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Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now.
As we take this journey together through turbulent pandemic waters, you can get in touch with me throughout the day on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
Brazilian president suffers symptoms – reports
Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right president of Brazil, is suffering Covid-19 symptoms and is awaiting the results of a test, according to CNN Brasil.
Bolsonaro, who has previously tested negative after people close to him were infected, has repeatedly dismissed the risks posed by the virus, even as his country’s suffering increased. Brazil is the second worst-hit nation in the world after the US, whose own rightwing president Donald Trump has also sought to play down the dangers posed by the pandemic.
Updated
Republican senator to miss Trump nomination over virus concerns
The US senator Chuck Grassley will skip Donald Trump’s presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in August due to coronavirus concerns, a spokesman for the senator has confirmed.
Reuters has reported that the 86-year-old Iowa Republican has attended each of his party’s conventions since he was first elected to the Senate in 1980. His decision not to travel to Florida for this year’s event underscores broader concerns about holding mass gatherings as coronavirus cases there surge.
“I’m not going to go because of the virus situation,” Grassley told reporters on Monday, according to a report in the Des Moines Register.
The bulk of the Republican convention was moved from North Carolina after the state’s Democratic governor Roy Cooper would not commit to allowing a full convention because of pandemic concerns.
Some 330 delegates will travel to Charlotte, North Carolina, from 22 to 24 August to nominate Trump as the Republican candidate to take on Democrat Joe Biden in the 3 November election. The more than 2,000 remaining delegates will perform a ceremonial vote between 24 and 27 August in Jacksonville, in Florida, to confirm the nomination, according to the Republican National Committee.
The decision to relocate to Florida was made prior to the state’s recent spike in cases, which have grown from 667 new cases on 1 June to more than 10,000 new cases on Monday.
The state has seen more than 200,000 total infections and 3,730 deaths as of Monday.
The RNC plans to make testing available to all attendees but is discussing whether to make the testing mandatory.
Newly identified cases soared in California over the 4 July weekend, stressing some hospital systems and leading to the temporary closure of the state capitol building in Sacramento for deep cleaning, local officials have said.
The number of people hospitalised has increased by 50% over the past two weeks to about 5,800, according to the state governor Gavin Newsom.
The Reuters news agency reported that state and local records showed about a third of those hospitalised were in Los Angeles County, with about 630 confirmed and suspected virus patients requiring intensive care.
And 25% of the hospitalisations in the county in July were among patients aged between 18 and 40 years, health officials said, as new cases increasingly hit a younger population that may have been lax about safety precautions in recent weeks.
Further north, nearly 1,400 inmates at San Quentin state prison have contracted the virus, putting pressure on hospitals in Marin County, where the facility is located, Newsom said.
In all, 271,684 Californians have tested positive, including 11,529 in the past 24 hours, state records show. About 6,300 have died.
Egypt has reported 969 new cases the health ministry has said, the first drop below 1,000 registered daily since 27 May.
In total, 76,222 cases and 3,422 deaths have been reported, including 79 deaths on Monday, the ministry said.
Egypt reopened resorts to foreign tourists last week after tourism came to halt in March under measures to curb the epidemic. But Egypt was not on an initial “safe list” of 14 countries for resumption of non-essential travel to the EU, announced last week.
Tourism accounts for 5% of Egypt’s economic output, according to the government. But analysts put the figure as much as 15% if jobs indirectly related to the sector are included.
Brazil has suffered 620 more deaths and registered 20,229 additional cases over the last 24 hours, the country’s health ministry has said. The nation has now registered a total of 1,623,284 cases and 65,487 deaths attributable to the virus, Reuters has reported.
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The New Zealand government and Air New Zealand have agreed to “manage” incoming international flights together, as the country struggles with huge numbers of Kiwis returning home, and requiring two weeks of quarantine at the government’s expense.
This week, more than 3,000 Kiwis are booked to return home, and management and consistency problems have plagued quarantine hotels, including returnees being allowed to leave isolation early, and hundreds released without taking a test – meaning they then had to be tracked down in the community.
Air New Zealand has agreed to put a temporary hold on new bookings in the short term, as well as to look at aligning daily arrivals with the capacity available at managed isolation facilities,” said Megan Woods, a government minister.
People who have already booked flights with Air New Zealand will still be able to enter New Zealand subject to availability of quarantine space.
Woods added that the government was also in talks with other airlines about managing their flows.
In the UK, care leaders, unions and MPs have rounded on Boris Johnson after he accused care homes of failing to follow proper procedures amid the pandemic, saying the prime minister appeared to be shifting the blame for the high death toll, Peter Walker, Kate Proctor and Rajeev Syal write.
With nearly 20,000 care home residents confirmed to have died with Covid-19, and estimates that the true toll is much greater, there has been widespread criticism about a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), testing and clear guidelines for the sector. On Monday, the total UK’s death toll rose to 44,236, up 16 on the day before.
The Guardian has previously revealed how public health officials proposed a radical lockdown of care homes at the height of the pandemic, but they were rejected by the government. Agency staff were found to have spread the virus between homes. But a health department plan published in April mentioned nothing about restricting staff movements. Around 25,000 patients were discharged into care homes without being tested, an official report said.
The US saw a 27% increase in new cases in the week to 5 July, compared to the previous seven days, with 24 states reporting positivity test rates above the level that the World Health Organization has flagged as concerning.
Nationally, 7.5% of diagnostic tests came back positive last week, up from 7% the prior week and 5% two weeks ago, according to a Reuters analysis of data from The Covid Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.
The WHO considers a positivity rate above 5% to be a cause for concern because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered, Reuters has reported.
Deaths, which health experts say are a lagging indicator, continued to fall nationally to 3,447 people in the week ended 5 July. A handful of states, however, have reported increases in deaths for at least two straight weeks, including Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee.
The prime ministers of the UK and Israel, Boris Johnson and Benjamin Netanyahu, have discussed the crisis this evening, Downing Street has said.
The leaders also underlined their ongoing commitment to UK-Israel trade and discussed the global response to coronavirus, agreeing to continue working together to tackle the pandemic.
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The state of the epidemic in the US is “really not good” and a “serious situation that we have to address immediately”, the top White House health official Dr Anthony Fauci has said.
The nation is still “knee-deep” in the first wave, having never got the case number as low as planned, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said during a live internet interview with National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins.
It’s a serious situation that we have to address immediately.
Fauci said that he expects an eventual vaccine, now in development by several companies, to work well and provide protection at least for some period of time, but that it will not be infinite protection such as the vaccine for measles.
Air travellers arriving in Scotland from Tuesday will be subject to quarantine spot checks for the first time, after the country reported four days without deaths from Covid-19.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said her officials and advisers were still deciding which countries would not be subject to quarantine checks, four days after the Home Office released its list of 74 “air bridge” countries and territories.
The US has suffered 235 more deaths and registered 44,361 new cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has said. That takes the respective totals to 129,811 and 2,886,267.
Summary
- The US coronavirus death toll passed 130,000 following a massive surge of new cases that has put Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis under the microscope and derailed efforts to restart the economy. Cases reached almost three million, the highest tally in the world and double the infections reported in the second most-affected country, Brazil. New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo said the president was “enabling” the virus if he failed to acknowledge the severity of the situation
- Israel reimposed certain restrictions after a surge in cases, to avoid a wider lockdown that could devastate the economy. Bars, nightclubs, gyms and event halls have been closed in Israel as restrictions are reimposed to combat a rise in infections. Restaurants, buses and synagogues will limit the number of entrants also.
- Covid-19 cases in Qatar exceeded 100,000, as it recorded another 546 cases in the last 24 hours. With a population of about 2.8 million people, the Gulf state has one of the world’s highest per capita number of confirmed cases.
- Flights between Greece and the UK will resume from 15 July. Greek government sources said the UK’s “greatly improved epidemiological data” had finally convinced the committee of scientists advising the prime minister to lift the ban, after it was initially extended for two weeks on 1 July.
Ireland will judge whether to ease quarantine restrictions on people travelling from abroad from 20 July on the amount of new cases, the trend and the quality of testing and tracing in qualifying countries, the country’s government has said.
Ireland, which has been more cautious than much of Europe on the reopening of its economy and air travel, has advised its citizens against non-essential travel since March and requires anyone arriving in the country to self-isolate for 14 days.
The outgoing government had promised to produce by a “green list” of exempt countries with similar or lower risk to Ireland by 9 July but the new administration delayed that date amid increased warnings from public health officials. The taoiseach Micheál Martin said:
We know we are still dealing with a very internationally volatile situation, as witnessed in Spain, as witnessed in the UK and that is informing our view as second waves are emerging.
On 20 July, we’ll be in a position to say whether any country or whether a number of countries make the green list ... At the moment, there would be a number of countries in that position but that can change.
The number of deaths in France from the new coronavirus has risen by 27 since Friday to 29,920, the country’s health department said on Monday.
The number of people in intensive care units fell by 12 to 548, continuing a downtrend over recent weeks, the ministry said.
New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday called on Donald Trump to not be a “co-conspirator” of the coronavirus and acknowledge the “major problem” it poses as cases spiked in dozens of states after some rushed to reopen, Reuters reports.
The number of US coronavirus deaths exceeded 130,000 on Monday (see 3.59pm.), following a massive surge of new cases that has put Trump’s handling of the crisis under the microscope and derailed efforts to restart the economy.
“So, Mr. President, don’t be a co-conspirator of Covid,” Cuomo said at a news briefing.
Acknowledge to the American people that Covid exists, it is a major problem, it’s going to continue until we admit it and each of us stands up to do our part.
Cuomo said the president was “enabling” the virus if he failed to acknowledge the severity of the situation, and slammed the president’s comments that the surge in US cases was due to increased testing.
“He makes up facts. He makes up science,” Cuomo said, citing several past Trump statements on the virus such it would disappear like a miracle as the weather got warmer.
He said all those things, none of them were true. And now we have a problem in 38 states because some people believe him.
Cuomo said coronavirus hospitalisations in New York dropped to 817 - the lowest since 18 March - and nine people died from Covid-19 on Sunday, adding:
The numbers have actually declined since we started reopening.
Cuomo warned about complacency now that the worst seemed to be over in New York, pointing to reports of some July Fourth celebrations, including in Manhattan and on Fire Island and upstate, where revellers ignored social distancing and face covering rules. He said:
That curve was purely a function of what we did. If we change what we’re doing, you’re going to change the trajectory of the virus.
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Puerto Rico’s government reported a new daily high in Covid-19 cases on Monday, but critics said the numbers were deeply flawed.
The health department reported 530 new coronavirus cases, topping a spurt of 485 on 4 June.
But the numbers include both molecular swab tests for current infections and serological tests for antibodies, and independent health experts complained that some of the results date back as far as April, so they don’t provide an accurate picture of the current situation.
“We keep watching the virus through a rearview mirror”, Puerto Rico epidemiologist Roberta Lugo told the Associated Press, adding that the government keeps taking decisions based on faulty and incomplete data.
The US territory of about 3.2 million people has reported 8,585 confirmed or probable cases of Covid-19 and at least 155 deaths.
A spokeswoman for Puerto Rico health secretary Lorenzo González said he was not immediately available. The secretary told WAPA TV on Monday that while the government has seen a progressive increase in cases, there is currently no strain on health resources. He said 115 patients are hospitalised, with 18 of those in the intensive care unit and another 11 on ventilators.
González said he might recommend rolling back recent re-openings if the increase in cases continues.
Puerto Rico was one of the first US juristictions to impose tight restrictions to fight the disease and it is lifting those in stages. Governor Wanda Vázquez last week announced strict new rules for anyone flying into Puerto Rico, including a mandatory Covid-19 molecular test within 72 hours before travelling.
Saudi Arabia on Monday opened hajj registration for foreign residents in the kingdom, saying they will make up 70% of the pilgrims after it scaled-back the annual ritual due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Saudi Arabia has said it will allow only around 1,000 pilgrims already present in the kingdom to participate in this year’s hajj, scheduled for the end of July, a far cry from the 2.5 million who attended the five-day pilgrimage last year.
Foreign residents, aged between 20 and 65 who have no previous health ailments such as diabetes and heart conditions, are allowed to register on https://localhaj.haj.gov.sa., the hajj ministry said.
The registration process will be open until Friday, it added.
Saudi citizens will make up the remaining 30% of the pilgrims, with the ritual restricted to medical professionals and security personnel who have recovered from the virus, the ministry said.
“They will be selected through the database of those who have recovered from the virus,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The pilgrims will be tested for coronavirus before arriving in the holy city of Mecca and are required to quarantine at home after the ritual, according to health officials.
Last month, Saudi Arabia announced it would hold a “very limited” hajj, a decision fraught with political and economic peril as it battles a coronavirus surge.
The decision to exclude pilgrims arriving from outside Saudi Arabia is a first in the kingdom’s modern history and has sparked disappointment among Muslims worldwide, although many accepted it was necessary due to the health risks involved.
Saudi Arabia has so far reported more than 213,000 coronavirus infections - the highest in the Gulf - and nearly 2,000 deaths.
Coronavirus pandemic jeopardising years of progress against HIV/AIDs, warns UN
Covid-19 could cause an additional half a million AIDS deaths if treatment is disrupted long term, the United Nations said Monday in a warning that the pandemic was jeopardising years of progress against HIV.
The Associated Press reports that at the start of a week of virtual International AIDS Conferences, the UN said the world was already way off course in its plan to end the public health threat even before Covid-19.
Although AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 60% since the peak of the HIV epidemic in 2004, in 2019 around 690,000 still died from the illness.
Around 1.7 million people were infected last year, and there are now close to 40 million people living with HIV worldwide.
The UN’s annual report said that the 2020 target of reducing AIDS-related deaths to fewer than 500,000, and new HIV infections to under 500,000 will now be missed.
Millions of people had died in recent decades despite the existence of effective treatments, it said, calling on the world to learn lessons from the AIDS epidemic in its Covid-19 response.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said:
Like the HIV epidemic before it, the Covid-19 pandemic is exposing our world’s fragilities - including persistent economic and social inequalities and woefully inadequate investments in public health.
Key populations at high-risk of HIV/AIDS are being put in further danger as lockdowns and distribution of medicines leaves them “even more vulnerable than usual”, the report said.
Research released Monday showed the pandemic was already impacting access to preventative medicine (PrEP) among at communities at risk.
At one Boston medical centre, a survey of more than 3,500 patients on the PrEP programme showed that lapses in picking up repeat medication had risen 278 percent in the first four months of 2020.
Year on year, the overall number of patients receiving PrEP had fallen 18%, the research showed.
World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the findings “deeply concerning”. He said:
We cannot let the Covid-19 pandemic undo the hard-won gains in the global response to this disease.
Updated
Reuters is reporting that Russian authorities have dug a trench around a remote Siberian village to enforce a quarantine, after dozens of residents contracted the coronavirus, which local officials believe was spread at a traditional shaman ritual.
The village of Shuluta, located 30 kilometres south-east of Lake Baikal in Siberia’s Buryatia region, has 37 confirmed cases of the virus among its 390 residents.
A further 95 people are believed to have been in contact with those infected and are also required to quarantine, said the head of the local administration, Ivan Alkheyev.
Alkheyev said the outbreak started after dozens of villagers took part in a shaman ritual on 10 June, performed by an infected woman.
The ditches that encircled Shuluta were dug on 29 June as a measure to stop tourists from driving though the village to nearby Tunka National Park, as well as to limit movement by the local residents, some of whom were sceptical about an order to self-isolate.
“I don’t believe it! There should at least be symptoms and I don’t have any,” local resident Engelsina Shaboyeva, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, told a regional television crew filming in the village along with a group of volunteers who went to bring food.
Another resident, Svetlana Shaglanova, whose husband died after a stroke and had tested positive for the virus, said she did not agree with the diagnosis.
“They put that he died of the virus on the papers, but it is not true, it was just a stroke,” Shaglanova said.
Russia’s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said those who performed the shaman ritual despite a ban on public events in the region could face a fine.
The only road to the village which was not cut off by the ditch is now patrolled by local officials and Russian national guards who allow only ambulances and food deliveries in.
Russia’s official coronavirus case tally, the fourth largest in the world, rose to 687,862 on Monday.
Updated
The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has turned down a White House invitation to celebrate the new regional free trade agreement in Washington with US president Donald Trump and and Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Trump and López Obrador are due to meet on Wednesday in Washington, but Trudeau spokesperson Chantal Gagnon said on Monday that while Canada wishes the US and Mexico well, Trudeau will not be there.
While there were recent discussions about the possible participation of Canada, the prime minister will be in Ottawa this week for scheduled cabinet meetings and the long-planned sitting of parliament, Gagnon said.
Trudeau is conducting online cabinet meetings instead of in person meetings because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A senior US administration official, speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to be quoted by name, said Trudeau had multiple conflicts related to the start of parliament and coronavirus regulations that require Canadians who travel abroad to quarantine for 14 days on return. The official said Trudeau has asked to speak with Trump by phone.
López Obrador also said he would be speaking to Trudeau by phone.
Gagnon said the treaty that took effect on 1 July was good for Canada, the US and Mexico, and “will help ensure that North America emerges stronger from the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Updated
US coronavirus death toll surpasses 130,000
The US’s coronavirus death toll topped 130,000 on Monday amid a surge in cases that has put president Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis under the microscope and derailed efforts to restart the economy.
The overall rate of increase in US deaths has continued to trend downward despite case numbers surging to record levels in recent days, but health experts warn that fatalities are a lagging indicator, showing up weeks or even months after cases rise.
At least five states have already bucked the downward trend in the death rate, according to a Reuters analysis. Arizona had 449 deaths in the last two weeks of June, up from 259 deaths in the first two weeks of the month. The state posted a 300% rise in cases over the full month, the most in the country.
Nationally, cases are approaching 3m, the highest tally in the world and double the infections reported in the second most-affected nation Brazil.
Sixteen states have posted record daily increases in new cases since the start of July including Florida, which confirmed more than 11,000 in a single day. As well as the state’s largest one-day rise so far, that was more than any European country reported in a single day at the height of the crisis there.
As health experts cautioned the public not to gather in crowds to celebrate Independence Day over the weekend, Trump asserted without providing evidence that 99% of American coronavirus cases were “totally harmless”.
Steve Adler, the Democratic mayor of Austin, Texas, on Monday criticised the president’s comment over the weekend that the virus was mostly harmless. He told CNN:
It’s incredibly disruptive and the messaging coming from the president of the United States is dangerous.
One of the biggest challenges we have is the messaging coming out of Washington that would suggest that masks don’t work or it’s not necessary, or that the virus is going away on its own.
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has forecast between 140,000 to 160,000 coronavirus deaths by July 25 in projections that are based on 24 independent forecasts. The forecast projects a rise in deaths in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, according to the CDC website.
Updated
Five members of Japan’s Sumo Association were confirmed to have the coronavirus antibody, public broadcaster NHK said on Monday, citing the association.
The association has conducted antibody tests for 891 members including sumo wrestlers and stable masters who wished to, NHK said. Among the five who were confirmed to have the antibody, four were found negative for PCR testing and one appears to have already been cured, according to the report. It did not say if the five were wrestlers or had other roles.
A 28-year-old sumo wrestler, Shobushi, died from the coronavirus in May, the first figure in the sport to do so.
The next big event of the season, the 2020 July Grand Sumo Tournament, is scheduled to take place behind closed doors in Tokyo from 19 July to 2 August.
The coronavirus pandemic is threatening to put progress in the fight against HIV back by 10 years or more, the UN has said.
“The global HIV targets set for 2020 will not be reached, the UN’s AIDS agency said in a report. “Even the gains made could be lost and progress further stalled if we fail to act.”
Data from 2019 shows that 38 million people worldwide are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS – a million more than in 2018 – the report said.
Although 25.4 million HIV positive people were on antiretroviral treatment in 2019, 12.6 million people are still not getting medicines.
The report also found the world is far behind in preventing new HIV infections, with 1.7 million new HIV cases in 2019.
“Every day in the next decade decisive action is needed to get the world back on track to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS’ executive director.
Pakistan’s health minister has become the country’s latest senior government figure to contract coronavirus.
“I have tested positive for Covid-19. Under (medical) advice I have isolated myself at home and taking all precautions. I have mild symptoms. Please keep me in your kind prayers,” Zafar Mirza said on Twitter.
A number of high-level officials have tested positive in Pakistan, where rising cases of Covid-19 are putting pressure on the health system.
On Friday, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced he had the virus, while the minister for railways Sheikh Rasheed and the speaker of the lower house of parliament Asad Qaiser have also contracted it.
Pakistan has confirmed 229,831 cases and 4,762 deaths in total. Although daily testing numbers are falling, about 4,000 new cases per day continue to be confirmed.
Updated
Israel reimposes restrictions after spike in infections
Bars, nightclubs, gyms and event halls have been closed in Israel as restrictions are reimposed to combat a spike in coronavirus infections.
At a special cabinet meeting on Monday, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country had to reverse course to avoid a wider lockdown that could devastate its economy, where unemployment is above 20%.
Netanyahu said:
The pandemic is spreading – that’s as clear as day. It is rising steeping daily and it is dragging with it, contrary to what we had been told, a trail of critically ill patients.”
A statement issued by the government said in addition to the closure of some leisure and hospitality venues, the number of diners in restaurants will be limited to 20 indoors and 30 outdoors.
Attendance at synagogues has also been capped at 19 worshippers, while buses can only carry up to 20 passengers.
Updated
Ireland’s prime minister has warned that authorities may delay the full reopening of pubs after “very worrying” scenes of crowds of revellers outside bars over the weekend.
Photos posted on social media on Saturday showed people packed outside a row of pubs in central Dublin, in apparent violation of social distancing rules imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Bars serving food were allowed to reopen in Ireland last week, while the rest of the country’s pubs were due to follow on 20 July.
“It could be delayed. We will get advice from the public health officials. We are worried about it,” Micheál Martin told Cork’s 96FM.
“Some of the scenes that we witnessed are very worrying because social distancing was not being complied with at all during a number of the inspections and the opening hours weren’t being adhered to either.”
Updated
Serious weaknesses in Spain’s social security system have been exposed during the pandemic, according to a UN expert.
Philip Alston, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said:
Spain’s social protection net was utterly inadequate before Covid-19, but the pandemic has since exposed just how deeply it is failing people.”
In a report on a fact-finding mission he made to the country earlier this year, Alston said millions of citizens who were unable to work had to struggle through delays, glitches and other difficulties to access government support during the lockdown.
Alston, whose mandate ended in April, added that although the a new national income scheme adopted by the government in May was ambitious and impressive, it was just the first of many urgently needed measures.
I’m Amy Walker, taking over the blog while my colleague Lucy Campbell has a lunch break.
While thousands of South African students are returning to school Monday after nearly four months when their classes were closed to combat the spread of Covid-19, authorities are debating a return to more restrictive measures because of a surge in cases, Associated Press reports.
South African students in grades 6 and 11 started classes Monday, as the second stage of a phased reopening of schools. The first group of pupils, from grades 7 and 12, returned to classes last month. Returning learners were required to produce indemnity forms signed by their parents granting them permission to resume classes.
South Africa’s government last week won a legal challenge permitting it to proceed with reopening schools. The lawsuit had said that schools should remain closed because of the danger of the disease spreading among learners and teachers.
However, in recent days the government has postponed plans for further grades to return to class amid a quickening speed in the rise of confirmed Covid-19 cases. South Africa had 196,750 cases as of Monday, more than 40% of all the cases reported by Africa’s 54 countries. South Africa has recorded 3,199 deaths.
Health minister Zwelini Mkhize said on Monday that the government is considering reimposing restrictions, especially in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, because of the country’s rapid rise in cases and hospitalisations.
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The usually grand Baalbek Music Festival, set among 3,000-year-old Roman ruins in Lebanon, was reduced to just a single concert this year by the Covid-19 pandemic. For maestro Harout Fazlian, however, it was one of the most special of his career.
On a stage in the ancient temple of Bacchus, Fazlian conducted the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra and three choirs in an hour-long concert that included works by the Lebanese composer brothers Assi and Mansour Rahbani, Verdi and Beethoven.
There were no crowds due to coronavirus restrictions, but the performance, captured by 14 cameras and drones, was broadcast live on almost all the main Lebanese TV stations as well as streamed online.
“Every person will have a front-row seat,” said Fazlian, who came up with the idea during Lebanon’s coronavirus lockdown two months ago.
This beautiful temple has gone through so much for 3,000 years, but it has survived, and we will survive.
Lebanon’s glamorous music festivals – which once attracted jazz legends like Nina Simone, and the great Arab singers Um Kulthoum and Fairouz – were already struggling. Economic woes and regional conflict hit organizers in recent years.
Fazlian said he wanted to send “a message of hope and solidarity” as Lebanon sinks deep into the worst financial meltdown of its history, compounded by the global coronavirus pandemic.
His was the only concert of the Baalbek music festival this year, Lebanon’s oldest, which since 1956 helped make the country a cultural lodestar for the region.
Nayla De Freij, the head of the Baalbek festival committee, said all the artists and technicians worked on Sunday’s massive project for free, adding:
It’s like a big scream that we want life to go on.
If you didn’t catch it last night, watch and experience the #SoundOfResilience on our YouTube channel! #علّي_الموسيقى #Baalbeck2020 https://t.co/LAaW0QaNGJ
— Baalbeck Festival (@BaalbeckFest) July 6, 2020
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Kuwait reported 538 new infections on Monday, bringing its total tally to 50,644 and 373 deaths.
The Gulf state initiated a five-phase plan at the start of June to gradually lift coronavirus restrictions, including partially restarting commercial flights from 1 August.
A partial curfew remains in place.
Bulgaria will clamp down on people who fail to observe obligatory social distancing in public spaces or wear protective face masks indoors as new cases of the coronavirus surged, the health minister Kiril Ananiev said on Monday.
The Balkan country of 7 million people has registered 5,740 cases and 246 deaths. New cases in the past week alone totalled 1,049.
Ananiev said he would extend the state of epidemic emergency in the country until the end of July to allow him to be more flexible and issue special orders if needed.
He urged local authorities to enforce compliance with anti-infection measures and limit large public events. Fines for failing to comply with distancing and other measures would be more strictly imposed.
On Monday, health officials in central city of Veliko Tarnovo said 23 out of 42 people who attended a school prom at the end of June tested positive for the infection. Ananiev told reporters that 20 players and officials from two top division soccer clubs had tested positive and warned that Bulgaria might ban public attendance at football matches.
Bulgaria has lifted most of the restrictions linked to the coronavirus, opening bars, restaurants and allowing free travel to help the economy recover and does not plan to tighten measures for the time being.
Troops in Serbia set up an emergency 500-bed field hospital Monday, a day after neighbouring Kosovo re-imposed a nighttime curfew in four cities, as the Balkans battled to contain a surge in coronavirus infections that underscored the risks of swiftly easing lockdowns.
The makeshift hospital in a sports hall in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, is a precautionary measure as hospitals in the capital are reaching their capacity because of the coronavirus outbreak, the city’s deputy mayor, Goran Vesic, said. Serbian infections have returned to levels last seen at the peak of the pandemic in the Balkan country in March and April.
Serbia’s rising infections provide a chilling insight into how the virus, while retreating in much of Europe, can roar back if lockdowns are lifted too swiftly.
The country went from having some of Europe’s toughest lockdown measures to a near-complete reopening at the beginning of May. Soccer and tennis matches were played in front of packed stands, resulting in several players testing positive. Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic and other players also caught the virus following an event he organised in Serbia and the Croatian Adriatic resort of Zadar.
Greece moved to contain the burgeoning threat by banning Serbs from crossing its only open land border from Monday morning. The new restrictions caused a seven-kilometer (four-mile) traffic jam at the Promahonas border crossing with Bulgaria. Authorities eventually allowed scores of cars into Greece that had been trapped overnight.
On Sunday, Kosovo’s prime minister Avdullah Hoti reimposed nighttime curfews in the capital, Pristina, and three other cities with sharply rising infection rates. Public transport also was hit, with bus seating cut by half.
A day earlier Kosovar authorities reported eight deaths from Covid-19, the highest daily number in the western Balkan country since the start of the outbreak in March. New daily cases were 178, also the highest so far.
Coronavirus cases in Qatar exceed 100,000
The number of coronavirus cases in Qatar exceeded 100,000 on Monday, adding 546 new cases and five deaths in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.
Qatar, which has seen its daily case numbers fall from a peak of 2,355 in late May, added 546 new cases and five deaths in the past 24 hours to give a total of 133 deaths and 100,345 cases in total.
Only about 12% of its population are Qatari nationals and, as in other Gulf states, Qatar saw Covid-19 spread among low-income migrant workers living in crowded quarters.
With a population of about 2.8 million people, the energy-rich Gulf state has one of the world’s highest per capita number of confirmed cases.
Qatar, which did not impose curfews, began a four-phase lifting of restrictions on 15 June. The second phase began on 1 July, allowing the limited reopening of restaurants, beaches and parks.
Qatar has the second highest number of cases after much larger Saudi Arabia in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which together have recorded more than 489,000 cases and 3,000 deaths.
Updated
Results from the final stage of a nationwide antibody study showed some 5.2% of the Spanish population has been exposed to the coronavirus, health officials said on Monday, confirming findings from earlier stages and adding to evidence that so-called “herd immunity” to Covid-19 is not realistic.
Reuters reports that the study, which tested nearly 70,000 people across Spain three times over the past three months, found the virus’ prevalence had not altered significantly since preliminary results were published in May.
It also suggested that immunity to the virus can be short-lived, with 14% of participants who tested positive for antibodies in the first stage subsequently testing negative in the last stage.
“Immunity can be incomplete, it can be transitory, it can last for just a short time and then disappear,” said Dr Raquel Yotti, director of Spain’s Carlos III Health Institute, which co-led the study.
The loss of immunity was most common among people who never developed symptoms.
Speaking at a news conference, she appealed to Spaniards to remain prudent, particularly those who had recovered from the virus and considered themselves immune. She said”
We can’t relax, we must keep protecting ourselves and protecting others.
The report reads:
The relatively low seroprevalence observed in the context of an intense epidemic in Spain might serve as a reference to other countries.
At present, herd immunity is difficult to achieve without accepting the collateral damage of many deaths in the susceptible population and overburdening of health systems.
The key finding is that most of the population appears to have remained unexposed to Covid-19, even in hotspot areas and despite Spain being one of the worst-affected European countries (with more than 28,000 deaths and 250,000 plus cases), according to a Lancet commentary published alongside the findings.
The Spanish study’s lead author, Marina Pollán, who is director of the National Center for Epidemiology, told CNN:
Some experts have computed that around 60% of seroprevalence might mean herd immunity. But we are very far from achieving that number.
With a large majority of the population being infection naive, virus circulation can quickly return to early pandemic dimensions in a second wave once measures are lifted, reads the Lancet commentary, which emphasises the need for maintaining preventative public health measures.
Updated
Vietnam’s health ministry on Monday reported 14 new coronavirus infections, all among Vietnamese citizens held in quarantine upon their arrival from overseas.
The southeast Asian country has been 81 days without a domestically transmitted infection due to successful programmes to contain the virus.
It has yet to report any deaths from Covid-19 and has confirmed 369 cases in total, over 90% of which have recovered.
Paris’ Louvre Museum, which houses the world’s most famous portrait, reopened Monday after a four-month coronavirus lockdown and without its usual huge throngs, the Associated Press reports.
Face masks were a must and visitor numbers were limited, with reservations required. Among the trickle of returning tourists was Zino Vandenbeaghen, who travelled from Belgium to enjoy the unusual space at both the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles.
It’s super,” he said. “The ideal moment to visit.”
About 70% of the giant museum 45,000 square meters (484,000 square feet) of space, or the equivalent of 230 tennis courts housing 30,000 of the Louvre’s vast trove of works is again accessible to visitors starved of art in lockdown.
It’s very emotional for all the teams that have prepared this reopening, said Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum director.
The bulk of visitors to what was the world’s most-visited museum before the pandemic used to come from overseas, led by travellers from the United States.
Americans are still barred from the European Union that is gradually reopening its borders. The Louvre is hoping the reopening will attract visitors from closer to home, including the Paris region, but is bracing for a plunge in numbers.
Martinez said the museum was expecting just 7,000 visitors on the reopening day. Before the pandemic, as many as 50,000 people per day toured the Louvre in the busiest summer months.
Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta announced on Monday a phased re-opening of the country from a lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, lifting restrictions in and out of the capital Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa.
In a televised address, Kenyatta said:
Today I order and direct that the cessation of movement into and out of the Nairobi metropolitan area, Mombasa county and Mandera county that is currently enforced shall lapse today or at 4am (0100 GMT) tomorrow, Tuesday 7 July 2020.
Kenyatta extended the current nationwide nightly curfew between 9pm and 4am for a further 30 days.
He said that international commercial travel would resume from 1 August, while domestic flights are scheduled to restart on 15 July.
Mosque and churches will be allowed to host services again, but for a maximum of an hour with only 100 worshippers allowed at a time.
But the president warned that should the situation worsen over the next few weeks the country could be locked down again.
In the next 21 days we shall study patterns of interactions and the spread of the disease. Any trends that signal a worsening of the pandemic, we will have no choice but to return to lockdown.
Kenya has confirmed nearly than 7,900 cases of the coronavirus as of July 6, with 160 deaths. The outbreak has battered the economy, with the finance ministry projecting growth to slow to 2.5% this year from 5.4% last year, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kenyatta said the reopening of the country came with risks, and urged Kenyans to take precautions.
“Although the path to recovery is rocky and uneven, it is navigable,” he said, adding:
For us to revive the economy, reopen and remain open, the government and all citizens must pull together.
Updated
It’s official! Greece has just announced that as of next week, Wednesday, it will be lifting its ban on travel from the UK and permitting direct flights to popular destinations nationwide.
The decision to re-open air links was made in conjunction with British authorities, the government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters. It will be the first time since March, when flights to and from the UK were suspended, that air travel will be resumed.
Until now getting to Greece required travelling through third countries although with London advising citizens to engage in essential travel only it was not encouraged.
The British prime minister’s own father, Stanley Johnson, in flagrant breach of that advice flew to Greece via Bulgaria, last Wednesday, to visit his villa in central Pelion before the two-story, four-bedroom establishment is let to holidaymakers who can afford its £2,100 weekly rates.
Despite widespread condemnation, Boris Johnson has refused to criticise his father, a former MEP who has come to support his son’s embrace of Brexit. Johnson senior explained the visit saying he needed to “Covid-proof” the villa.
Government sources say the UK’s “greatly improved epidemiological data” had finally convinced the committee of scientists advising prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ centre-right administration to lift the ban.
UK tourists top Greece’s league tables in terms of foreign earnings.
In the Ionian isles, where close to 70% of tourism revenues are linked to British holidaymakers, the news will be received with euphoria.
Corfu, Cephalonia and Zakynthos have been almost empty since Athens lifted its ban on direct flights to the country’s 18 regional airports on 1 July - with the exception of the UK and Sweden.
Updated
Flights between Greece and Britain to fully resume from 15 July
Greece and Britain will fully resume flights on 15 July, Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Monday, as Athens moves to salvage its vital summer tourist season.
Pestas told a news briefing:
In cooperation with the British government, and following advice of experts, the government announces the resumption of direct flights from the United Kingdom to all airports of the country from July 15.
It comes after Greece extended its ban on UK visitors for another two weeks after reopening its borders to some foreign travellers on 1 July, as European nations moved to ease their lockdowns further.
The country placed restrictions on travellers from Sweden and the UK as well as other countries with large coronavirus caseloads, including the US, Brazil and Russia.
The Mediterranean nation has suffered a comparatively low number of infections (3,519 confirmed) and deaths (192 reported) after acting quickly to contain its coronavirus outbreak.
With tourism accounting for about a quarter of its economy, Greece moved to bring back visitors whilst continuing to protect its population.
Updated
Crowds of drinkers who gathered in city centre streets over the weekend have prompted an outcry in Ireland, with doctors, publicans and politicians warning of dire consequences, writes Rory Carroll in Dublin.
Revellers clustered in the centres of Cork and Dublin in scenes not seen since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Maitiú Ó Tuathail, former president of the National Association of General Practitioners, told RTE he had finished working at the ambulance service and was driving through central Dublin at 10pm on Saturday when he encountered “anxiety inducing” scenes.
“After last night I really think we’re weeks away from a second wave and my colleagues on the front line are just not ready for it psychologically.” It felt like an All Ireland football final night – and that Dublin had won, he said. “There were guards everywhere and they were doing their best but it was just completely rammed.”
Town is horrendous tonight. Drunken crowds everywhere. No distancing. I am not the fun police but I am really really worried about 2 weeks time.
— Laura Durcan (@Rheum2improve) July 4, 2020
Come on folks.
We do not want to do this again.
The Licensed Vintners Association said the lack of social distancing jeopardised public health. “Unfortunately scenes like this have been taking place over the last few weekends in Dublin city centre.”
The street drinkers brought their own booze or bought from pubs operating take-out services. Restaurants and pubs started reopening last Monday with restrictions.
Simon Harris, the former health minister, tweeted: “C’mon everyone. We’ve come too far to go back. Great to see our economy reopened and social life resuming but let’s keep using our cop on and common sense.”
Hello everyone. I’m Lucy Campbell, joining the blog for the next eight hours or so to bring you the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work - your contributions are always welcome!
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Forty-four more people have died from Covid-19 in Bangladesh, according to the latest update from health authorities, as 3,201 more people tested positive for the coronavirus that causes it.
The total death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in the south Asian country is now 2,096, while 76,149 have recovered, from a total caseload of 165,618. So far, 863,307 tests have been carried out in the country.
TBS News reports that 63,801 people are quarantined across the country.
Wearing masks on public transport has become mandatory across Switzerland from today, a U-turn from the alpine country in the face of a rising number of new infections, writes Philip Oltermann, the Guardian’s Berlin bureau chief.
Until this week, Swiss officials had advised commuters to wear face masks on public transport during rush-hour.
Simonetta Sommaruga, the president of the Swiss confederation, conceded in an interview with Tagesanzeiger that the country should have introduced a mask-wearing rule for public transport at an earlier stage.
“But we wanted to see how the situation would develop – and now we have interfered where necessary,” Sommaruga said.
Switzerland began to ease social distancing restrictions more widely and rapidly than most other European states from 30 May, with bars and nightclubs having been allowed to serve customers since 6 May.
Three hundred people were sent into a 10-day quarantine on 28 June following an outbreak of Covid-19 at a nightclub in Zurich. Switzerland has recorded 617 confirmed new infections in the last seven days.
Updated
The Guardian’s daily rundown of coronavirus cases and deaths around the world has been updated.
Click through below for more details from your region.
The planned reopening of the Taj Mahal, one of India’s most famous monuments, has been postponed, as the country rose to become the world’s third most affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
Local authorities issued a new advisory late on Sunday ordering an extension of lockdown curbs on monuments in and around Agra, Reuters reports. The government order did not specify the duration of the lockdown for monuments that have been closed since March.
“In the interest of the public, it has been decided that opening monuments in Agra will not be advisable as of now”, the district authorities said in a notice published in Hindi.
Agra, one of India’s first big clusters of the virus, remains the worst-affected city in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state.
It was not immediately clear whether the federal government would scrap its plan to reopen other monuments across the country, such as New Delhi’s historic Red Fort.
Local authorities in India have put a hold on the Taj Mahal's scheduled reopening citing health risks https://t.co/jlOW5XDCtM pic.twitter.com/aPLBXTHZTo
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 6, 2020
Updated
Pakistan’s health minister, Zafar Mirza, has tested positive for coronavirus, making him the latest high-profile government minister to contract the virus, according to the Associated Press.
The foreign minister, Moahmood Qureshi, announced on Friday that he too had tested positive for the virus.
The men say their symptoms are mild. In a tweet on Monday, Mirza said he is self-isolating.
On Monday, Pakistan’s health authorities reported 3,344 new cases of coronavirus, taking the country’s overall case load to 231,813. There have been 4,762 deaths, after a further 50 were reported in the latest update.
The prime minister, Imran Khan, has refused to impose strict lockdowns, easing many restrictions that had been imposed. His government has ordered people to wear masks and observe social distancing guidelines. However, most people, especially among the poor and in the congested cities are not able to keep their distance.
Updated
Russia’s official coronavirus case tally rose to 687,862 on Monday after officials reported 6,611 new infections in the last 24 hours, Reuters reports.
Authorities also said 135 people had died overnight, bringing Russia’s official death toll to 10,296.
India overtook Russia over the weekend as the country with the third highest number of infections behind the US and Brazil.
Fiji has recorded its first new case of coronavirus in 78 days, after a 66-year-old man tested positive for the virus after returning to the country from India, according to AFP.
It is the 19th case in the small South Pacific island nation, and more are now expected.
“We’ve confirmed a border case of Covid-19 among a returning citizen while he was securely in the confines of government-funded quarantine,” the prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, said.
All arrivals to Fiji have to undergo 14 days of quarantine.
The acting permanent secretary for health, James Fong, said Fiji had deliberately refrained from calling itself ‘covid-free’ and was not surprised when the positive test was recorded Sunday.
“While Fiji may be free of community-based transmission of Covid-19, this pandemic is still raging beyond our shores,” he said. “We don’t expect this to be Fiji’s last border quarantine case.”
Updated
Chinese authorities on Monday detained a law professor who published essays criticising President Xi Jinping over the coronavirus pandemic and his efforts to consolidate power, according to friends of the man, AFP reports.
Xu Zhangrun, a rare outspoken critic of the government in China’s heavily censored academia, was taken from his home in suburban Beijing by more than 20 people, one of his friends said on condition of anonymity.
Xu published an essay in February blaming the culture of deception and censorship fostered by Xi for the spread of the coronavirus in China.
The law professor at Tsinghua University, one of China’s top institutions, had previously spoken out against the 2018 abolition of presidential term limits in an essay circulated online.
A friend said a man claiming to be police had called Xu’s wife, who had been living separately at a university residence, to say Xu was arrested for allegedly soliciting prostitution in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
Xu visited Chengdu last winter with a number of liberal Chinese scholars, although it is unclear if the arrest was connected to the trip, the friend said, calling the allegation against Xu “ridiculous and shameless”.
The UK government’s culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, has criticised people who failed to adhere to social distancing guidelines when pubs reopened in England on Saturday. But, he said, the “vast majority” obeyed the rules.
Despite England’s severe toll from the coronavirus pandemic, and fears of a second wave of infections now that restrictions have been eased, people up and down the country flocked to pubs on Saturday after they reopened for the first time in about three months.
That led to chaotic scenes in some areas, such as central London’s Soho district, where thousands of people thronged the streets in what seemed almost like a festival atmosphere.
Just look at soho last night pic.twitter.com/OWJfxOWeCV
— #AUOB 🏴 (@TimeGoesBy2020) July 5, 2020
On Monday morning, Dowden told BBC Breakfast: “In respect to what happen in a few places, and I should say a few places, on Saturday night clearly that is not acceptable and people should be socially distancing.
“And actually I think by and large the vast majority of people up and down Britain showed British common sense, listened to the rules and socially distanced.”
The coronavirus may have been lying dormant across the world until emerging under favourable environmental conditions, rather than originating in China, an expert has claimed, according to PA Media.
Dr Tom Jefferson, from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) at Oxford University, has pointed to a string of recent discoveries of the virus’s presence around the world before it emerged in Asia as growing evidence of its true origin as a global organism that was waiting for favourable conditions to finally emerge.
Traces of coronavirus have been found in sewage samples from Spain, Italy and Brazil that pre-date its discovery in China.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Jefferson has called for an investigation into how and why the virus seems to thrive in environments such as food factories and meatpacking plants.
Along with CEBM director Prof Carl Heneghan, Jefferson believes this could potentially uncover new transmission routes, such as through the sewerage system or shared lavatory facilities.
He told the paper:
Strange things like this happened with Spanish flu. In 1918, around 30% of the population of Western Samoa died of Spanish flu and they hadn’t had any communication with the outside world.
The explanation could only be that these agents don’t come or go anywhere. They are always here and something ignites them, maybe human density or environmental conditions, and this is what we should look for.
There is quite a lot of evidence of huge amounts of the virus in sewage all over the place, and an increasing amount of evidence there is faecal transmission.
There is a high concentration where sewage is four degrees, which is the ideal temperature for it to be stabled and presumably activated. And meatpacking plants are often at four degrees.
These outbreaks need to be investigated properly.
(NB: A couple of readers have written in to point out that the claim that Western Samoa had no contact with the outside world is incorrect. One, Josie Cartwright, wrote: “New Zealand made an official apology in 2002 for being 100% responsible for sending a ship from Auckland to Western Samoa, and for failing to take any quarantine action or accept offered assistance from American Samoa (W.S. was under New Zealand’s occupation at the time). This idea that the virus could always have been lying in wait is based on one incorrect example.”)
Updated
Security agencies in Egypt have tried to stifle criticism about the handling of the coronavirus health crisis by the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the Associated Press reports.
At least 10 doctors and six journalists have been arrested since the virus first hit Egypt in February, according to rights groups. Other health workers say they have been warned by administrators to keep quiet or face punishment. One foreign correspondent has fled the country, fearing arrest, and another two have been summoned for reprimand over “professional violations”.
Coronavirus infections have surged in the country of 100 million, threatening to overwhelm hospitals. As of Monday, the health ministry had recorded 75,253 infections, including 3,343 deaths – the highest death toll in the Arab world.
“Every day I go to work, I sacrifice myself and my whole family,” said a frontline doctor in greater Cairo, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, like all doctors interviewed for this story. “Then they arrest my colleagues to send us a message. I see no light on the horizon.”
A government press officer did not respond to requests for comment on the arrests of doctors and journalists but did send the Associated Press a document entitled “Realities defeating evil falsehoods,” which details what it says are el-Sissi’s successes in improving the economy and fighting terrorism.
El-Sissi has said the virus’s trajectory was “reassuring” and described critics as “enemies of the state”. The Worldometers website, which collects official coronavirus statistics from countries around the world, shows a downward curve in new daily infections in Egypt since the end of June, with 1,218 recorded on Sunday, as well as 68 deaths.
In recent weeks, authorities have marshalled medical supplies to prepare for more patients. The military has set up field hospitals and isolation centres with 4,000 beds and delivered masks to citizens, free of charge, at metro stops, squares and other public places.
Updated
The UK is facing the prospect of 35,000 excess deaths as a result of delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment within the next 12 months, research suggests, according to PA Media.
According to a study conducted by DATA-CAN, the healthcare research hub for Cancer, up to 2 million routine breast, bowel and cervical cancer screenings may have been missed throughout the Covid-19 crisis.
Researchers examined data from eight hospital trusts in modelling outcomes depending upon how long the delays continue.
Sharing the results with BBC Panorama, researchers warned that a worst-case scenario could see 35,000 more people dying of cancer by this time next year.
DATA-CAN’s scientific lead, Prof Mark Lawler, told the programme: “Anecdotally, people have been telling us there were problems, but I think the critical thing was being able to actually have routine data from hospital trusts.”
NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer, Peter Johnson, said the organisation was striving to restore cancer services back to normal levels as quickly as possible.
He told Panorama: “We’re working as fast as we can to put the services back together again, to restore the capacity and indeed to build more, so that we can deal with the people that have not been diagnosed during the time when the services have been running below 100%.
“I’m hoping that we will get back to where we need to be by the end of the year.”
BBC Panorama’s ‘Britain’s Cancer Crisis’ airs on Monday 6 July at 7.30pm on BBC One.
Updated
Doctors in Ukraine are battling a post-lockdown surge in cases of Covid-19, AFP reports, after reopening public transport, reopening of parks, outdoor cafes and beauty salons in late May and early June.
By mid-June, the World Health Organization listed Ukraine among two dozen European countries that have seen resurgences of the virus. At the highest point on 26 June, Ukraine had a daily increase of 1,109 cases as authorities warned they might have to re-impose movement restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The country has confirmed more than 49,000 cases and over 1,200 deaths, after reporting 823 new cases on Sunday, and 22 deaths.
“We’re overloaded. Over the last 24 hours we’ve admitted 18 patients with suspected coronavirus,” said Marta Saiko, head of primary care at Lviv emergency hospital. “It’s like in a war, it’s very hard. All our staff are exhausted,” she said.
Saiko’s hospital, in one of the worst affected regions of Ukraine, is still treating ordinary emergency patients but for the first time since the pandemic began is also admitting suspected virus cases.
The hospital has created 50 beds for such patients and all were full within three days, she said. “Their medical state is moderately serious or bordering on serious. One patient has died.”
Nataliya Matolinets, the head of the intensive care unit, said the hospital had begun treating coronavirus patients because the city needs more beds.
“Both the psychological and physical burden has grown significantly for the doctors and all the staff,” she said.
Nataliya Timko, a top epidemiologist at the Lviv regional health care department, told AFP that the region had expected to have more cases in the first wave but avoided this thanks to strict lockdown rules.
But now “some people have forgotten about the lockdown”, she lamented, saying the virus is spreading because some are ditching face masks and other protective measures.
Andriy Sadovyi, mayor of Lviv, a picturesque city of one million that is a major tourism destination, told AFP that the region had carried out more tests than any other, detecting more cases.
Updated
Hello, Damien Gayle taking the reins on the blog now. It is first thing in the morning here in the UK, so I’ll be starting the day with a mixture of world news and the latest morning news from this sceptered isle.
Any tips, comments or suggestions then feel free to drop me a line either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thanks for following along – and please give a warm welcome to my colleague Damien Gayle who will be taking you through the next few hours of pandemic news.
Hundreds of drones lit up the night sky in Seoul for a spectacular showcase of motivational and awareness messages as the world battles the coronavirus pandemic, AFP reports.
Three hundred unmanned aerial vehicles were programmed to form images above the Han River – which runs through the South Korean capital – for the eyecatching flash mob.
The show began with messages reminding people of key precautionary measures, including wearing masks, washing hands and keeping a 2-metre distance from others.
The drones created images of a mask surrounded by coronavirus particles, quickly shuffling to form two hands and water droplets against the dark night sky.
The 10-minute show shifted to messages of gratitude for medical personnel in the frontlines of the pandemic as well as all South Koreans for their collective efforts.
“THANKS TO YOU,” the drones wrote in the sky next to a heart shape, then formed a silhouette of the Korean peninsula with the message: “Cheer up, Republic of Korea.”
The government-organised event on Saturday night was not advertised in advance in consideration of social distancing rules, the transport ministry said.
Updated
Countless British businesses are poised to profit from a green economic boom in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. While the government faces growing pressure to unveil a post-pandemic economic stimulus package that is climate friendly, Britain’s economic green shoots are already in evidence.
Steven Jennings, a partner at the global advisory firm PwC, says the lockdown has triggered a paradigm shift for consumers and companies that is already accelerating developments in sustainability – even without prompts from the government.
“One of the unintended consequences of the coronavirus crisis is the opportunity for businesses to think about the future. If a company has to rebuild itself, it makes sense to reconfigure how it works to be more sustainable,” Jennings says.
The challenge for the Treasury is to design a stimulus package that seizes the opportunities emerging from the coronavirus crisis, which can tackle large-scale climate challenges, too:
The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, plans to exempt many homebuyers from paying stamp duty in an effort to help stimulate Britain’s economic recovery, the Times reports:
The chancellor will reveal plans this week to lift the threshold at which people start paying stamp duty from £125,000 to as much as £500,000.
The increase in the threshold, which is expected to be implemented in the autumn budget, is a temporary measure intended to stimulate the housing market. Mr Sunak will announce the plans on Wednesday as part of several measures to support the economy, including a temporary VAT cut for pubs, restaurants and cafés to help to protect 2.4 million jobs in the hospitality sector.
Updated
Global report: India sees record daily rise as capital opens giant Covid-19 hospital
Here is the full story on India’s record rise in cases – and the other main developments from the last few hours – in our global report:
India overtakes Russia with world's third-highest number of coronavirus cases
According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, India has become the world’s third-worst affected country in terms of number of coronavirus cases, overtaking Russia.
India has 697,413 known coronavirus cases and 19,693 deaths.
Russia has reported 680,283 cases and 10,145 deaths so far.
The US, with nearly 3m infections, tops the list, with Brazil in second place, with 1.6m infections.
Updated
Hi, Helen Sullivan here.
A reminder that during that you can get in touch with me directly on Twitter or via email – I await your news, comments, suggestions, tips and other people’s good tweets.
Twitter: @helenrsullivan
Email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Global cases near 11.5m. There are 11,419,638 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, as the number of infections continue to rise by around 1m per week. There are 15 countries with more than 200,000 known cases each.
- The Australian state of Victoria recorded its largest jump in cases at any point in the coronavirus crisis, with 127 cases reported on Monday, as the premier announced the border with neighbouring New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, would be closed from midnight on Tuesday. The decision marks the first time the border between the two states will be closed in 100 years.
- India registered a record daily number of coronavirus cases on Sunday and opened a sprawling treatment centre in the capital to fight the pandemic. The health ministry reported just under 25,000 cases and 613 deaths in 24 hours – the biggest daily spike since the first case was detected in late January.
- Iran suffers record one-day deaths. The latest figures published by the Iranian health ministry on Sunday showed a record 163 had died in the past 24 hours, higher than any daily figure in the country over the course of the pandemic so far.
- Peru on Sunday jumped past 300,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, the fifth-highest in the world, as the Andean nation of nearly 33 million people slowly reopens its battered economy. Peru’s death toll from the virus now stands at 10,589, the 10th-highest in the world.
- The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday reported 52,228 new coronavirus cases, and said the number of deaths had risen by 271 to 129,576.
- Mexican health authorities reported 4,683 confirmed new infections of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, pushing its tally to a total of 256,848, and 273 more deaths to a total of 30,639. Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez Gatell has repeatedly said that the actual number of both infections and associated death is probably significantly higher.
- Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike, has won a second term to head the Japanese capital, propelled to an election victory by public support for her handling of the coronavirus crisis despite a recent rise in infections that has raised concerns of a resurgence of the disease.
- Saudi Arabia announced health protocols to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in the 2020 hajj season, banning gatherings and meetings between pilgrims, the state news agency said on Monday.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson will inject £1.57bn into Britain’s beleaguered arts and heritage sectors in a long-awaited coronavirus rescue package described by the government as the biggest one-off investment in UK culture.
- Asia shares climb as China blue chips hit 5-year peak. Asian shares scaled four-month peaks on Monday as investors counted on super-cheap liquidity and fiscal stimulus to sustain the global economic recovery, even as surging coronavirus cases delayed re-openings across the United States.
-
It is not clear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, a top health official from US president Donald Trump’s administration said, as Florida sees record numbers of coronavirus cases.
- Greece has announced it will prohibit Serbian tourists from entering the country as of 6am tomorrow. The ban, due to last until at least 15 July, follows a surge in incidence of coronavirus in the Balkan state.
- Kazakhstan on Sunday imposed a second round of nationwide restrictions that are to last at least two weeks, in a bid to counter a huge surge in coronavirus cases since the previous lockdown, which has overwhelmed the country’s healthcare system.
- Brazil has recorded 26,051 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours as well as 602 deaths, pushing cumulative deaths to a total of 64,867.
- India has withdrawn a planned reopening of the Taj Mahal, citing the risk of new coronavirus infections spreading in the northern city of Agra from visitors, as the country’s infections are rising at the fastest pace in three months.
- Dozens of military medics were deployed on Sunday to help combat the coronavirus pandemic in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, the country’s third most affected region, amid a surge in infections.
Updated
American interest in moving to New Zealand has spiked during the coronavirus crisis, with the number of people seeking information on how to emigrate climbing by 65% during May.
New Zealand went into lockdown on 25 March and by May was beginning to loosen restrictions, with the disease effectively eliminated by shutting the borders to non-New Zealanders and enforcing strict stay-at-home orders.
Fewer than 1,500 people have been infected with Covid-19 in New Zealand, and 22 have died.
According to figures released by Immigration New Zealand visits to the New Zealand Now website by Americans increased by 37% over April compared to the same time last year, and by 65% in May, with a total of 80,000 Americans expressing interest in shifting to the southern hemisphere in that month alone.
Citizens of the UK also showed an increased interest in relocating, with a growth of 18.5% in May – or 31,000 people. The other top nationalities visiting the site were Australians, South Africans and Indians.
Updated
Global cases near 11.5m
There are currently 11,419,638 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, as infections continue to rise by around 1m per week.
There are 15 countries with over 200,000 known cases each:
- US: 2,888,586
- Brazil: 1,603,055
- Russia: 680,283
- India: 673,165
- Peru: 302,718
- Chile: 295,532
- United Kingdom: 286,931
- Mexico: 256,848
- Spain: 250,545
- Italy: 241,611
- Iran: 240,438
- Pakistan: 228,474
- Saudi Arabia: 209,509
- Turkey: 205,758
- France: 204,222
Updated
In Germany, restaurants, bars and hotels have adapted to the new normal with face masks, physical distancing and by asking customers to share contact information so they can be alerted to any fresh outbreak.
But despite the efforts, Germany’s hospitality sector has struggled to pick up speed, highlighting the difficulties facing Europe’s top economy as it confronts the steepest recession since World War II.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, which has pledged over a trillion euros in stimulus spending to cushion the coronavirus blow, is hoping for an economic rebound in the second half of 2020.
“I’m certain that we can halt the downturn in our economy after the summer break and that the German economy will start to grow again by October at the latest,” Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told the Bild am Sonntag daily.
The unemployment level is expected to keep inching up “before slowly decreasing from November”, he added.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 219 to 196,554, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Monday.
The reported death toll rose by 4 to 9,016, the tally showed.
Bondholders owed $2bn by Virgin Australia have asked the Takeovers Panel to stop Bain Capital taking full control of the stricken airline.
A group of bondholders, represented by Singapore fund manager Broad Peak Investment Advisers, has asked the panel to declare that the sale process run by administrators Deloitte was unacceptable because it will stop them from voting on an alternative deal at a meeting of creditors next month.
The move does an end run around the federal court, which in a series of rulings has blessed Deloitte’s conduct of the administration so far.
Here is our video on India, which has recorded its highest one-day increase in cases so far:
The coronavirus pandemic has revealed the “utterly inadequate” state of Spain’s social protection system, according to a former UN poverty expert who is calling on the government to ensure its actions on basic rights “live up to the rhetoric”.
Philip Alston, who was the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights from 2014 to 2020, visited Spain at the end of January and witnessed what he termed “truly outrageous conditions” in some parts of the country.
Speaking as the final report on his visit was published, Alston said the Covid-19 crisis had underlined the scale of the challenge facing Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government despite the country’s recovery from the 2008 economic crash.
The report says the EU’s fourth-largest economy remains riven by “deep, widespread poverty”, and that its social assistance system is “broken, underfunded, impossible to navigate and not reaching the people who need it most”.
Here is the full story on the death of broadway star Nick Cordero:
The Tony award-nominated actor, who starred in hit musicals including Waitress, A Bronx Tale and Bullets Over Broadway, died in Los Angeles from severe medical complications after contracting coronavirus. He was 41.
Cordero died on Sunday at Cedars-Sinai hospital after spending more than 90 days in the hospital, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots. “God has another angel in heaven now,” she posted on Instagram. “Nick was such a bright light. He was everyone’s friend, loved to listen, help and especially talk. He was an incredible actor and musician. He loved his family and loved being a father and husband.”
Saudi Arabia announces haj health measures for domestic pilgrims
Saudi Arabia announced health protocols to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in the 2020 hajj season, banning gatherings and meetings between pilgrims, the state news agency said on Monday.
Saudi Arabia decided in June to limit the number of domestic pilgrims attending the hajj to around 1,000 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, after barring Muslims abroad from the rite for the first year in modern times.
Touching the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam, will be banned during the hajj this year, and a social distancing space of a meter and a half between each pilgrim during the rituals including mass prayers and while in the Kaaba circling area will be imposed, a statement by the Center for Disease Prevention and Control elaborated.
Also, access to holy hajj sites at Mona, Muzdalifah and Arafat will be limited to those with hajj permits starting Sunday 19 July until 2 August 2020, and wearing masks all the time will be mandatory for both pilgrims and organisers.
Asia shares climb as China blue chips hit 5-year peak
Asian shares scaled four-month peaks on Monday as investors counted on super-cheap liquidity and fiscal stimulus to sustain the global economic recovery, even as surging coronavirus cases delayed re-openings across the United States, Reuters reports.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 1% to its highest since February.
Eyes were on Chinese blue chips, which jumped 3%, on top of a 7% gain last week, to their loftiest level in five years. Even Japan’s Nikkei, which has lagged with a soft domestic economy, managed a rise of 1.3%.
Here is the full story on the border closing between the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales, as the former battles to contain its coronavirus cases:
Victoria has recorded its largest jump in cases at any point in the coronavirus crisis, with 127 cases reported on Monday, as the state confirmed its 21st death and the premier announced the state’s border with NSW would be closed from midnight on Tuesday.
Daniel Andrews said the border closure would be enforced only on the NSW side.
“[The closure] is the result of a phone hook-up between the prime minister and the premier of New South Wales and myself just an hour or so ago, where we have – all of us – agreed that the best thing to do is to close the border,” Andrews said on Monday morning.
Speaking about the border closing between the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales, NSW police commissioner Mike Fuller says, “It’s a very long border. someone could choose to swim across the river, walk through the bush, use dirt tracks.” He says that aerial surveillance, for example with drones, will be used.
There is a maximum AU$11,000 fine and six months in jail for breaking the law.
Those who mislead the state of New South Wales in their applications for an exemption could face fines, he says.
People from the city of Melbourne will no longer be able to come to New South Wales from midnight tonight.
New South Wales premier Gladys Berejikian said the state will be stopping travellers from Melbourne ahead of the border closure on Tuesday:
Just to make two points clear, we already we have police and health officials on our borders stopping anybody from the hot spots coming to New South Wales.
We have already had that in place for a number of days.
The Health Minister will be ensuring that, come midnight tonight, so for the next 24 hours, the hot spots will extend to all of Melbourne.
Nobody from Melbourne will be able to cross the border in the next 24 hours.
Come midnight tomorrow night it will be all Victorians.
Updated
Australian state of Victoria confirms highest one-day case increase
The 127-case increase in the Australian state of Victoria is its highest one-day total so far. The previous highest daily total was in March, when 111 cases were recorded.
The border closure will be enforced by the New South Wales police with help from the Australian defence force.
Anyone returning to New South Wales from a hotspot area in Victoria will have to self isolate.
New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian says, “what’s occurring in Victoria hasn’t yet happened in Australia. It’s a new phenomenon.”
Updated
Tokyo, Japan governor wins second term
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has won a second term to head the Japanese capital, propelled to an election victory by public support for her handling of the coronavirus crisis despite a recent rise in infections that has raised concerns of a resurgence of the disease.
Mexico records 4,683 new cases
Mexican health authorities reported 4,683 confirmed new infections of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, pushing its tally to a total of 256,848, and 273 more deaths to a total of 30,639.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez Gatell has repeatedly said that the actual number of both infections and associated death is probably significantly higher.
Tony-winning Broadway actor Nick Cordero has died after a gruelling battle with coronavirus, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Cordero, who starred in Bullets Over Broadway, Waitress and A Bronx Tale the Musical, was 41 years old:
Since being diagnosed with what was thought to be pneumonia in late March, the Canadian actor spent weeks in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, had his right leg amputated, lost more than 60 pounds and was hoping to receive a double-lung transplant.
Residents in nine housing towers now in hard lockdown in Melbourne say they have been forced to establish their own support network rather than rely on the government for essential supplies or information.
“Last night by 2am some houses still didn’t have food delivered,” said Ahmed Dini, a resident of the North Melbourne towers and a social worker.
“I think there is a lot of anger towards the DHHS. At the moment there is more anger towards DHHS than the police because they promised they were going to have food delivered, that they were going to have essentials delivered.”
When food was delivered, many were missing staples like bread or milk, with large families asked to share small boxes. Seven News published a video of one tower resident sorting through the expired food he was given, stating that one item had a use-by date from 2019.
The border closure between the states of Victoria and New South Wales is the first tome the two states will be shut off from one another in a century.
The border between Victoria, which is battling an increase in coronavirus cases, and the other neighbouring state of South Australia has been closed for a while. It was due to be opened on 20 July, but six days ago that decision was abandoned.
There are about 50 border crossings between Victoria and New South Wales – as well as towns which share the border. The closure will be policed by the New South Wales side so as not to drain resources in Victoria.
The border will close on Tuesday night.
Victoria, Australia confirms 127 new cases, state border closure confirmed
Victoria has confirmed 127 new coronavirus cases overnight.
127 new covid cases in Victoria overnight
— Melissa Davey (@MelissaLDavey) July 6, 2020
34 of the cases are connected to known outbreaks, while 40 are from routine testing and 53 are under investigation.
Premier Daniel Andrews has also confirmed that the border between Victoria and New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, will close.
Updated
Lebanon on Sunday hosted its annual music festival in the ancient northeastern city of Baalbek without an audience for the first time ever, in a move organisers dubbed an act of cultural resilience to the global coronavirus pandemic as well as the country’s unprecedented economic meltdown, AFP reports.
Held amid soaring Roman columns, the Baalbek International Festival was founded in 1956. This year, it’s being broadcast on local and regional TV stations and live-streamed on social media in an effort “to spread unity and hope.”
The concert with 150 musicians and choral singers opened with the national anthem followed by O Fortuna from the cantata Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. It included a mix of classical music, including Beethoven and Verdi, as well as tunes from Lebanon’s Rahbani brothers composers and beloved Lebanese singer Fairouz.
Lebanese watching the 55-minute show at home posted nostalgic sentiments on social media about bygone days that have been replaced by an economic crisis and growing poverty and hunger.
“It is as if we are saying farewell to the Lebanon we knew and dreamed of,” said economist and political activist Jad Chaaban on Twitter.
Requiem for a small broken nation.
— Jad Chaaban جاد شعبان (@JadChaaban) July 5, 2020
Lebanon is currently being shaken by a severe economic and financial crisis, made worse in recent months by the coronavirus and lockdown restrictions. The financial crisis is rooted in decades of systematic corruption and mismanagement by Lebanon’s ruling elite, who critics say refuse to reform despite a nationwide uprising that erupted last October and a rapidly deteriorating economy.
As many as 13 British universities could face financial disaster from the after-effects of the coronavirus outbreak, affecting one in 20 students in the UK and causing steep job cuts, according to research.
Estimates by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the UK higher education sector will endure losses ranging between £3bn to £19bn in 2020-21, with the exact size of the losses dependent on how many students decide not to enrol.
The IFS calculates that pension obligations and investment losses caused by the economic downturn will also have a major impact on university balance sheets over the next four years.
Universities will be unable to recoup their losses through cost-cutting unless they also make “significant” numbers of staff redundant, the research found.
In Australia, the ABC is reporting that the border between the states of New South Wales, home to Sydney, and Victoria, home to Melbourne and struggling to contain rising infections, is expected to be closed.
#BREAKING The ABC understands the Victorian-NSW Border will be closed from Tuesday night
— casey briggs (@CaseyBriggs) July 6, 2020
The Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone has also called for a “sensible and necessary pause” on the easing of restrictions nationwide in the wake of the crisis in Victoria, saying it could happen elsewhere in the country:
“That means we can’t be complacent, we need to be vigilant and we need to keep practising all those measures which have kept us in [good] stead during the first par to the wave,” he said.
Updated
US Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn was asked on ABC’s This Week about a poll that found 27% of Americans would be unlikely to accept a free coronavirus vaccine if it was available.
“It is a sizeable number,” he said. “And it is concerning. And, of course, the issue of vaccines in this country has been around for a number of years.
“One of the major reasons we issued this guidance was we wanted to give clarity about what we were going to look at, what we need to look at, and that the FDA has incredible scientific expertise and we will do our job to assess the safety and the efficacy of a vaccine candidate. I want to assure the American people of that and provide confidence that we’re on the job.”
Earlier in the day Hahn appeared on CNN, where he was asked about US President Donald Trump’s claim that 99% of coronavirus cases in the US are “totally harmless”:
“I’m not going to get into who’s right and who is wrong,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn says when pressed about the misleading claim President Trump made — that 99% of coronavirus cases in America are "totally harmless" https://t.co/P3rgUzC3Fq #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/m9jU8QKYQ3
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 5, 2020
In non coronavirus news, but other disease news:
Authorities in a city in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia have issued a warning after a hospital reported a case of suspected bubonic plague.
The health committee of the city of Bayan Nur issued the third-level alert, the second lowest in a four-level system, on Sunday.
The alert forbids the hunting and eating of animals that could carry plague and asks the public to report any suspected cases of plague or fever with no clear causes, and to report any sick or dead marmots.
Sunday’s warning follows four reported cases of plague in people from Inner Mongolia last November, including two of pneumonic plague, a deadlier variant of plague.
The bubonic plague, known as the “Black Death” in the Middle Ages, is a highly infectious and often fatal disease that is spread mostly by rodents.
Plague cases are not uncommon in China, but outbreaks have become increasingly rare. From 2009 to 2018, China reported 26 cases and 11 deaths.
Peru cases pass 300,000
Peru on Sunday jumped past 300,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, the fifth-highest in the world, as the Andean nation of nearly 33 million people slowly reopens its battered economy.
The South American copper producer, which locked down in March against the virus but struggled to enforce a nationwide quarantine in the face of rising economic hardship, trails only Brazil in the region in terms of case numbers.
Peru’s death toll from the virus now stands at 10,589, the 10th-highest in the world.
President Martín Vizcarra’s government has eased restrictions this month to allow economic growth to revive, including the key mining sector. Peru is the world’s second-largest producer of copper.
Coronavirus cases rose by 3,638 on Sunday to 302,718, although new daily cases have slowed from peak levels in May and June. Health experts fear a potential flare-up, however, with more people on the streets as the lockdown eases.
Shopping malls have opened their doors with a limited number of visitors and the government is preparing biosafety protocols to restart domestic air and land transport from mid-July.
Updated
Iran suffers record one-day deaths
Iran has introduced compulsory face masks in public spaces after the government admitted its efforts to introduce effective voluntary social distancing have failed.
The latest figures published by the Iranian health ministry on Sunday showed a record 163 had died in the past 24 hours, higher than any daily figure in the country over the course of the pandemic so far.
India reports record one-day increase in coronavirus cases
India registered a record daily number of coronavirus cases and opened a sprawling treatment centre in the capital to fight the pandemic on Sunday. The health ministry reported just under 25,000 cases and 613 deaths in 24 hours – the biggest daily spike since the first case was detected in late January.
In the capital New Delhi, medical staff started treating patients at a spiritual centre converted into a sprawling isolation facility and hospital with 10,000 beds, many made of cardboard and chemically coated to make them waterproof.
About the size of 20 football fields, the facility on the outskirts of the city will treat mild symptomatic and asymptomatic cases.
State government officials fear Delhi, home to 25 million people, could record more than half-a-million cases by the end of the month. The city has repurposed some hotels to provide hospital care. It is also converting wedding halls and has several hundred modified railway coaches standing by.
A strict lockdown in place since late March has gradually been lifted, allowing most activities after the economy nose-dived during the shutdown.
Schools, metro trains in cities, cinemas, gyms and swimming pools remain closed and international flights are still grounded.
Authorities have made wearing masks mandatory in public places, while large gatherings are banned and shops and other public establishments are required to implement social distancing.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be brining you the latest news from around the world for the next few hours.
A reminder that during that time you can get in touch with me directly on Twitter or via email – I await your news, comments, suggestions, tips and other people’s good tweets with bated breath.
Twitter: @helenrsullivan
Email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com
Now, on to today’s main story: India registered a record daily number of coronavirus cases and opened a sprawling treatment centre in the capital to fight the pandemic on Sunday. The health ministry reported just under 25,000 cases and 613 deaths in 24 hours – the biggest daily spike since the first case was detected in late January.
The surge took India’s total tally to more than 673,000 cases and 19,268 deaths, pulling the country closer to surpassing badly-hit Russia, the world’s third-most infected nation.
Other key developments include:
- The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday reported 52,228 new coronavirus cases, and said the number of deaths had risen by 271 to 129,576.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson will inject £1.57bn into Britain’s beleaguered arts and heritage sectors in a long-awaited coronavirus rescue package described by the government as the biggest one-off investment in UK culture.
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It is not clear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, a top health official from US president Donald Trump’s administration said, as Florida sees record numbers of coronavirus cases.
- Greece has announced it will prohibit Serbian tourists from entering the country as of 6 AM tomorrow. The ban, due to last until at least 15 July, follows a surge in incidents of coronavirus in the Balkan state.
- Kazakhstan on Sunday imposed a second round of nationwide restrictions that are to last at least two weeks, in a bid to counter a huge surge in coronavirus cases since the previous lockdown, which has overwhelmed the country’s healthcare system.
- Brazil has recorded 26,051 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours as well as 602 deaths, pushing cumulative deaths to a total of 64,867.
- India has withdrawn a planned reopening of the Taj Mahal, citing the risk of new coronavirus infections spreading in the northern city of Agra from visitors, as the country’s infections are rising at the fastest pace in three months.
- Dozens of military medics were deployed on Sunday to help combat the coronavirus pandemic in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, the country’s third most affected region, amid a surge in infections.
