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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Helen Sullivan (now and earlier); Nadeem Badshah ,Alexandra Topping, Jessica Murray and Simon Murphy

Germany and Spain ease lockdown as Eurozone slumps 3.8% – as it happened

The members of the Bavarian cabinet attend a Bavarian cabinet meeting amid coronavirus, on 28 April 2020 in Munich, southern Germany.
The members of the Bavarian cabinet attend a Bavarian cabinet meeting amid coronavirus, on 28 April 2020 in Munich, southern Germany. Photograph: Sven Hoppe/AFP via Getty Images

We’ve launched a brand new blog at the link below. Follow me there for the latest coronavirus news from around the world, live:

Updated

Summary

Hello, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll have the blog for the next few hours, so please do get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

  • UK prime minister says the country now ‘past the peak’. Boris Johnson defended the decisions the UK government has taken. Speaking at the UK government’s daily press conference, Johnson said that the NHS has not been overwhelmed at any stage.
  • Trump claims he has seen evidence of Covid-19 originating in Wuhan lab. When asked if he has seen anything that gives you a “high degree of confidence” that coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, President Trump replied: “Yes, I have.”
  • Germany eases lockdown measures. Germany is to re-open museums, galleries, zoos and playgrounds and allow religious services to resume, in measures agreed by the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the leaders of 16 federal states.
  • Brazil sees record 7,218 new cases, raising the total to 85,380, Reuters reports the health ministry saying on Thursday.The death toll rose by 435 to 5,901.
  • Denmark says partial reopening has not accelerated virus spread. Denmark became the first country outside of Asia to ease lockdown measures a fortnight ago.
  • Spain allocates times slots for outdoor activities, as death toll falls. Spain’s daily death toll fell to its lowest level in nearly six week, with 268 fatalities related to Covid-19 recorded overnight.
  • Eurozone records 3.8% slump, as European Central Bank chief warns of worse to come, with the eurozone potentially on course for a 15% collapse in output in the second quarter.
  • Another 3.8 million Americans lose jobs as US unemployment continues to grow. The pace of layoffs appears to be slowing, but in just six weeks an unprecedented 30 million Americans have now sought unemployment benefits.
  • Covid-19 outbreak increasing across Africa, WHO warns. World Health Organization officials in Africa have said the Covid-19 outbreak is still increasing across the continent despite widespread efforts at containment.
  • Russian prime minister diagnosed with coronavirus. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has said he has been diagnosed with coronavirus and will self-isolate from the government in the country’s highest-profile case of the disease yet.
  • Tajikistan reports first coronavirus cases. Tajikistan, which was thought to be one of the few countries untouched by coronavirus, has recorded its first coronavirus cases.
  • South Korea reports no new domestic cases for first time since 29 February. South Korea reported on Thursday no new domestic coronavirus cases for the first time since its 29 February peak.
  • War-torn Yemen reports first virus deaths. The country reported its first two deaths and a new cluster of Covid-19 cases amid worries that the virus has been circulating undetected for some time.
  • Czechs say coronavirus spread is contained as country reopens. The Czech Republic has seen the number of new cases drop below 100 for the past eight consecutive days.
  • People out of work in Germany increased by 373,000 to 2.64 million in April. Data from the labour office also showed the unemployment rate increased to 5.8%, up from 5% in March, as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

US state and local governments could need close to $1 trillion in aid over several years to cope with the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned.

She told reporters: “We’re not going to be able to cover all of it, but to the extent that we can keep the states and localities sustainable, that’s our goal.”

Asked if state and local aid would be the largest part of upcoming relief legislation, Pelosi said: “I’ve talked about almost a trillion dollars right there, I would hope so. But we do have other issues that we want to deal with.”

President Donald Trump said he would “think about what’s happening.”

Canada’s coronavirus curve is flat but worrying trends are emerging, particularly outbreaks in vulnerable indigenous communities, the country’s top medical officer said.

The daily death toll in Canada has risen by 10 pr cent or more only once in the last 11 days. The total number of people killed by the coronavirus increased by 6% to 3,082 in a day, official data showed on Thursday.

“The COVID-19 curve is flat ... (but) we have to be very cautious going down the other side of the epidemic curve,” chief public health officer Theresa Tam told a briefing.

“Already on this path we have seen some worrisome transmission events emerging,” she said, citing increasing cases in remote aboriginal communities in several of Canada’s 10 provinces.

Meanwhile, Alberta unveiled a plan to reopen its economy gradually, starting on Monday with some non-urgent surgeries, golf courses and services such as physiotherapists and social workers.

The next stage begins as early as May 14, reopening retail businesses, hair salons, daycares and restaurants.

Moving to that stage hinges on increased testing and contact tracing, and rules for using masks in crowded spaces. Alberta has not set dates for reopening schools.

Ontario, which has not set dates to restart its economy, issued more than 60 guidelines for businesses when they reopen, ranging from markers and barriers to maintain physical distancing, and additional labor inspectors to ensure compliance.

Friday’s Guardian leads on Boris Johnson announcing the UK has passed the peak of Covid-19 cases.

The FT splashes on US stocks on the brink of their best month since 1987

Tomorrow’s i goes with face masks potentially being an everyday accessory.

The Mirror goes down a similar line on going past the peak of cases.

The Times leads on Johnson announcing the UK has passed the peak of the virus.

Tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph leads on Boris Johnson saying his plan to relax the lockdown will be unveiled next week.

Tomorrow’s Daily Mail

Friday’s UK front pages are rolling in, starting with The Independent

In more tougher rhetoric against Beijing, Trump said he does not have to stop debt payments to China and can instead impose tariffs.

That awkward moment in the press conference on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Trump added he could not say why he has a high degree of confidence that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

He also said it was possible that China either could not stop the spread of the coronavirus or let it spread.

Updated

Trump claims he has seen evidence of Covid-19 originating in Wuhan lab

When asked if he has seen anything that gives you a “high degree of confidence” that coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, President Trump replied: “Yes, I have.”

Trump’s reflections on the death toll in the US.

A bizarre moment from Trump about the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluding Covid-19 “was not manmade or genetically modified” but investigations into the origins of the outbreak are ongoing.

Trump added an extension of $600 unemployment payments is being looked at.
On relations with China, he declined to say whether he holds Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, responsible for any misinformation about coronavirus.

In his White House briefing, President Trump said the government has provided more than $1 billion in grants to networks that help Americans who are older or disabled.

Portugal’s government has announced the country’s football league, the Primeira Liga, can resume behind closed on doors from May 30.

“This return of football will only be for the Primeira Liga and with tight restrictions,” Prime Minister António Costa said.
“The games will be played behind closed doors, with no spectators in the stands, whatever the stadium, be it a league match or the Portuguese Cup final.” Costa earlier announced his strategy to progressively lift lockdown measures imposed six weeks ago. The three-phase plan, starting on Monday, will open up different sectors of the economy every 15 days starting with small neighbourhood shops, hairdressers, car dealerships and bookshops.

Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa.
Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa. Photograph: João Relvas/EPA

Less than 24 hours after Los Angeles became the first major US city to offer free coronavirus tests, a website used for sign-ups strained under the demand as appointments were completely booked for anyone not showing symptoms.
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the free testing on Wednesday, saying they are available to anyone in the county of roughly 10 million people, although priority would be given to healthcare workers and people showing symptoms of Covid-19. He said: “If you think you have Covid-19, if want the reassurance that you do not, if you’ve been around people that you have seen with symptoms, get a test.

“You can’t put a price on the piece of mind of knowing that you can’t infect somebody around you.”
The tests were funded in part by CORE, a nonprofit organisation co-founded by actor Sean Penn, using a $375,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Actor and activist Sean Penn is founder of the nonprofit organisation Community Organized Relief Effort.
Actor and activist Sean Penn is founder of the nonprofit organisation Community Organized Relief Effort. Photograph: Chris Pizzello/AP

The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, denies claims that a report alleging disinformation tactics by the Chinese government during the pandemic was edited because of pressure from Chinese authorities.
Borrell said the original version was changed because his staff wanted to “avoid inaccuracies in our terminology”. He added: “It was decided by the staff without any interference or pressure from outside or inside. We do not shy away from calling out clear disinformation cases by China, which are in the report.”

Amazon announced it had revenues of $75.4bn in the first three months of the year – equating to over $33m an hour.

US vice president Mike Pence wears a mask as he visits a General Motors plant that is making ventilators in Indiana.
US vice president Mike Pence wears a mask as he visits a General Motors plant that is making ventilators in Indiana. Photograph: Chris Bergin/Reuters

The US vice-president Mike Pence wore a mask today as he toured a General Motors facility in Indiana which is now making ventilators after coming under fire for failing to wear one earlier this week.

On Tuesday he visited a clinic in Minnesota but failed to cover his face despite it being in violation of the facility’s policy. He was pictured surrounded by healthcare staff all wearing masks.

Hundreds of protesters, some armed, gathered inside Michigan’s state Capitol in Lansing objecting to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s request to extend emergency powers to combat COVID-19.

The protest appeared to be the largest in the state since April 15, when supporters of President Donald Trump organised thousands of people for “Operation Gridlock,” jamming the streets of Lansing with their cars to call out what they said was the overreach of Whitmer’s strict stay-at-home order.

The slow reopening of state economies around the country has taken on political overtones, as Republican politicians and individuals affiliated with Trump’s re-election promoted such protests in electoral swing states, such as Michigan.

Many people at Thursday’s “American Patriot Rally”, including militia group members carrying firearms and people with pro-Trump signs, appeared to be ignoring state social distancing guidelines as they clustered together within six feet of each other.

Here’s a report from our South American correspondent Tom Phillips outlining the growing concerns in Brazil over Bolsonaro’s approach to coronavirus. The president has previously attacked what he termed the “hysteria” over Covid-19, sacked his health minister and has sabotaged efforts to enforce social distancing measures.

Brazil sees record 7,218 new cases

Brazil has reported a record 7,218 confirmed new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, raising the total to 85,380, Reuters reports the health ministry saying on Thursday.

The death toll rose by 435 to 5,901, it said.

There has been outrage in the country over the approach of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. Earlier in the week, when asked by reporters about deaths exceeding the 5,000 figure, he said: “So what … I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”

Updated

The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has ordered beaches in Orange County to close until further notice.

He made the announcement, days after tens of thousands of people in Orange County packed beaches during a sunny weekend.

The governor said he hoped the order would not last very long, but felt it was necessary to protect public health.
He said the order only applied to beaches in Orange County. Several California coastal communities have allowed beaches to be open with some restrictions.

Updated

A group of Serbian opposition leaders staged a protest during an evening curfew to voice their criticism of the populist government’s measures against the new coronavirus.

Also on Thursday, thousands banged pots and blew whistles from their windows and balconies, even as authorities eased a previously announced 83-hour curfew planned for the upcoming weekend.

Serbia’s populist government in mid-March introduced some of the harshest measures in Europe, imposing a state of emergency, banning people over 65 years old from leaving their homes and imposing daily and weekend curfews.

Government critics have insisted that the authorities of the autocratic President Aleksandar Vučić have used the state of emergency to curb democracy and media freedoms. Vučić has denied this.

Leaders of several opposition parties gathered at the start of the curfew at 6pm, holding speeches outside the Serbian parliament building in Belgrade. They wore masks but didn’t fully respect social-distancing measures.

No opposition supporters were invited to the protests, but some supporters of the government showed up, shouting at the opposition leaders. No major incidents were reported.

The curfew initially was meant to last until Monday morning to prevent people from socialising during the May Day holiday, but the government earlier on Thursday shortened the ban, following public pressure.
Serbia has reported 9,009 infections while 179 people have died. The Balkan country has started easing the measures, but experts have warned that the situation is still volatile.

Updated

The number of deaths from Covid-19 in Peru has surpassed 1,000, the country’s ministry of health said on Thursday.

The ministry said the number of deaths had risen to 1,051 from 943 the previous day, while the number of cases had risen by 3,045 to 36,976.

Peru has the second highest number of confirmed cases and deaths in Latin America.

Police and soldiers closed a busy food market in the capital Lima after mass rapid testing confirmed more than 160 of its traders had tested positive.

Updated

South Africa reported another 297 positive cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, bringing the total in the country to 5,647, the health department said.

“The total number of tests conducted to date is 207,530, of which 10,403 were done in the last 24 hours,” the Ministry of Health said. Deaths remained at 103.

Wednesday’s increase of 354 in infections was the highest in a 24-hour cycle.

South Africa’s five-week strict national lockdown ends on Friday, but with only a clutch of industries being allowed to operate in a bid to keep the economy going while keeping the spread of the virus at bay.

Updated

A rise in cases of Covid-19 across northern Nigeria has seen several states controversially deport hundreds of “almajiris” - mostly children, studying in Islamic boarding schools - back to their states of origin.

The states, most in Nigeria’s majority Muslim north, say the deportations are to halt the spread of Covid-19. Yet the deportations of mostly vulnerable children appear to be spreading it across states where the capacity to trace and test for Covid-19 is extremely limited.

This afternoon, the Kaduna state government, in north-west Nigeria, said 16 new cases of Covid-19 were of almajiris, recently deported from neighbouring Kano state, where hundreds of unexplained deaths have occured in the last week.

Doctors in Kano told the Guardian there has been a rise in pneumonia cases in recent weeks, heightening fears of a Covid-19 outbreak.

The mass deportations of vulnerable children, who may have Covid-19 has caused alarm in Nigeria.

Almajiris, enrolled in conservative Islamic schools, are often sent away from their homes without school fees, with many resorting to begging on the streets. As extreme poverty has grown, the system has become increasingly exploited.

In the last 6 months, several almajiri schools have been shut after it emerged thousands were being enslaved, tortured and sexually abused.

Authorities have been accused of ill treatment, with reports of almajiris being left in other states without protection.

State-to-state deportations are contentious yet do occur in Nigeria, where state rights are sensitive.

The increasing deportations of these children, some of whom appear to have Covid-19, moving between poor states with limited health services is worrying.

Their health infrastructure to test or trace for the spread of Covid-19 is severely limited. Nigeria overall is struggling to boost testing, with just 13,000 tests administered.

The number of confirmed infections across the country is relatively low - 1.728 - but the daily rise in new cases has been gradually accelerating.

Updated

The New York state governor, Andrew Cuomo, said the New York subway will close between 1am and 5am from 7 May to allow the MTA to disinfect the carriages, train and stations, to protect essential workers from contracting coronavirus.

Updated

The Czech Republic will allow cultural and sports events involving up to 100 people to go ahead from 11 May as part of the next phase of relaxing restrictions imposed to combat the spread of the coronavirus, officials said.

This will include cinema screenings, theatre performances and religious services. The move comes sooner than the government had originally planned after it said the spread of the virus was now contained.

Large events, however, such as music festivals due this summer with thousands of people, will not take place, the culture minister, Lubomír Zaorálek, said.

The country of 10.7 million people is cautiously opening up its economy after it shut schools, shops and restaurants in March and imposed a lockdown.

The Czech Republic has seen the number of new cases drop below 100 for the past eight days, and the number of active cases has also been on the decline.

Stores of up to 2,500 square metres reopened on Monday.

From 11 May, shopping malls and larger shops are also set to reopen, along with outdoor restaurants and pubs, hairdressers, and museums.

The last phase is due on 25 May with restaurants, pubs and hotels returning to action.

Updated

Summary

Denmark says partial reopening has not accelerated virus spread

Authorities in Denmark, became the first country outside of Asia to ease lockdown measures a fortnight ago, said the spread of Covid-19 had not accelerated. Day care centres and schools began reopening in the Nordic country two weeks ago, followed by hairdressers and other small businesses on 20 April. The move came after the number of infections and deaths slowed.

Spain allocates times slots for outdoor activities, as death toll falls

Health authorities in Spain have said time slots for specific outdoor activities will be used to help the country avoid confusion and further contagion when adults are allowed out on Saturday to exercise for the first time since mid-March. Spain’s daily death toll fell to its lowest level in nearly six week, with 268 fatalities related to Covid-19 recorded overnight.

Eurozone records 3.8% slump, as ECB chief warns of worse to come

The head of the European Central Bank has warned that the eurozone could be on course for a 15% collapse in output in the second quarter as evidence of the economic toll caused by Covid-19 pandemic started to emerge, with France and Italy falling into recession.

Another 3.8 million Americans lose jobs as US unemployment continues to grow

Another 3.8 million people lost their jobs in the US last week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to batter the economy. The pace of layoffs appears to be slowing, but in just six weeks an unprecedented 30 million Americans have now sought unemployment benefits and the numbers are still growing.

Covid-19 outbreak increasing across Africa, WHO warns

World Health Organization officials in Africa have said the Covid-19 outbreak is still increasing across the continent despite widespread efforts at containment. Unlike developed countries that can rely on relatively well-resourced health systems to treat large numbers of sick people, most African nations are hoping they can slow the spread of the disease to protect very limited facilities.

Russian prime minister diagnosed with coronavirus

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has said he has been diagnosed with coronavirus and will self-isolate from the government in the country’s highest-profile case of the disease yet. Russia recorded a record daily rise in cases, taking the total of cases past 100,000. On Thursday 7,099 new cases were recorded, bringing the nationwide tally to 106,498.

UK prime minister says the country now ‘past the peak’

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson- who was himself seriously ill with Covid-19 - said that the country has past its peak, and defended the decisions the UK government has taken. Speaking at the UK government’s daily press conference, Johnson said that the NHS has not been overwhelmed at any stage

Tajikistan reports first coronavirus cases

Tajikistan, which was thought to be one of the few countries untouched by coronavirus, has recorded its first coronavirus cases.

South Korea reports no new domestic cases for first time since 29 February

South Korea reported on Thursday no new domestic coronavirus cases for the first time since its 29 February peak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

War-torn Yemen reports first virus deaths

The country reported its first two deaths and a new cluster of Covid-19 cases amid worries that the virus has been circulating undetected for some time and attempts at a humanitarian ceasefire to contain the new crisis are failing.

Czechs say coronavirus spread is contained as country reopens

The Czech Republic has seen the number of new cases drop below 100 for the past eight consecutive days, and the government will continue to cautiously open up the economy, the health minister said.

Japan likely to extend nationwide state of emergency over the coronavirus

Prime minister Shinzō Abe is expected to extend the measure until the end of May or until 6 June, as the country’s healthcare system continues to face an “extremely tough situation”, he said.

People out of work in Germany increased by 373,000 to 2.64 million in April

Data from the labour office also showed the unemployment rate increased to 5.8%, up from 5% in March, as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

British pharmaceutical company will know whether its Covid-19 vaccine candidate is effective by June or July

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said the company will continue working with Oxford Vaccine Unit to bring it to patients as soon as possible.

Updated

Germany eases lockdown measures

Germany is to re-open museums, galleries, zoos and playgrounds and allow religious services to resume, in measures agreed by the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the leaders of 16 federal states.
This will take place under strict conditions. Certain states have already allowed some of these activities to restart, but measures on people keeping physical distance from each other will stay in place. Large-scale public gatherings will remain banned until the end of August.

“We must work to make sure we bring the number of new infections down further,” Merkel said.

“If the infection curve becomes steep again, we need to have a warning system to notice it early and be able to act.”

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a press conference.
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a press conference. Photograph: Kay Nietfeld/AP

Updated

The French government has unveiled its coronavirus map dividing the country into “green” areas, where lockdown regulations will be relaxed, and “red” areas, where strict measures will remain in place.

A number of departments were declared “orange”, meaning they will be watched closely over the next week before being declared red or green on 7 May.
France has been under one of the most strict lockdowns since 17 March, with people facing heavy fines for leaving home without good reason. The lockdown is due to end on 11 May.
Three criteria were used to decide what people living in the 96 mainland departments and five overseas departments would be allowed to do when the national confinement finishes: the number of new Covid-19 cases in the previous seven days; the capacity of the department’s hospitals to deal with the epidemic; and the department’s ability to test, track and contain the virus.

The health minister, Olivier Véran, said the maps were only indicative at this stage.

“The map changes nothing of the lockdown until 11 May. Don’t change what you are doing. Stay at home until 11 May,” Véran said.

The definitive map, used to determine who can do what and where after 11 May, will be published on 7 May.

The “gross” figure in the updated numbers is the number of new admissions to hospital or intensive care; the net number is the increase or reduction taking into account the number of people admitted against those who have died or been discharged.

Jérôme Salomon, the head of Publique Santé France, the French health authority, gave the updated figures.

Number of cases: 129,581

Number in hospital: 26,283 (+1,048 gross, -551 net)

Number in i/c: 4,019 (+121 gross, -188 net)

Deaths in hospital: 15,244 (+191)

Deaths in homes: 9,132 (+98)

Total deaths: 24,376 (+289)

Updated

In Ghana, confirmed coronavirus cases have surged above 2,000, increasing 24% in a matter of days, health officials announced.

The Ghana Health Service reported 403 new cases, bringing the total to 2,074. The spike was announced ten days after President Nana Akufo-Addo eased a three-week lockdown in the capital of Accra and in the city of Kumasi.

Indian Ocean island nation of Comoros announced its first confirmed case, making it the 53rd of Africa’s 54 countries to report Covid-19. Only the small southern African kingdom of Lesotho has not reported a single case of the disease.

African nations have now reported more than 37,400 cases, including 1,598 deaths, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

In South Africa, which has the continent’s highest number of reported cases at 5,350, community health workers continued testing in Johannesburg.

Updated

The Portuguese prime minister, Antonio Costa, has announced its strategy to progressively lift lockdown measures imposed six weeks ago.
The three-phase plan, starting on Monday, will open up different sectors of the economy every 15 days starting with small neighbourhood shops, hairdressers, car dealerships and bookshops.

Updated

Eurozone records 3.8% slump, as ECB chief warns of worse to come

The head of the European Central Bank has warned that the eurozone could be on course for a 15% collapse in output in the second quarter as evidence of the economic toll caused by Covid-19 pandemic started to emerge, with France and Italy falling into recession.

After news that the 19-nation monetary union area had contracted a record 3.8% in the first three months of 2020, Christine Lagarde said much worse was possible in the April to June period, when the impact of lockdown restrictions would be most severe.

Read the full story here:

Russian Prime Minister diagnosed with coronavirus

The Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin has said he has been diagnosed with coronavirus and will self-isolate from the government in the country’s highest-profile case of the disease yet, reports the Guardian’s Andrew Roth in Moscow.

Mishustin disclosed that he was infected during a video call with Vladimir Putin, Russian state news agencies reported on Thursday evening. It wasn’t immediately clear how severe Mishustin’s case of the disease was, although one news agency reported that he had an elevated temperature of 39 degrees.

Mishustin has been tasked with leading the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, which surpassed 100,000 cases in Russia on Thursday. First deputy prime minister Andrei Belousov would take on his duties in his absence, Mishustin said.

“Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, I have just found out that the tests I gave for coronavirus have come back positive. Accordingly … I will go into self-isolation, fulfilling my doctors’ orders. This is necessary to do in order to protect my colleagues,” Mishustin reportedly told Putin during a video call.

Putin has led semi-regular video calls with members of the government from his residence at Novo-Ogaryovo. He has not been pictured with other members of the government in the last several weeks.

Updated

As nations around the world are wondering what a good lockdown exit strategy looks like, Spain has released details about the time slots during which adults will be allowed outside to walk and exercise, reports Sam Jones in Madrid. And it looks pretty rigid:

The health minister, Salvador Illa, said that people will be allowed out to walk or take other exercise from 6am to 10am and then from 8pm until 11pm.

People over 70, and those who need help walking, or who rely on carers, will be allowed out from 10am to midday, and then from 7pm til 8pm.

Parents will be able to accompany children aged under 14 on walks between midday and 7pm.

The new rules come into force first thing on Saturday morning.

Walkers are entitled to an hour’s daily exercise within a 1km-radius of home, and while there are no time or distance limits for runners or those taking part in individual sports, they must stay within their home area. Social distancing guidelines must be observed, with people staying at least 1.5m away from others.
Illa also said that towns of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants would be exempt from the time restirctions, allowing people to go out to walk or exercise when they wanted.

People will also be allowed to return to their fruit and vegetable gardens and allotments to gather produce.

The minister said the strict lockdown imposed on 14 March had worked.

When the state of emergency began, the daily infection rate was 35% - today it’s at 0.6%.

We need to keep acting very wisely and very prudently and follow expert advice. We got into this together and we need to get out of it together. There’s no other way.

UK Prime Minister says the country now 'past the peak'

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said that the country has past its peak, and defended the decisions the UK government has taken.

Speaking at the UK government’s daily press conference, Johnson – who has just returned to work after a near-death brush with coronavirus, and the birth of his son – said that the NHS has not been overwhelmed at any stage.

He says the UK avoided an “uncontrollable and catastrophic” epidemic that could have caused 500,000 deaths.

The government has faced criticism for not giving the public a clear idea of what its exit strategy from the coronavirus lockdown might look like. He said he will publish a comprehensive plan next week, which will cover three things: how to restart the economy; how to get children back to school; and how to get people into work. So far, so simple.

There will be five key tests:

  1. The ability to protect the NHS and its ability to cope
  2. A sustained fall in deaths
  3. A falling infection rate
  4. A solution to the challenges of testing and PPE
  5. Confidence that a second peak will not overwhelm the NHS

For all the live updates from that press conference please do visit our UK coronavirus liveblog:

Updated

Last bit on Sweden (for now): Alberto Nardelli, Buzzfeed’s Europe editor (and formerly of this parish) did an excellent analysis of the figures earlier this week. He compared the number of deaths in Denmark and Sweden, and argued that the data showed many more people were dying in the latter. It’s a deep dive – but worth the time.

Updated

If, like me, you have become slightly obsessed with the different approach Sweden has taken compared with its Nordic neighbours (just me, then?), this Forbes piece is worth a read. After describing scenes of “normal” life which many European countries are currently only able to dream of, it continues

All this follows a handful of mostly optimistic reports from the Public Health Agency in Sweden indicating that the rate of new infections and deaths remains stable even as numbers continue to rise. The number of people in intensive care at any one time has stayed flat, and most of the field hospitals that were set up in March remain empty. Of particular interest are reports that around one quarter of Stockholm (some say even more) is believed to have already had the virus. Though that number has been debated, several experts appear increasingly confident that the number of asymptomatic cases is much higher than initially thought.

Now is an especially interesting time to keep an eye on what happens as many countries in Europe, including Sweden’s Nordic neighbors, begin to ease restrictions themselves. Swedish authorities seem to have accepted that infections and deaths would inevitably climb at a certain rate, so the numbers here look much worse than in neighboring countries.

Would be very interested to hear from any readers in Sweden about how they feel about their government’s response to the pandemic.

You can read more about the nation’s policy from the Guardian’s excellent Europe correspondent Jon Henley, who very recently reported on politicians asking not to be judged prematurely, and comments from its chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, that the lockdown measures taken by other countries now opening up were difficult to justify.

Updated

The Canadian arctic territory of Nunavut has reported its first case of Covid-19 – something officials had long feared as inevitable, reports the Guardian’s Leyland Cecco in Toronto.

The territorial chief public health officer, Dr Michael Patterson, said:

We did anticipate that it was only a matter of time before our territory had a confirmed case, and unfortunately today is that day. We recognize that this news may be frightening.

The case was recorded in Pond Inlet, a small community of 1,600 people.

Officials have started contact tracing within the community. The government’s rapid response team is expected to arrive in the community on Thursday afternoon.

All travel to and from Pond Inlet has been restricted, including travel by air and land. The government has made an exception for cargo and emergency travel.

The premier, Joe Savikataaq, said:

There is no need to panic. Nunavut has had time to prepare, and we are in a solid position to manage this. We ask people not to place any blame, not to shame and to support communities and each other as we overcome Covid-19 in Nunavut.

Health experts have feared the isolated communities in the Arctic, many of which experience chronic overcrowding in homes and disproportionately high rates of respiratory illness, would be among Canada’s most vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.

Anna Banerji, the director of global and indigenous health at the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, previously told the Guardian:

If a whole bunch of people become sick in the Canadian Arctic or in these remote communities, and these people are getting sick from the coronavirus, then what happens? People will die.

Updated

Another 3.8 million Americans lose jobs as US unemployment continues to grow

Another 3.8 million people lost their jobs in the US last week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to batter the economy. The pace of layoffs appears to be slowing, but in just six weeks an unprecedented 30 million Americans have now sought unemployment benefits and the numbers are still growing, writes my colleague Dominic Rushe.

The latest figures from the Department of Labor released on Thursday showed a fourth consecutive week of declining claims. While the trend is encouraging, the rate of losses means US unemployment is still on course to reach levels unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Read the full report here|:

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The Associated Press is reporting that New York police were called to a Brooklyn neighbourhood on Wednesday after an overwhelmed funeral home resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks, and a passerby complained about the smell, according to officials. AP reports:

Investigators who responded to a 911 call found that the home had rented four trucks to hold about 50 corpses, according to a law enforcement official. No criminal charges were brought and the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The Andrew T Cleckley Funeral Home was cited for failing to control the odors. The home was able to obtain a larger, refrigerated truck later in the day, the official said.

Workers suited up in protective gear could be seen in the afternoon transferring bodies into the refrigerated truck.

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In the US again, Anthony Fauci has today said that states reopening their economies “can’t just leap over things” that would potentially allow the coronavirus to rebound.

In an interview on NBC’s Today show, Savannah Guthrie asked Fauci whether the states that are beginning to reopen have the capability to do contact tracing. Fauci responded that while he could not go through a list of each of them, he urged those that don’t have that capability to “go very slowly”. He said:

You can’t just leap over things and get into a situation where you’re really tempting a rebound. That’s the thing I get concerned about. I hope they don’t do that.

Fauci said states should follow federal guidelines and only begin to reopen if they have a two-week decline in the number of new Covid-19 cases. He cautioned that states must have the capability of identifying, isolating and contact tracing people who test positive because “there will be blips — there’s no doubt”.

“When you pull back, there will be cases,” he said.

In the US, federal guidelines on social distancing will expire tonight and at least two dozen states are set to begin reopening with greater social movement and business activity tomorrow or over the weekend.

This is from our US coronavirus liveblog:

While Donald Trump is keen for this to happen, his own public health experts are urging extreme caution about states relaxing their own stay-at-home orders (as opposed to mere guidelines). There were more than 2,600 new deaths in the US from coronavirus yesterday.

And last night California announced it was going to close its beaches and state parks just days after allowing them to open, after people crowded there in an unsafe way.

And:

  • Top public health expert Anthony Fauci this morning said the preliminary results from early trials of the drug remdesivir in treating coronavirus were “clearly positive” though “modest” and were a “first step in what we project will be better and better drugs” to treat Covid-19.
  • Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has formed his “vetting team” to search for his best vice presidential candidate – while calls for him to address directly a recently elevated accusation of sexual assault in the past are growing.
  • The latest unemployment figures in the US are due out at 8.30 and our business team will cover that separately. They will not make good reading.

You can follow all US coronavirus-related news here:

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Tajikistan, which was thought to be one of the few countries untouched by coronavirus, has recorded its first coronavirus cases, according to a report from the website Asia Plus.

According to the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population (MoHSPP), 15 confirmed Covid-19 cases had been reported in the country as of 29 April.

Health officials had previously said pneumonia was sweeping through the population, according to the report.

Here’s a list from Al Jazeera of countries with no confirmed cases of coronavirus:

Comoros; Kiribati; Lesotho; Marshall Islands; Micronesia; Nauru; North Korea; Palau; Samoa; Solomon Islands; Tonga; Turkmenistan; Tuvalu; Vanuatu

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Covid-19 outbreak increasing across Africa, WHO warns

World Health Organization officials in Africa have said the Covid-19 outbreak is still increasing across the continent despite widespread efforts at containment, writes the Guardian’s Africa correspondent, Jason Burke.

Unlike developed countries that can rely on relatively well-resourced health systems to treat large numbers of sick people, most African nations are hoping they can drastically slow the spread of the disease to protect very limited facilities.

There are more than 34,000 confirmed cases across the continent, with about a third of those on its northern Mediterranean coast. The statistics are likely to significantly underestimate the true extent of the spread of the disease.

Many countries have issued targeted lockdowns in major cities, as well as dusk-to-dawn curfews and restrictions on travel, but most have stopped short of nationwide lockdowns like that in South Africa, citing the economic and social costs of such measures.

WHO officials warned that such choices could mean consequences in terms of the spread of Covid-19, but said they recognised the challenge of making tough decisions.

They did however express concern at surging numbers of cases in some regions.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s director for the Africa region, said:

We are very concerned about west Africa where we are seeing some community spread in a significant number of countries compared with others.

Senegal, with a population of nearly 16 million, has recorded 933 cases, with nine deaths as of Thursday. The government has declared a state of emergency, closed schools and issued restrictions on gatherings and travel, but cases have continued to rise.

There are also concerns that outbreaks are not being recognised. There are unconfirmed reports from local doctors and media of large numbers of deaths involving a respiratory illness in Somalia, northern Nigeria and elsewhere. A limited ability to test has slowed investigation.

Michel Yao, WHO Africa’s emergency operations manager, said identification by symptoms could be enough if there had already been confirmed cases of Covid-19 in a given area.

In South Africa, which now has 5,350 confirmed Covid-19 cases and more than 100 deaths, the peak of the outbreak is likely to be between July and September, depending on how the disease evolves during the southern hemisphere’s winter and the impact of containment measures, the health minister, Zweli Mkhize, said.

A strict lockdown imposed five weeks ago in South Africa will be marginally softened tomorrow (Friday), with some exercise now allowed and a handful of designated industries returning to work.

Prof Salim Abdool Karim, the principal government adviser on Covid-19, said South Africa had performed better than developed countries in slowing transmission, although the number of cases has continued to rise. He said:

We have got quite clear evidence that we have flattened the curve and that the number of cases we are seeing, and the number of infections probably occurring, has declined quite substantially.

Deep problems remain, however, with a shortage of trained medical personnel still a major concern.

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Denmark says partial reopening has not accelerated virus spread

More news from Denmark, where authorities say the spread of Covid-19 has not accelerated since it became the first country outside of Asia to ease lockdown measures a fortnight ago.

Day care centres and schools began reopening in the Nordic country two weeks ago, followed by hairdressers and other small businesses on 20 April. The move came after the number of infections and deaths slowed. “There are no signs that the Covid-19 epidemic is accelerating,” the State Serum Institute, which is responsible for preparedness against infectious diseases, said.

Officers of the Danish North Jutland Police walk behind a warning sign calling on people to keep distance to each other as they patrol in connection with the enforcement of the social distancing rules at the reopening of businesses, in a pedestrian zone and living area in Aalborg, Denmark, 28 April 2020
Officers of the Danish North Jutland police walk behind a warning sign calling on people to keep apart from each other as they patrol in Aalborg, Denmark. Photograph: Henning Bagger/EPA

The “R rate”, which indicates the average number of infections one person with the virus causes, increased slightly in the past two weeks but remained below 1.0, it said. Earlier this week, Germany announced its R rate had edged up back to 1.0 after a lockdown relaxation.

Denmark, which was one of the first nations in Europe to shut down, had 452 coronavirus-related deaths as of Thursday, with the number of hospitalisations falling steadily during April.

“There are no signs whatsoever that the partial reopening has caused a bigger spread of infection,” said Christian Wejse, a scientist at the department of infectious diseases at Aarhus University. “At least there is no indication that we are heading into another wave. That has been the concern, but I can’t see that at all,” he told Reuters.

Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said yesterday that the spread of the virus was “under control” and that she would present a plan for the next steps in the reopening before 10 May.

“We are by no means home safe, but we have a really good starting point now to get the number of infected further down,” Wejse said.

Updated

Scientists have found evidence for mutations in some strains of the coronavirus that suggest the pathogen may be adapting to humans after spilling over from bats.

The analysis of more than 5,300 coronavirus genomes from 62 countries shows that while the virus is fairly stable, some have gained mutations, including two genetic changes that alter the critical “spike protein” the virus uses to infect human cells.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stress that it is unclear how the mutations affect the virus, but since the changes arose independently in different countries, they may help the virus spread more easily.

The spike mutations are rare at the moment but Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious diseases and a senior author on the study – which has yet to be published in a journal or peer reviewed – said their emergence highlighted the need for global surveillance of the virus so that more worrying changes could be picked up fast. Hibberd said:

This is exactly what we need to look out for. People are making vaccines and other therapies against this spike protein because it seems a very good target. We need to keep an eye on it and make sure that any mutations don’t invalidate any of these approaches.”

Studies of the virus revealed early on that the shape of its spike protein allowed it to bind to human cells more efficiently than Sars, a related virus that caused an outbreak in 2002. The difference may have helped the latest coronavirus infect more people and spread rapidly around the world.

Scientists will be concerned if more extensive mutations in the spike protein arise, not only because they may alter how the virus behaves. The spike protein is the main target of leading vaccine programmes around the world, and if it changes too much those vaccines may no longer work. Other potential therapies, such as synthetic antibodies that home in on the spike protein, could be less effective, too.

Updated

Hosting the Tour de France for more than a century, it is a country already famous for cycling. Now French commuters are being urged to swap cars for bicycles when the Covid-19 lockdown ends.

The government has announced plans to develop temporary bike lanes, with an additional €20m subsidy towards the cost of repairs.

The initiative, by the energy and transport ministry, also includes an increase in bicycle parking spaces and training to get people back in the saddle.

A man rides a bicycle on the Place de la Concorde in Paris as a lockdown is imposed to slow the rate of the coronavirus disease
A man rides a bicycle on the Place de la Concorde in Paris during lockdown Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters

France, where there has been more than 24,000 coronavirus deaths, is due to ease lockdown measures on 11 May. The minister Élisabeth Borne said:

While 60% of trips made in France are less than 5km, the coming weeks represent an opportunity for many French people, already cyclists or not, to choose biking.”

The “bicycle repair boost” programme, which will provide up to €50 for repairs by sponsored mechanics, as well as supporting a scheme that allows employers to cover up to €400 of travel costs of staff who commute by bike. Paris currently has about 370km of bike paths and the temporary lanes are expected to increase that to 650km.

Updated

Breaking news from Denmark where it has emerged police, security and intelligence officials have carried out an operation to thwart preparations for an Islamist terrorist attack, according to a statement from police.

In Germany, the country’s foreign minister has warned the coronavirus pandemic must not be exploited as an excuse to hinder the work of international observers monitoring the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed rebels run statelets independent of Kiev’s control.

Speaking after a video conference of foreign ministers from countries involved in mediation efforts, Heiko Maas agreed on a series of points.

Maas agreed with his counterparts from France, Ukraine and Russia that there needed to be increased prisoner exchanges between the warring parties, efforts to ensure retired people in the east could access their Ukrainian pensions and more crossing points to add to the five currently in place along the 500km of the contact line.

“In recent times too many excuses have been found to hesitate,” he said of a faltering implementation of a ceasefire, calling for observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to be given unhindered access. “The health concerns in the pandemic must not be used as an excuse.”

But Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said that Kiev and Moscow were still far from finalising a prisoner swap of all inmates.

The conflict, which broke out in 2014, has killed more than 13,000 people, left a large swathe of Ukraine de facto controlled by the separatists and aggravated the deepest east-west rift since the cold war.

Updated

More from Italy, where it emerged earlier the economy has gone into recession, with the country’s prime minister announcing some regions might be able to unwind Covid-19 restrictions more rapidly than others.

But the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, also warned local authorities against rushed, unilateral rollbacks. It comes after Italy, which has registered the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe with 27,682 fatalities, has endured some of the world’s toughest lockdown measures.

But, according to Reuters, regions run by rightwing parties – which are not part of the ruling government coalition – have kicked back against plans for a gradual, nationwide easing of curbs, saying the proposed schedule, due to start on Monday, is too timid.

Highlighting the growing discord, Calabria, in the south-west of the country, announced that bars and restaurants in its region can reopen immediately so long as they have outdoor tables - a month ahead of the government’s proposed schedule.

In a speech to parliament, Conte said he would be willing to work with regions in future to enable them to relax measures more quickly if they had particularly low rates of infection. “There will not be a plan based on sudden initiatives by individual local authorities, but rather one based on scientific findings,” he said, warning that a quick end to curbs could fuel the contagion and lead to a surge in infections. He added:

I’ll say this clearly, at the risk of appearing unpopular. The government cannot immediately ensure a return to normality ... we are still in this pandemic.”

Autonomous moves by regions would be considered illegitimate, he added, opening the way for confrontations with regional chiefs set on defying the central government.

Updated

It’s Simon Murphy here taking over the live blog while my colleague, Alexandra Topping, takes a well-earned break. I’ll do my best to keep you updated with developments over the next hour or so.

There’s a series of updates on the situation in the UK after a briefing of political journalists over on our UK coronavirus liveblog.

It appears increasingly unlikely that there will be any major change to the current lockdown next week after the prime minister’s spokesman again played down the prospect, saying it would be wrong to “gamble away” what has already been achieved. No 10 has been transmitting this message for some days, but this seemed to be an even stronger hint that people should not expect too much from the review of the lockdown due by Thursday next week. The spokesman said:

We don’t want to relax the social distancing measures or do anything which could lead to the virus, which the British public have done so much to suppress, being able to spread in an exponential way again, and that will guide our approach as we move forward. People have made huge sacrifices in order to bring down the rate of infection, to protect the NHS and ultimately to save lives and we are not going to gamble those sacrifices away by taking steps that could lead to an exponential growth in the disease again.

When asked if the lockdown could continue until June, the spokesman said people would have to wait for the government decision. But he also reminded reporters of what Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has said about how the virus will be around for a significant period of time. The spokesman went on:

As the PM himself has said, the worst thing we could do is relax the social distancing measures too soon and throw away all of the progress that has been made.

My colleague Khushbu Shah has written a great piece from Atlanta, Georgia, where the governor, Brian Kemp, has announced the state will reopen even as coronavirus cases continue to rise, with nearly 25,000 confirmed in the state as of Tuesday afternoon.

Updated

G7 finance ministers are today discussing strategies to accelerate economic activity once their economies reopen, the US Treasury has said.

The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and his counterparts from the other G7 countries also discussed the importance of foreign direct investment and the use of investment screening mechanisms to identify national security risks, a department spokesperson said.

Updated

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has said it is highly unlikely there will be a loosening of lockdown restrictions next week.

Noting the next review lockdown guidance planned for 7 May, she said: “It may well be too early even by this time next week to reduce the current restrictions.” She stressed that “our assessment as of today of the data and the evidence is that it would not be safe” to lift the restrictions.

She urged the Scottish public not to ease up on travel restrictions in particular, revealing that there had been a significant increase over the last week. People using concessionary bus travel rose by a sixth, and car traffic by 5%.

In the last 24 hours there were 319 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in Scotland, bringing the total to 11,353. There were a further 60 deaths registered, taking that total to 1,475.

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Eye-popping story on the ingenuity of criminals, who are using food delivery services as a cover to transport drugs and other illegal goods during the coronavirus crisis.

Reuters reports:

Interpol said it had received reports from police in Ireland, Malaysia, Spain and Britain identifying delivery drivers transporting drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, ketamine and ecstasy.

Earlier this month, the Spanish National Police identified and arrested seven people dressed as food delivery drivers in Alicante and Valencia, said Interpol. It added that those involved in the Spanish case were caught delivering cocaine and marijuana by bicycle, motorcycle and car, with some of the drugs concealed inside home delivery backpacks.

In Ireland, police recovered 8 kg (17 lbs) of cocaine as well as two handguns hidden in pizza boxes, added Interpol.

Updated

In Germany, a company working with the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has begun human trials of a potential Covid-19 vaccine that could supply millions by the end of the year, according to the two firms.

Pfizer says it will begin testing the experimental vaccine in the United States as early as next week, and says a vaccine could be ready for emergency use in the autumn, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

There’s a CNN report here. Thanks to Guardian reader Claus Schrøder-Hansen for bringing it to my attention.

Updated

Cyprus has released details about how it plans to reopen after its lockdown.

The strategy to lift the restrictions and restart the economy has been divided into four phases, which will be adjusted depending on the epidemiological data.

Phase one is set to start on 4 May and will include the reopening of the construction sector, retail apart from shopping malls and open markets.

By phase 4, set to start on 14 July, theatres and cinemas, festivals and concerts, casinos and play areas are expected to be open.

More details on the opening of schools are expected today.

The Cyprus Mail has more details here. My thanks to Guardian reader Roger Dawson who flagged this.

Updated

Spain to allocate times slots for outdoor activities

Health authorities in Spain have said time slots for specific outdoor activities will be used to help the country avoid confusion and further contagion when adults are allowed out on Saturday to exercise for the first time since mid-March, reports my colleague Sam Jones.

Details of the timetable are due to be explained later today by the health minister. They are thought to include a set time for people to run or go out to exercise as families. Children in Spain – which has been in lockdown since 14 March – have been allowed out to exercise with a parent or guardian since last Sunday.

Speaking on Spanish radio on Thursday, the transport minister, José Luis Ábalos, said trips outside would be “sequenced” to prevent what he called “an explosive exit”.

He told Cadena Ser:

It’s a set of measures that will see certain hours agreed with regional and local governments. It will all need to be thoroughly discussed to avoid an explosive exit and so that trips outside with children can happen along with those of couples or people doing sport.

Updated

Summary

France has plunged into recession.

Data shows that French GDP contracted by 5.8% in the first three months of 2020, a very sharp decline in activity triggered by the coronavirus lockdown.

Italy’s economy has entered recession

Italian GDP shrank by 4.7% in the first quarter of 2020, new figures from ISTAT show - that is the biggest drop since the data series began in 1995.

South Korea reports no new domestic cases for first time since 29 February.

South Korea reported on Thursday no new domestic coronavirus cases for the first time since its 29 February peak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Spain’s daily death toll falls to lowest in nearly six weeks.

The number of fatalities related to Covid-19 recorded overnight in Spain was 268.

War-torn Yemen reports first virus deaths.

The country reported its first two deaths and a new cluster of Covid-19 cases amid worries that the virus has been circulating undetected for some time and attempts at a humanitarian ceasefire to contain the new crisis are failing.

Russia cases pass 100,000 with record daily rise.

7,099 new cases were recorded on Thursday, bringing the nationwide tally to 106,498.

Czechs say coronavirus spread is contained as country reopens.

The Czech Republic has seen the number of new cases drop below 100 for the past eight consecutive days, and the government will continue to cautiously open up the economy, the health minister said.

Japan likely to extend nationwide state of emergency over the coronavirus.

Prime minister Shinzō Abe is expected to extend the measure until the end of May or until 6 June, as the country’s healthcare system continues to face an “extremely tough situation”, he said.

People out of work in Germany increased by 373,000 to 2.64 million in April.

Data from the labour office also showed the unemployment rate increased to 5.8%, up from 5% in March, as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

A British pharmaceutical company will know whether it’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate is effective by June or July.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said the company will continue working with Oxford Vaccine Unit to bring it to patients as soon as possible.

Italy enters recession

More disheartening economic news from the eurozone. Italy has joined France in recession, after suffering its worst slump in decades which has wiped out all of the growth since the eurozone crisis, and then some.

This from our business live blog:

Italian GDP shrank by 4.7% in the first quarter of 2020, new figures from ISTAT show.

That is the worst since the data series began in 1995, showing that the coronavirus lockdown measures implemented in recent weeks have had a very damaging impact on growth.

It follows a 0.3% contraction in October to December, meaning Italy has notched up two consecutive quarters of contraction.

You can follow all our live updates on business and economic news here:

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Lockdowns causing record drop in global CO2 emissions

The International Energy Agency has said lockdowns in response to the pandemic will see global emissions fall by a record 8% - the biggest drop on record.

But clearly there is a flip side to this positive news. IEA head Fatih Birol adds:

Given the number of deaths and the economic trauma ... this historic decline in global emissions is absolutely nothing to cheer.

The impact of the global coronavirus outbreak will be so significant that renewable electricity will be the only source resilient enough to survive, according to the world’s energy watchdog.

This is from the Guardian’s report by energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose.

The International Energy Agency said the outbreak of Covid-19 would wipe out demand for fossil fuels by prompting a collapse in energy demand seven times greater than the slump caused by the global financial crisis.

In a report, the IEA said the most severe plunge in energy demand since the second world war would trigger multi-decade lows for the world’s consumption of oil, gas and coal while renewable energy continued to grow.

The steady rise of renewable energy combined with the collapse in demand for fossil fuels means clean electricity will play its largest ever role in the global energy system this year, and help erase a decade’s growth of global carbon emissions.

Read the full report here:

Updated

The Guardian’s excellent data team, specifically Caelainn Barr and Pamela Duncan, have tried to unpick the figures surrounding Covid-19-related deaths in the UK and this piece is really worth a read.

Thanks so much to my colleague Jess Murray for her efforts this morning, I’ll be looking after the global live blog for the next 8 hours or so.

If you have tips and suggestions, or think we’ve missed a story please do get in touch. We appreciate our readers from all over the globe and love it when you get in touch. Personally, I particularly like the kind messages...but welcome constructive criticism too!

I’m on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com and @lexytopping on Twitter. My DMs are open.

Updated

I’m signing off now and handing over to my colleague Lexy Topping who will be running things for the next few hours.

Thanks for everyone for reaching out with their suggestions and comments, I really appreciate it.

The death toll from the outbreak of Covid-19 in Iran increased by 71 in the past 24 hours to 6,028, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on Thursday.

The total number of diagnosed cases of the coronavirus in Iran, one of the Middle Eastern countries hardest hit by the outbreak, has reached 94,640, he said.

In his final message, Kluge said Covid-19 “is not going away any time soon” and healthcare systems must adapt accordingly.

We must be alert and open to new ways of delivering and receiving healthcare.

We cannot risk seeing the tragedy of Covid-19 mirrored in a second catastrophe of ill health from other causes.

He said the new Covid-19 Health System Response Monitor, launched by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, is collating evidence of how health systems are responding to the pandemic.

Updated

At the daily WHO briefing, Kluge said the WHO remained worried about interruptions to routine vaccinations as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which could result in “collateral damage” to children and vulnerable groups.

He warned that measles continues to spread in some parts of Europe, affecting over 6,000 people in the first two months of this year.

We cannot allow this situation to worsen.

We should do everything within our powers to prevent children becoming victims of this pandemic due to their vulnerability of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, diphtheria, mumps and rubella.

Covid-19 cannot be permitted to claim this collateral damage.

Updated

Of the 44 countries in the European region that have implemented domestic movement restrictions, 21 countries have started easing some of these measures, and a further 11 are planning to do so in the coming days, said Hans Kluge, regional director of the World Health Organization in Europe.

Speaking at a daily WHO press briefing, Kluge said countries must remain cautious.

As I have said before – this virus is unforgiving – we must remain vigilant, persevere and be patient, ready to ramp up measures as and when needed.

He said it was important that during the transition period, healthcare systems have the capacity to “operate along a dual track”, delivering regular health services while also able to respond aggressively to the virus when needed.

Updated

The regional president of Madrid has been criticised after defending her administration’s decision to contract fast food companies to feed children from low-income families during Spain’s coronavirus lockdown.

Children in and around the capital who are normally eligible for free school meals have been receiving pizza and sandwiches from well-known Spanish chains despite worries from nutritionists.

Speaking in the regional assembly on Wednesday, Isabel Díaz Ayuso accused her political opponents of using the issue to try to score cheap points. She said:

I don’t think giving a kid pizza is a problem.

I’m sure you don’t like [these foods] and have never eaten them in your life … but I swear that 100% of children love them.

The regional premier took careful aim at critics in the far-left, anti-austerity Unidas Podemos party, claiming that if they were in power, children in Madrid would be eating “Venezuelan meals – which is to say nothing at all”.

Nutritionists, however, remain unimpressed by such arguments.

“So, 100% of kids love pizza,” the nutritionist and dietician Julio Basulto wrote on Twitter.

“Sure they do. But they also love sweets, cakes, ice creams, chocolates, Doritos and Red Bull.”

Basulto said that while the odd pizza did not harm, a steady diet of them would lead to an unbalanced diet.

He also pointed out that the governments of other Spanish regions had found ways to feed children from poorer families without resorting to fast-food chains.

Spain's daily death toll falls to lowest in nearly six weeks

The number of fatalities related to Covid-19 recorded overnight in Spain fell to 268, the lowest in nearly six weeks, the country’s health ministry said.

The overall death toll rose to 24,543 on Thursday, up from 24,275 on the previous day, the ministry said.

The number of cases registered in the country rose to 213,435 from 212,917 the day before.

Updated

Japan Airlines’ annual net profit plunged nearly 65%, the company said on Thursday, as it faced the “unprecedented” impact of the coronavirus pandemic on aviation demand.

JAL said net profit for the fiscal year ending in March fell 64.6% to 53.4bn yen ($500m) on annual sales of 1.4trn yen, down 5.1%.

The results were largely in line with a profit warning the airline issued last week.

A Japan Airlines passenger plane on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.
A Japan Airlines passenger plane on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images

JAL said demand had plunged owing to entry bans around the world, the cancellation of major domestic events, and a state of emergency in Japan with authorities urging citizens not to travel.

“Our group is facing an unprecedented situation,” the company said in a statement.

For now, JAL plans to cut its number of flights by 90% on international routes and by more than 60% on domestic routes from its flight schedule announced before the pandemic.

But the firm said it remained optimistic about the outlook. It said:

The decline in flight demand due to the impact of the new coronavirus is a temporary phenomenon and our mid- and long-term forecast that demand for flights from and to Japan will grow greatly has remained unchanged.

Indonesia confirmed 347 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking the total in the south-east Asian country above 10,000 for the first time with 10,118 infections, said the health ministry official Achmad Yurianto.

Yurianto reported eight new deaths, taking the total fatalities to 792, while 1,522 have recovered.

More than 72,300 people have been tested.

Updated

Czechs say coronavirus spread contained as country reopens

The spread of Covid-19 has been contained in the Czech Republic and the government will continue to cautiously open up the economy, the health minister, Adam Vojtěch, said on Thursday.

The country has seen the number of new cases drop below 100 for the past eight consecutive days, and the number of active cases has also been on the decline.

The ministry said the reproduction rate of the virus had dropped to 0.7, which means every newly infected person passes the infection to fewer than one other person.

There were 7,581 cases in the country as of Thursday morning, and 227 deaths.

Positive developments have prompted the government to start reopening shops and services as well as non-urgent medical care, as doctors fear the impact of neglect in standard care.

Vojtěch told a press conference:

So far we do not see a negative trend resulting from previous relaxations.

We will proceed with caution, gradually in the upcoming waves, and I believe we are on a good path.

The country has also seen a decline in the number of hospitalised patients, to 348 on Wednesday from a peak of 446 on 9 April.

The government, under pressure from businesses and the general population, has lifted most limits on movement and sped up reopening shops and services.

Stores of up to 2,500 square metres reopened on Monday.

People in Prague hold placards during a protest against the response of the Czech government to the Covid-19 pandemic.
People in Prague hold placards during a protest against the response of the Czech government to the Covid-19 pandemic. Photograph: Michal Čížek/AFP via Getty Images

The head of the health ministry’s epidemiological advisory team, Rastislav Mad’ar, has cautioned about the faster relaxations, saying they may be risky.

Schools are not to reopen fully until September, and the government is also keeping in place an obligation to wear face masks in public and a ban on large public gatherings.

The government is hoping a system of tracing and testing contacts of infected people, newly boosted by an army of testers, mobile apps and location data from phones and payment card transactions, will be enough to contain any flare-ups without the need to reintroduce blanket restrictions.

Updated

Malaysian health authorities reported 57 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, raising the cumulative total to 6,002 cases.

The health ministry also reported two new deaths, bringing the total fatalities to 102.

Schools in Hungary will remain closed until the end of May and events with more than 500 participants cannot be held until 15 August, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said on Thursday.

Orbán announced on Wednesday that some restrictions outside Budapest imposed to contain the coronavirus outbreak will be lifted, starting next week.

Existing restrictions will continue for now in the capital, which has reported the highest number of coronavirus infections and deaths in the country.

Updated

The German government’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), this morning announced the latest reproduction number of the novel coronavirus as 0.75.

Lothar Wieler, the RKI’s president, said the latest official data showed a “pleasing development”, indicating the spread of the virus in Germany was slowing down.

The basic reproduction rate (R), which indicates how many new cases one infected person generates on average, had been announced as edging up to one in Monday’s report – causing concern as it seemed to suggest the spread of the virus was regaining momentum.

The RKI, which uses a method called nowcasting to estimate the R number, said while it had in recent days tweaked the method by which it estimated the number of new infections, the reproduction numbers from the start and the end of the week were still comparable.

Germany on Thursday recorded a total of 159,119 confirmed Covid-19 infections, an increase of 1,478 compared with yesterday.

Wieler said the capacity for testing for the virus had been ramped up in Germany, to 860,000 tests a week.

476,000 tests were carried out last week, out of which 5.4% were positive.

Updated

Sailors at a Sri Lankan naval base have become the biggest cluster of coronavirus infections in the Indian Ocean island nation, with 248 testing positive for the disease, authorities said on Thursday.

Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lt Gen Shavendra Silva, said that out of 30 cases discovered in the last 24 hours, 22 are navy sailors and another seven had close contact with them.

The virus is believed to have entered the camp on the outskirts of the capital, Colombo, last week when sailors were deployed to find a group of drug addicts who had contact with a Covid-19 patient and were evading quarantine.

The virus then spread to different parts of the country when sailors went on home leave.

About 4,000 navy troops are being quarantined inside the camp while 242 relatives have been taken to four quarantine centres run by the navy.

A Sri Lankan public health inspector walks along a locked down area in Colombo.
A Sri Lankan public health inspector walks along a locked down area in Colombo. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP

Sri Lanka has had 649 Covid-19 patients and seven deaths. About half of the sick were diagnosed after 22 April and include 257 sailors or close contacts.

According to the newspaper Lankadeepa, at least six villages have been sealed off this week in different parts of Sri Lanka because of exposure to the sailors who returned home.

About 1,300 other people have been asked to self-quarantine, the paper reported.

In a bid to control the spread of the virus, the government has cancelled home leaves for troops and ordered them to return to camps.

On Wednesday night, Sri Lanka reimposed a 24-hour countrywide curfew, which had been in force since 20 March but was relaxed during daytime in more than two-thirds of the country.

Police said they had arrested more than 41,000 curfew violators since last month.

Updated

The Philippines reported 276 new coronavirus infections and 10 more deaths, bringing its total number of cases to 8,488 and fatalities to 568.

It also said 20 more individuals had recovered, bringing total recoveries to 1,043.

Updated

The number of people out of work in Germany increased by 373,000 to 2.64 million in April as the coronavirus outbreak began to bite, data from the labour office showed on Thursday, and the unemployment rate increased to 5.8%.

The jobless rate had stood at 5.0% in seasonally adjusted terms in March.

The labour office said 751,000 requests for short-time work for a total of 10.1 million people were made in March and until 26 April.

It said that did not mean all of those people would actually end up on the short-time work scheme.

For comparison, in the crisis year of 2009, applications for the short-time scheme were made for 3.3 million people, the labour office said.

Short-time work is a form of state aid that allows employers to switch employees to shorter working hours during an economic downturn to keep them on the payroll.

Updated

Luxembourg plans to test its entire population for coronavirus, the education minister, Claude Meisch, said on Tuesday.

The small European country, which borders France, Germany and Belgium, has an estimated population of just over 600,000.

The Luxembourg Times reports the country has a budget of €40m for the tests, provided by the ministry of higher education and research.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Meisch said:

We must live with the virus and control it.

More testing will give people more freedom. The government is continuing to look into how we can move forward with the deconfinement measures.

Testing began on Tuesday, with priority for children who are set to return to school from 4 May.

The rest of the population will be tested on a voluntary basis at 17 stations around the country, with cross-border workers also encouraged to be tested.

By 19 May, Luxembourg is set to have the capacity to test 20,000 people a day.

In Afghanistan, the health ministry has reported its biggest daily rise of new coronavirus cases amid intensified warfare across the country.

Wahid Majroh, the deputy health minister, said on Thursday that 232 patients tested positive for Covid-19 over the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections to 2,171.

Three more Covid-19 patients died overnight, pushing the total number of deaths to 64.

For days Afghanistan was struggling with a shortage of diagnostic testing equipment. A health ministry spokesman said that problem had now been solved and testing capacity was rising.

Kabul is so far the country’s worst-affected area, with 573 confirmed cases and 20 more reported today.

Despite lockdowns in several provinces to contain spread of the virus, in most cities streets are still crowded with vehicles and people walking freely, which experts fear will make the fight against the coronavirus more challenging.

Health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar warned the public on Wednesday that the peak of the virus is yet to come and said the “number of new infections is rising daily so we’re heading toward the peak and I ask people to stay at home”.

Meanwhile, war continues to rage across the country. At least five civilians, including women and children, were killed in Ghazni province Wednesday evening.

According to a Ghazni police statement, the incident occurred when a civilian’s vehicle hit a Taliban roadside mine in Andar district.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has said more than 533 civilians, including 152 children, were killed in the first quarter of 2020.

Updated

China has no interest in interfering in the US presidential election, it said on Thursday, following comments by President Donald Trump that Beijing “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in November.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, told reporters during a daily briefing that the election was an internal affair of the United States and that Beijing hoped Americans would not try to drag China into it.

“China will do anything they can to have me lose this race,” Trump said during an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, adding that he believes Beijing wants his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, to win the race to ease the pressure Trump has placed on China over trade, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and other issues.

Updated

The chief executive of British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said it would know by June or July whether a coronavirus vaccine it is working on with the University of Oxford will be effective or not.

CEO Pascal Soriot told the BBC on Thursday:

By June, July we will already have a very good idea of the direction of travel in terms of its potential efficacy.

We’ll continue working with the Oxford Vaccine Unit to bring it to patients and to regulatory authorities first of all as soon as possible.

Updated

War-torn Yemen reports first virus deaths

Yemen has reported its first two deaths and a new cluster of Covid-19 cases amid worries that the virus has been circulating undetected for some time and attempts at a humanitarian ceasefire to contain the new crisis are failing.

Five new cases were confirmed in the southern city of Aden on Wednesday night, leading the local separatist administration - which renewed calls for independence last week - to announce a two-week shutdown.

Two of the patients died after testing positive for the coronavirus, officials said overnight.

Yemen has previously only reported one case, a port worker in the town of al-Shihr some 540km away. Although he made a full recovery, officials were unable to identify patient zero.

A health worker sprays disinfectant to help fight the spread of coronavirus in Sana’a, Yemen.
A health worker sprays disinfectant to help fight the spread of coronavirus in Sana’a, Yemen. Photograph: Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images

Health workers and aid agencies have been dreading a widespread outbreak of coronavirus in Yemen, where testing facilities are almost non-existent and five years of war have decimated the medical sector.

Worst-case scenario planning from the World Health Organization says up to 93% of the population could become infected.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting against Iran-backed Houthi rebels announced a unilateral ceasefire last month to help Yemen contain the spread of Covid-19, but fighting in several areas has worsened instead.

Coalition airstrikes on Houthi territory increased by 30% last week, war monitor the Yemen Data Project said on Wednesday.

Updated

Russia cases pass 100,000 with record daily rise

Russia reported 7,099 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, a record daily rise, bringing its nationwide tally to 106,498.

The official nationwide death toll rose to 1,073 after 101 people died in the last 24 hours, Russia’s coronavirus crisis response centre said.

Updated

The German chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff said on Thursday that social distancing measures in Europe’s largest economy would “certainly” be extended until 10 May for the time being.

Helge Braun told broadcaster n-tv a larger discussion about further steps to ease the lockdown would happen on 6 May.

Some shops have already reopened.

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, is likely to extend a nationwide state of emergency imposed over the coronavirus, possibly by another month, local media reported on Thursday.

The measure was initially declared on 7 April across seven regions experiencing a spike in infections, but was later expanded to cover the entire country.

With the initial month-long period coming to an end next week after the country’s annual Golden Week holidays, local media reported that Abe was now expected to extend the measure, either until the end of May or for another full month until 6 June.

In parliament on Thursday, Abe said the country’s healthcare system continues to face an “extremely tough situation”.

He told lawmakers on Wednesday that “even now, we are seeing new infections”, adding: “Can we say on May 6 the state of emergency is over? I think severe situations are continuing.”

Local media, including the Nikkei newspaper, reported the government would convene a panel of experts on Friday to discuss the virus and the state of emergency, adding that the experts had already informally backed a move to extend the measures.

It was not yet clear when any extension would be announced, but Abe has said he will not wait until the last minute, to allow business and institutions including schools time to prepare accordingly.

The declaration has limited effect compared with measures seen in some parts of Europe and elsewhere. It allows governors to call on people to stay at home and urge businesses to close, but there are no punishments for those who fail to comply.

Updated

The Italian central government is set to issue an injunction, ANSA news agency reports, after authorities in the southern region of Calabria gave the all clear for bars and restaurants with outside tables to reopen, sources said on Thursday after a cabinet meeting.

The move is at odds with a central government decree to gradually relax the coronavirus lockdown, which states that bars and restaurants should not reopen until June, except for takeaway services.

It also clashes with a previous decree that keeps the current lockdown measures in force until Monday.

Regions with centre-right governors are pressing to have more autonomy in deciding how to ease the lockdown.

But the regional affairs minister, Francesco Boccia, said on Wednesday that regional governments must move in step with the central government in Rome on relaxing lockdown measures or they will be cited for not complying. He said:

The regions must show the same unity as that requested from citizens.

Updated

Singapore confirmed 528 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, its health ministry said, taking the city state’s total cases to 16,169.

Updated

AstraZeneca will make and distribute globally the University of Oxford’s potential Covid-19 vaccine, the British drugmaker said on Thursday.

The Cambridge-based company did not give details on when it will start producing the vaccine.

While there are more than 70 vaccines in development for the coronavirus, industry experts say they expect development of a successful vaccine to take at least 12-18 months, compared with the average vaccine development time of 5-7 years.

The company’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said in a statement:

Our hope is that, by joining forces, we can accelerate the globalisation of a vaccine to combat the virus and protect people from the deadliest pandemic in a generation.

The Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group have been working on a vaccine, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, and said earlier this month large-scale production capacity was being put in place to make millions of doses even before trials show whether it is effective.

The team last week dosed the first volunteers in a trial of the vaccine, with possible early readouts in May.

Microbiologist Elisa Granato being injected as Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine trial began last week.
Microbiologist Elisa Granato being injected as Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine trial began last week. Photograph: PA

Updated

Potentially some positive news for the job market in all the gloom.

Finance, technology and consumer goods firms are hiring tens of thousands in the United States and other countries, according to data from professional networking site LinkedIn.

Across seven countries in North America, Europe and Asia, healthcare providers are among the busiest recruiters given the ongoing battle against Covid-19, LinkedIn said.

But lifestyle changes during lockdown are also driving demand for financial consultants, factory workers, animators and game designers, and delivery workers.

Overall, the hiring rate has plunged in the first quarter from the year-ago period, and in late April remains lower than a year ago across most countries surveyed by the platform.

But the data offers a glimmer of hope, with a gradual uptick in China where the coronavirus emerged last year and which leads the world in surfacing from a months-long lockdown.

LinkedIn, with over 690 million users worldwide, counts new hires when people add a new employer to their profile.

The rate is the number of new hires divided by the total number of LinkedIn members in a country.

The figures, tracked since mid-February, are not corroborated by official jobs data and do not represent the actual number of jobs in an economy. Government figures are usually released with a time-lag of several weeks.

Guy Berger, principal economist at LinkedIn in California, told Reuters:

We are confident that our data is directionally correct in that there has been a huge decline in hiring in the US and abroad.

According to the data, hiring in China plummeted 50% during the height of its coronavirus crisis in mid-February, compared with 12 months earlier.

Since restrictions were eased in early April, the hiring rate has inched up, and for the week ending 24 April was 3% lower than the same period in 2019.

Hiring in the US, UK, France and Italy – which lead the world in coronavirus-related deaths – remains hugely depressed, but is falling less rapidly than a few weeks ago as the countries pass the peak of their epidemics, LinkedIn said.

Updated

On Sunday Thailand will start reopening some businesses, such as outdoor markets, barber shops and pet groomers, after the number of new coronavirus infections dropped into single digits this week, a government spokesman said.

The south-east Asian nation reported seven new infections but no deaths on Thursday, taking its tally since the outbreak began in January to 2,954 cases, with the death toll staying at 54.

Even after Sunday’s reopening, a nighttime curfew and ban on sales of alcohol will stay until the end of May unless otherwise specified, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin of the government’s centre for Covid-19 situation administration.

Among the six categories set to reopen are small retailers, street food stalls and restaurants outside shopping malls, and parks and outdoor sports facilities, he told a news conference.

But department stores, movie theatres, gyms and spas, as well as most indoor sports venues, will stay closed to ensure there are no large gatherings.

A McDonald’s restaurant in Bangkok, which has been take away-only during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A McDonald’s restaurant in Bangkok, which has been take away-only during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photograph: Yuttachai Kongprasert/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Thailand this week extended an emergency decree until the end of May, effectively prolonging some measures already in place.

These include a ban on incoming international passenger flights, Taweesin said, as well as the alcohol ban ordered on 10 April.

“Unless changes are announced, alcohol sales will not happen at this time,” Taweesin said.

Now it will watch the situation for the next 14 days to decide whether to free up more businesses or clamp down again to contain the virus. Taweesin said:

If the number of infections stays stable, we will ease restrictions further.

But if the number rises to double or triple digits again, we will have to reassess everything.

Updated

The holiest month on the Islamic calendar, Ramadan is usually a time when Muslims come together for prayer and to share food after fasting from dawn to dusk.

But in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, many Muslims are confined to their homes, unable to travel, and public venues, including many mosques, are shut.

An elderly Kurdish man sits reading the holy Koran during Ramadan at an empty mosque in the city of Qamishli in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province.
An elderly Kurdish man sits reading the holy Qur’an during Ramadan at an empty mosque in the city of Qamishli in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province. Photograph: Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images
Men read the Qur’an during the first day of Ramadan at a mosque in Aceh, Indonesia.
Men read the Qur’an during the first day of Ramadan at a mosque in Aceh, Indonesia. Photograph: Heri Juanda/AP
Esat Sahin, Imam of the iconic Fatih Mosque, holds a prayer held without public due to the coronavirus restrictions in Istanbul.
Esat Sahin, Imam of the iconic Fatih Mosque, holds a prayer held without public due to the coronavirus restrictions in Istanbul. Photograph: Emrah Gürel/AP
A Muslim family in Sydney, Australia have been engaging with online prayer sessions and workshops, while isolating at home.
A Muslim family in Sydney, Australia have been engaging with online prayer sessions and workshops, while isolating at home.

Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Updated

Britain could miss its target of carrying out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April, the justice minister, Robert Buckland, said on Thursday.

Some 52,429 tests were carried out on Wednesday, according to the latest figures, putting Britain on course to miss the target set by the health minister.

“Even if it isn’t met, we are well on our way to ramping this up,” Buckland told the BBC.

Ukraine now has 10,406 confirmed coronavirus cases and 261 deaths, the health minister, Maksym Stepanov, told a briefing on Thursday.

The government has put lockdown measures in place until 11 May and has said it expects the pandemic to peak in Ukraine early next month.

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has angered many in Brazil after he responded to questions about the country’s death toll from Covid-19 by saying: “So what?”

This week, Brazil’s coronavirus death toll topped 5,000 and there are nearly 80,000 confirmed cases reported.

The president said:

So what? I mourn [the deaths], what do you want me to do?

I am called Messias [reference to his surname Messias, which means Messiah in Portuguese] but I can’t perform miracles.

Updated

It’s Jessica Murray here, I’ll be leading the live blog covering coronavirus developments across the globe (mainly outside the UK) for the next few hours.

As usual, feel free to get in touch with your questions and personal experiences via jessica.murray@theguardian.com or @journojess_ on Twitter, and I’ll do my best to respond to as many messages as I can.

In California, governor Gavin Newsom is likely to announce on Thursday the closure of the state’s beaches and parks after crowds jammed beaches last weekend, according to a memo cited by local media.

People enjoy the beach amid the coronavirus pandemic in Huntington Beach, California on 25 April.
People enjoy the beach amid the coronavirus pandemic in Huntington Beach, California on 25 April. Photograph: Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images

The memo was sent by the governor’s office to California’s police chiefs, local media reported.

Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment late on Wednesday.

According to the memo, posted by the FOX 11 Los Angeles channel:

After the well-publicized media coverage of overcrowded beaches this past weekend, in violation of Governor Newsom’s Shelter in Place Order, the Governor will be announcing tomorrow that ALL beaches and all state parks in California will be closed, effective Friday, May 1st.

Updated

Olive and Mabel are back (phew!), this time competing for “who can disgrace themselves more on a walk”:

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. My colleague Jessica Murray will be with you on the blog for the next few hours.

Meanwhile, I have spilled the beans on how I broke my foot – while blogging – two weeks ago:

My colleague Graeme Wearden has fired up our business liveblog, where he reports that France has plunged into recession, as the Covid-19 lockdown batters its economy.

Data just released shows that French GDP contracted by 5.8% in the first three months of 2020, a very sharp decline in activity.

That’s the worst contraction since the second war, and follows a 0.1% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2019 - meaning the eurozone’s second-largest economy is now officially in recession.

Follow the coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business below:

Summary

  • The official global death toll passes 225,000. At least 227,644 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University data. More than 3,193,961 confirmed infection shave been recorded worldwide.
  • South Korea reports no new domestic cases for first time since 29 February. South Korea reported on Thursday no new domestic coronavirus cases for the first time since its 29 February peak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
  • Trump says China wants him to lose 2020 election. US president Donald Trump said that coronavirus has “upset very badly” the US trade deal with China, and that China “will do anything they can to have me lose in 2020” in an interview with Reuters. Trump does not see the 2020 election as being a referendum on his handling of the pandemic, he said.
  • China’s Forbidden City will reopen on Friday. Three months after it closed due to the coronavirus crisis, Beijing’s sprawling Forbidden City will reopen, in the latest signal that the country has brought the disease under control. The imperial palace sitting across Tiananmen Square was shut down on 25 January as authorities closed tourist attractions and took other extraordinary measures to contain the virus, including locking down an entire province.
  • Japan expected to extend state of emergency by a month. Japan’s government is expected to extend a nationwide state of emergency for another month, after the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, described the coronavirus outbreak as “severe”.
  • US drug trial shows ‘clear cut’ effect, says top medic. While a Chinese trial demonstrated no “significant clinical benefits” to administering the antiviral drug remdesivir to Covid-19 patients, a separate trial in the US shows a “clear-cut” effect, according to the head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci.
  • Police called after New York funeral home stores bodies in trucks. Police were called to a Brooklyn neighbourhood Wednesday after a funeral home overwhelmed by the coronavirus resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks, and a passerby complained about the smell, officials said.
  • More cases of rare syndrome in children. Doctors around the world have reported more cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that appears to be linked to coronavirus infections. Nearly 100 cases of the unusual illness have emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland now reported to be investigating the condition.
  • South Africa’s virus cases jump past 5,000 after highest daily rise. The number of coronavirus cases in South Africa surged past the 5,000 mark on Thursday after it saw the largest single-day jump to date, health ministry figures showed. A total of 354 new cases were confirmed on Thursday, bringing the overall total to 5,350, and the number of fatalities spiked by 10 to 103.

Why we seem to be dreaming much more – and often of insects

From going to bed too late thanks to endless scrolling through theories about the pandemic, to waking up in the night worrying, it is safe to say that Covid-19 is wreaking havoc with our sleep. A major survey conducted by King’s College London with Ipsos Mori showed that two in five people in the UK have reported sleep disturbance. Prof Bobby Duffy, the research lead and director of the Policy Institute at King’s, says: “There is a clear relationship between increased stress and impact on sleep; 53% of those who said they found the crisis stressful reported sleep difficulties.” But many people around the world are also experiencing a new phenomenon: pandemic dreams:

Several researchers are collecting dream data during the pandemic, including Dr Deirdre Barrett, a clinical and evolutionary psychologist at Harvard Medical School.

Some dreams she has collected during the current pandemic are literal – “people are having trouble breathing or spiking a fever” – but many are abstract. After all, we know coronavirus is there, but we can’t see it. “There are earthquakes, tidal waves and tornadoes; every kind of uncontrollable disaster. But the biggest dream cluster is bugs; flying bugs attacking the dreamer, cockroaches swarming, masses of squirming worms.”

Many people around the world are also experiencing a new phenomenon: pandemic dreams.
Many people around the world are also experiencing a new phenomenon: pandemic dreams. Photograph: Marta Orlowska/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo

The Dutch are gambling on an ‘intelligent lockdown’ to beat coronavirus, AFP reports. Shops are open and families cycle along in the sunny spring weather in the Netherlands, which has opted for what it calls an “intelligent lockdown” to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

In contrast to most other European countries, where people are virtually housebound, the Dutch authorities have merely advised people to stay home and to keep 1.5 metres (five feet) of social distance.

A police officer asks people to stay at a safe distance to others in the Vondelpark as The Netherlands marks King’s day amid the coronavirus pandemic on 27 April 2020 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
A police officer asks people to stay at a safe distance to others in the Vondelpark as The Netherlands marks King’s day amid the coronavirus pandemic on 27 April 2020 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images

While restaurants, bars, museums and its infamous sex clubs remain shut, and the famed cannabis ‘coffee shops’ are open for takeaway only, the outdoors-loving Dutch are otherwise allowed to leave home when they want. Schools meanwhile start to reopen from 11 May.

The Netherlands has the 14th-highest number of confirmed infections worldwide, with 38,998, and 4,727 people have lost their lives in the country so far.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte - who came up with the phrase “intelligent lockdown” - has been clear on the policy. “We don’t work like that in the Netherlands, where the government says ‘you have to do this, you have to do that,” Rutte told a press conference at the end of March.

The authorities have admonished the public when the country’s beaches have become too crowded, but while police have closed car parks to stop crowds flocking there at the weekends, they remain open.

The Dutch position - very similar to Sweden’s - also reflects a wider philosophical split in both Europe and the world on how to balance the need to curb the disease against the catastrophic economic damage caused by harsh lockdowns.

Greta Thunberg donates $100,000 to support children during pandemic

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has donated a $100,000 prize she won from a Danish foundation to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for use against the COVID-19 pandemic, the world body said Thursday.

“Like the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic is a child rights crisis,” Thunberg, 17, was quoted as saying in the UNICEF statement.

“It will affect all children, now and in the long term, but vulnerable groups will be impacted the most,” she added.

“I’m asking everyone to step up and join me in support of UNICEF’s vital work to save children’s lives, to protect health and continue education.”

Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg.
Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

The Danish anti-poverty non-governmental organisation, Human Act, will match the $100,000 donation, the statement added.

UNICEF said the funds would give it a boost as it struggles to support children impacted by anti-virus lockdowns and school closures, particularly in the fields of “food shortages, strained health care systems, violence and lost education.”

Thunberg said at the end of March that she had “likely” contracted the coronavirus, after experiencing several symptoms after a trip to central Europe.

Updated

Here’s a look at Thursday’s front pages in the UK on Thursday, 30 April:

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Emotional fallout of Covid-19 lockdown yet to peak, says New Zealand scientist

New Zealand has begun moving out of a strict national lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19, but the emotional consequences of the shutdown are yet to peak, says one of the country’s veteran scientists.

“We’re not yet at the peak of the distress as a result of the lockdown. It will emerge over the coming weeks,” said Sir Peter Gluckman, who was the chief science advisor to New Zealand’s prime minister from 2009 until 2018.

“With that will emerge some groups of people who will do well, they will find in the change opportunity, but many people who will be very uncertain, very scared, frustrated, angry, and we know from other disasters that about 10% or more even will progress to actual depression and to suicidality.”

However Gluckman also said the country possessed unique assets that could see it navigate the coronavirus crisis better than other nations would.

In the UK, the cabinet will meet today to discuss when to start easing the lockdown as the government deadline for testing 100,000 people per day looks like passing without the target being reached. Despite a record 52,000 tests being carried out on Wednesday, 19,000 were re-tests and hospital leaders criticised ministers for “a series of frequent tactical announcements” about testing targets. They said it was a “red herring” that had distracted from wider policy failures.

Just days after Matt Hancock pledged to meet the 100,000 target by the end of April, the government turned down an offer of 10,000 testing kits a day from a US company. The chief coroner has issued guidelines that inquests into the death of NHS staff should not examine the impact of lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) on wards.

Some beautiful photos here from the UK of NHS volunteers:

Documentary photographer Olivia Harris has been encountering the broad section of society helping others during the pandemic
Documentary photographer Olivia Harris has been encountering the broad section of society helping others during the pandemic Photograph: Olivia Harris

Photographer Olivia Harris writes of the photo essay:

The stories are really what make the pictures interesting. Everyone I’ve photographed is helping out the NHS in one way or another, but I found community groups, or mutual aid networks, are much more active on the ground. I’m interested by the comparative effectiveness of the mutual aid structure v the lumbering official NHS volunteer scheme. Under that scheme, people are referred for help by their GPs. In some cases, volunteers have called the person “in need” and they have no idea why they are being contacted. Mutual aid networks, in comparison, work almost street by street, with most doors have had a flyer offering help pushed through the letterbox. These networks are also not hamstrung by concerns about data protection and privacy regulations or worries about insurance.

Dr Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus taskforce coordinator is known for her reassuring appearances at Donald Trump’s erratic and often astonishing White House press briefings.

Most recently, a video of her face as the US president suggested injecting disinfectant into human beings might cure coronavirus went viral. As Trump spoke, Birx appeared to purse her lips and looked down, her hands clasped in her lap. Around her neck and shoulders was a silk scarf, loosely tied – almost in the style of a girl scout.

The scarf was Hermès. Or, to be precise, Hermès’ “Retour à la Terre”, in peach. We know this because there is now an Instagram account devoted to Dr Birx’s scarves. She wears a different one almost every day, tied in a variety of styles, a move that has spawned her scarves their own online fanbase.

04.10.20 | Echo “Cherry Blossoms”

Strangely, Dr Birx has not had much time to comment on the meaning behind her scarves. We know that one, an Afework Tekle art silk scarf from Ethiopia, was a gift from a colleague. Another, also Hermès, costs around US$700. Some, like one called Eagle and another called Daughters of the American Revolution, are patriotic.

Then there’s the scarf featuring a cherry blossom motif, which may or may not be a reference to BrainDead, a TV show in which aliens living in Washington’s cherry trees take over the minds of politicians. It seems likelier that Dr Birx had the Northern Hemisphere spring on her mind – but who knows?

Updated

More now on South Korea, which has recorded no new domestic cases of Covid-19 for first time since February.

The KCDC reported four new infections, all imported cases, taking the national tally to 10,765. The death toll rose by one to 247, while 9,059 have been discharged.

Of the total, 1,065 were imported cases, where more than 90% were Koreans, according to a KCDC statement.

South Korea’s caseload has been slowing in recent weeks after it recorded hundreds of new cases every day between late February and early March. The government has subsequently relaxed some of its social distancing guidelines. It expected to ease up on more restrictions in coming days if its caseload maintains a decline.

The health authorities also concluded no local transmission occurred from a parliamentary election this month, where authorities took safety measures, including requiring voters to wear masks and plastic gloves when casting ballots.

“Twenty-nine million voters participated in the 15 April parliamentary election ... Not one case related to the election has been reported during the 14 days of incubation period,” Yoon Tae-ho, director general for public health policy, told a briefing.

Summary

  • The official global death toll passed 225,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data, with the official toll at 227,644. At least 3,193,961 people have been infected worldwide.
  • South Korea reports no new domestic cases for first time since 29 February. South Korea reported on Thursday no new domestic coronavirus cases for the first time since its 29 February peak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
  • Trump says China wants him to lose 2020 election. Trump said that coronavirus has “upset very badly” the US trade deal with China, and that China “will do anything they can to have me lose in 2020.”Trump does not see the 2020 election as being a referendum on his handling of the pandemic, he said.
  • Donald Trump has said the federal government will not be extending its coronavirus social distancing guidelines once they expire on Thursday. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who have died of coronavirus surpassed 60,000, a toll far higher than any other country.
  • China’s Forbidden City will reopen on Friday, three months after it closed due to the coronavirus crisis - the latest signal that the country has brought the disease under control. The sprawling imperial palace was shut down on January 25.
  • Japan expected to extend state of emergency by a month. Japan’s government is expected to extend a nationwide state of emergency for another month, after the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, described the coronavirus outbreak as “severe”.
  • US drug trial shows ‘clear cut’ effect, says top medic. While a Chinese trial demonstrated no “significant clinical benefits” to administering the antiviral drug remdesivir to Covid-19 patients, a separate trial in the US shows a “clear-cut” effect, according to the head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci.
  • Police called after New York funeral home puts bodies in trucks. Police were called to a Brooklyn funeral home Wednesday after it resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented truck, the Associated Press reported.
  • More cases of ‘Covid-linked’ syndrome in children. Doctors around the world have reported more cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that appears to be linked to coronavirus infections. Nearly 100 cases of the unusual illness have emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland now reported to be investigating the condition.
  • South Africa’s virus cases jump past 5,000 after highest daily rise. The number of coronavirus cases in South Africa surged past the 5,000 mark on Thursday after it saw the largest single-day jump to date, health ministry figures showed. A total of 354 new cases were confirmed on Thursday, bringing the overall total to 5,350, and the number of fatalities spiked by 10 to 103.
  • Half world’s workers ‘at risk of unemployment’. The International Labour Organisation has warned that almost half the global workforce – 1.6 billion people – are in “immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed” by the economic impact of Covid-19, Philip Inman, a Guardian economics writer, reports.
  • Official UK death toll up by 4,419, after the government included deaths outside hospital for the first time. As of 5pm on Tuesday, total of 26,097 patients had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, according to Public Health England.
  • Brazil sees record increase in cases. Brazil has reported a record increase in cases, with its ministry of health confirming 6,276 more infections in a 24-hour period, taking the country’s total to 78,162.
  • Ireland looks set to extend its lockdown, despite growing calls to ease restrictions and salvage the economy.The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said on Wednesday that new cases of Covid-19 infections, deaths and intensive care admissions appeared too high to start relaxing rules that are to expire on 5 May.
  • Swiss government extends ban on large public events. The Swiss government has extended its ban on public events exceeding 1000 people until the end of August, even as it announced the easing of some other restrictions on sporting events, shops, restaurants and museums.
  • Sweden passes 20,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Sweden rose past the 20,000 mark on Wednesday, after the Nordic country reported another 681 infections.
  • Five coronavirus cases have been reported in Aden, southern Yemen, by the country’s internationally recognised government, raising the prospect that the war-ravaged country will soon also have an outbreak of the new disease.
  • China’s parliament is to hold its annual meeting from 22 May - more than two months later than planned. Conditions for holding the meeting have been met as the coronavirus situation has improved, decision makers said.
  • Russia’s coronavirus case tally neared the 100,000 milestone,after the country reported 5,841 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing its overall nationwide tally to 99,399, Reuters reports.
  • UK government is still aiming for 100,000 daily tests by tomorrow, according to the environment secretary, George Eustice. He said the search for an effective antibody test was still under way and denied that earlier introduction of testing at care homes would have saved lives.
  • The coronavirus outbreak needs to be contained before 2021 Olympics can go ahead, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said. “The Olympic Games must be held in a way that shows the world has won its battle against the coronavirus pandemic.”
  • The UK prime minister Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds announced the birth of a baby boy. Johnson returned to frontline work on Monday after falling ill with coronavirus and spending time in intensive care.
  • Air passenger numbers are down 99% in the UK, the home secretary told MPs, as she defended the government’s decision not to test individuals entering the country. On Friday, a total of 9,906 people entered the country.

Trump claims China will ‘do anything’ to stop his re-election as coronavirus row escalates

The Guardian’s Alison Rourke and Lily Kuo report:

Donald Trump has claimed that China’s handling of the coronavirus is proof that Beijing “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in November.

In an interview with Reuters, the US president said he was looking at different options in terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus. “I can do a lot,” he said, without going into detail.

Trump has increasingly blamed China for the pandemic and on Wednesday again said Beijing should have let the world know about the coronavirus much sooner. He also speculated about retaliation: “There are many things I can do,” he said. “We’re looking for what happened.”

For the first time, Trump linked Beijing to his re-election chances in November. “China will do anything they can to have me lose this race,” he said, adding that he believed China wants his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, to win the race to ease the pressure on US-China trade relations.

“They’re constantly using public relations to try to make it like they’re innocent parties,” he said of Chinese officials.

Podcast: what has the BCG vaccine got to do with Covid-19?

Sarah Boseley talks to Prof Helen McShane about why there has been interest in the tuberculosis vaccine and whether it could play a role in protecting us against Covid-19:

Papua New Guinea’s health minister, who took the job just a few months before the coronavirus outbreak hit, has spoken about his country’s fight to prepare for Covid-19, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.

The Pacific nation just north of Australia is dealing with outbreaks of malaria, dengue fever, drug-resistant tuberculosis and had a recent outbreak of polio. Its health system is notoriously fractured and underfunded.

PPE to assist with Papua New Guinea’s fight against the coronavirus arrives in Port Moresby and is handed to Jelta Wong, Papua New Guinea’s health minister, as part of the PNGAusPartnership.
PPE to assist with Papua New Guinea’s fight against the coronavirus arrives in Port Moresby and is handed to Jelta Wong, Papua New Guinea’s health minister, as part of the PNGAusPartnership. Photograph: Australian High Commission Port Moresby

So far there have been eight cases detected in the country of roughly 9 million people, and no deaths. The cases are spread across four regions and the sources of some cases are unknown, sparking fear that there could be widespread undetected community transmission.

There are still grave concerns that Papua New Guinea – which Wong estimates has 600 to 700 doctors, 3,000 hospital beds and just 15 ventilators – is not set up to cope if the outbreak worsens.

“Our biggest problem is PPE gear,” says Wong. “When we first started out, we didn’t have any PPE gear in the country … the National Department of Health [NDOH] was behind the eight ball. We definitely missed the boat a few times when we tried to get PPE gear and we didn’t pay for it in time and we lost out to other countries, the bigger countries.”

Updated

NHS looks into taking BAME staff off frontline for their safety

NHS staff from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds will be given different roles away from the frontline under plans to reduce their disproportionately high death rate from Covid-19.

BAME personnel should be “risk-assessed” and reassigned to duties that leave them at lesser risk of contracting coronavirus, under guidance set out by NHS bosses in England.

The move was unveiled in a letter sent on Wednesday to hospital trusts, providers of mental health care, ambulance services and organisations providing community-based healthcare.

Life is never easy for China’s nearly 300 million migrant workers, but with the coronavirus zapping jobs at a historic clip, life is particularly difficult, AFP reports.

The global pandemic will force millions worldwide to spend Friday’s International Workers Day in unemployment and uncertainty.

But perhaps nowhere is the pressure felt as keenly as in the world’s second-largest economy, where the Communist Party has long staked its legitimacy on delivering jobs and prosperity in return for public acquiescence to its political monopoly.

The situation raises the spectre of millions of angry citizens potentially protesting over their misfortune.

At this point, nobody expects mass worker unrest in tightly controlled China, but joblessness is soaring after the economy shrank for the first time in decades in the first three months of the year.

China has cancelled the 2020 Boao Forum for Asia, which Beijing is trying to promote as the region’s answer to Davos, due to the coronavirus epidemic, the official China News agency reported on Thursday.

The annual conference, initially scheduled for March 24-27, was postponed in early March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which first emerged late last year in China.
The virus has so far killed more than 4,600 and infected nearly 83,000 in mainland China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen on a screens speaking during the opening of Boao Forum For Asia in 2018.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen on a screens speaking during the opening of Boao Forum For Asia in 2018. Photograph: Stringer/EPA

South Korea reports no new domestic cases for first time since 29 February

South Korea reported on Thursday no new domestic coronavirus cases for the first time since its 29 February peak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.

KCDC reported four new infections, all imported cases, taking the national tally to 10,765. The death toll rose by one to 247.

Buddhists have their temperatures checked before entering Jogye Temple in Seoul, South Korea, 30 April 2020.
Buddhists have their temperatures checked before entering Jogye Temple in Seoul, South Korea, 30 April 2020. Photograph: YONHAP/EPA

Updated

More from Japan, where one of the country’s best-known comedians has apologised for suggesting that financial hardship caused by the coronavirus outbreak would force attractive women to work in the commercial sex industry once the crisis is over.

Takashi Okamura, one half of the comedy duo Ninety-nine, said he deeply regretted” the remarks, made late last week during his All Night Nippon radio show.
The 49-year-old said in a statement that he had made the comments “without considering circumstances around the world,” adding they were “extremely inappropriate towards people who are in a tough position”, according to the Kyodo news agency.

Okamura had been responding to a listener who complained that he was unable to visit commercial sex establishements during the pandemic. “After the coronavirus is over, something fantastic will happen,” Okamura responded. “You will think, ‘I’ve never seen girls like this’ ... so please hold on, save your money and spend it (in the sex industry)“ once the pandemic has ended.

Nippon Broadcasting System, which airs the show, said Okamura’s remarks showed “a lack of understanding of the current coronavirus crisis, as well as a lack of respect for women”.

Japan expected to extend state of emergency by a month

Japan’s government is expected to extend a nationwide state of emergency for another month, local media have reported, after the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, described the coronavirus outbreak as “severe”.

Abe declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other prefectures on 7 April, enabling local governors to request that people avoid unnecessary trips outside and that nonessential businesses close. There are no fines or other penalties for non-compliance, however.

The measures, which have since been introduced in all 47 of Japan’s prefectures, were due to stay in place until 6 May – the end of a series of public holidays known as Golden Week – but the Nikkei business daily said on Thursday that Abe was poised to extend them by another month.

A station staff wearing face mask to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus looks at a subway arriving at a station in Tokyo Thursday, 30 April 2020.
A station staff wearing face mask to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus looks at a subway arriving at a station in Tokyo Thursday, 30 April 2020. Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

“It is still very uncertain whether we will be able to say, ‘It’s over,’ on 6 May,” Abe said in parliament on Wednesday, as local leaders voiced concern that infections could spread if people stopped socially distancing and started moving around again.

Abe is expected to announce the extension after meeting experts on Friday, the Nikkei said, adding that he would take into account how the virus was spreading, whether people were reducing their contact with others, and the state of the country’s health services.

While the number of daily cases in Tokyo appears to have stabilised since a peak of 201 on 17 April, a government official told the newspaper that the apparent slowdown in the capital and other areas did not warrant a relaxation of restrictions.
“We will have a hard time lifting the state of emergency unless we can bring new infections down to 20 or 30 people,”the official said.

Japan has reported just over 14,000 Covid-19 cases and more than 420 deaths.

Let’s hear it for the mums:

Podcast: Should the UK bail out Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic?

Guardian wealth correspondent Rupert Neate looks at why billionaire Sir Richard Branson is asking the UK government to give his Virgin Atlantic airline a £500m bailout to help it survive the economic fallout of the lockdown.

Police called after New York funeral home puts bodies in trucks

Police were called to a Brooklyn funeral home Wednesday after it resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented truck, the Associated Press reports.

Police were called to a Brooklyn neighbourhood Wednesday after a funeral home overwhelmed by the coronavirus resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks, and a passerby complained about the smell, officials said.

Investigators who responded to a 911 call found that the home had rented four trucks to hold about 50 corpses, according to a law enforcement official. No criminal charges were brought and the official, who was not authorised to speak publicly about the investigation, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

A woman walks past trucks parked outside the Andrew Cleckley Funeral Home in Brooklyn, New York.
A woman walks past trucks parked outside the Andrew Cleckley Funeral Home in Brooklyn, New York. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

The Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home was cited for failing to control the odours. The home was able to obtain a larger, refrigerated truck later in the day, the official said.

Workers suited up in protective gear could be seen in the afternoon transferring bodies into the refrigerated truck.

New York City funeral homes have struggled as at least 18,000 people have died in the city since late March.

The city set up temporary morgues. Hospitals used refrigerated tractor trailers to cart away multiple bodies at a time, sometimes loading them in public view on the sidewalk. Crematoriums have been backed up. Funeral directors across the city have pleaded for help as they have run out of space.

A pregnant Native American woman incarcerated in a federal prison in Texas was diagnosed with coronavirus and died in federal custody on Tuesday, officials said.

Andrea Circle Bear, 30, had been sentenced to more than two years in prison on a drug charge this January. She delivered her baby by caesarean section while on a ventilator in a Texas hospital on 1 April, and died there on 28 April.

Circle Bear’s child survived, but officials declined to provide any additional information on the baby’s condition or where the child is now, “out of respect for the family and for privacy reasons”, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman said.

The 30-year-old woman “had a pre-existing medical condition” that made her more at risk for a severe case of coronavirus, according to federal officials, who did not specify what the condition was.

Watch as Trump says coronavirus will be ‘eradicated’ – while US death toll passes 60,000:

‘It’s going to leave. It’s going to be gone. It’s going to be eradicated,’ US president Donald Trump said of the coronavirus during a White House round table with business leaders. His comment comes as the number of Americans who have died of coronavirus passed 60,000. Trump was asked if he wanted the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help fast track the use of a closely watched intravenous therapeutic drug, remdesivir, currently undergoing trials for treating Covid-19 patients. ‘We want everything to be safe, but we would like to see very quick approvals, especially with things that work,’ Trump said. The US’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has said that the antiviral drug remdesivir will become the standard of care for Covid-19 after early results showed it helped patients recover more quickly from the illness.

President Donald Trump also told Reuters on Wednesday he does not believe opinion polls that show his likely Democratic presidential opponent, Joe Biden, leading in the 2020 race for the White House.

During an interview in the Oval Office, the Republican president said he did not expect the election to be a referendum on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and added he was surprised the former vice president was doing well.

“I don’t believe the polls,” Trump said. “I believe the people of this country are smart. And I don’t think that they will put a man in who’s incompetent.”

In case you missed it: in the interview Trump also said that coronavirus has “upset very badly” the US trade deal with China, and that China “will do anything they can to have me lose in 2020.”

Updated

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in Panama reached 6,378 on Wednesday, a rise of 178 from the previous day, and deaths climbed by two to 178, the health ministry said.

Director of Epidemiology Lourdes Moreno gave the Central American country’s latest data at a news conference.

Health workers participate in the blood donation campaign in Panama City, Panama, 27 April 2020.
Health workers participate in the blood donation campaign in Panama City, Panama, 27 April 2020. Photograph: Carlos Lemos/EPA

China meanwhile has again reported zero new deaths from coronavirus.

There were four new imported cases, down from 21 the day before, and four local cases, down from 22 the day before. Asymptomatic cases increased by 33 new cases, a higher count than 26 cases the day before.

There are currently 82,862 confirmed cases and 4,633 deaths, according to government figures.

China is taking more steps indicating it feels the virus is under control. The country’s parliament is to hold its annual meeting from 22 May, and the Forbidden City will reopen on Friday in Beijing.

Tourists and clerks wear protective masks in a traditional souvenir shop near City God Temple on 29 April 2020 in Shanghai, China.
Tourists and clerks wear protective masks in a traditional souvenir shop near City God Temple on 29 April 2020 in Shanghai, China. Photograph: Yves Dean/Getty Images

Trump says China wants him to lose 2020 election

US president Donald Trump, in an Oval Office interview with Reuters, has said he is looking into different options for the consequences China might face for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “I can do a lot,” he said.

Trump said that coronavirus has “upset very badly” the US trade deal with China, and that China “will do anything they can to have me lose in 2020.”

Trump does not see the 2020 election as being a referendum on his handling of the pandemic, he said.

US President Donald Trump answers questions during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, US, 29 April 2020.
US President Donald Trump answers questions during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, US, 29 April 2020. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Updated

South Africa's virus cases jump past 5,000 after highest daily rise

The number of coronavirus cases in South Africa surged past the 5,000 mark on Thursday after it saw the largest single-day jump to date, health ministry figures showed.

A total of 354 new cases were confirmed on Thursday, bringing the overall total to 5,350, and the number of fatalities spiked by 10 to 103.

“This is the highest number of cases in a 24 hour cycle recorded to date and represents a 73 percent increase relative to the day before,” said the ministry in a statement. The day before, a total 203 new cases had been reported.

South Africa remains the continent’s worst infected country, followed by Egypt.

It is due to start gradually easing its strict lockdown regulations from 1 May. The restrictions have been in place since 27 March.

South African children sit two metres apart as they wait for a meal in the informal settlement of Masincedane, a beneficiary of the 9 Miles Project and Hope Southern Africa (HOSA) COVID-19 feeding scheme in Cape Town, South Africa, 28 April 2020.
South African children sit two metres apart as they wait for a meal in the informal settlement of Masincedane, a beneficiary of the 9 Miles Project and Hope Southern Africa (HOSA) COVID-19 feeding scheme in Cape Town, South Africa, 28 April 2020. Photograph: Nic Bothma/EPA

China to reopen Forbidden City

China’s Forbidden City will reopen on Friday, three months after it closed due to the coronavirus crisis - the latest signal that the country has brought the disease under control, AFP reports.

The sprawling imperial palace sitting across Tiananmen Square was shut down on January 25 as authorities closed tourist attractions and took other extraordinary measures to contain the virus, including locking down an entire province.

Security guards wearing a protective face masks stand near an entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, 20 April 2020.
Security guards wearing a protective face masks stand near an entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, 20 April 2020. Photograph: Wu Hong/EPA

The Palace Museum, which manages the Forbidden City, announced Wednesday that it will reopen from May 1, with a daily limit of 5,000 visitors - down from 80,000 before the pandemic.

Authorities have implemented other measures to reduce risks of infections at the cultural site, which in normal times attracted huge crowds.

Visitors will have to wear masks and show health codes on a special mobile phone app that indicates if they are an infection risk before entering. Temperatures will be taken at the entrance and anyone coughing or showing a fever will be turned away. Visitors will have to stand one metre from each other.

Within half an hour of the announcement, around 2,500 tickets for 1 May were booked, according to the ticketing website.

Updated

A top World Health Organization official declined comment on Wednesday on reports that Gilead Science’s remdesivir could help treat Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but said that further data was needed, Reuters reports.

“I wouldn’t like to make any specific comment on that, because I haven’t read those publications in detail,” Dr Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s emergencies programme, told an online briefing in response to a question, adding it can sometimes take a number of publications to determine a drug’s efficacy.

“Clearly we have the randomised control trials that are underway both in the UK and US, the ‘Solidarity trials’ with WHO. Remdesivir is one of the drugs under observation in many of those trials. So I think a lot more data will come out,” he said.

Ryan added: “But we are hopeful this drug and others may prove to be helpful in treating Covid-19.”

In case you missed it, here is our full story on the nearly 100 cases of a rare ‘Covid-linked’ syndrome in children reported in at least six countries.

The Guardian’s Ian Sample and Denis Campbell report:

Doctors around the world have reported more cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that appears to be linked to coronavirus infections.

Nearly 100 cases of the unusual illness have emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland now reported to be investigating the condition.

The first cases came to light this week when the NHS issued an alert to paediatricians about a number of children admitted to intensive care units with a mix of toxic shock and a condition known as Kawasaki disease, an inflammatory disorder that affects the blood vessel, heart and other organs. So far 19 children have been affected in the UK and none have died.

The French health minister, Olivier Veran, said on Wednesday that the country had more than a dozen children with inflammation around the heart, and while there was insufficient evidence to prove a link with coronavirus, he said the cases were being taken “very seriously.”

At least three children in the US aged six months to eight years are being treated for a similar condition.

Updated

Summary

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Helen Sullivan, with you for the next few hours.

A reminder that tips, questions, comments and stories from your part of the world are welcome on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Doctors around the world have reported more cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that appears to be linked to coronavirus infections.

Nearly 100 cases of the unusual illness have emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland now reported to be investigating the condition.

This worrying news comes as the UK has included deaths outside hospital in its official figure for the first time, bringing the toll to 26,166: higher than France and Spain’s tolls.

  • The official global death toll exceeded 225,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data, with the official toll at 226,771. At least 3,187,919 people have been infected worldwide.
  • Donald Trump has said the federal government will not be extending its coronavirus social distancing guidelines once they expire on Thursday. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who have died of coronavirus surpassed 60,000, a toll far higher than any other country.
  • US drug trial shows ‘clear cut’ effect, says top medic. While a Chinese trial demonstrated no “significant clinical benefits” to administering the antiviral drug remdesivir to Covid-19 patients, a separate trial in the US shows a “clear-cut” effect, according to the head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci.
  • More cases of ‘Covid-linked’ syndrome in children. Doctors around the world have reported more cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that appears to be linked to coronavirus infections. Nearly 100 cases of the unusual illness have emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland now reported to be investigating the condition.
  • Half world’s workers ‘at risk of unemployment’. The International Labour Organisation has warned that almost half the global workforce – 1.6 billion people – are in “immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed” by the economic impact of Covid-19, Philip Inman, a Guardian economics writer, reports.
  • Official UK death toll up by 4,419, after the government included deaths outside hospital for the first time. As of 5pm on Tuesday, total of 26,097 patients had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, according to Public Health England.
  • Brazil sees record increase in cases. Brazil has reported a record increase in cases, with its ministry of health confirming 6,276 more infections in a 24-hour period, taking the country’s total to 78,162.
  • Ireland looks set to extend its lockdown, despite growing calls to ease restrictions and salvage the economy.The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said on Wednesday that new cases of Covid-19 infections, deaths and intensive care admissions appeared too high to start relaxing rules that are to expire on 5 May.
  • Swiss government extends ban on large public events. The Swiss government has extended its ban on public events exceeding 1000 people until the end of August, even as it announced the easing of some other restrictions on sporting events, shops, restaurants and museums.
  • Sweden passes 20,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Sweden rose past the 20,000 mark on Wednesday, after the Nordic country reported another 681 infections.
  • Five coronavirus cases have been reported in Aden, southern Yemen, by the country’s internationally recognised government, raising the prospect that the war-ravaged country will soon also have an outbreak of the new disease.
  • China’s parliament is to hold its annual meeting from 22 May - more than two months later than planned. Conditions for holding the meeting have been met as the coronavirus situation has improved, decision makers said.
  • Russia’s coronavirus case tally neared the 100,000 milestone, after the country reported 5,841 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing its overall nationwide tally to 99,399, Reuters reports.
  • UK government is still aiming for 100,000 daily tests by tomorrow, according to the environment secretary, George Eustice. He said the search for an effective antibody test was still under way and denied that earlier introduction of testing at care homes would have saved lives.
  • The coronavirus outbreak needs to be contained before 2021 Olympics can go ahead, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said. “The Olympic Games must be held in a way that shows the world has won its battle against the coronavirus pandemic.”
  • The UK prime minister Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds announced the birth of a baby boy. Johnson returned to frontline work on Monday after falling ill with coronavirus and spending time in intensive care.
  • Air passenger numbers are down 99% in the UK, the home secretary told MPs, as she defended the government’s decision not to test individuals entering the country. On Friday, a total of 9,906 people entered the country.
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