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Summary
Here a few key developments of the past few hours at a glance:
- More US states to end lockdown as the US economy crumbles. The US states Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee will join four other states in the lifting of lockdown restrictions, as economists predict an unemployment rate of 16% or higher for the month of April.
- The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told the nation in a televised address “if you love Italy, maintain distance” as he revealed details of a plan that will see the country slowly ease lockdown measures from 4 May.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson returned to work in Downing Street on Sunday evening, where the government is headquartered, for the first time since he was admitted to hospital with Covid-19 on 6 April. Two British newspapers reported that Johnson could be announcing a relaxation of lockdown measures soon.
- Egypt has asked the International Monitory Fund (IMF) for financial assistance to deal with the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus. With tourism and aviation at a standstill, the partial lockdown threatens the livelihoods of many of Egypt’s 100 million people..
- Russia could experience a new spike in cases if people flout lockdown measures during public holidays scheduled for early May, a top health official said on Sunday, after total reported infections in Russia topped 80,000.
- Chile is to push ahead with immunity passports and is planning to issue previously announced “release certificates” for recovered Covid-19 patients ‘“soon”, despite a World Health Organization warning that it is not clear whether people have immunity after becoming infected.
- New York governor outlines lifting of restrictions for parts of the state. Andrew Cuomo said some regions of the state might qualify to open sooner, “with certain precautions”, such as upstate New York, as the daily death toll was markedly lower on Sunday than it was on Saturday.
- France’s daily death toll slowed as recorded Covid-19 fatalities in France rose by 242 to 22,856 on Sunday, down from 369 new deaths the previous day. The country’s prime minister, Édouard Philippe, said he would present a national exit strategy to parliament on Tuesday, which would then debate and vote on the recommendations.
- Germany could introduce right to work from home in future. The country’s labour minister Hubertus Heil is working on legislation that would give employees the right to work from home, even after the current crisis when social distancing will be no longer needed, he said on Sunday.
- Israel’s health minister announced his resignation. Yaakov Litzman declared that he would step down, following a public uproar over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, such as his initial decision to exclude the ultra-Orthodox community from social distancing regulations.
This is all from me, I’m now handing over to my colleagues in Australia. Thanks for reading and writing in! I’m off to bed.
Updated
Iran plans to reopen mosques in parts of the country that have been consistently free of the coronavirus outbreak as restrictions on Iranians gradually ease, president Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday.
Iran, one of the Middle Eastern countries hardest hit by the pandemic, will be divided up into white, yellow and red regions based on the number of infections and deaths, Rouhani said, according to the presidency’s website.
Activities in each region will be restricted accordingly, so an area that has been consistently free of infections or deaths will be labelled white and mosques could be reopened and Friday prayers resumed, Reuters reports.
Iranians have returned to shops, bazaars and parks over the past week as the country eases coronavirus restrictions, with the daily increase in the death toll below 100 since April 14.
The toll rose by 60 over the past 24 hours to 5,710, with 90,481 confirmed cases, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur told state TV on Sunday.
A large majority of Mexicans support the work done by president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to contain the coronavirus outbreak and agree with a decision to extend quarantine measures until the end of May, an opinion poll showed on Sunday.
A telephone survey of 549 Mexicans between 17 and 21 April showed 73% gave a positive appraisal of Lopez Obrador’s efforts, with only 17% of the opposite view. The remainder gave no assessment, Reuters reports.
82% of respondents said the government had done well in reducing the spread of coronavirus, which as of Saturday evening had led to nearly 14,000 confirmed cases of infection and over 1,300 deaths in Mexico.
Deaths have doubled in the past week and Mexico’s government on Tuesday said it was entering the most serious phase of the pandemic. Earlier, it extended quarantining until May 30, a decision that some 72% of survey respondents supported.
Mexico’s government has ordered schools and non-essential businesses to close but it has not imposed a strict curfew, unlike some countries in Latin America.
Mexicans were less sure about Lopez Obrador’s economic management of the crisis, but the balance of opinion was still favorable.
Some 62% said the government had made good decisions to reactivate the economy, with 32% disagreeing.
The government is issuing millions of loans to businesses to help them through the pandemic, and has gradually stepped up relief measures. Still, their scope is modest compared with some countries.
Early in the pandemic, Lopez Obrador came under fire for flouting government advice by continuing to hold large public events. However, since suspending those gatherings he has been insistent on the need to pursue social distancing.
The survey showed the government had to strike a balance in satisfying public opinion.
From Monday 27 April, people living in of Germany’s Baden-Württemberg state in the southwest of the country will have to cover mouth and nose when they enter shops or use public transport.
Exemptions apply to people with disabilities, particularly the deaf and their companions, and cashiers sitting behind a plexiglass partitioning wall, as well as to children under six.
The coronavirus crisis is causing a rise in substance abuse in Australia, and treatment restrictions are pushing an already over-burdened rehab system to breaking point, my colleague Michael McGowan reports.
Read the full story here:
Updated
While coronavirus has wreaked havoc in many countries, particularly in the West, Vietnam has practically managed to dodge Covid-19.
Although the country is neighbouring China, which was the first epicentre of the outbreak, Vietnam has reported zero deaths from the virus.
After the first two cases were confirmed in Vietnam in late January, the Communist Party-led government cracked down on the problem immediately, and practically sealed the country off from the rest of the world, banning nearly all flights, both domestic and international, and started a surveillance programme to monitor people’s homes and whether they were buying flu medication. Mass quarantines were imposed on people who were sent to camps and hotels with the help of the military.
To date, Vietnam has reported only 270 infections, and after no new cases had been reported for a week, Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc decided to lift the country’s social distancing restrictions on 23 April.
Updated
The British prime minister Boris Johnson could ease current lockdown restrictions as early as next week, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports.
“Boris Johnson is expected to announce plans for easing the lockdown as early as this week after he returned to Downing Street on Sunday night,” the paper wrote in an article published on Sunday evening.
Johnson, who used to work for the Daily Telegraph, is expected to chair his first meeting of the Covid-19 “war cabinet” on Monday since he was hospitalised in early April.
The paper added that allies of Johnson had hinted that he could decide to “modify” elements of the lockdown before it is scheduled to be reviewed on May 7, “as he is increasingly bullish about the possibility of altering restrictions if scientific advice allows for it.”
The Times newspaper reported on its frontpage for Monday that the government had stepped up planning to ease the lockdown in the coming weeks “behind the scenes”, and that advisers had been appointed to draw up plans that would put Britain “back in business”.
Updated
Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister, has not yet made a decision on restarting Serie A football, but gave the green light for players in the country’s top league to resume training in a week’s time.
As Conte unveiled the first details of how the country will emerge from its lockdown, he said individual athletes would be allowed to resume training on 4 May, while teams could start to train together again on 18 May, AFP reports.
But Conte did not say when Serie A might resume the current season, which was interrupted on 9 March with Juventus leading Lazio by a point.
“The championship will start again only when it is safe,” Conte told the nation in a televised address.
Italian football chiefs agreed on Thursday to push back the end of the Serie A season from June 30 to August 2.
Companies in the European Union hit by coronavirus will be able to ask for a government loan of up to 5% of their 2019 turnover under a new measure proposed by the European Commission, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
The move comes after several EU countries asked for it, other sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Saturday, declining to provide details.
The size of the loan could also be up to 40% of the beneficiary’s annual wage bill, the person said.
The EU executive has in recent weeks relaxed its state aid rules and nodded through trillions of euros via guaranteed loans, grants, subsidised interest rates and short-term export credit insurance offered to virus-hit companies across the bloc.
Dubai said on Sunday it had lifted its full lockdown on two commercial districts with large populations of low-income migrant workers, after the United Arab Emirates eased nationwide coronavirus curfews over the weekend.
On Friday, Dubai cut its emirate-wide 24-hour lockdown back to a 10pm to 6am curfew, and allowed dine-in cafes and restaurants to resume business with a maximum capacity of 30% and shopping malls to be reopened partially.
It has now taken the same step in the Al Ras and Naif districts, which had been sealed off as part of efforts to contain the spread of the virus, Reuters reports.
The UAE has reported more than 10,300 cases and 76 deaths resulting from the virus, the second-highest count among the six Gulf Arab countries after Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf states, where expatriates make up the bulk of the labour force, have seen infections spread among low-wage foreign workers living in cramped quarters despite measures to combat the disease including the suspension of passenger flights, curfews and the closure of public spaces.
Mosques, cinemas and playgrounds in Dubai remain closed.
People from all over the world are writing in every day with new developments and comments for our live coverage on the pandemic, which is hugely appreciated by Guardian reporters trying to provide timely updates from around the globe.
One thing that has stood out in my inbox over the past two weeks is the amount of emails I receive from Swedish readers. Many have expressed frustration about the international coverage of Sweden’s approach to the coronavirus crisis, pointing out for instance that care home deaths are high in many countries that have imposed strict lockdowns, and insisting that things are not at all “business as usual” in the country.
To quote one reader from Stockholm who wrote in tonight: “We do not recognise ourselves here at all in your reporting of a totally laissez-faire strategy. We have clear guidelines - which most people follow with common sense. We will have to wait some months to really be able to compare [Sweden’s approach with that of other countries] on even grounds.”
Updated
Egypt asks IMF for coronavirus bailout loan
Egypt declared on Sunday that it had asked the International Monitory Fund (IMF) for financial assistance to deal with the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus.
Neither Egypt nor the IMF specified the size of the one-year bailout loan, which prime minister Mustafa Madbouly said would include a financial package alongside technical support, according to the Associated Press.
Egypt has been under a partial lockdown since mid-March, with a curfew in place from 9pm to 6am. Schools, mosques, churches and archaeological sites are closed, although many businesses remain open during the day.
With tourism and aviation at a standstill, the partial lockdown threatens the livelihoods of many of Egypts 100 million people. One in three Egyptians were already living in poverty before the outbreak, according to government figures.
Egypt secured a $12bn (£9.8bn) bailout package from the IMF in 2016, and introduced new reforms which saw the government float the currency, slash subsidies on fuel, services and utilities, and impose a value-added tax.
A British national has been deported from Singapore and barred from re-entering the country after falsely declaring his travel history, according to Channel News Asia.
The 60-year-old man, who is married to a Singapore permanent resident, was also issued a stern warning for the offence of providing false information to a public servant.
“On 26 March, the police were alerted that the man had made a false declaration of his travel history at the Family Justice Courts,” said a joint statement from the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) on Sunday.
As part of precautionary measures amid the pandemic, the Family Justice Courts requires all visitors to declare their travel history for the last 14 days. The man declared that he had not been abroad in the last 14 days, and was hence allowed to enter Family Justice Courts.
However, he had arrived in Singapore from Hong Kong on 13 March, which was still within the 14-day travel history period at the time of his visit.
The man was deported to Hong Kong on 26 April, and barred from re-entering Singapore.
Italian PM announces easing of lockdown in address to nation
The Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, told the nation “if you love Italy, maintain distance” as he announced a plan that will see the country slowly ease lockdown measures from 4 May.
“You must always respect the safe distance of at least one metre,” he said. “Even within the family setting. Experts tell us that one out of four cases of infection occur in the family context.”
Italy has been under full lockdown since 11 March and the move out of it will be gradual. Manufacturing and construction activity will resume from 4 May while people can travel within their regions so long as visits are “targeted”, such as visiting family, and face masks are worn. Travel between regions is only permitted for a valid reason, such as for work or medical purposes. Museums and libraries will reopen on 18 May and bars and restaurants from 1 June, although they can offer takeout services from 4 May.
Schools will open from September.
Parks and public gardens will reopen from 4 May and people can exercise outside so long as they maintain a two-metre distance from others.
Deaths from coronavirus in Italy rose by 260 on Sunday, the lowest day-to-to increase since 14 March, while the contagion rate has been falling.
“We all want the country to restart,” Conte said. “However, the only way to live with the virus in this phase is to not fall ill — and social distancing.”
Updated
Germany’s labour minister Hubertus Heil is working on legislation that would give employees the right to work from home, even after the current crisis when social distancing will be no longer needed.
“Everyone who wants to and whose workplace allows it should be able to work in a home office, even when the coronavirus pandemic is over,” Heil told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
About 25% of Germans are now estimated to be working from home, up from about 12% normally.
Heil said he would table legislation later in the year to enshrine the right to work from home in law, even full-time if that is what employees want.
Finance minister Olaf Scholz, like Heil a Social Democrat, expressed approval for the idea.
“The past weeks have shown how much is possible in the home office, this is a real achievement that we should not just abandon,” he told the paper.
The political storm engulfing Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, will further distract from the country’s efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 4,000 Brazilians, my colleague Tom Phillips reports from Rio de Janeiro.
Bolsonaro’s dismissive reaction to the coronavirus crisis has sparked outrage across the political spectrum, but now reports that his son is an alleged key member of a “criminal fake news racket” is dominating the headlines.
Read the full report here:
Updated
Russia could experience a new spike in Covid-19 cases if people flout lockdown measures during public holidays scheduled for early May, a top health official said on Sunday, Reuters reports.
The number of coronavirus cases in Russia began rising sharply this month, reaching more than 80,000 on Sunday after a record 6,361 new cases were registered over the past day.
Anna Popova, head of Russia’s consumer health watchdog, said the country had so far avoided a spike in cases and could continue to do so “if only we do not give up during the holidays”.
“That is the biggest risk today,” Popova said in an interview on state television.
Russia, which has so far recorded 747 coronavirus-related deaths, has declared lockdowns across the country, including in the capital Moscow, the area worst-affected by the virus.
Muscovites are only allowed to go out to buy food or medicines at their nearest shop, get urgent medical treatment, walk their dog, or take out the trash. They must apply for a digital permit for any other movement across the city.
A group of 25 Dutch high school students with very little sailing experience were reunited with their relieved families on Sunday after completing a trans-Atlantic voyage that was forced on them by coronavirus restrictions, the Associated Press reports.
The children, aged 14 to 17, watched over by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers, were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home in March.
Instead of flying back from Cuba as originally planned, the crew and students stocked up on supplies and warm clothes and set sail for the northern Dutch port of Harlingen, a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), on board the 60-metre (200-foot) top sail schooner Wylde Swan.
As they arrived home, the students hung up a self-made banner saying Bucket List with ticks in boxes for Atlantic Ocean crossing, mid-ocean swim and surviving the Bermuda triangle.
The teens hugged and chanted each others names as they walked off the ship and into the arms of their families, who drove their cars alongside the yacht one by one to adhere to social distancing rules imposed to rein in the spread of the virus that forced the students into their long trip home.
Updated
British PM ready to return to work
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has returned to Downing Street, where the government is headquartered, tonight, for the first time since he was admitted to hospital with Covid-19 on 6 April.
Johnson, 55, spent three nights on an intensive care ward, and was released from hospital on 12 April. He has been recuperating in Chequers since, his country house in Buckinghamshire, and is expected to return to work on Monday.
The PM’s official Twitter account just released a video clip of George Eustice from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who reiterated the government’s commitment to the current social distancing measures earlier at today’s coronavirus press conference.
"There are encouraging signs of progress, but we will not adjust our social distancing measures until our five tests are met." – @DefraGovUK Secretary George Eustice at today's #coronavirus press conference.#StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/WzNyjxlKFu
— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) April 26, 2020
Updated
Israel’s embattled health minister Yaakov Litzman has announced that he would step down, following a public uproar over his handling of the coronavirus crisis and his own Covid-19 infection.
Litzman informed the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that he would step aside as the country forms a new government.
He made no mention of his much-criticised performance at the health ministry, which he has led for most of the past decade, and instead said he would take over the construction ministry, the Associated Press reports.
Part of Litzman’s early response to the pandemic was to exclude the ultra-Orthodox community from social distancing regulations, allowing public bath houses and synagogues to remain open, and even promising that the messiah would come and put an end to the epidemic, the Haaretz newspaper reports.
15,443 people in Israel have so far tested positive for the coronavirus, and 201 people have died.
In the West Bank, 480 cases have been diagnosed so far, and two people have died. In Gaza, 17 cases have been confirmed, eight of which have recovered.
The Palestinian health ministry has reopened restaurants in Gaza after a six-week lockdown.
Updated
Germany changed course on Sunday over which type of smartphone technology it wants to use to trace coronavirus infections, backing an approach supported by Apple and Google along with a growing number of other European nations, Reuters reports.
Countries are rushing to develop apps that can help track the chain of infection, which is proving hard to break because people can spread the virus before they have any symptoms.
Chancellery minister Helge Braun and health minister Jens Spahn said in a joint statement that Berlin would adopt a “decentralised” approach to digital contact tracing, and abandon a home-grown alternative that would have given health authorities central control over tracing data.
A centralised collection of people’s data had attracted sharp criticism from data protection experts.
The data would now only be saved on people’s phones, and users of the app could opt to share their phone number or details of their symptoms so health authorities to get in touch and give advice on the best course of action in the event they are found to be at risk.
This consent would be given in the app, however, and not be part of the system’s central architecture.
In Europe, most countries have chosen short-range Bluetooth “handshakes” between mobile devices as the best way of registering a potential contact, even though it does not provide location data.
But they have disagreed about whether to log such contacts on individual devices or on a central server - which would be more directly useful to existing contact tracing teams that work phones and knock on doors to warn those who may be at risk.
Sri Lanka reversed plans to end its virus lockdown on Monday and extended it for another week, after a spike in coronavirus infections led to a recall of military personnel on leave.
Within hours of announcing on Saturday that the nationwide restrictions, in place since 20 March, would be lifted, the government revoked the order and extended them to 4 May, AFP reports.
Army chief Shavendra Silva said that the leave of all military personnel was cancelled, and ordered them to report back to work immediately.
The move came as the number of sailors infected with new coronavirus from a single naval base near the capital Colombo jumped to 95, out of a nationwide total of 477 reported cases.
The entire base - home to 4,000 sailors and their families - was placed under quarantine after the first cases emerged.
Health officials said infections were also increasing elsewhere, including in a densely populated area of the capital Colombo where 81 people tested positive.
The island nation has reported a total of seven deaths.
Updated
Chile is not abandoning plans to issue previously announced “release certificates” for recovered Covid-19 patients in the near future, despite a World Health Organization warning that it is not clear whether people have immunity after becoming infected.
Paula Daza of Chile’s ministry of health said on Sunday that while many uncertainties remain about the global pandemic, evidence points to a reduced risk after a first bout of coronavirus.
“One of the things we know is that a person who has [...] lived through the disease is less likely to become ill again,” Daza said, according to Reuters.
She said certifying this status was the “goal of the Covid-19 card that is being prepared and will soon be delivered” to patients.
The World Health Organization on Saturday warned governments against issuing “immunity passports” to people who have been infected as their accuracy could not be guaranteed.
Chile has confirmed 13,331 cases of coronavirus since the country’s first infections were recorded in early March, and 189 deaths.
Updated
The death toll in France from Covid-19 has risen by 242 to 22,856, the health ministry said on Sunday, down from 369 new deaths the previous day.
The country’s prime minister, Édouard Philippe, said he would present a national exit strategy to parliament on Tuesday, which would then debate and vote on the recommendations.
France’s strict mandatory lockdown has been in place since mid-March.
Here is a compilation of this week’s most uplifting clips, chronicling life in this strange new world we are all in now, courtesy of the Guardian video team.
More US states to end lockdown as US economy crumbles
The US states Colorado, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee will join other states in the lifting of lockdown restrictions, as economists predict an unemployment rate of 16% or higher for the month of April.
Health experts warn that increased human interaction in the reopened state economies could spark a new wave of infections with the virus that has already killed more than 54,300 Americans, Reuters reports.
The states are preparing to go back to business without the testing and contact-tracing infrastructure health experts say is needed to prevent a resurgence of infections.
Georgia, Oklahoma, Alaska and South Carolina have already taken steps to restart their economies following a month of government-ordered lockdowns.
A record 26.5 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since mid-March.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted on Friday that the economy would contract at nearly a 40% annual rate in the second quarter.
Updated
Turkey’s coronavirus death toll has risen by 99 to 2,805, as 2,357 new infections are confirmed, Reuters reports.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has imposed a four-day lockdown between 23 April and 27 April in 31 provinces to stem the spread of the virus.
Katharina Willinger, Turkey correspondent for the German TV channel ARD, just tweeted this video showing the deserted streets of Istanbul.
Freie Fahrt heute in Istanbul für die wenigen, die raus durften. Als Presse gehören wir dazu - und wir nutzen die leeren Straßen, um diese historischen Zeiten in der 16-Millionen-Metropole zu dokumentieren. pic.twitter.com/wPdByUPS1z
— Katharina Willinger (@K_Willinger) April 26, 2020
Updated
The daily Covid-19 death toll in New York State is markedly lower on Sunday than it was on Saturday, with officials having recorded a daily increase of 367 fatalities, compared to 437 a day earlier.
Governor Andrew Cuomo is holding a live press conference, amid intensifying calls for a lifting of the lockdown, which is in place until 15 May.
He says some regions in the state might qualify to open sooner, “with certain precautions”, such as upstate New York, but emphasises that this won’t be possible everywhere in the immediate future.
Asked about schools, Cuomo says it might be possible that “summer schools” might operate to make up for lost tuition.
Holding a briefing with updates on #Coronavirus. Watch Live: https://t.co/unp9ARDSIL
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 26, 2020
Updated
Italy's daily death toll lowest since mid-March
Deaths from coronavirus in Italy rose by 260 on Sunday, 155 less than on Saturday, and the lowest day-to-to increase since 14 March.
The death toll now stands at 26,644, while the number of people who have recovered has risen to 64,928.
However, the number of people currently infected with the virus rose by 256 to 106,103 after falling for six days in a row.
Italy has recorded 197,675 coronavirus cases to date, including the victims and survivors.
Updated
Hello, I’m taking over from my colleague Josh Halliday. Please feel free to get in touch with interesting updates, either via email or via Twitter.
Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest developments around the world on Sunday 26 April:
- More than 200,000 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic. The number of confirmed deaths in the coronavirus pandemic increased to 203,670 on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2,920,660 confirmed cases.
- French PM to present strategy for emerging from lockdown. The prime minister of France, Edouard Philippe, will on Tuesday present a national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown to the national assembly, his office told AFP.
- Spain’s daily death toll dropped below 300 for the first time in weeks as it partially relaxed the lockdown. On Sunday, children under 14 were allowed out to exercise for the first time since mid-March, and the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that adults could also be allowed to exercise outside from next weekend if efforts to contain the spread of the virus continue to pay off.
- The UK reported its lowest daily rise in the death toll since the end of March. The number of deaths in UK hospitals from the coronavirus has risen to 20,732 – an increase of 413 in the last 24 hours
- World Health Organisation clarifies statement about immunity following concern among scientists. The global health body was criticised for saying there was “currently no evidence” that people who recover from Covid-19 will have some immunity from reinfection. Scientists said this was clumsily-worded and that there was in fact some evidence of immunity among those who have recovered.
- India’s PM urges citizens to abide by the lockdown amid “war” on the coronavirus as new cases continue to rise. Narendra Modi gave a radio address to urge its 1.3 billion citizens to strictly comply with the nationwide lockdown as the number of confirmed cases increased steadily despite the month-long curfew. He said the country was in the midst of a “war” and said Indians must maintain the “people-driven” fight and not be misled into believing the spread of the virus has been brought fully under control.
- Beijing cracks down on ‘uncivilised’ behaviour. Beijing’s city government has banned “uncivilised” behaviour, such as not covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, in a new set of regulations to improve public hygiene and combat the coronavirus.
- Daily death toll in Iran falls to lowest level in weeks. Officials in Iran, the worst-hit country in the Middle East, said there were 60 deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 5,710 – but down from an average of about 90 over the past 10 days,
- WHO warns against ‘immunity passports’. The World Health Organization has warned against “immunity passports” for recovered patients, seen as a possible tool for countries preparing to reopen their economies.
- White House considers replacing health and human services chief. Reports have emerged that Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacing its secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, because of early missteps in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Kim Jong-un’s train possibly spotted in resort. As rumours about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continue to circulate, including reports that he is sheltering from Covid-19, a US-based monitoring group released satellite images of what may have been his train parked at an exclusive resort town in the country’s east.
France, Italy and Spain are preparing to loosen coronavirus restrictions, with other countries watching closely to see how some of the first and hardest-hit countries in Europe might safely emerge from their crippling lockdowns.
Read the full report by my colleagues in Madrid and Johannesburg here. They write:
Decisions on how and when to reopen will be vital to how people and businesses can cope with the pandemic, balancing the need for economies to restart with the risks of new outbreaks and further shutdowns.
In Italy, which was the first European country to impose a lockdown in March, and where there have so far been close to 200,000 infections and at least 26,384 deaths, Giuseppe Conte said manufacturing could restart as soon as 4 May.
The Italian prime minister said schools, however, would not reopen until September. Measures would be announced early this week, he told Italian daily La Repubblica.
Tight lockdowns have been seen as a blunt but effective tool to halt infections until a vaccine is developed.
The death toll in Canada has risen to 2,350 following a further 139 fatalities reported in the past 24 hours, the country’s public health agency has said. It is the lowest day-on-day rise in the past week.
The figure for those diagnosed with the coronavirus had climbed to 45,791, according to a statement.
Updated
UK reports lowest daily death toll since March
The number of deaths in UK hospitals from the coronavirus has risen to 20,732 – an increase of 413 in the last 24 hours. This is the lowest daily rise since the end of March.
In a televised briefing, Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, said the death toll was falling “absolutely because we as a British public have paid attention to the social distancing guidance”.
Updated
A woman who was the first known Covid-19 fatality in the US died from a heart attack caused by the coronavirus infection, according to an autopsy report obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The newspaper reports on the case of Patricia Dowd, 57, who it says had reported flu-like symptoms in the days before her death on 6 February. An autopsy, performed by medical examiner Susan Parson, “found Covid-19 viral infection in her heart, trachea, lungs and intestines”.
The forensic pathologist Judy Melinek, who was asked by the Chronicle to review the autopsy report, was quoted as saying: “There’s something abnormal about the fact that a perfectly normal heart has burst open … The heart has ruptured. Normal hearts don’t rupture.”
Drena Grayson, an infectious disease expert and viral pandemic doctor, tweeted that there was “now ample evidence” that the virus can infect the heart itself, causing heart inflammation”.
There’s now ample evidence that this #coronavirus can infect the heart muscle itself, causing heart inflammation (myocarditis). This can lead to arrhythmias or even rupture of the heart muscle or valves.😱#COVID19https://t.co/FhH1vtDtc5 https://t.co/8gCtWXrgl4
— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) April 26, 2020
Updated
Dozens of protesters were arrested in Berlin on Saturday for flouting lockdown rules and staging a demonstration against lockdown measures. We have video of the protest below.
About 200 people were involved in the protest, which was shut down by German police. Demonstrators said lockdown measures are an infringement of their constitutional rights
The French prime minister, Edouard Philippe, will present the national strategy for lifting the country’s lockdown on Tuesday.
The pandemic has killed 22,614 people in France since the start of March, with officials on Saturday reporting 369 new deaths in the previous 24 hours.
The French government plan to relax certain restrictions from 11 May, giving priority to reopening schools, companies returning to work, getting public transport back to normal, the supply of masks and sanitiser, testing policy and support for the elderly.
VIDEO: 🇫🇷 The central Paris shopping district was somewhat busier than recently on Sunday amid the #coronavirus lockdown as residents did their food shopping. Many wore face #masks while respecting social distancing as they went about their chores pic.twitter.com/ZbuZIX4vlP
— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 26, 2020
Malta is the latest European country to announce the lifting of some anti-coronavirus measures, after recording no new cases of the disease in the past 24 hours for the first time since the crisis began.
On Sunday, the health minister Chris Fearne told a news conference that “decisions on lifting measures will be taken on the basis of science and numbers”.
The island, which has a population of about half a million people, detected its first coronavirus case on 7 March and has since reported almost 450 cases and four deaths.
Schools, airports and non-essential shops were closed, while gatherings of more than three people had been banned, although factories, beaches and building sites were allowed to remain open.
The World Health Organization has previously praised the island for its thorough testing and contact-tracing network.
Updated
A woman was allegedly gang-raped in a school in India where she had been quarantined for a night by the police.
The incident was said to have happened in the desert state of Rajasthan last week after the woman sought shelter at a police station.
She became lost on her way home to her village from work and had walked alone for miles before being housed in a school building for the night by police. Local men are believed to have then raped the victim, who is in her 40s.
Parth Sharma, a deputy superintendent in the Sawai Mahopur district, told Reuters: “Three local men who raped the woman inside the school on 23 April have been arrested and sent to jail.”
Sharma said the woman had been sent to a local quarantine facility to be tested for Covid-19, but her test results were not yet known.
A nationwide lockdown was put in place by prime minister Narendra Modi last month to contain the spread of the virus, prompting thousands of workers who lost their jobs in cities to walk for days to reach their homes in rural India.
Many are now in overcrowded quarantine centres as new cases of the virus continue to surge in the country.
I’m Amy Walker, taking over from my colleague Josh Halliday for the next hour.
Updated
Rumours about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have been circulating now for days. The latest development came from a US-based monitoring group which released satellite images of what may have been his train parked at an exclusive resort town in the country’s east.
On Sunday, the political analyst ProfRobert Kelly, of Pusan University in South Korea, said the official silence from North Korea suggested that “there’s probably something wrong with him, whether he’s dead or incapacitated or in a coma – there’s a lot of stuff out there in the rumour mill”.
Speaking to Sky News in the UK, Kelly said: “Given how quiet North Korea and China have been, my guess is that there’s probably something wrong with his health, which wouldn’t necessarily be surprising. He’s morbidly obese, he smokes, he’s had gout in the past.
But I think if he was dead, I don’t know if they would come forward to tell us yet. There would be some shuffling behind the scenes to figure out who was in charge. I imagine in the next couple of weeks we will hear something formally about this.
Kelly said “the only final definitive proof” that Kim Jong-un is alive would be if he appeared in public. “North Korea is just not the sort of state that people are going to trust if they say he’s alive but we don’t actually get to see him. Of course, if they admit he’s dead – he almost certainly is because that would be a huge admission by the state,” he added.
Updated
Staying on the immunity issue for a moment, the World Health Organisation statement caused such alarm because it was open to the interpretation that people who have recovered from the virus were not immune from reinfection. In fact, while the evidence is still being evaluated, most scientists believe quite the opposite.
Prof Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said everyone or almost everyone who recovers from Covid-19 “will have developed immunity otherwise they would not have recovered”. “What we do not know is how long that immunity will last. It almost certainly will not last for life,” he said.
Prof Babak Javid, the principal investigator at Tsinghua University School of Medicine in Beijing, said the WHO’s statement was “very confusing”.
Given that the majority of people that have had Covid-19 develop neutralising antibody responses, he said, it is “reasonable to assume that they will develop at least short-term immunity from re-infection – the critical questions are how robust that immunity would be, and for how long it would last.”
Dr Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, added:
At this stage nobody knows for sure whether this is indeed the case or for how long it will protect someone, it could be weeks, months or years and it would be unwise to make predictions that are not based on any evidence. It’s worth remembering that we’ve only known about this disease for about four months, so cannot at this stage have any knowledge about whether immunity lasts beyond this rather limited time frame.
WHO clarifies 'immunity passport' advice
The World Health Organization (WHO) has sought to clarify the advice it published on Saturday about so-called “immunity passports”, which could be issued to people who have recovered from Covid-19 on the assumption that they would be immune to reinfection.
The WHO alarmed some in the scientific community when it said, in a briefing note published on Saturday, that “there is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection”.
Experts said the WHO should have said there was “currently insufficient evidence” instead of “no evidence”.
Late last night, the Geneva-based body walked back its statement, saying: “We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection.” See the WHO’s tweets below:
Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on "immunity passports". The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify:
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 25, 2020
We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection. pic.twitter.com/AmxvQQLTjM
What we don't yet know is the level of protection or how long it will last. We are working with scientists around the world to better understand the body's response to #COVID19 infection. So far, no studies have answered these important questions. pic.twitter.com/DisLjWCa4U
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 25, 2020
As new evidence becomes available, WHO will update this scientific brief 👉 https://t.co/ETIdwelyy1
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 25, 2020
WHO recommends that all individuals follow public health guidelines. pic.twitter.com/aaZjvG3rtl
Updated
Hundreds of textile workers have taken to the streets of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka to demand wages lost during the coronavirus crisis.
Reuters reports that Bangladesh, which is the second-largest apparel producer after China, is set to lose export revenue of about $6bn this fiscal year as the sector has been hit by cancellations from some of the world’s largest brands and retailers, two industry bodies have said.
“We haven’t got wages since last two months. We have no food, no money. We are left to starve,” said Mohammad Ujjal, a worker at a garment factory in capital city, Dhaka, who participated in the protest.
Garment workers have held smaller protests in recent weeks to demand wages lost during the crisis.
Last month Bangladesh’s government announced $588m package aid for crucial exports-oriented sector to pay its workers, but garment manufacturers say funds were not enough to mitigate the crisis.
Health officials confirmed five more deaths and reported 418 new cases on Sunday, taking the official total number of positive cases to 5,416, including 145 deaths.
We have pictures coming in of children playing out for the first time in six weeks in Spain after the curfew was partially relaxed for under-14s on Sunday. (See update from our correspondent Sam Jones here).
The images show children playing in otherwise-deserted cities from Bilbao to Madrid and Seville. It’s not quite a return to life as normal in Spain, where more than 23,000 people have died from Covid-19, but it is a start.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest developments around the world on Sunday 26 April:
- More than 200,000 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic. The number of confirmed deaths in the coronavirus pandemic increased to 203,332 on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2,908,527 confirmed cases.
- French PM to present strategy for emerging from lockdown. The prime minister of France, Edouard Philippe, will on Tuesday present a national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown to the national assembly, his office told AFP.
- Spain’s daily death toll dropped below 300 for the first time in weeks as it partially relaxed the lockdown. On Sunday, children under 14 were allowed out to exercise for the first time since mid-March, and the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that adults could also be allowed to exercise outside from next weekend if efforts to contain the spread of the virus continue to pay off.
- India’s PM urges citizens to abide by the lockdown amid “war” on the coronavirus as new cases continue to rise. Narendra Modi gave a radio address to urge its 1.3 billion citizens to strictly comply with the nationwide lockdown as the number of confirmed cases increased steadily despite the month-long curfew. He said the country was in the midst of a “war” and said Indians must maintain the “people-driven” fight and not be misled into believing the spread of the virus has been brought fully under control.
- Beijing cracks down on ‘uncivilised’ behaviour. Beijing’s city government has banned “uncivilised” behaviour, such as not covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, in a new set of regulations to improve public hygiene and combat the coronavirus.
- Daily death toll in Iran falls to lowest level in weeks. Officials in Iran, the worst-hit country in the Middle East, said there were 60 deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 5,710 – but down from an average of about 90 over the past 10 days,
- WHO warns against ‘immunity passports’. The World Health Organization has warned against “immunity passports” for recovered patients, seen as a possible tool for countries preparing to reopen their economies.
- White House considers replacing health and human services chief. Reports have emerged that Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacing its secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, because of early missteps in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Kim Jong-un’s train possibly spotted in resort. As rumours about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continue to circulate, including reports that he is sheltering from Covid-19, a US-based monitoring group released satellite images of what may have been his train parked at an exclusive resort town in the country’s east.
- Australian study finds little transmission between children. A preliminary report, cited by Australia’s chief medical officer as the government advocates the reopening of the country’s schools, says children are unlikely to transmit Covid-19 between each other or to adults.
- Saudi Arabia partially lifts curfews, reopens some commercial activity. State media in Saudi Arabia are reporting that the curfew will be partially lifted for all regions starting Sunday, but that a 24-hour curfew will be maintained in Mecca, according to Reuters. Some economic and commercial activities, including retail stores, will be reopened during Ramadan, from 29 April to 13 May.
- UK prime minister to return to work on Monday. Boris Johnson will return to work on Monday and is “raring to go”, a Downing Street spokeswoman has confirmed. He returns to face a dilemma over whether to ease the coronavirus lockdown, as leading scientists warn that the number of new cases remains much too high.
Updated
The daily Covid-19 death toll in Iran, the worst-hit nation in the Middle East, has fallen to its lowest level in weeks, according to an analysis of figures collated by Our World in Data.
Iran’s health ministry said on Sunday that there were 60 deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 5,710. The number of confirmed cases has risen to 90,481, the department said.
If correct, the data suggests that the pandemic in Iran is on a consistent downward path. It has reported about 90 almost every day for the past 11 days, so the drop to 60 would be seen as welcome news.
The graph below, courtesy of Our World in Data, shows the country’s death toll trajectory. Note: it has reported a couple of anomalies, as shown by the huge drop and spike between 4 and 5 April.
Spain's daily death toll drops below 300 for first time in weeks
Spanish health authorities have begun to outline plans to move towards “a new normality” as the number of overnight coronavirus deaths in the country dropped below 300 for the first time in weeks, writes Sam Jones.
On Sunday, children under 14 were allowed out to exercise for the first time since mid-March, and the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that adults could also be allowed to exercise outside from next weekend if efforts to contain the spread of the virus continue to pay off.
Speaking on Sunday, Fernando Simón, the head of Spain’s centre for health emergencies, said recent figures showed a “clear descending trend”, adding that the government’s decision to allow some non-essential workers to return to their jobs a fortnight ago had not had any negative impact so far.
Simón said that the time had come to talk of a transition “to normality - within the limits of the coronavirus:
It won’t be the normality we knew a year ago. It will be a new normality in which, over the coming months, we’ll need to ensure that we can reduce the risks of transmission and new outbreaks enough so that their effects are not as negative as they have been this time.
He said that a panel of experts had given the government a set of recommendations for the next steps in the country’s “transition”. They say the health system must be ready - and have the right resources - to respond to another outbreak, and stress there must be effective monitoring of the disease even as cases fall. They also urge swift and aggressive quarantining and testing protocols, and strict compliance with social distancing rules.
“If all parts of the health system can show that they can meet these criteria, we’ll be in a position - epidemiological considerations permitting - to begin the transition towards new phases of this new normality,” added Simón.
Over the past 24 hours, 1,729 new cases have been detected, 3,024 people have been pronounced cured, and 288 people have died - down from 378 on Saturday.
Spain has now confirmed a total of 207,634 cases using PCR tests and recorded 23,190 deaths. The growth rate of new cases currently stands at 0.8% - down from 3% in recent weeks and 38% when the state of emergency was declared on 14 March.
The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases has reached 1,531 in Afghanistan as the number of transmission continued to surge in Kandahar amid an intensified war across the country, my colleague Akhtar Mohammad Makoli reports.
Despite the lockdown in several provinces, streets are still crowded and experts warn that contain spread of Coronavirus may be challenging.
Dispite a lockdown, streets are crowded even more than normal days in Herat, Afghanistan.
— Akhtar Mohammad Makoii (@akhtar_makoii) April 26, 2020
Daily number of new transmissions:
Today: 68
Apr25: 133
Apr24: 95
Apr23: 83
Apr22: 51
Apr21: 66
Apr20: 30
Death toll stands at 47 pic.twitter.com/Ahx3orEhDo
The Taliban have rejected pleas from Nato and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani to declare a ceasefire to help contain spread of Coronavirus.
In a statement, Nato has asked for an immediate ceasefire in the country saying that it encourages both sides “to demonstrate goodwill by accelerating the release of prisoners” and as a confidence-building measure and to embrace the international community’s call “for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
But the Taliban’s spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, tweeted late on Thursday to reject the offer, citing ongoing disagreements over a potential peace process and a delayed prisoner exchange as reasons to keep fighting.
“Asking for ceasefire is not rational and convincing,” wrote Shaheen as he accused the government of putting prisoners’ lives at risk during the outbreak.
The militant group have intensified their attacks in recent days. About 100 security forces and 34 civilians were killed in their attacks over the last week.
Wahidullah Mayar, a health ministry spokesman, said on Saturday the country is in a “very sensitive” time and once again called on the Taliban to declare ceasefire.
“No one is secure against the the virus, we are all vulnerable. We need an immediate ceasefires, instead of fighting with ourselves, let’s get united and fight with one enemy,” he said
Updated
Russia's coronavirus tally passes 80,000
Russia reported 6,361 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, pushing its national tally to 80,949, Reuters reports. Sixty-six people succumbed to the virus in the past day, bringing the death toll to 747, Russia’s official crisis response centre said.
Sweden’s deputy prime minister, Isabella Lövin, just gave a very interesting interview to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in the UK.
She was asked whether Sweden’s less-restrictive social distancing measures – bars, borders and restaurants remain open, as do schools for the under-16s – had led to a higher death toll in the country. Sweden’s death rate from Covid-19 is nearly 200 per million people, compared with 31 in neighbouring Finland and 36 in Norway.
Lövin admitted Sweden had a “big problem” with its strategy to protect the elderly and that this was “something we’re learning from”. She said:
We have really a big problem with our main strategy that was to protect the elderly and the most vulnerable. We had Covid-19 contagion in the elderly homes and this is something we’re learning from . This is mainly in the Stockholm area. but we see that we are always prepared to take new measures but we have confined the gathering of people to a maximum of 50 people. There’s also a ban on visiting the elderly at elderly care homes. but it’s a mixture of legally bound measures and very strong recommendations.
Lövin said there was a fear that imposing strict restrictions might backfire, creating lockdown fatigue and causing people to flout measures that “we need to be in place for a very long time – until we have a vaccine or until we know how this pandemic is going to end”.
She said it was “crucial” and “absolutely fundamental” that governments be “as transparent as possible” with their citizens and “treat people like adults: “With that comes responsibility and individual responsibility that you need to listen to what the experts are saying.”
Asked whether Sweden was pursuing a “herd immunity” strategy – allowing a population to build immunity to the virus by letting it spread – Lövin said that was not the aim:
That is not the strategy … The strategy is to try to confine the spread of the virus and limit the deaths and the disease in the population. The experts tells us they don’t even know 100% when immunity is reached in one individual person.
Updated
India's Modi urges citizens to comply with lockdown as cases rise
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has taken to the airwaves today to urge its 1.3 billion citizens to strictly comply with the nationwide lockdown as the number of confirmed cases increased steadily despite the month-long curfew.
In a radio address, Modi said the country was in the midst of a “war” and said Indians must maintain the “people-driven” fight and not be misled into believing the spread of the virus has been brought fully under control. He was quoted by Reuters:
I will urge you that we should not be trapped into over-confidence and nurse the belief that in our city, in our village, in our streets, in our office, coronavirus has not reached and that is why it will not reach.
There are concerns that the spread of the virus has been hastened by India’s high population density, poor sanitation infrastructure, and high rates of internal migration.
As the graph by World in Data shows, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in India has risen steeply over the past month – from 562 when the lockdown was announced on 25 March, to 26,496 today. The pandemic has claimed 824 deaths in the country.
Updated
Hello. This is Josh Halliday picking up our live global coverage of the coronavirus outbreak from Manchester, UK.
I’ve looked under the hood and can see we have readers from all over the world with us right now - from the UK to Vietnam, Austria, Italy, India, New Zealand and beyond. Welcome!
Please do get in touch about the situation where you are, and send any news tips or ideas for articles to met at:
Twitter: @JoshHalliday
Email: josh.halliday@theguardian.com
‘We’d go bust in months’: British restaurants at a loss over social distancing dilemma
The UK’s £72bn hospitality sector, which employs 3.2 million people, has been struggling with what a socially distanced restaurant business might look like. A number of London branches of sandwich chain Pret a Manger have reopened in the past couple of weeks, with Perspex screens separating staff and customers, and only 15% of the usual menu, so there could be fewer people in the kitchen. However, it is takeaway-only.
Traditional waiter-service restaurants say they are finding it hard to see how they could function at all with social distancing. Restaurateur Russell Norman spent a day measuring the floor space in one branch of his normally bustling small-plates Polpo group. “Keeping everyone two metres apart would require taking out two-thirds of the seats and that simply wouldn’t be economically viable,” he said. “And for a party of four, you would need a table which was 2.5 metres square, which is huge. It would also leave the restaurant with nothing approaching atmosphere.”
Updated
Italy to reopen manufacturing industry in just over a week
Italy will start reopening its manufacturing industry on 4 May as part of plans to ease its coronavirus lockdown and schools will reopen in September, the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said in a newspaper interview on Sunday picked up by Reuters.
“We are working in these hours to allow the reopening of a good part of businesses from manufacturing to construction for 4 May,” Conte told Italian daily La Repubblica.
He said the measures would be presented by the beginning of next week at the latest. Italy was the first European country to be hard-hit by the novel coronavirus, and the first to impose a lockdown in March. Its path to reopening its economy is being closely watched around the world as other countries where severe outbreaks arrived in the following week contemplate similar moves.
Conte said companies would have to introduce strict health safety measures before being allowed to open their gates. But he said some businesses considered “strategic”, including activity that was mainly export-oriented, could reopen next week providing they got the go-ahead from local prefects.
Conte said schools would reopen in September but added studies showed the risk of contagion was very high. Teaching remotely was working well, he said.
Updated
Public trust plummets in Britain's handling of pandemic, new poll reveals
The public’s confidence in the government’s ability to handle the coronavirus crisis has fallen sharply in the past fortnight, with less than half of voters now having faith in decisions made by ministers, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
A particularly low proportion of people (15%) believe the government is handling the key issue of testing well (down from 22% two weeks ago). Some 57% disapprove of the way testing has been handled, up from 48% on 7 April.
How coronavirus helped TikTok find its voice
Across the country, in teenage bedrooms and house shares, Brits stuck at home by the coronavirus lockdown are firing up TikTok, propping their phones against walls and hitting record.
Founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming, TikTok is one of the most popular video-sharing apps in the world, downloaded more than 2bn times globally. Users create 15-second clips set to music or soundbites, which they can overlay with digital special effects.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, TikTok was predominantly favoured by British teenagers, who posted prank videos or the latest trending dance routine on it. But since the lockdown, TikTok has become a seething leviathan of user-generated content, chewing down our boredom, our fatigue and our fear and spitting them back at us in 15-second chunks, to be digested ad infinitum.
African nations are banking on aggressive screening and testing strategies as their best – and possibly only – defence against the Covid-19 virus.
After a slow start, a sudden rise of more than 40% in the number of Covid-19 cases on the continent in the last 10 days – to 28,000 – and a similar increase in the number of deaths – to 1,300 – has worried specialists.
The World Health Organization has warned of 10m cases on the continent within three to six months, though experts say that the death toll could be lower if authorities are able to move swiftly to contain outbreaks of the disease.
“We are at the beginning in Africa,” Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, said last week.
Though some of the worst effects of infection may be mitigated by the relative youth of many people on the continent, others may be made more vulnerable by malnutrition or existing conditions, such as HIV.
Under-resourced health systems are unlikely to cope with a significant surge of those infected by the disease. Provision of intensive care facilities on the continent is grossly inadequate. Many countries with populations numbering tens of millions have only a handful of ventilators.
So far it has been difficult to fully grasp the extent of the spread of the disease in Africa, as testing has been patchy.
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along.
I’m off to … precisely nowhere:
I wish I could live through something - Ladybird https://t.co/qnHLhPH6bX
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) April 26, 2020
Updated
Summary
- More than 200,000 people have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic. The number of confirmed deaths in the coronavirus pandemic increased to 202,846 on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2,896,746 confirmed cases.
- French PM to present strategy for emerging from lockdown. The prime minister of France, Edouard Philippe, will on Tuesday present a national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown to the national assembly, his office told AFP.
- Beijing cracks down on ‘uncivilised’ behaviour. Beijing’s city government has banned “uncivilised” behaviour, such as not covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, in a new set of regulations to improve public hygiene and combat the coronavirus.
- WHO warns against ‘immunity passports’. The World Health Organization has warned against “immunity passports” for recovered patients, seen as a possible tool for countries preparing to reopen their economies.
- White House considers replacing health and human services chief. Reports have emerged that Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacing its secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, because of early missteps in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Cases grow by nearly 1,000 in Mexico. Mexico’s health ministry on Saturday reported 970 new cases of coronavirus infection and 84 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 13,842 cases and 1,305 deaths. The government has said the real number of infected people is likely considerably higher than the confirmed cases.
- Kim Jong-un’s train possibly spotted in resort. As rumours about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continue to circulate, including reports that he is sheltering from Covid-19, a US-based monitoring group released satellite images of what may have been his train parked at an exclusive resort town in the country’s east.
- Australian study finds little transmission between children. A preliminary report, cited by Australia’s chief medical officer as the government advocates the reopening of the country’s schools, says children are unlikely to transmit Covid-19 between each other or to adults.
- Saudi Arabia partially lifts curfews, reopens some commercial activity. State media in Saudi Arabia are reporting that the curfew will be partially lifted for all regions starting Sunday, but that a 24-hour curfew will be maintained in Mecca, according to Reuters. Some economic and commercial activities, including retail stores, will be reopened during Ramadan, from 29 April to 13 May.
- Australia releases controversial coronavirus tracing app. Australia’s coronavirus tracing app was set to launch on Sunday, despite lingering privacy concerns.
- UK prime minister to return to work on Monday. Boris Johnson will return to work on Monday and is “raring to go”, a Downing Street spokeswoman has confirmed. He returns to face a dilemma over whether to ease the coronavirus lockdown, as leading scientists warn that the number of new cases remains much too high.
Updated
Cut off by telecoms company, pensioner missed call as partner died of Covid-19
A pensioner missed the chance to say goodbye to her partner who was dying from the coronavirus when blunders by her telecoms provider resulted in her phone line being cut off.
The 79-year-old woman was left without a landline for three weeks after switching to Now TV, part of the Sky Group. As her family pleaded with the company to reconnect her, her partner contracted coronavirus. He died in hospital four days later, after trying in vain to make a final call. The news of his death was broken by a relative, because the hospital could not get through on her cancelled number.
Telecoms companies are struggling with a depleted workforce and unprecedented demand as customers rely on phones and broadband during lockdown. New figures released by O2 show phone calls have increased by 25% in the past month.
I think that last post calls for a few pictures of mask-wearers from around the world, don’t you?
Updated
Coronavirus face masks: why covering up is becoming the new normal
The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Philip Oltermann report from Berlin, with Sam Jones in Madrid:
When coronavirus emerged in China, people across much of the region were quick to start wearing some form of face mask when they went out in public. Memories of the Sars epidemic were still strong, and there is a cultural tradition of wearing masks to protect oneself and others.
In the west, however, even though masks sold out as fast as hand-sanitiser in chemists and online as people stockpiled supplies, initially there was widespread reluctance to wearing face coverings in public.
The divide was so strong that, as racism against people of east Asian heritage rose sharply, some stopped wearing masks because face protection had become a focus for abuse, discrimination and stigma.
A few weeks later, masks and improvised substitutes are rapidly becoming the new normal in cities from New York to Berlin, and those who go out without their nose and mouth covered risk censure or stronger penalties.
Updated
Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan with questions, comments, news or tips from your part of the world.
UK papers, Sunday 26 April
The Observer: PM returns to face lockdown dilemma as scientists warn over grim virus data #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/ueRK5UvDZo
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) April 25, 2020
The Sunday Telegraph: Two weeks’ qurarantine if travelling to the UK #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/yv9Vuwdymv
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) April 25, 2020
The Sunday Times front page #Newspapers #FrontPage #News pic.twitter.com/1tFHqbwv1R
— The Papers UK (@ThePapersUK) April 26, 2020
Tomorrow's @independent front page #tomorrowspaperstoday To subscribe to the Daily Edition: https://t.co/XF8VnDpHYF pic.twitter.com/B5YQwH4wBd
— The Independent (@Independent) April 26, 2020
If UK ministers fail to reveal 2016 flu study they ‘will face court’
The government faces being taken to court if it refuses to disclose the findings of an exercise confirming the UK could not cope with a flu pandemic.
Dr Moosa Qureshi, an NHS doctor, is demanding the government publish its report into Exercise Cygnus, a three-day simulation involving government and public health bodies conducted in 2016.
Qureshi, who is a campaigner with the group 54000doctors.org, represented by Leigh Day solicitors, has sent a pre-action protocol letter to the secretary of state for health requesting a response by 4pm .
If the government fails to disclose the findings of Exercise Cygnus without adequate reason, Qureshi’s lawyers will seek an urgent judicial review challenging the decision and seeking publication. A crowdfunding page to support the challenge was due to go live on Saturday night.
The row threatens to become a major embarrassment for the government. The Telegraph has reported that Cygnus’s findings were deemed “too terrifying” to be made public.
Beijing bans ‘uncivilised’ behaviour to improve public hygiene
Beijing has banned “uncivilised” behaviour such as not covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, the city government said Sunday, in a new set of regulations to improve public hygiene amid the coronavirus outbreak, AFP reports.
The laws aim to promote “civilised behaviour” and relate to combating the pandemic which has infected more than 82,000 in China alone.
Rule-breakers will be slapped with fines for offences including not wearing a mask in public when ill, the municipal government said on its website.
The laws require public places to set up one metre distance markers. Citizens must “dress neatly” in public and not go shirtless – an apparent reference to the so-called “Beijing bikini” practice where men roll T-shirts up to expose their stomachs in hot weather.
Beijing already discourages a range of “uncivilised” behaviours including public spitting, littering, walking dogs unleashed, throwing things from high buildings, public defecation and smoking in places where it is prohibited.
The laws also encourage police to report serious offences, which may affect a person’s social credit score - a fledgling system which aims to assess individual actions across society - though it did not provide more specifics.
French PM to set out road to normality, restrictions ease in Australia
The French prime minister, Edouard Philippe, will present the national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown to the French parliament on Tuesday, his office has announced.
The pandemic has killed 22,614 people in France since the start of March, with officials on Saturday reporting 369 new deaths in the previous 24 hours. The global death toll from the novel coronavirus pandemic passed 200,000 on Sunday.
France’s move comes as the World Health Organization has warned against “immunity passports” for recovered patients, seen as a possible tool for countries preparing to reopen their economies. “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection,” said a WHO statement.
In Australia, some state governments have announced relaxation of social distancing. Western Australia said that from Monday, 10 people would be allowed to gather indoors, and resume “non-contact recreational activities” such as private picnics, fishing, boating, hiking and camping. The Queensland government said family picnics, non-essential shopping and trips of up to 50km from home would be allowed from next Saturday.
Singapore is rapidly building bed space for coronavirus patients in cavernous exhibition halls and other temporary facilities as it faces a surge in cases, mainly among its large community of low-paid migrant workers.
The tiny city-state of 5.7 million people has over 12,000 confirmed infections of the virus that causes CovidD-19, one of the highest counts in Asia, Reuters reports.
Despite the high total of cases, Singapore has reported 12 deaths and 24 people are in intensive care.
At the new Changi isolation centre, each room has blood-pressure monitors and other medical equipment for patients to conduct their own health checks three times daily, while remote-controlled robots provide meals and teleconferencing services to reduce contact.
Authorities are also trialling a four-legged robot dog built by Boston Dynamics at the facility, which they said could be used to deliver medicines to patients or take their temperature.
Thailand on Sunday reported 15 new coronavirus cases and no new deaths, bringing the total number of cases since its outbreak in January to 2,922 cases and 51 deaths.
Of the new cases, four were linked to previous cases, another four had no known links, while five new patients are arrivals from overseas who have been under state quarantine.
Two other new cases were reported from the southern province of Yala, where the authorities are aggressively testing the population because of high infection rates there, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration.
Since the outbreak in Thailand, 2,594 patients have recovered and gone home.
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“Covid-19 pandemic shines a light on a new kind of class divide and its inequalities,” writes Robert Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a former US secretary of labor.
Four new classes are emerging.
The Remotes: These are professional, managerial, and technical workers – an estimated 35% of the workforce – who are putting in long hours at their laptops, Zooming into conferences, scanning electronic documents, and collecting about the same pay as before the crisis.
The Essentials: They’re about 30% of workers, including nurses, homecare and childcare workers, farm workers, food processors, truck drivers, warehouse and transit workers, drugstore employees, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, and the military.
The Unpaid: They’re an even larger group than the unemployed – whose ranks could soon reach 25%, the same as in the Great Depression. Some of the unpaid are furloughed or have used up their paid leave. So far in this crisis, 43% of adults report they or someone in their household has lost jobs or pay, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Forgotten: This group includes everyone for whom social distancing is nearly impossible because they’re packed tightly into places most Americans don’t see: prisons, jails for undocumented immigrants, camps for migrant farmworkers, Native American reservations, homeless shelters, and nursing homes.
Summary
- The global death toll has surpassed 200,000. The number of confirmed deaths in the coronavirus pandemic increased to 202,846 on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University. There are 2,896,746 confirmed cases.
- French PM to present the national strategy for emerging from lockdown on Tuesday. Seventeen priorities have been identified for gradually bringing the country out of lockdown from 11 May. These include reopening schools, companies returning to work, getting public transport back to normal, the supply of masks and sanitiser, testing policy and support for the elderly.
- Kim Jong-un’s train possibly spotted at North Korean resort. A special train possibly belonging to the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has been spotted at a resort town, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Kim’s health and whereabouts, Reuters reports.
- White House considering replacing Health and Human Services chief. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacing its secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, because of early missteps in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the Wall Street Journal and Politico reported. A White House spokesperson denied the claim.
- Saudi Arabia partially lifts curfews, reopens some commercial activity. State media in Saudi Arabia are reporting that the curfew will be partially lifted for all regions starting Sunday, but that a 24-hour curfew will be maintained in Mecca. Some economic and commercial activities, including retail stores, will reopen during Ramadan, from 29 April to 13 May.
- Boris Johnson will return to work on Monday and is “raring to go”, a Downing street spokeswoman has confirmed. He returns facing a dilemma over whether to ease the coronavirus lockdown, as leading scientists warn that the number of new cases remains much too high.
- German police arrested dozens of protesters in Berlin on Saturday, for flouting the coronavirus lockdown measures they were demonstrating against. About 1,000 people turned out for the rally, which has become a weekly event. It attracted mainly far-left activists but rightwing supporters and members of other fringe groups also participated.
- Spain could lift more lockdown restrictions and allow adults out to exercise from 2 May if efforts to contain the spread of the virus continue to pay off, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said.
Updated
Iraq’s nationwide lockdown since mid-March has led to a spike in domestic violence, AFP reports.
The head of Iraq’s community police, Brigadier General Ghalib Atiyah, told AFP that its log of domestic violence cases has increased by an average of 30% since the curfew came into force, with some areas seeing as high as a 50% spike.
In a single week, the United Nations in Iraq (UNAMI) reported: “The rape of a woman with special needs, spousal abuse, immolation and self-immolation as well as self-inflicted injuries due to spousal abuse, sexual harassment of minors, and suicide due to domestic abuse among other crimes.”
Poland’s farmers have already been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, which has deprived them of seasonal workers from Ukraine. Now, an unprecedented drought is making things even worse.
“Everyone’s panicking. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” Adrianna Bukowska-Lazarska, whose farm usually produces more than 300 tonnes of strawberries per year near the central village of Czerwinsk nad Wisla, told AFP.
Agriculture Minister Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski has warned that the drought could hurt food production, implying that while there is no risk of a shortage, prices may very well go up.
President Andrzej Duda has also expressed concern, calling on residents on Wednesday to be reasonable with their water use.
The drought has also aggravated huge fires ravaging Poland’s largest nature reserve, the Biebrza National Park in the country’s northeast.
Children unlikely to transmit coronavirus, says study cited in Australian PM’s push to reopen schools
A new report, cited by Australia’s chief medical officer as the federal government advocates the reopening of schools, says children are unlikely to transmit Covid-19 between each other or to adults.
The study by NSW Health’s Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS), released on Sunday, examined transmission of the virus in NSW schools and childcare centres between March and mid-April.
Examining the spread 18 of coronavirus cases (nine students and nine staff) from 15 schools, the report’s preliminary findings were that only one primary school student and one high school student “may have contracted Covid-19 from the initial cases at their schools”.
Cuba dispatched more than 216 healthcare workers to South Africa on Saturday, the latest of more than 20 medical brigades it has sent worldwide to combat the coronavirus pandemic, in what some call socialist solidarity and others medical diplomacy.
Reuters reports that Cuba has sent around 1,200 healthcare workers largely to vulnerable African and Caribbean nations but also to rich European countries such as Italy that have been particularly hard hit by the novel coronavirus.
The US administration has urged nations not to accept Cuba’s medical missions on charges it exploits its workers, which Havana denies. But the calls have largely gone unheeded as overwhelmed healthcare systems have welcomed the help.
Cuba, which has confirmed ,1337 cases of the virus at home and 51 deaths, has one of the world’s highest number of doctors per capita and is renowned for its focus on prevention, community-oriented primary health care and preparedness to fight epidemics.
“The advantage of Cuba is that they are a community health model, one that we would like to use,” South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told a news briefing earlier this month.
South Africa has recorded 4,361 cases, including 86 deaths, with 161,004 people tested for the virus as of Saturday.
Health Canada has joined those cautioning against the use of malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to prevent or treat Covid-19. The drugs have been advocated as a cure for the disease by Donald Trump, among others, but the Canadian health authority warned on Saturday that they may cause serious side effects. It advised use of the two drugs only if prescribed by a doctor. The US Food and Drug Administration also cautioned against the use of malaria drugs in Covid-19 patients on Friday.
China’s smog-prone northern province of Hebei, close to Beijing, met its air quality targets by a big margin over the winter after concerted efforts to tackle emissions, a local official said on Sunday, without mentioning coronavirus-related factory shutdowns, Reuters reports.
Average PM2.5 concentrations over the October-March period dropped 15% from a year earlier to 61 micrograms per cubic metre, while sulphur dioxide also fell by a third, said He Litao, vice-head of the provincial environmental bureau.
Most experts have attributed the significant decline in air pollution throughout China in the first quarter to the coronavirus outbreak and tough containment measures, which saw cities and entire provinces locked down and sharply reduced traffic and industrial activity throughout the country.
With millions staying at home, concentrations of lung-damaging PM2.5 particles fell by nearly 15% in more than 300 Chinese cities in the first three months of 2020.
Shanghai saw emissions fall by nearly 20% in the first quarter, while in Wuhan, where the pandemic originated, monthly averages dropped more than a third compared to last year.
As the number of people who have lost their lives in this pandemic reaches 202,846, here are the ten worst-affected countries in terms of number of confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data:
- US: 938,154
- Spain: 223,759
- Italy: 195,351
- France: 161,644
- Germany: 156,513
- United Kingdom: 149,569
- Turkey: 107,773
- Iran: 89,328
- China: 83,909
- Russia: 74,588
French Prime Minister to present the national strategy for emerging from lockdown
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will on Tuesday present the national strategy for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown, his office told AFP.
His announcement at the National Assembly will be followed by a debate and a vote. An app for tracing contacts of confirmed cases is also due to be unveiled Tuesday.
Seventeen priorities have been identified for gradually bringing the country out of lockdown from 11 May. These include reopening schools, companies returning to work, getting public transport back to normal, the supply of masks and sanitiser, testing policy and support for the elderly.
A dozen ministers will on Monday consult with representatives of local authorities to discuss various options. France has been under coronavirus restrictions since March 17 and the government faces a delicate balancing act to revive the economy without triggering a resurgence in the epidemic.
Only 39% of the French public have confidence in the government’s ability to deal effectively with the virus, seven points lower than last week, according to an Ifop poll for the Journal du Dimanche.
The pandemic has killed 22,614 people in France since the start of March, with 369 new deaths recorded in the previous 24 hours, according to official figures released late Saturday, which saw a significant drop in hospital deaths.
Everton have labelled Moise Kean’s actions “unacceptable” after he flouted coronavirus lockdown restrictions, PA media reports.
The striker filmed himself partying at home with guests in a breach of social distancing regulations during the coronavirus pandemic. Kean, who joined from Juventus for a reported £24m last summer, is likely to face disciplinary action.
Kean is the latest Premier League player to flout the rules after Jack Grealish and Kyle Walker were forced to apologise for breaching the restrictions, while Serge Aurier and Moussa Sissoko said sorry after training together last week. The 20-year-old has failed to impress in his debut season in England, scoring just once in 26 games for Everton.
What’s the right way to play UNO? pic.twitter.com/8tTnq0Byf9
— Jeff Wright (@JeffRightNoww) April 25, 2020
Many Americans flocked to beaches on Saturday as one Florida county expanded access and California experienced a heat wave, even as new coronavirus cases hit a record high in the United States the day before and deaths topped 53,000.
Hair salons and other shops in Georgia, Oklahoma and some other states opened for a second day as pockets of the country sought to restart their economies following a month of government-ordered lockdowns.
The tentative steps toward restarting life run against the warnings of many public health experts, who say the increased human interaction could spark a new wave of cases.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo repeated his warning that reopening businesses too soon was risky, while Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo pushed back against a protest at the State House in Providence as short-sighted, arguing it could force her to delay her restart date of 8 May at the earliest.
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More now on reports that US President Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacing its secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, because of early missteps in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
A White House spokesman, Judd Deere, denied it and said the HHS under Azar continues to lead on a number of the president’s priorities, Reuters reports.
“Any speculation about personnel is irresponsible and a distraction from our whole-of-government response to Covid-19,” Deere said.
The Journal, citing six people familiar with the discussions, said frustration with Azar was growing but the administration was reluctant to make big changes while the country was seeking to stop the virus, which has killed more than 53,000 people in the United States.
Politico said the short list of names to replace Azar included Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma and deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan.
Asked for a response, HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said: “Secretary Azar is busy responding to a global, public health crisis and doesn’t have time for palace intrigue.”
Australia’s coronavirus tracing app set to launch today despite lingering privacy concerns
A controversial coronavirus tracing app will be released by the Australian government on Sunday, despite lingering privacy concerns.
The app, based on source code from Singapore’s Tracetogether software, maintains a log of bluetooth connections a person’s phone makes with the phones of those they have come into contact with, making it easier for health authorities to trace potential Covid-19 carriers in the case of a positive diagnosis.
For the app to be successful, just under half the population would need to carry it on their phones.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, after saying it was not his “preferred option”, confirmed downloading the app would not be mandatory, and instead has likened it to a civic duty, such as buying war bonds in the second world war. He also flagged it as a necessary step to relaxing restrictions.
White House considering replacing Health and Human Services chief
President Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacing its secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, because of early missteps in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the Wall Street Journal and Politico reported on Saturday.
The Journal, which cited six people familiar with the discussions, said frustration with Azar was growing but the administration was reluctant to make big changes while the country was seeking to stop the virus, which has killed more than 53,000 people in the United States.
A White House spokesman told the newspaper that there was no plan to replace Azar and called talk of replacing him “speculation and a distraction.”
Politico said the short list of names to replace Azar included Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma and deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan.
China reported 11 new coronavirus cases on 25 April, compared to 12 on the previous day, with no fatalities, according to official data published on Sunday.
Of the total, there were six cases of local transmission, including five in the northeastern border province of Heilongjiang, and one in southeast Guangdong province, which neighbours Hong Kong.
The remaining five cases were imported, down from 11 on the previous day, National Health Commission data showed.
The commission also reported 30 new asymptomatic cases, up slightly from 29 on the previous day.
China has now reported a total of 82,827 confirmed infections, with 4,632 deaths.
Updated
The G20, a group of rich and emerging economies, on Sunday launched an international initiative to accelerate access to health tools needed to fight the new coronavirus, Reuters reports.
The finance minister of Saudi Arabia, the current G20 chair, said the group is still working to bridge an estimated $8 billion funding gap to combat the pandemic.
“The G20 will continue reinforcing global cooperation on all fronts, and most importantly, on closing the immediate health financing gap,” the minister, Mohammed al-Jadaan, said in a statement launching the “Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator” initiative.
He added that “the international community is still facing extraordinary uncertainty about the depth and duration of this health crisis”, the statement said.
Saudi Arabia earlier this month pledged $500 million to support global efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic. In the statement, it repeated its call on all countries, non-governmental organizations, philanthropists and the private sector to help close the financing gap.
Saudi Arabia partially lifts curfews, reopens some commercial activity
State media in Saudi Arabia are reporting that the curfew will be partially lifted for all regions starting Sunday, but that a 24-hour curfew will be maintained in Mecca, according to Reuters.
Some economic and commercial activities, including retail stores, will be reopened during Ramadan, from 29 April to 13 May.
Confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in Panama reached 5,538 on Saturday, a rise of 200 from the previous day, while related deaths increased by five to 159, the health ministry said.
Director of epidemiology Lourdes Moreno presented the Central American country’s latest figures at a news conference.
The US Treasury Department said on Saturday it has released US$9.5bn in additional funds from the Payroll Support Program to US air carriers, bringing to $12.4bn the total provided to the airline sector hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.
In total, the government has disbursed grant funds to 10 major airlines and 83 smaller carriers.
Congress approved $25 billion in grants for payroll assistance for passenger airlines. Treasury required major airlines receiving more than $100 million in assistance to repay 30% in low-interest loans over 10 years and issue warrants equal to 10% of the loan amount.
Airlines may still need more money as US air travel demand has fallen by 95% and shows no sign of improving.
On Friday, President Donald Trump said the U.S. government could pre-buy airplane tickets at a steep discount of 50% or more for travel for the next four or five years. “You infuse them with some cash. And in the meantime, we’re flying the people of our country for ... a fraction of the cost,” he said.
Airlines for America, a trade group representing major U.S. airlines, declined to comment.
Mexico’s health ministry on Saturday reported 970 new cases of coronavirus infection and 84 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 13,842 cases and 1,305 deaths.
The government has said the real number of infected people is likely considerably higher than the confirmed cases.
Kim Jong-un's train possibly spotted at North Korean resort
A special train possibly belonging to the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has been spotted at a resort town, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Kim’s health and whereabouts, Reuters reports.
The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on 21 April and 23 April. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.
Though the group said it was probably Kim’s train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.
“The train’s presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country’s eastern coast,” the report said.
Speculation about Kim’s health first arose due to his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of North Korea’s founding father and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, on 15 April.
North Korea’s state media last reported on Kim’s whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on 11 April.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of coronavirus news from around the world with me, Helen Sullivan.
You can get in touch directly on Twitter @helenrsullivan with news, tips, questions and comments.
As the number of people who have lost their lives in this pandemic passes 200,000, the US president, Donald Trump, has declared his own White House press briefings “not worth the effort” after comments he made about using disinfectant to cure coronavirus were met with shock and ridicule.
The number of people who have died in the US currently stands at 53,449 according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Here are the developments from the last few hours:
- The global death toll has passed 200,000. The number of confirmed deaths in the coronavirus pandemic increased to 202,368 on Saturday, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. The figures for infections are likely to underestimate the true scale of losses of life due to suspected under-reporting and differing testing regimes.
- Boris Johnson will return to work on Monday and is “raring to go”, a Downing street spokeswoman has confirmed. The prime minister has been recovering in his country residence after spending three nights in intensive care in April. He returns to face a dilemma over whether to ease the coronavirus lockdown, as leading scientists warn that the number of new cases remains much too high.
- German police arrested dozens of protesters in Berlin on Saturday for flouting the coronavirus lockdown measures they were demonstrating against. About 1,000 people turned out for the rally, which has become a weekly event in the German capital. Saturday’s protest attracted mainly far-left activists but there were also rightwing supporters and members of other fringe groups.
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Paraguayan authorities have laid out details of a plan to begin lifting the country’s total quarantine. The health minister Julio Mazzoleni announced at press conference on Friday that a new “intelligent quarantine” will begin on 4 May. It will gradually reintroduce public freedoms and economic activities through a four-stage plan set to run until early July.
- The UK’s biggest steel producer needs about £500m in government support to see it through the coronavirus crisis, according to the Welsh MP Stephen Kinnock. Tata Steel has reportedly approached the UK and Welsh governments for a bailout after its big European customers halted production. The company employs 8,385 people across the UK including more than 4,000 workers at the Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales.
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Spain could lift more lockdown restrictions and allow adults out to exercise from 2 May if efforts to contain the spread of the virus continue to pay off, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said.
Updated
