading to a surge in cases.
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Paris women’s fashion week is to go ahead in September, the organisers said Wednesday.
The French Haute Couture and Fashion Federation said it would be held between 28 September and 6 October and “comply with the recommendations of the authorities” on the coronavirus.
Paris fashion week is by far the world’s biggest and most important.
With fashionistas deprived of runway shows since March, thousands are expected to descend on the French capital to see the spring/summer 2021 collections.
The pandemic has turned the fashion calendar upside-down, with Paris men’s and haute couture fashion shows next month being held online.
Updated
France's contract tracing app uninstalled by 460,000
France’s coronavirus contact-tracing app StopCovid has alerted just 14 people that they have been near someone with the virus in the three weeks it has been launched.
Only 68 people have signalled they have tested positive for the virus on the application.
Digital minister Cédric O said the application had been downloaded and activated 1.8m times on the Android and Apple devices since it was launched on 2 June, but had been subsequently uninstalled by 460,000.
“I have to admit, the question of the number of notifications, which is quite low, has surprised us,” the minister told a press conference. He attributed the low number of people reporting they had tested positive for Covid-19 on the application to “the weak prevalence of the epidemic” in France where the number of cases is dropping daily and the daily death toll is now in the low double figures.
By contrast, Germany’s coronavirus application, launched last week, has been downloaded 10m times. O said this was down to “cultural differences” between the two countries.
“The epidemic is not over; we are discovering new cluster cases every day. StopCovid is an additional tool to gain time in discovering these cases,” said Maurice-Pierre Planel, deputy director general of France’s general health directorate at the ministry of health.
The country’s data, information and privacy authority has cleared StopCovid for use. However, the investigative website Mediapart contested the government’s claim that the app would gather mobile phone pseudonyms of those who had tested positive for the virus with whom the user had been in contact at a distance of less than 1 metre for more than 15 minutes. Mediapart claimed StopCovid was hoovering up anonymous information on all individuals users came in contact with during the previous 14 days.
The authorities estimate only 3% of the population has downloaded the app, which needs a take-up of 20% to be useful.
O said the application had to evolve to warn the population of “the second wave … that everyone is envisaging”. In the long term, the government is hoping StopCovid can be made to work with the apps used by France’s EU neighbours.
France now has just under 9,500 people in hospital with the coronavirus and 682 in intensive care. The number of hospital deaths rose by 26 in the previous 24 hours according to official figures.
Updated
Indonesia reported 1,113 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, taking its total number of cases to 49,009.
Health ministry official Achmad Yurianto said there were 38 more deaths reported, with total fatalities now at 2,573.
Afghanistan resumed international flights after a three months-long pause as it has recorded its lowest daily infections since 13 May, amid a dropping number of daily tests.
Turkish Airlines will be the first aviation company that resumes its flights from Kabul to Turkey after almost three months. The flights will be under special health measures, according to company officials.
Afghan officials said that local aviation companies have also resumed their abroad flights. “We have imposed mandatory measures for health safety in order to begin our flights, local companies have also resumed their flights,” said Mohammad Qasim Wafaeezada, head of Afghanistan’s Civil Aviation Authority.
The country’s health ministry has detected 234 new coronavirus infections to coronavirus – the lowest daily rise since 13 May – from 651 tests in the last 24 hours as 21 more patients died from the virus, taking the total number of infections to 29,715 and the death toll to 639. There have been 9,869 recoveries.
The health ministry had previously said that it was unable to increase testing due to a lack of laboratories and an overload of suspected patients, adding medical workers would determine new coronavirus patients through their symptoms, rather than tests. The health ministry has said multiple times it has capacity of 2,000 tests a day, but never reached the number.
Kabul still leads new daily infections as most new cases (124) have been reported in the capital and four patients died from the virus overnight. Kabul is the country’s worst-affected area in both the number of confirmed cases and deaths with 12,309 cases and 151 deaths.
Most new deaths were reported in the western province of Herat as 11 patients died from the virus overnight.
Meanwhile, the war is raging on with full intensity across the country as 17 Taliban and four security forces were killed in a clash in Helmand on Tuesday night after the Taliban attacked security checkpoints, local officials said on Wednesday.
The western province of Badghis was also a battlefield last night as at least 10 security forces were killed in a Taliban attack.
Last week was the “deadliest” in 19 years of war as at least 988 Afghan security forces and civilians were killed and wounded, according to the country’s National Security Council.
Updated
Bulgaria will extend a state of emergency declared in response to the coronavirus outbreak until 15 July after another jump in new registered cases, health minister Kiril Ananiev said on Wednesday. The country began to relax restrictions to stop the spread of the virus earlier this month, but last week it reported 606 new Covid-19 cases, its highest weekly rise since the beginning of the epidemic.
Some 130 new cases were reported on Wednesday, bringing the total to date to 4,114, with 208 deaths. The latest jump prompted Ananiev’s decision to reimpose the mask requirement at all indoor public venues, including trains and buses.
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Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov missed a world war two victory parade in Russia on Wednesday after two people who accompanied him on the flight to Moscow tested positive for Covid-19 on arrival, his office said.
The parade, marking the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany, was postponed from 9 May because of the coronavirus outbreak. Jeenbekov had been scheduled to attend alongside several other leaders from former Soviet republics.
Leaders who were absent included Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would have to mark his birthday in quarantine if he chose to attend.
Jeenbekov’s office did not identify the officials who had tested positive. The Kyrgyz government has said it may have to re-tighten restrictions in the country of 6.5 million following a resurgence of Covid-19.
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Health leaders are calling for an urgent review to ensure Britain is properly prepared for the “real risk” of a second wave of coronavirus.
In an open letter to the leaders of all the UK political parties, published in the British Medical Journal, the health experts call for a “rapid and forward-looking assessment” of the state of national preparedness.
Read more on the UK live feed.
Updated
Equities were mixed Wednesday in Asia after a healthy run-up the day before as traders weigh positive data suggesting economies are recovering against signs of a second wave of infections and the reintroduction of some lockdowns.
While governments and central banks have provided a wall of cash to support markets, investors are walking a tightrope between hopes the easing of restrictions will lead to a rebound and the possibility that looser measures will inflame the pandemic again.
After a rally across most regional bourses on Tuesday, Wall Street and Europe followed suit after figures pointed to a big improvement in eurozone private-sector activity in June as well as a jump in US new home sales.
Meanwhile, several countries continued to loosen up, including in Britain where pubs, restaurants, hotels and cinemas were told they could open again from 4 July.
“Through the lens of survey data, at least for now, the world’s essential economies are seeing a V-shaped and coordinated rebound that looks set to (continue) through the summer in the northern hemisphere,” said Stephen Innes at AxiCorp. “Fingers crossed a second wave super spread does not land in our lap.”
However, there are growing concerns of a relapse in some countries that had been opening up, with Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike warning on Wednesday that a number of new cases had been found at one workplace.
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London stocks retreated on Wednesday as a spike in novel coronavirus cases across the globe compounded fears of a second wave of the pandemic, while builder Crest Nicholson tumbled after issuing a grim forecast for the year.
The homebuilder fell 7.6% to its lowest in more than a month as it posted a first-half pretax loss and said it expected annual adjusted pretax profit to fall around 60% to 70% due to coronavirus-led disruptions.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 was down 1.3% and the domestically focussed FTSE 250 0.6%, with financial, consumer staple and healthcare stocks among the biggest drags.
A US public health chief told Congress on Tuesday that coronavirus has “brought this nation to its knees” as America struggles with more than 2.3 million confirmed cases and more than 121,000 deaths so far.
Dr Robert Redfield, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a hearing in Washington that core public health capabilities in the US had been vastly underfunded for a long time and needed urgent investment.
Chinese telecom giant Huawei opened its second global flagship store in Shanghai on Wednesday, part of plans to strengthen its brand in its core Chinese consumer market as it faces headwinds overseas.
Hundreds of face mask-wearing customers queued up to enter the 5,000-square-metre (54,000-square-foot) store – Huawei’s largest – located on the city’s busiest shopping street and directly across from a retail outlet of rival Apple.
Company representatives said Huawei intends to open several more such stores in China in the coming year to showcase its smartphones and other consumer tech, plans that they said were conceived before the US government launched a worldwide campaign against the firm about 18 months ago.
Huawei is the world’s largest supplier of telecom network equipment and planet’s number two smartphone maker.
Gold prices surged to their highest in nearly eight years on Wednesday, while global shares cooled as signs of an acceleration in coronavirus cases kept investors on edge.
Fuelling concerns about sustained weakness in the pace of the economic recovery was data showing several US states seeing record infections and the death toll in Latin America passing 100,000, according to a Reuters tally.
The European Union is even prepared to bar US travellers because of the surge of cases in the country, putting it in the same category as Brazil and Russia, the New York Times reported.
Russia on Wednesday reported 7,176 new cases of the novel coronavirus, pushing its nationwide case total to 606,881, the world’s third highest tally.
The country’s coronavirus crisis response centre said 154 people had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 8,513.
Israeli and Palestinian authorities have brought back some coronavirus restrictions after the number of new cases jumped in what officials fear could herald a “second wave” of infections.
A partial lockdown went into effect on Wednesday in a town in central Israel and several neighborhoods in the city of Tiberias where infection rates were particularly high. The Palestinian Authority put the West Bank city of Hebron on lockdown as well.
Israel was one of the first countries to close its borders and impose restrictions when the global pandemic first emerged and the Palestinians quickly followed suit.
The campaign took a major economic toll, but it worked. An initial spike of hundreds of daily cases dropped to single digits. Israel has reported 308 fatalities, much less than many developed countries, and three people have died from the virus in the Palestinian territories.
The restrictions have since been gradually eased in a bid to revive businesses that had closed, and with it infection numbers have slowly risen. On Tuesday, Israel saw 428 new cases and the Palestinians reported 179, the highest number to date.
Austria issues travel warning for German state after outbreak
Austria has issued a warning against travel to the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia after a coronavirus outbreak at a meatpacking plant there, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday.
The move puts the state in the same category as the Italian region of Lombardy, the epicentre of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak, which was one of the worst in Europe.
Updated
As the coronavirus spreads, soaring demand for oxygen is bringing out a stark global truth: even the right to breathe depends on money. In much of the world, oxygen is expensive and hard to get a basic marker of inequality both between and within countries.
In wealthy Europe and North America, hospitals treat oxygen as a fundamental need, much like water or electricity. It is delivered in liquid form by tanker truck and piped directly to the beds of coronavirus patients. Running short is all but unthinkable for a resource that literally can be pulled from the air.
In Spain, as coronavirus deaths climbed, engineers laid 7 km (4 miles) of tubing in less than a week to give 1,500 beds in an impromptu hospital a direct supply of pure oxygen. Oxygen is also plentiful and brings the most profits in industrial use such as mining, aerospace, electronics and construction.
But in poor countries, from Peru to Bangladesh, it is in lethally short supply.
In Guinea, a west-coastal country in West Africa, oxygen is a costly challenge for government-funded medical facilities such as the Donka public hospital in the capital, Conakry.
Instead of the new plant piping oxygen directly to beds, a second-hand pickup truck carries cylinders over potholed roads from Guineas sole source of medical-grade oxygen, the SOGEDI factory dating to the 1950s. Outside the capital, in medical centers in remote villages and major towns,doctors say there is no oxygen to be found at all.
A haunted house in Japan has developed a drive-through format amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
Inside a car, guests can scream as loudly as they like, with no mask required. And according to producer Kenta Iwana, 25, the new format might even be scarier than a traditional haunted house.
“At the drive-in haunted house, guests are confined in a car so they can’t escape the horror until the end,” he told AFP.
“It makes it even more scary for them.”
Iwana came up with the drive-in solution after struggling with a string of cancellations as the Coronavirus outbreak took hold.
“It’s because a haunted house creates an environment with three Cs,” he said, referring to the conditions Japanese experts warn risk spreading the virus: closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings.
“Orders for conventional-style haunted houses were cancelled one after another and we lost about 80% of our clients.”
The squad is usually hired to set up haunted house experiences at amusement parks and similar venues.
A normal experience might involve a windowless facility with actors playing ghosts quietly following visitors and whispering directly into their ears to scare them – all impossible in the age of coronavirus.
Iwana and his team Kowagarasetai – meaning “A squad wanting to scare” – initially tried to create coronavirus-compatible performances by wearing masks painted with fake blood and playing recorded screams rather than unleashing real ones.
But most of their events were cancelled anyway. “We’ve even had Halloween events scheduled in October and November cancelled,” said Ayaka Imaide, 34, head of the squad.
Iwana, who quit university to become a ghost house producer, wondered if a drive-in format might work instead.
German health minister Jens Spahn on Wednesday stressed that the coronavirus remains a risk after the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Tuesday put two municipalities back into lockdown following an outbreak at a meatpacking plant.
Guetersloh and the neighbouring town of Warendorf became the first areas in Germany to fall back under lockdown measures that had been gradually lifted since the end of April.
“We’re seeing that if we make it too easy for this virus, it spreads very, very quickly again - we’re not only seeing that in Guetersloh – we’ve also seen it in Goettingen, in Leer, in Bremen and at churches and family celebrations,” Spahn told German broadcaster ARD.
“That’s why it’s important to keep making clear that although the numbers were low over many weeks, this virus is still there,” Spahn said.
Among the headlines today is the news that coronavirus deaths in Latin America have risen beyond 100,000, with this part of the world emerging in recent weeks as the epicentre of the pandemic.
Updated
Hello everyone. I am taking over the Guardian’s global live feed, bringing you the latest Coronavirus news from around the world. Please do get in touch while I blog as it’s always really useful to hear from readers. You can contact me via any of the channels below with news tips or views from where you are.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along, and here is a story about macaques eating too many snacks and going on the attack:
'End of hibernation': what the papers say about England's lockdown easing
A combination of sunny weather and the approaching relaxation of coronavirus lockdown rules in England has led to jubilation on some front pages today, as others mark the start of the end of “our long national hibernation”.
The prime minister’s “hibernation” comment was the pick of the rest of the papers.
The Guardian balances the relief with the still-serious dangers the virus poses. “PM hails ‘end of hibernation’ – but scientists urge caution” is the headline, beside a grim-faced Johnson delivering the news of the “one-metre plus” rules coming in on 4 July.
Guardian front page, 24 June 2020: PM hails 'end of hibernation' – but scientists urge caution pic.twitter.com/DMCWIPSIcP
— The Guardian (@guardian) June 23, 2020
The Telegraph quotes Johnson for its headline: “Our hibernation is beginning to end, the bustle is coming back”. Underneath, a comment piece by associate editor Camilla Tominey is headlined: “So we gingerly get back to normal – in a world that is anything but”.
The front page of tomorrow's Daily Telegraph:
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) June 23, 2020
'Our hibernation is beginning to end, the bustle is coming back'#TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/eZPalq1XFj
“Summer’s back on!” says the Daily Mail, and quotes Boris Johnson urging people to get out and enjoy themselves. It notes, however, the move is a “calculated gamble to head off economic disaster”.
Wednesday's @DailyMailUK #MailFrontPages pic.twitter.com/6s2AUncQhc
— Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) June 23, 2020
You can find the rest of our full roundup of the papers below:
Tokyo confirms 55 new infections
Tokyo has confirmed 55 new coronavirus infections, the Japan Daily News reports, in the first time cases have topped 50 since early May.
Earlier on Wednesday, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said the city would record “quite a large number” of new coronavirus cases after a cluster of infections was discovered at an office.
“Clusters in the workplace have become a big problem lately,” Koike told reporters, adding that test results from the same unnamed company were expected to add to the seven infections found there previously, Reuters reports.
In addition, more than 10 positive results are expected from group testing in Shinjuku, Koike said, referring to an area of the Japanese capital known for its night life.
Tokyo confirms 55 new coronavirus infections, highest since May 5
— The Mainichi (Japan Daily News) (@themainichi) June 24, 2020
https://t.co/txTDboAhMl
The British public is set to discard 67m items of clothing and 22m pairs of shoes after two in five of us had a wardrobe clear-out during lockdown.
While clothing is the most common item destined for charity shops, clothing recycling schemes or the bin, other accessories including bedding, household textiles and bags all contribute to an estimated 184m textile items waiting to be disposed of, according to the government-backed recycling and reuse body Wrap.
On average, people want to get rid of 11 items of clothing, with more than half of these items still at home awaiting disposal because charity shops and many local authority bins have yet to reopen.
Almost half of participants (49%) in a Wrap survey said they would hand unwanted clothes to a charity shop or charity bag collection service, with shops prepared for a surge in donations after they gradually began to reopen last week. But as many as 14% plan to put unwanted clothes in the general rubbish, with just over one in three of those who have already disposed of these items having put them in the bin.
Summary
Here are the latest developments from the last few hours:
-
Deaths worldwide passed 475,000, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, with the known toll currently at 477,584, and known infections standing at 9,263,466.
- Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far, as cases surge in the US following the easing of restrictions.Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas –which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.
- Brazil confirmed more than 39,000 in a single day on Tuesday. The death toll in Latin America’s biggest economy stands at 52,645. A judge on Tuesday ordered Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, to wear a mask in public after the right-wing populist attended political rallies without one.The death toll in Latin America passed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, with Mexico the second-worst affected region in the nation. Mexico on Tuesday registered 6,288 new infections and 793 additional deaths, the health ministry said, bringing the totals for the country to 191,410 cases and 23,377 fatalities.
- A Chinese pharmaceutical firm has won approval to run a large-scale “Phase 3” clinical trial of its novel coronavirus vaccine candidate in the United Arab Emirates. China is seeking to test potential vaccines overseas because of a lack of new patients at home. No other experimental vaccines has yet successfully completed a late-stage “Phase 3” test to determine efficacy in shielding healthy people from the virus.
- A South African school confirmed 200 infections among pupils and staff. More than 200 pupils and staff who returned to a boarding school in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape province this month tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday, officials said.Eastern Cape accounts for around 15% of South Africa’s 101,590 cases, making it the country’s third worst-affected province, AFP reports.
- The next few weeks are critical to tamping down a ‘disturbing’ coronavirus surge, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress on Tuesday issuing a plea for people to avoid crowds and wear masks just hours before mask-shunning President Donald Trump was set to hold a campaign rally in one hot spot.
- Russia will hold a second world war parade ahead of vote on Putin reforms on Wednesday despite rising cases. Putin announced the new dates for the parade and a vote extending his rule – initially planned for April – last month despite Russia still recording thousands of new cases every day. Russia has 598,878 cases, the third-highest globally – and 8,349 deaths, significantly lower than most other countries in among the 10 worst affected, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data.
- Australia confirmed its first death in a month. The man in his 80s died in the state of Victoria, in the first coronavirus-related death in more than a month. Australia’s total death toll from the virus now stands at 103.
- New Zealand recorded one new case, diagnosed in a traveller returning from abroad who remains in government-run isolation facilities. The country has reported 11 active cases, all in people returning to the country. Nine of them were diagnosed during their government-managed isolation and remain there.
- Novak Djokovic tested positive for Covid-19 amid Adria Tour fiasco.The beleaguered world No 1 tested positive, along with his wife, Jelena, throwing tennis into turmoil as the sport’s official tour prepares to resume. They join three other leading players and two trainers infected by the disease towards the end of the Serb’s unsanctioned Adria Tour.
Updated
Global report: seven US states report record Covid-19 hospitalisations
Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far, as cases surge in the US following the easing of restrictions.
Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas –which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.
More than 800 deaths were reported across the country on Tuesday, it said, saying ti was the first increase in fatalities since 7 June.
California saw record infections, too, with more than 5,000 in a single day for the first time, as Arizona, Nevada and Missouri also reported record case increases.
In Florida, Homestead hospital warned that its intensive care unit was at capacity, NBC reported. Florida confirmed 3,200 new cases on Tuesday, which marked the sixth day of more than 25,000 cases:
New coronavirus cluster discovered in Tokyo office
Tokyo will record “quite a large number” of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday after a cluster of infections was discovered at an office, Governor Yuriko Koike said.
“Clusters in the workplace have become a big problem lately,” Koike told reporters, adding that test results from the same unnamed company were expected to add to the seven infections found there previously, Reuters reports.
In addition, more than 10 positive results are expected from group testing in Shinjuku, Koike said, referring to an area of the Japanese capital known for its night life.
Those who knew and loved him say Leandro Maduro Costa was born a clown, lived his life as a clown – and had hoped to die as one.
“He always said to me: ‘Felipe, if I die first, bury me as ‘Potato’,” said Felipe Alves Guimarães, a friend and fellow entertainer known by audiences as Tambourine.
“It’ll be the first time a clown has ever been buried dressed as a clown,” Guimarães remembered his performing partner as saying. Tambourine promised to honour Potato’s wishes.
But when Covid-19 began tearing across Brazil in March it destroyed those plans as it has now destroyed more than 50,000 lives in the world’s second worst-hit country after the US.
Potato the Clown was laid to rest in Rio on 11 May, surrounded by a small group of relatives and in a sealed coffin.
“Because of this virus we couldn’t make his wish come true,” Guimarães said. “It really upset me. I spent two or three days locked up at home in pieces – because I wasn’t able to say a final farewell to my friend.
In altogether more bananas news, residents in Lopburi, Thailand, are hiding behind barricaded indoors as fights between rival monkey gangs create no-go zones for humans.
The ancient Thai city has been overrun by a growing population of monkeys super-charged on junk food – and angry at its dwindling supply under coronavirus restrictions, AFP reports.
Pointing to the overhead netting covering her terrace, Kuljira Taechawattanawanna bemoans the monkey menace across the heart of the 13th-century city in the central province of the same name.
“We live in a cage but the monkeys live outside,” she tells AFP.
“Their excrement is everywhere, the smell is unbearable especially when it rains.”
AFP reports:
The fearless primates’ antics were largely tolerated as a major lure for the tourist hordes who descended on the city before the coronavirus outbreak to feed and snap selfies with the plucky animals.
But a government sterilisation campaign is now being waged against the creatures after the epidemic provoked an unexpected change in their behaviour. As foreign tourism - Thailand’s cash cow - seized up so did the flow of free bananas tossed their way, prodding the macaques to turn to violence.
Footage of hundreds of them brawling over food in the streets went viral on social media in March. Their growing numbers - doubling in three years to 6,000 - have made an uneasy coexistence with their human peers almost intolerable.
An abandoned cinema is the macaques’ headquarters. Nearby, a shop owner displays stuffed tiger and crocodile toys to try to scare off the monkeys, who regularly snatch spray-paint cans from his store.
Updated
Latin America coronavirus deaths top 100,000
The number of people who have died from coronavirus in Latin America surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally of registered deaths, while Mexico announced a record one-day total for new infections.
In recent weeks Latin America has emerged as the epicentre of the pandemic, with a spike in cases and deaths even as the tide of infection recedes elsewhere on the planet.
Mexico on Tuesday registered 6,288 new infections and 793 additional deaths from the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, the health ministry said, bringing the totals for the country to 191,410 cases and 23,377 deaths.
Mexico has been the worst hit-nation in the region after Brazil, where a judge on Tuesday ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a mask in public after the right-wing populist attended political rallies without one in the middle of the world’s second-worst coronavirus outbreak.
The virus also appears to be on the rise in Central America, where Guatemala on Tuesday recorded more than 700 new infections for the first time. Additional 35 deaths were registered in Guatemala, taking it deaths total to 582.
Brazil confirms 39,436 new cases in 24 hours
Brazil recorded 39,436 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, as well as 1,374 new deaths resulting from the disease, the country’s health ministry has said.
Brazil has registered more than 1.1 million cases since the pandemic began, while cumulative deaths reached 52,645, according to the ministry.
Russia to hold WWII parade ahead of vote on Putin reforms
Columns of tanks and troops will parade through Red Square on Wednesday as President Vladimir Putin oversees grand World War II commemorations to stir up patriotic fervour ahead of a vote on extending his rule, AFP reports.
Forced to postpone the country’s traditional 9 May Victory Day celebrations by the coronavirus pandemic, Putin rescheduled the parade for just a week ahead of a 1 July public vote on controversial constitutional reforms.
Among other changes, the reforms Putin proposed earlier this year would reset the presidential term-limit clock to zero, allowing him to potentially stay in the Kremlin until 2036.
He announced the new dates for the parade and the vote - initially planned for April - last month despite Russia still recording thousands of new coronavirus cases every day.
Russia claims to have 598,878 coronavirus cases and 8,349 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data.
The rate of new infections has fallen in recent weeks and cities including Moscow have lifted anti-virus lockdowns, but critics accuse Putin of rushing ahead with public events to pursue his own political ends.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 587 to 191,449, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday.
The reported death toll rose by 19 to 8,914, the tally showed.
More from New Zealand with Charlotte Graham-McLay:
Ever since a major blunder in government-managed quarantine more than a week ago, in which two women with Covid-19 were allowed to leave facilities without being tested, New Zealand’s top health official has been under pressure to reveal the number of returning travelers who departed their isolation hotels without taking tests.
But today, Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health, told reporters that he now had the figures.
Of 54 returning travellers who were allowed to leave managed quarantine early – it is supposed to be 14 days in length – on compassionate grounds, only two were tested for the coronavirus before they left their isolation hotels. Two others were tested on the day they left.
Most of the others have since tested negative.
The compassionate exemption to quarantine was revoked after two British travelers were allowed to leave without taking a test, and were later diagnosed with the virus.
Of the 2,159 other people who had left quarantine before 16 June – when quarantine testing rules tightened up – only 800 were tested for Covid-19, Bloomfield said. 210 had been tested after departure.
All had tested negative.
Those people had all completed their 14-day isolation period after returning from abroad, he added – at which point the risk of transmission of the virus is thought to be low.
However, he has been questioned daily by reporters about his inability to produce the figures. The Guardian asked the country’s Ministry of Health last Tuesday how many people had left isolation without a test, with no response.
Returning travellers in quarantine are now required to take two Covid-19 tests before they leave, or they are not allowed out for a further 14 days.
Updated
New Zealand records one new coronavirus case
Charlotte Graham-McLay with the latest from New Zealand:
New Zealand has recorded one new case of Covid-19, diagnosed in a traveler returning from abroad who remains in government-run isolation facilities.
That means the country has reported 11 active cases of Covid-19, all in people returning to New Zealand. Nine of them were diagnosed during their government-managed isolation and remain there.
The other two, travellers returning from Britain, were mistakenly allowed out of government-run quarantine without a test to visit a dying relative, and were later confirmed to have the virus.
Since the women’s cases emerged last week, more than 45,000 Covid-19 tests have been taken among New Zealand’s population of 5m people, to try to rule out widespread community transmission. Health officials, giving a news conference in Wellington, said 9,174 tests were taken yesterday alone – the most of any day of the coronavirus outbreak.
The latest case was diagnosed in a woman aged in her 60s who arrived in New Zealand on 18 June. She was traveling on a repatriation flight from India, according to health officials, who are giving a news conference in Wellington.
The new cases have been uncovered over the past week, after New Zealand had recorded a full week with no active cases of the coronavirus, and 24 consecutive days of no new diagnosed instances.
But officials had warned that the number would tick up again as New Zealanders returned from Covid-19 hotspots around the world. New Zealanders and their families, along with some essential workers, are the only people permitted to enter the country.
They must remain in isolation at government-run hotels for 14 days, and take two tests for Covid-19.
Updated
Iowa regulators say they found no workplace safety violations at Tyson Foods’ largest pork processing plant, which employed several people who died after contracting the coronavirus, AP reports.
The Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration closed its inquiry into the Tyson plant in Waterloo earlier this month without sanctioning the meat company.
County officials and workers have alleged that in March and part of April workers did not have adequate personal protective equipment to stop the spread of the virus and were not social distancing.
The company says it has taken numerous safety steps since then, including requiring masks, screening for symptoms, and frequent testing.
Black Hawk County has said that more than 1,000 of the Waterloo plant’s 2,800 workers had tested positive for the virus or antibodies by early May.
The Associated Press has confirmed that at least five workers have died after getting the virus, most recently a 44-year-old maintenance worker who died on Memorial Day after a lengthy illness. The other deaths have included a 65-year-old laundry department worker, a 58-year-old Bosnian refugee, a 60-year-old Latino father and a refugee from Congo.
Iowa health officials have not released the number of meatpacking workers who have died because of the virus in Waterloo or at other plants.
Updated
Meanwhile in New Zealand, a growing number of social media users are trespassing on private property at a beach west of Auckland to frolic in natural “infinity pools” on a cliff top – some in the nude – and driving the owners to despair.
Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian:
“We’ve absolutely had enough,” said Buzz Kronfeld, part of a family who owns three plots of land at Anawhata Beach, 50km from New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland.
Finding the “secret” pools at Anawhata Beach, has become a piece of online lore; directions are listed on tourist sites and Instagrammers who visit call it a “hidden gem” or “Auckland’s best kept secret”.
“Def worth a trespass,” one woman on Instagram captioned her picture. “One of the nicer places I have urinated,” wrote a young man, below a photo of himself relaxing in one of the pools.
During summer, Kronfeld said, visitors number 30 to 40 a day. “I kicked 23 people out of the pools once,” he said, adding that some were angry when asked to leave, and on a couple of occasions, his relatives had almost come to blows with trespassers.
Newsroom, a New Zealand media outlet, recently set up a hidden camera by the pools to film those trespassing on Kronfeld’s property. As well as capturing dozens of topless – and occasionally bottomless – young people posing in the pools, and even couples having sex, the covert filming caught tourists visiting during New Zealand’s strict coronavirus lockdown. At that time, travelling further than one’s neighbourhood was banned.
The discovery of new cancer treatments could be delayed, research institutes shut, and a whole generation of upcoming scientists lost because of a funding crisis in medical research, UK charities have warned.
Covid-19 has caused fundraising to plummet, with events cancelled and charity shops shut because of the lockdown. The upshot is a dire financial situation that could have a severe impact on research crucial to finding new ways to diagnose, manage and treat diseases from cancer to neurological conditions and heart disease.
“The current pandemic has put the future of charity-funded research at significant risk,” said Aisling Burnand, chief executive of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC).
The full story on the situation in Victoria, Australia now:
Australia has recorded its first Covid-19 death in one month, with Victoria’s chief health officer, Dr Brett Sutton, announcing that a man in his 80s died overnight, bringing the country’s total death toll to 103.
It came as Victoria grappled with a spike in cases in the past week, reporting double-digit rises in new cases every day for more than one week. Twenty new cases of the virus were announced by Sutton on Wednesday. The new cases include three staff members who tested positive at Hampstead dental clinic in Maidstone, 8km north-west from Melbourne city. There are now 241 cases that have been identified since the epidemic began in Victoria that indicate community transmission, an increase of eight since yesterday.
Australia confirms first coronavirus death in a month
A person has died in the state of Victoria, Australia, in the first coronavirus-related death in more than a month.
The man in his 80s died overnight. Australia’s total death toll from the virus now stands at 103.
Hi, Helen Sullivan here – I’ll be with you for the next few hours and, as always, welcome news, tips, comments, and good tweets. Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
South African school confirms 200 infections among pupils and staff
More than 200 pupils and staff who returned to a boarding school in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape province this month tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday, officials said.
Eastern Cape accounts for around 15% of South Africa’s 101,590 cases, making it the country’s third worst-affected province, AFP reports.
The province’s health department announced the outbreak at Makaula Senior Secondary School in the rural town of KwaBhaca, where 204 students and staff members were found infected with the virus.
“Initially 24 learners tested positive last week with 180 others, which include hostel assistants, testing positive this week,” the department said in a statement, adding that all had been placed under isolation.
National education department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said they were among 283 pupils - final-year students - as well as 47 teachers and 42 support staff at the school.
The 12th-grade students, as well as their middle school counterparts in the seventh grade, were the only ones allowed to return to the school because they are to write their final exams this year.
All others have been required to stay home since March when South Africa shuttered schools as part of measures to limit the spread of coronavirus.
Doctors are tracing and testing contacts in a bid to prevent further infections.
Seven US states see highest-ever hospitalisations
The Washington Post reports that seven US states have seen their highest hospitalisations of coronavirus patients so far in the pandemic.
The states are Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
According to the Washington Post:
Texas and California on Tuesday eclipsed 5,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus over a 24-hour span, records in those states. Arizona, Nevada and Missouri also logged new single-day highs. Overall, 33 states and US territories now have a rolling average of new cases that is higher than last week.
Updated
The average Briton now spends a quarter of their waking day online, according to new research that shows how internet usage has exploded during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ofcom’s annual Online Nation report reveals that at the height of lockdown the average UK adult was spending a daily average of four hours and two minutes online – up from three-and-a-half hours in September last year.
This is substantially more time than people spend either watching television or listening to the radio, backing up other indicators that the pandemic has acted as a catalyst to speed up existing trends away from traditional media.
We’re moving away from that rally now and onto other news.
“People went to the polls in World War Two,” says Trump, “They can go to the polls in Covid-19”:
Trump lies that Democrats are "trying to rig the election" through mail voting, by "using the China virus as the excuse for allowing people not to go to the polls."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 23, 2020
“Before the plague came in we had the best of everything,” he says.
Trump is making claim after claim about helping Black Americans before the pandemic. A reminder that during the coronavirus pandemic, they have borne the brunt of the economic and health impacts of the virus:
We have so many kinds of tests, says Trump.
“We’re going to have a vaccine very soon... We unleashed the power of the United States military.” Nobody was denied a ventilator, Trump says. He got ventilators to New York. He built a hospital for New York in the Javitz centre, “they didn’t use it,” he says.
“To rescue the US economy which is happening now we passed 3bn in legislation... To protect jobs for US students like you we took historic action to block foreign entry... we gotta go American.”
The US has to get back to better employment rates “so we can start taking people back in based on merit. Or I should say mostly on merit,” he says, or he’ll get in trouble.
In response to the virus “we took swift and early action to ban travel from China... we saved tens of thousands of lives with that decision. And then we saved lives by banning travel from Europe,” says Trump.
The US has the highest infections and deaths in the world, with 2,338,275 confirmed cases and 121,157 deaths.
Nancy Pelosi wanted to “dance in the streets of China,” he says. This is a claim he has made often, and is not true.
“My administration launched the greatest mobilisation since WW2. We have done such a great job with this with the ventilators and the testing.”
He claims testing is the reason the US has so many cases.
“They use it to make us look bad”. Because of the testing, the US “mortality rate is so low,” he says.
Instead they say “the cases have jumped the cases of jumped”.
Updated
Here’s Trump listing racist names for coronavirus:
Trump once against refers to coronavirus with the racist "Kung Flu" moniker, prompting huge cheers from his Turning Point Action audience. He then expresses confusion about what the "19" in "Covid-19" stands for. pic.twitter.com/jLhWBW91aw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 23, 2020
“I stood up to China like nobody else in decades,” he says.
Earlier in his speech:
On coronavirus, Trump claims Democrats "are trying to do their best to keep the country shut down and closed because they'd love those numbers not to be good, but there's not a lot they're going to be able to do about it." pic.twitter.com/iBwm15aEm8
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 23, 2020
Updated
Trump is speaking to students at a rally in Arizona, Texas now hosted by conservative non-profit organisation Turning Point.
He is talking about the many names that coronavirus has, including, he says, some call it: “Wuhan” or “Kung flu” or “The Chinese flu”.
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Summary
Hello and welcome to today’a live coronavirus news with me, Helen Sullivan.
I’ll be with you for the next few hours and, as always, welcome news, tips, comments, and good tweets. Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
The next few weeks are critical to tamping down what he called a ‘disturbing’ coronavirus surge, Dr Anthony Fauci told Congress on Tuesday issuing a plea for people to avoid crowds and wear masks just hours before mask-shunning President Donald Trump was set to hold a campaign rally in one hot spot.
Troubling surges worsened Tuesday in several states, with Arizona, Texas and Nevada setting single-day records for new coronavirus cases, and some governors saying they’ll consider reinstating restrictions or delaying plans to ease up in order to help slow the spread of the virus.
- Deaths worldwide are nearing 475,0000, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, with known infections standing at 9,178,773.
- Fauci says US will increase Covid-19 testing despite Trump’s claims of slowing down. The US’s top infectious disease expert said the country will be doing more Covid-19 testing, not less, hours after Donald Trump insisted he was serious when he called for testing to slow down.
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European Union countries are prepared to block Americans from entering because the United States has failed to control its epidemic, the New York Times reported. More than 120,000 Americans have died from the outbreak; the world’s worst death toll.
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Novak Djokovic tests positive for Covid-19 amid Adria Tour fiasco. The beleaguered world No 1 tested positive, along with his wife, Jelena, throwing tennis into turmoil as the sport’s official tour prepares to resume. They join three other leading players and two trainers infected by the disease towards the end of the Serb’s unsanctioned Adria Tour.
- Texas Children’s Hospital admitting adults as coronavirus surges in Houston. The children’s hospital is admitting adult coronavirus patients due to a spike in serious Covid-19 cases in the Houston area, while a dozen other states from Florida to California grapple with a surge in infections. Texas reported over 5,000 new infections on Monday, a single-day record for the state. It has also seen Covid-19 hospitalisations hit record highs for 11 days in a row.
- French virus tracing app flops with only 14 alerts. The country’s much-heralded new phone app for tracking coronavirus cases has only alerted 14 people that they were at risk of infection since its launch three weeks ago.
- Covid-19 vaccine may not work for at-risk older people, say scientists. A vaccine may not work well in older people who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and dying from the disease, which may mean immunising others around them, such as children.
- Brazilian judge tells Bolsonaro to behave and wear a face mask. The judge ordered Jair Bolsonaro to rectify his “at best disrespectful” behaviour by wearing a face mask when circulating in the capital, Brasília.
- Virus pushing millions of South Asia children into poverty, says UN. More than 100 million children in the region could slip into poverty as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a UN report said of the long-term impact of the crisis.
- England to reopen pubs, restaurants and hotels on 4 July. Members of two different households will be able to drink or dine together as long as they stick to physical-distancing guidelines, as the prime minister confirmed the 2-metre rule would be dropped in favour of a “1-metre-plus” approach.
- Putin ploughs ahead with Victory Day parade despite coronavirus threat. Russia is holding its postponed Victory Day military parade on Wednesday despite steadily rising coronavirus infections, as Vladimir Putin seeks a popularity boost in the run-up to a referendum on extending his time in office.
- Virus lockdown could fuel radicalisation, according to Europol. Coronavirus lockdowns could radicalise more terror suspects, the EU’s police agency has warned, saying both right and leftwing violence are on the rise.
- Iran reports highest virus deaths since April. The country reported 121 new coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, its highest daily toll in over two months.
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