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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Helen Sullivan (now and earlier); Kevin Rawlinson , Amy Walker, Damien Gayle and Simon Murphy

Italy records lowest daily increase in Covid-19 deaths in a week – as it happened

Health workers collect swabs to conduct tests on drivers for coronavirus disease in Rome, Italy.
Health workers collect swabs to conduct tests on drivers for coronavirus disease in Rome, Italy. Photograph: Alessandro Di Meo/EPA

We’re closing this blog now. Follow me to the link below, where we’ll be bringing you rolling coverage of the pandemic, as confirmed cases worldwide near the one million mark:

Another iconic New York City landmark is being converted into a temporary hospital to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, joining Central Park.

The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, home to the US Open, will relieve some of the pressure on one of the state’s hardest hit hospitals, Elmhurst in Queens.

It’s expected to open next week to treat Covid-19 patients who aren’t in need of intensive care. The facility is projected to hold 350 patients.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio holds media briefing at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where a 350-bed temporary hospital will be built.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio holds media briefing at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where a 350-bed temporary hospital will be built. Photograph: Erik Pendzich/REX/Shutterstock

Trump says the US will evacuate Canadian and British citizens from the stranded Zaandam cruise ship.

Here Trump is on the Canadian citizens:

The family of a British man who died on board the coronavirus-stricken ship earlier appealed to the US president to allow the ship to dock.

John Carter died on 22 March after falling unwell; one of four people to have died on the ship. The Zaandam, which is carrying more than 200 British nationals, is embroiled in a bitter dispute over plans to disembark passengers in the US.

It passed through the Panama Canal on Monday after being denied entry to several ports, and is seeking to dock in Florida later this week.

Updated

The White House briefing is over now. In jollier news, Country music icon Dolly Parton is making a $1 million donation to help fund coronavirus research, as well as taking time out every week to read children’s books online to kids everywhere.

The “9 to 5” singer, actress and philanthropist tweeted Wednesday that she’s donating the $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee for coronavirus research.

Additionally, she’s working with her charity, The Imagination Library, to read a children’s book on YouTube every Thursday at 7 p.m. EST for 10 weeks. The Imagination Library provides children free books by mail every month and the program is available in all 50 states and five countries.

Here’s her shoutout to first responders and healthcare professionals:

Updated

A reporter asks about domestic violence concerns.

“Mexican violence?” Trump asks.

“Domestic violence,” the reporter clarifies.

Trump says it’s one of the costs of not getting our country, our economy going again.

“We have to get our country going again. We did the right thing. We had no choice. Other countries tried to use the herd [immunity].”

Trump is asking under which conditions he would consider suspending sanctions against Iran, which has the seventh-highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world.

“They’re proud people.. they’re having a hard time picking up the phone? They’re having a hard time setting up the meeting?”

“All they have to do is call.”

Updated

Trump is being asked about religious services - should pastors be holding services in the middle of this pandemic? The reporter references the Florida pastor who held services over the weekend with several hundred people.

“My greatest disappointment is that churches can’t meet in this time of need...” he doesn’t answer the question but says “you have to be very careful.”

Updated

US Vice President Mike Pence is speaking now – Trump has asked him to respond to a question regarding the government’s decision not to reopen the Obamacare health exchanges – saying it has been a priority of Trump’s to ensure no American pays healthcare costs related to coronavirus.

Pence is now speaking about how “inspiring” it has been to see American businesses, including private health insurance executives, step up to handle the crisis.

He says two of the largest insurance companies have said they will waive co-pay costs and he expects others to follow.

Trump says that was “one of the greatest answers he’s ever heard because Mike [Pence] was able to speak for five minutes and not answer your [the reporter’s] question.”

Updated

You can watch the White House press briefing live here:

Trump says he’s considering ending domestic flights between hotspots. “That is a calculation that we’re looking at right now.”

Fact check: Florida cases

Asked why the federal government hasn’t declared a national shelter-in-place order, leaving it instead to governors, Trump said it was about flexibility – not every state is in the same situation, so responses should be flexible.

Florida doesn’t “have thousands of people who are positive,” he said, as an example. Florida, in fact has nearly 7,000 confirmed cases.

Trump says federal stockpile of personal protective equipment is nearly empty

Staying with the White House press briefing for now, Trump said that the federal stockpile of personal protective equipment is nearly empty. “It is,” he said. “Because we’re sending it directly to hospitals.”

Earlier, CNN reported that the “Strategic National Stockpile is deploying the last round of shipments in its inventory, depleting the bulk of its protective gear.”

Updated

Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now, picking up the baton from my colleague Kevin Rawlinson.

Trump is addressing the pandemic. “Nobody could’ve known a thing like this would happen,” he said.

In fact, the US intelligence community, public health experts and officials in Trump’s own administration had warned for years that the country was at risk from a pandemic, including specific warnings about a coronavirus outbreak.

When this strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was identified in Wuhan, China in early January, health experts immediately cautioned that it could turn into a global health crisis. US agencies were tracking the spread of the virus in China and then other countries, and warned that Chinese officials were minimizing the impact.

“Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were – they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” an unnamed government official told the Washington Post last week. “The system was blinking red.”

An October 2019 draft report by the Department of Health and Human Services, obtained by the New York Times: “drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed,” the Times reported.

Updated

In Washington DC, the White House’s coronavirus briefing has begun with an overview of the administration’s new “enhanced counter-narcotics operations”. According to the US president Donald Trump, the forces fighting drug traffickers will also have equipment to protect them from contracting coronavirus.

“This is a particularly important time for this operation to begin,” said the US defence secretary, Mark Esper. According to Esper, as other countries work to protect their populations from the coronavirus threat, they’re getting lax on drug traffickers.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said the US has intelligence that that shows drug cartels are exploiting the coronavirus outbreak ramp up operations. “We will defend our country regardless of the cost,” he said. “We’re at war with Covid-19, we’re at war with terrorists,.”

On 11 March, the day before Boris Johnson told the UK the outbreak could no longer be contained and that testing for Covid-19 would stop except for the seriously ill in hospital, the head of No 10’s “nudge unit” gave a brief interview to the BBC.

At the time it was barely noticed – it was budget day, after all. With hindsight, it seems astonishing. Dr David Halpern said:

There’s going to be a point, assuming the epidemic flows and grows as it will do, where you want to cocoon, to protect those at-risk groups so they don’t catch the disease. By the time they come out of their cocooning, herd immunity has been achieved in the rest of the population.

It was a window into the thinking of the political strategists directing the UK response to Covid-19, who claimed to base what they were doing on scientific evidence. We would let the disease spread among the healthy. So no need to test.

If there was a moment when the UK turned its back on the traditional public health approach to fighting an epidemic, this was it.

The family of a British man who died on board the coronavirus-stricken Zaandam cruise ship are appealing to the US president Donald Trump to allow the ship to dock.

John Carter died on 22 March after falling unwell; one of four people to have died on the ship. The Zaandam, which is carrying more than 200 British nationals, is embroiled in a bitter dispute over plans to disembark passengers in the US.

It passed through the Panama Canal on Monday after being denied entry to several ports, and is seeking to dock in Florida later this week. Carter’s relatives said:

As a family, we send a plea to Donald Trump and the Florida Authorities to authorise the docking of the MS Zaandam and MS Rotterdam cruise liners in Fort Lauderdale. It is imperative that the passengers and crew receive the urgent assistance that they so desperately need.

His wife remains on the Zaandam currently. She has been isolated on her own since his death in the cabin that she shared with John. She has only minimal contact with her family as her mobile phone is no longer working. She is struggling to eat the limited meals and is feeling unwell. She is obviously distressed and extremely frightened.

They were both in good health and did not foresee the terrible situation that has arisen. John became unwell aboard the ship and passed away on 22 March 2020. We do not know the cause of his death at present.

We’re getting an early look at Thursday morning’s British papers. The front pages, including those of the normally pro-Conservative outlets, make somewhat brutal reading for the Tory government:

Stable coronavirus patients could be taken off ventilators in favour of saving those more likely to survive, Denis Campbell, Alexandra Topping and Caelainn Barr write.

The news emerged as another sharp rise in deaths leaves the UK braced for the outbreak to reach up to 1,000 deaths a day by the end of the week.

In a stark new document issued by the British Medical Association as the death toll rises by 563, doctors set out guidelines to ration care if the NHS becomes overwhelmed with new cases as the outbreak moves towards its peak.

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said the decision to put off Cop26 talks was sad, but necessary:

Updated

Responding to the news of the Cop26 postponement, Oxfam GB’s chief executive Danny Sriskandarajah has said:

This pause is understandable in light of efforts to stop the pandemic we all now face. But this should not mean pausing our vital efforts to respond to a climate crisis that is already threatening lives and pushing millions of people deeper into hunger and poverty.

The UK, as host of the summit, must keep global momentum going and cannot miss the opportunity to commit to both a just recovery and a just transition to a greener economy.

Governments are right now showing they are ready to cooperate. They should avoid repeating the same mistakes that were made after the 2008 global financial crisis when stimulus packages caused emissions to rebound.

Updated

All Israelis should wear face masks while in public as a precaution against the coronavirus, and upcoming Jewish, Muslim and Christian holidays should be marked only with immediate family, its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.

In televised remarks, Netanyahu also announced curbs on movement around an ultra-Orthodox Jewish town that has experienced a disproportionately large outbreak.

Israel has taken stringent measures to try to halt the spread of the virus, after recording more than 6,000 cases. At least 25 Israelis have died of Covid-19, according to Israeli health ministry data.

“We ask you, citizens of Israel, all of you, to wear masks in the public sphere,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks, adding that people could improvise “with a scarf or any other facial covering” in the absence of factory-produced masks.

The Netherlands is proposing establishing a fund for the worst-hit nations and has asked other countries in the EU to contribute, its finance minister Wopke Hoekstra has said.

The Netherlands was criticised by southern European countries who accused it of lacking solidarity in its response to the coronavirus. Hoekstra told the Reuters news agency:

What we are proposing is a healthcare emergency fund to which the Netherlands would make a very substantial contribution,.

It would be roughly a billion euros and that would be a gift as a sign of solidarity intended for countries dealing with the coronavirus.

The Netherlands received positive reactions from other nations within the 27-member bloc to the proposal, Hoekstra said.

The UN’s climate change chief, Patricia Espinosa, called Covid-19 the “most urgent threat facing humanity”, adding:

But we cannot forget that climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity over the long term.

Soon, economies will restart. This is a chance for nations to recover better, to include the most vulnerable in those plans, and a chance to shape the 21st century economy in ways that are clean, green, healthy, just, safe and more resilient.

In the meantime, we continue to support and to urge nations to significantly boost climate ambition in line with the Paris Agreement.

Updated

Cop26 climate talks suspended

Key UN climate talks that were due to take place in Glasgow in November have been postponed until 2021, it has been announced. Announcing the postponement of Cop26, its president-designate and the UK’s business secretary, Alok Sharma, said:

The world is currently facing an unprecedented global challenge and countries are rightly focusing their efforts on saving lives and fighting Covid-19. That is why we have decided to reschedule Cop26.

We will continue working tirelessly with our partners to deliver the ambition needed to tackle the climate crisis and I look forward to agreeing a new date for the conference.

Updated

A retired hospital medical director has become the latest doctor to die from coronavirus in the UK.

Dr Alfa Saadu, 68, was volunteering at the Queen’s Victoria memorial hospital, in Welwyn, Hertfordshire – one of the counties worst hit by the virus – when he became ill. His son Dani confirmed that his father had died after a two-week battle with the disease.

Dr Saadu had not specifically answered the call for retired doctors to return to the front line to tackle the pandemic. But his death will raise more questions about the wisdom of the government’s drive to encourage former medics back to work when older people are more at risk from coronavirus.

Dr Saadu had retired from the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow in 2016 after a distinguished 40-year medical career, but was helping out behind the scenes at his local hospital in Welwyn.

We reported earlier that 950,000 people in the UK have successfully applied for universal credit in a little more than two weeks – 850,000 more than would normally be expected in a fortnight.

Now, the main opposition party has called on the government to make the process more efficient. The shadow work and pensions secretary, Labour’s Margaret Greenwood, has said:

The number of people now trying to claim universal credit is truly shocking. The government must wake up and take action, not leave people waiting days to verify their identity and five weeks to get the support they need.

Advances are not the answer to the five-week wait, they are loans that have to be paid back, and nobody knows how long this crisis will last for.

People need help now, but neither the job retention scheme nor the self-employment income support scheme are up and running, and two million self-employed people will not be covered at all.

The government should turn advances into non-repayable grants to end the five-week wait and make sure people get the support they need quickly at a level that genuinely protects them from poverty. They must also urgently revisit both the job retention scheme and the self-employment scheme.

Dozens of Britons who were on a quarantined Tui cruise ship have returned to the UK, the country’s foreign secretary says.

Updated

The Scottish parliament has voted to ban the practice of moor burning in preparation for grouse shooting during the lockdown, after Scottish Greens said there “cannot be business as usual for the lairds and lockdown for the rest of us”.

Scottish Green MSP Andy Wightman witnesses had tweeted pictures of the practice continuing throughout Scotland, even after landowners were told to stop by Scottish Land and Estates.

It is absurd that while the country is told to stay at home, with sporting and cultural events cancelled and businesses compelled to close, some landowners have proceeded to inflict environmental damage on their land in the expectation that a privileged few will still be able to go and shoot birds for a hobby

The vote comes after the Moorland Association told landowners in England and Wales to cease the practice after a managed fire in West Yorkshire got out of control.

International Monetary Fund officials say the pandemic is putting major strains on emerging market economies, but they are confident the Fund has sufficient resources to meet their needs.

The fund is “quite a bit away” from exhausting its $1tn (£800bn) in total lending capacity and is working to identify new sources of funding and liquidity for member countries.

Here’s a little more detail on the latest figures provided by Salomon:

  • 56,489 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in France (+4,861)
  • 4,032 deaths in hospitals (+509)
  • 24,639 people in hospital with the virus (+1,882)
  • 6,017 patients are in intensive care (+452). Of those in intensive care, 34% are aged younger than 60 years, 60% between 60 and 80 years and 80 patients aged younger than 30 years)
  • 10,934 people in France treated for the coronavirus have recovered and returned home (+1,490)

The French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, says the end of the lockdown, when it comes, will probably not be “general, total or happen all at once”. This suggests it will be a gradual end to the national confinement and may well be decided on a geographical basis.

More than 4,000 people have now died in France, local authorities say; making it the fourth country to pass the threshold, following Italy, Spain and the United States.

After speeding up the previous two days, the rate of increase of deaths has decelerated, which is now in its third week of lockdown to try to slow the spread of the virus.

The daily government tally still only accounts for those dying in hospital but authorities say they will very soon be able to compile data on deaths in retirement homes, which is likely to result in a big increase in registered fatalities. The current total is 4,032 people.

The state health agency director, Jérôme Salomon, has said the number of cases has risen to 56,989. He said 6,017 people were in a serious condition needing life support.

Staying in the UK, a temporary morgue is being built in east London.

Building work is under way on Wanstead Flats in the Manor Park area of the London Borough of Newham. The site is owned by the City of London Corporation and is close to the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium. The borough’s mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, said:

The facility will act as a holding point before a respectful and dignified cremation or burial can take place to send a loved one on their final journey. Sadly relatives will not be able to visit the site.

UK to call up 3,000 reservists

The UK’s Ministry of Defence is calling up about 3,000 reservists to help with its pandemic response. That brings the number of armed forces personnel helping manage the crisis to about 23,000.

They will be needed to help with medical and logistical support for the NHS and to act as liaison officers, among other things.

Officials have been contacting reservists’ employers and they said that “only reservists with specialist skills that meet specific requests for help from other government departments will be called out”.

No one working for the National Health Service or delivering front line services will be mobilised, officials added.

The UK’s minister for the armed forces, James Heappey, said:

Our reservists are a truly remarkable group of people; each with their own skills and experience from their civilian careers beyond the armed forces.

At times like these, to be able to draw on that pool of talent and expertise is invaluable. I know that our reservists will answer the nation’s call with real enthusiasm and will play a key part in our response to Covid-19.

All New York City playgrounds are being closed down on the orders of the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, who is also urging police to become more aggressive in enforcing physical distancing

Young people must get this message, and they still have not gotten the message, you still see too many situations with too much density by young people.

The governor also chided New Yorkers for being irresponsible after a reporter asked him about a crowd that gathered at a Manhattan pier to watch the arrival of the USNS Comfort, a 1,000-bed hospital ship.

How reckless and irresponsible and selfish for people not to do it on their own.

About 950,000 people in the UK have applied for universal credit in the two weeks since the country’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, asked people to stay home to limit the spread of coronavirus.

There are normally around 100,000 applicants for the benefit per two-week period. The government has moved 10,000 staff to process the claims and is recruiting more.

The first coronavirus case among Brazil’s 300 indigenous tribes has been confirmed by the Health Ministry’s indigenous health service Sesai.

The 19-year-old woman from a village deep inside the Amazon rainforest is a medical worker who travelled up river to several villages and returned home with a fever, a sore throat and chest pains.

On Monday, the Guardian reported that indigenous groups across South America were blockading their villages and retreating into their traditional rainforest and mountain homes in an effort to escape the potentially cataclysmic threat of Covid-19.

The Scottish government has significantly increased the timescales for answering freedom of information requests due to the conoravirus crisis after winning a series of knife-edge votes in Holyrood.

Hundreds of Scottish public bodies will now be given up to 60 working days to answer information requests, and could be allowed another 40 days under special circumstances, after ministers forced through major changes to Scotland’s FoI regime.

The reforms, which greatly extend existing 20-day legal deadlines for FoI requests, were resisted by Labour, the Tories, the Lib Dems and Scottish Greens, who put forward a series of at times conflicting amendments, undermining the consensus ministers said they were anxious to maintain during the crisis.

Neil Findlay, for Scottish Labour, and Adam Tomkins, for the Scottish Tories, told Holyrood no other comparable democracy had suggested such changes due to the pandemic, and urged them to be restricted to health bodies involved in frontline efforts to beat the virus.

UK ministers have not sought the same changes after the information commissioner in London, who oversees UK bodies and public agencies in England and Wales, said agencies would not be penalised if they needed more time during the crisis.

Alex Cole Hamilton, for the Lib Dems, said the Scottish measures were “opening the door to the suppression of scrutiny” of public authorities during the crisis.

Freedom of information campaigners and journalists had also opposed the measures, which had originally given public bodies up to 200 working days to respond to a request and review their first response.

During an at times heated debate, a series of opposition amendments were defeated on the casting vote of Ken McIntosh, the parliament’s presiding officer, after votes were tied 41 to 41.

Mike Russell, the Scottish constitutional affairs secretary, withdrew an automatic right for agencies to extend deadlines from 60 to 100 days, but narrowly won a vote allowing ministers to offer agencies an extra 40 days in special circumstances. He insisted these powers were time-limited but justified.

Russell said the extension to 60 days had been accepted by Daren Fitzhenry, the Scottish information commissioner, because of the exceptional impact the crisis was having on public bodies, many of whom had sent all their staff home, making it very hard to search files or collate responses.

In the UK, health workers are making improvised masks out of snorkels, buying kit from hardware stores and using school science goggles to protect themselves in anticipation of a rise in coronavirus cases, it has emerged.

An NHS consultant anaesthetist working in south-east England reported buying 60 snorkels to adapt into respirator masks. “Various other places are doing the same,” the doctor told the Guardian. “One trust has ordered 500 and teamed up with companies who are (3D) printing the adapters.”

Samantha Batt-Rawden, the president of Doctors Association UK, said they have heard from numerous frontline NHS doctors who have improvised kit or had to buy their own respirator masks from hardware stores, while others have reached out to schools and laboratories for protective glasses.

The anaesthetist said that while his department had not yet run out of equipment, they were devising improvised models in anticipation of a rise in patients. He said there was no official guidance for the use of snorkels but Italian doctors had shown it was possible.

“The snorkel masks have been adapted for use as non-invasive ventilators by Italian anaesthetists. They published their design including 3D-printed adapters to connect oxygen tubing to the snorkel breathing tube,” he said.

“This adapted connection can alternatively be used to attach a heat moisture exchanging (HME) filter used worldwide to protect tubing and ventilators from patients’ exhaled gases. These HMEs are in plentiful supply. You now have PPE combining a full-face visor with filtered air, cleanable, reusable and resource-efficient.”

Updated

Dr Tedros also raised concerns about the spread of Covid-19 in developing countries.

“While relatively lower numbers of confirmed cases have been reported from Africa and from central and south America, we realise that Covid-19 could have serious social, economic and political consequences for these regions,” he said.

“It’s critical that we ensure these countries are well-equipped to detect tests and isolate and treat cases and identify contacts.

“I’m encouraged to see that this is occurring in many countries despite limited resources. Many countries are asking people to stay and home and shutting down population movement which can help to limit transmission of the virus but can have unintended consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable people.

“I have called on governments to put in place social welfare measures to ensure vulnerable people have food and other life essentials during this crisis.”

Updated

Director of WHO "deeply concerned" as deaths double in a week

The daily World Health Organisation press briefing on the development of Covid-19 has begun in Geneva.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the WHO, has said he was “deeply concerned about the rapid escalation and global spread of infection”.

“Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases reaching almost every country, territory and area,” he said.

“The number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week. In the next few days, we will reach one million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths.”

Updated

Summary

Known global cases near 900,000

According to data collected by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, 887,067 people around the world have become infected, 44,264 of whom have died. They also count 185,541 people who have recovered.

However, it is thought the true scale of the outbreak is significantly greater as concerns are expressed that some countries, including China, have been underreporting their figures.

US intelligence accuses China of playing down crisis

American officials reportedly believe China has been underreporting the total number of cases and deaths.

The conclusions of a classified report from the intelligence community to the White House were revealed to Bloomberg by three anonymous officials who declined to detail its contents.

They reportedly say the thrust was that China’s concealment was deliberate and that the report was received by the White House last week.

UK death toll passes 2,300

The UK government has confirmedhundreds more deaths in hospitals, taking the total to 2,352; the youngest was aged just 13. However, figures from the Office for National Statistics have already revealed that dozens more people have been dying as a result of the pandemic in care homes and other settings, meaning the true total is likely to be considerably higher.

Ministers say 152,979 people in the UK have been tested and 29,474 have tested positive.

Britons warned against complacency as figures continue to rise

People in the UK have been urged to stay at home as a recent acceleration in the number of cases being reported comes alongside data that suggest people are out and about in their cars more.

Prof Yvonne Doyle, Public Heath England’s director for health protection and medical director, said the situation in the UK was less severe than in France, Spain or Italy, but stressed the need to avoid complacency.

New York City death toll passes 1,000

Deaths from the coronavirus reached 1,096 in New York City as an emergency field hospital opened in Central Park. Data released by the city’s health department showed the virus was having a disproportionate effect in certain neighbourhoods, mainly Brooklyn and Queens.

Germany extends distancing measures

Physical distancing measures have been extended in Germany until at least 19 April, and will be re-evaluated on the Tuesday after Easter, Angela Merkel has said. The German chancellor spoke after a telephone conference with the premiers of Germany’s 16 states on Wednesday afternoon, in which they agreed a draft resolution urging people “to keep contact with people beyond their own household to an absolute minimum, even during the Easter holidays, in accordance with the applicable rules,” according to German media cited by the broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Austrian unemployment jumps to highest level since 1946

Unemployment in Austria has jumped by 66% to the highest level since records began in 1946, despite a government bid to avoid mass lay-offs.

Official data showed that the unemployment rate in the country rose by 4.8 points from the same period in 2019 to 12.2%, as jobs in sectors including tourism and retail were wiped out.

Growth in Italy’s death toll slows

Another 727 people have died in Italy, taking the total to 13,155. That represents the smallest increase since 26 March. Nevertheless, figures from the Civil Protection Agency show that the number of new cases rose more sharply than a few days earlier, growing by 4,782 compared with 4,053.

Lockdown measures in the country are to be extended to 13 April, the health minister, Roberto Speranza, has said. He told the Senate on Wednesday: “We must not confuse the first positive signals with an ‘all clear’ signal. Data shows that we are on the right path and that the drastic decisions are bearing fruit.”

Spain passes 100,000 confirmed cases

Spain has crossed the threshold of 100,000 confirmed cases, health officials have said. According to official figures, it has had more cases than any country except Italy and the US. Spain also reached a record single-day death toll between Tuesday and Wednesday, with a total of 864 deaths. The country has logged 102,136 cases of the virus and 9,053 deaths.

My colleagues Damian Carrington, Jillian Ambrose and Matthew Taylor have written an analysis on how the coronavirus combined with a savage price war will mean the oil industry will never be the same again.

Experts say it faces the gravest challenge in its 100-year history, they say, one that will permanently alter the industry. With some calling the scene a “hellscape”, the least lurid description is “unprecedented”.

A key question is whether this will permanently alter the course of the climate crisis. Many experts think it might well do so, pulling forward the date at which demand for oil and gas peaks, never to recover, and allowing the atmosphere to gradually heal.

Portugal’s government has cleared the way to extend the nationwide state of emergency by 15 days to combat the spread of coronavirus.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa declared an initial 15-day state of emergency on March 18, which restricted non-essential travel and led thousands of businesses to close their doors.

Lawmakers in the country are due to put the extension to a vote on Thursday, with a majority indicating they would vote in favour.

The number of confirmed cases in Portugal has risen to 8,251 and 187 people have died.

France is likely to unwind its nationwide lockdown gradually rather than in one go, the prime minister has said.

The French government has ordered people to stay at home except for essential outings until at least April 15.

“It is likely that we are not heading towards a general deconfinement in one go and for everyone,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told the French parliament during a video conference on Wednesday.

He did not indicate when the government would start to ease the measures.

Meanwhile, Albania has announced that lockdown measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus would remain in place until the end of the pandemic.

Israel’s defence minister has suggested that providing aid to people trapped in the Gaza Strip during the pandemic might depend on Hamas militants handing over the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 war.

“Israel also has humanitarian needs, which are mainly the recovery of the fallen,” Naftali Bennett told reporters.

“And I think that we need to enter a broad dialogue about Gaza’s and our humanitarian needs. It would not be right to disconnect these things ... and certainly, our hearts would be open to many things.”

Bennett did not say whether any Israeli aid shipments would be conditioned on such a deal.

Aid workers and Palestinian medics have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe if the coronavirus were to spread through the strip, where 2 million people have lived under an Israeli-Egyptian for almost a decade and a half.

Under the strain of the blockade, impoverished Gaza’s healthcare system is already collapsing, with drug stocks chronically low.

Authorities in Gaza have reported 12 confirmed Covid-19 cases, although they say all have been isolated.

Updated

The first charter flight in the UK’s £75m coronavirus rescue operation will leave Algeria on 2 April with departures from South Africa, Nepal and India to follow.

As the foreign secretary Dominic Raab and the transport secretary Grant Shapps continue negotiations to get a series of charter flights to help the most vulnerable stranded UK nationals, British embassies around the world disclosed details of operations underway. There are thought to be about 400,000 Britons stranded overseas.

The flight from Algeria will be taking off with seats costing just £186, according to the Foreign Office. Flights out of the country were suspended on 19 March with no options for British travellers or charity workers who wanted to leave.

Doubt has been cast over India’s claim that it has no community transmission of coronavirus after the country reported its biggest daily rise in number of cases so far, connected to a religious gathering held in Delhi two weeks ago.

India reported a record increase of 386 cases in the past 24 hours, pushing the total number to 1,637, according to the country’s health ministry. The death toll is now 38.

In another worrying development, the first coronavirus case was also confirmed in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, which is India’s largest and is home to almost one million people living in close, unsanitary quarters. The 56-year-old man was taken to Sion hospital and eight of his family members placed into quarantine.

Read the full report from our south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Peterson here:

Italy records lowest daily increase in deaths in a week

The death toll from Covid-19 in Italy has climbed by 727 to 13,155 – the lowest number since March 26.

Figures from the Civil Protection Agency show that the number of new cases rose more sharply than a few days earlier, growing by 4,782 compared to 4,053.

The total number of infections confirmed in the country since February 21 now stands at 110,574.

In the northern region of Lombardy, which is the epicentre of the outbreak, the daily total of both cases and deaths were up compared to the day before, a reverse of the recent trend.

On Wednesday, 16,847 people in Italy had recovered from the illness, in comparison to 15,729 people on Tuesday.

There were also 4,035 people in intensive care, up from a previous 4,023.

Italy has publicly reported more deaths from the coronavirus than anywhere else in the world. It accounts for around 30% of all global fatalities.

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Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing the government to declare a state of emergency in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus.

It comes as Putin began working remotely on Wednesday after the head of the country’s main coronavirus hospital tested positive for Covid-19 after meeting the president.

Several regions in Russia, including the city of Moscow, have already imposed partial lockdown measures.

Austria unemployment jumps to highest level since 1946

Unemployment in Austria has jumped by 66% to the highest level since records began in 1946, despite a government bid to avoid mass lay-offs amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Official data shows that the unemployment rate in the country rose by 4.8 points from the same period in 2019 to 12.2%, as jobs in sectors including tourism and retail were wiped out.

The number of people registered as jobless has climbed by 65.7% to 504,345, according to employment agency AMS.

An effective lockdown was imposed in Austria more than two weeks ago, with restaurants, bars, theatres, and non-essential shops among the places that were forced to close.

The public have been told to stay at home and work there if possible, as is the case in many Western countries.

Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler of the Greens told a news conference that the pandemic was “the biggest meteorite to crash into economic life since 1946.”

Austria’s Conservative-Green coalition government has announced a package of up to €38bn in a bid to keep the economy afloat and prevent redundancies.

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Passengers wearing face masks stand next to each other inside a train carriage in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday. To prevent the spread of Covid-19, the Taiwanese Transport Ministry has ordered citizens to wear face masks on train, MRT and buses from today.
Passengers wearing face masks stand next to each other inside a train carriage in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday. To prevent the spread of Covid-19, the Taiwanese Transport Ministry has ordered citizens to wear face masks on train, MRT and buses from today. Photograph: David Chang/EPA

Cyprus has announced its biggest daily rise, yet, in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases on the island.

On Wednesday evening the health ministry said there had been 58 new cases overnight bringing the total number of those who have tested positive for the novel virus to 320 in the EU’s most easterly member state.

Fatalities had also increased following the death of a 66-year-old man, bringing the death toll to nine in the war-split country’s internationally recognised Greek south.

An elderly German woman, who had been hospitalised after contracting the virus while on holiday in Cyprus’ Turkish-run north has also died, raising the total number of deaths in the breakaway state to two.

On Monday President Nikos Anastasiades’ government intensified already stringent measures to contain the spread of the virus imposing a night-time curfew after cases jumped sharply at the weekend.

People are now prohibited from leaving their homes been 2100 until 0600 the following morning.

At risk of being fined 300 euro (double the penalty initially announced) citizens can only be outdoors once a day, whether that be for one of a number of select reasons including purchasing supplies, going to a pharmacy, visiting a doctor or conducting exercise.

A senior official in Serbia’s government has died from coronavirus, a health official has said.

Branislav Blazic, 63, a state secretary with the Ministry for Environmental protection, died on Wednesday after being hospitalised with symptoms of the virus.

Deputy director of the Institute for Public Health, Daria Kisic, confirmed the news during a press conference in Belgrade.

Milutin Knezevic, a bishop in the Serbian Orthodox Church, died from the disease on Monday.

US intelligence believe China has underreported the total number of cases and deaths from Covid-19 in its country, according to US officials.

The conclusions of a classified report from the intelligence to the community to the White House were revealed to Bloomberg by three anonymous officials who declined to detail its contents.

They said that the thrust was that China’s concealment was deliberate and that the report was received by the White House last week.

Although the outbreak began in the country’s Hubei province in late 2019, the country has publicly reported 82,361 cases of the virus and 3,300 deaths.

In comparison, the US, which has reported the largest number of cases globally, has recorded 190,088 confirmed cases and more than 4,000 deaths.

Both Italy and Spain have also overtaken China in terms of publicly reported cases of and deaths from Covid-19.

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Global coronavirus cases nears 900,000

Global confirmed cases of Covid-19 are nearing 900,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Wednesday afternoon, confirmed cases across the world stood at 883,225, while 44,156 people have died.

The US has positively tested the largest number of people for the virus, with a total of 190,089. Italy has the second largest number of cases at 105,792.

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A state of national emergency may be declared in Russia during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Reuters.

The news organisation said three senior officials had told it the government as mulling over the decision in a bid to bring in tougher social distancing measures, although the Kremlin has denied the reports.

Dozens of Russian regions, including the city of Moscow, have already imposed partial lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus.

Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is working remotely over coronavirus fears, chairing a video conference on Wednesday.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is working remotely over coronavirus fears, chairing a video conference on Wednesday. Photograph: Alexei Druzhinin/AP

Under new rules that came into force in the capital on Monday, residents are only allowed to leave their homes to receive urgent medical treatment, buy food or medicine, walk their dog or empty their bins.

As of Wednesday, there are 2,777 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country, with 24 dead.

The three sources who spoke to Reuters said the government was considering nationwide restrictions. “You won’t be allowed to leave the house or leave town unless you have a reason,” one said.

A senior lawmaker said a state of emergency was under serious discussion, but that no final decision had been made.

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Germany: Angela Merkel extends lockdown until 19 April

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has extended the “contact ban” put in place to slow the spread of Covid-19 until after the Easter holidays.

Speaking after a telephone conference with the premiers of Germany’s 16 federal states, she said it was too soon to relax the social distancing measures put in place, and advised people to “generally pass on private trips and visits to relatives” until 19 April.

While Merkel has refrained from imposing a full lockdown on the country, Europe’s largest economy has since 23 March been under a so-called “contact ban” where gatherings of more than two people are prohibited, with exemptions for families.

Merkel said she would seek further scientific advice on possibly easing off the current restrictions on 14 April.

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Mid-afternoon stats show that 49 African Union member states are reporting a total of 5,800 Covid-19 cases, with just under 200 deaths.

South Africa has the highest total of confirmed cases with 1,353, but its numbers have been going up very slowly in recent days, just a few dozen every 24 hours, raising hopes that early closure of air links and a lockdown may help stem the spread of the disease there.

Elsewhere the political fallout of the pandemic continues to be felt. Ethiopia announced today it has postponed parliamentary elections scheduled for August.

The polls were set to be a huge test for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his reform agenda. It’s unclear when they will now take place, raising fears that the carefully calibrated dismantling of Ethiopia’s authoritarian state may be put on hold.

Also worrying is news from Uganda that police have charged 20 LGBT people with disobeying rules on social distancing and risking the spread of coronavirus in a clear example of authorities using newly imposed restrictions to target sexual minorities.

The LGBT community have long faced severe discrimination in Uganda, where gay sex is illegal as in many places in Africa.

Police say the 14 gay men, two bisexual men and four transgender women were taken into custody on Sunday when police raided a shelter on the outskirts of the capital Kampala.

But LGBT campaign Frank Mugisha, who is in Kampala, told the Guardian the raid followed complaints to police about the shelter from neighbours and that the Covid-related charges were only laid when it was clear that there was no justification for police holding the detainees otherwise.

Mugisha said fears of the disease had contributed to a rise in homophobic rhetoric in Uganda, with the LGBT community being blamed for the pandemic by some.

The two charges against those detained - disobeying a lawful order and committing neglectful acts likely to spread infection of disease - carry a maximum of two and seven years imprisonment respectively.

Uganda announced its first coronavirus case on 21 March and now has 33 confirmed cases.

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Germany extends social distancing measures

Social distancing measures have been extended in Germany until at least 19 April, and will be re-evaluated on the Tuesday after Easter, Angela Merkel has said.

The German chancellor spoke after a telephone conference with the premiers of Germany’s 16 states on Wednesday afternoon, in which they agreed a draft resolution urging people “to keep contact with people beyond their own household to an absolute minimum, even during the Easter holidays, in accordance with the applicable rules,” according to German media cited by Deutsche Welle.

“A pandemic does not stop for holidays,” Merkel said, adding that it was too soon to talk about easing the measures and added that the country was still far from achieving what it needed to achieve.

In worrying news from India, the first case of coronavirus has been confirmed in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, according to local media. Up to a million people live crowded together in Dharavi, an area of just over 2.1 square kilometres.

The patient, a 56-year-old man, is now being treated at Sion hospital, India Today reports. Authorities have sealed the building where he lives - with the rest of its residents still inside - and placed eight to ten members of his family in quarantine, according to the report.

About 8 million more people in the Arab world will be plunged into poverty by the economic spasm caused by the Covid-19 crisis, leading to a likely 2 million becoming undernourished, the UN’s economic and social commission for western Asia says.

ESCWA said a lack of social security in many Arab countries will leave the most vulnerable with few means to make it through the pandemic. Currently, 101.4 million people in the region would be classified as poor, and 52 million as undernourished. The ESCWA executive secretary, Rola Dashti, said:

The consequences of this crisis will be particularly severe on vulnerable groups, especially women and young adults, and those working in the informal sector who have no access to social protection and unemployment insurance.

Arab governments must ensure a swift emergency response to protect their people from falling into poverty and food insecurity owing to the impact of Covid-19.

The regional emergency response must support national efforts and mobilise resources and expertise to protect the poor and vulnerable.

ESCWA last month warned that the coronavirus pandemic could wipe out more than 1.7m jobs across the Arab world this year. It has called on governments in the Middle East to establish a regional social solidarity fund that supports vulnerable countries.

Economist Khalid Abu-Ismail on the likely impact of the coronavirus emergency in the Middle East

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New York City's Covid-19 death toll rises past 1,000

Deaths from the coronavirus surged past 1,000 in New York City on Wednesday, as an emergency field hospital was opened in Central Park, the Associated Press reports.

Data released by the city’s health department shows that the disease is having a disproportionate effect in certain neighbourhoods, mainly in Brooklyn and Queens.

The emergency field hospital put up in Central Park, pictured on Tuesday
The emergency field hospital put up in Central Park, pictured on Tuesday Photograph: Mychal Watts/REX/Shutterstock

Patients started being treated in tents in the city’s famous park on Wednesday morning, days after a temporary hospital in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center began taking patients and a Navy hospital ship docked off Manhattan. Officials are scrambling to add more beds around the city as hospitals become overrun.

The ambulance service and police department in the city are under increasing stress, with nearly a quarter of the city’s emergency medical service workers out sick, according to the Fire Department. In all, 2,800 members of the Fire Department are sidelined, including about 950 of the city’s 4,300 paramedics.

Nearly 16% of the New York Police Department’s uniformed force is off sick, with more than 1,000 officers testing positive for the virus so far.

As emergency measures and states of exception are put into place around the world, Germany on Wednesday called on all EU nations to respect the principle of the rule of law.

The German statement comes two days after Hungary’s nationalist premier Viktor Orbán assumed sweeping new powers to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. The new law gives Orban the power to indefinitely rule by decree until the government declares the emergency over.

Ulrike Demmer, spokesperson for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said:

We have very clear principles of the rule of law in the EU, and these have to be observed by all member states. The values on which the union is built are respect for human dignity, freedom, equality, rule of law and respect for human rights.

The EU only functions as a community of values if these values are respected and defended by all.

Demmer’s statement echoed similar comments made on Twitter on Tuesday by the European commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

This is Damien Gayle taking over the coronavirus blog for the next hour or so while Amy Walker has a break.

Updated

US president Donald Trump warned Americans to brace for a “very painful two weeks” yesterday.

During a White House press conference officials said the pandemic could claim up to 240,000 lives across the country, even if social distancing is maintained.

Follow our US liveblog with Joan E Greve in Washington for more updates:

Saudi Arabia reports six deaths and 157 new cases of coronavirus.

Saudi Arabian health ministry has confirmed 157 new coronavirus cases in last 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 1,720 in the kingdom.

Six new deaths of Covid-19 have also been reported in same period, pushing the total number deaths to 16.

Three of new deaths are residents in Medina, one Saudi citizen also in Medina, one resident in Riyadh, and another resident in Mecca.

Seventy-eight of new coronavirus positive cases confirmed in the city of Madina, while 264 patients have been recovered so far, health ministry said.

Saudi Arabian officials asked Muslims around the world to delay preparation for Hajj pilgrimage, the biggest occasion in the Islamic calendar, due to coronavirus.

The kingdom’s minister of Hajj and Umrah, Mohammad Saleh bin Taher Benten, said Saudi Arabia was ready to receive and serve pilgrims at any time, but that the priority is on everyone’s safety, Al Arabia reported.

“Saudi Arabia is currently providing care for 1,200 pilgrims who could not return to their home countries,” the minister said.

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Aung San Suu Kyi has cited the coronavirus pandemic as the reason she has created a personal Facebook account.

The Myanmar leader has rarely given press conferences or interviews since coming to power in 2016, instead communicating through formal statements and public meetings.

Myanmar’s state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi during a trip to Shan State in February
Myanmar’s state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi during a trip to Shan State in February. Photograph: Thet Aung/AFP via Getty Images

“I had no willingness to join Facebook at first,” Suu Kyi wrote in the first post on the account. “Under the current circumstances, it was created in order to communicate with people faster and more efficiently related to Covid-19 challenges.”

Myanmar has confirmed 15 cases of Covid-19 and one death.

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President Erdoğan of Turkey has said the country will have to strengthen anti-coronavirus measures if people don’t abide by a “voluntary quarantine”.

On Wednesday, he told a meeting of his AK party provincial heads during a televised virtual conference:

We won’t need further measures if all our citizens keep themselves in a voluntary quarantine. However, we may have to take much more advanced measures if the pandemic spreads and our citizens don’t stay at home.”

Pressure is mounting on Erdoğan to announce a full lockdown across the country after cases of the virus jumped to 13,000 in three weeks. A total of 214 people have died of Covid-19 in Turkey.

But Erdoğan has been hesitant to enforce stricter measures largely because of economic factors. “We are determined to continue production and exports,” he said.

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Deaths of coronavirus patients in UK hospitals have risen by 563 in a single day to 2,352 as of 31 March.

The Department of Health and Social Care said that as of 9am on 1 April, a total of 152,979 people had been tested for the virus, of whom 29,474 tested positive.

You can follow live updates on the Covid-19 outbreak in Britain here:

British American Tobacco, the maker of brands including Lucky Strike, Dunhill, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges, has said it has a potential coronavirus vaccine in development using tobacco plants.

BAT has turned the vast resources usually focused on creating products that pose health risks to millions of smokers worldwide to battling the global pandemic. The company said:

If testing goes well, BAT is hopeful that, with the right partners and support from government agencies, between 1m and 3m doses of the vaccine could be manufactured per week, beginning in June.”

The London-listed company used the announcement to trump the positive aspects of its tobacco empire, saying that “new, fast-growing tobacco plant technology” put it ahead of others trying to develop a vaccine.

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South Korea has received requests from 121 countries for help with coronavirus testing, a foreign ministry official said on Wednesday, as authorities around the world come under intense pressure to curb the spread of the disease.

South Korea’s massive testing campaign, backed by intensive contact tracing, has been credited with helping slow the spread of coronavirus in the country, which once had the second largest outbreak after China.

“We’re getting so many requests from various countries as we have built experience from the early outbreak. The number, which is now 121 countries, is rising by the day,” the official said, asking not be named, citing diplomatic sensitivity.

South Korea has set up a taskforce to determine how it can offer assistance, either with exports of kits or other humanitarian aid, the ministry official said.

The official did not name the countries but South Korean test kit makers have contracts to supply US states and countries including Italy.

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Some fear that coronavirus may be even more destructive for the European Union than the eurozone bailouts, the migration crisis and Brexit, our Brussels correspondent Jennifer Rankin reports.

Jacques Delors, the former European commission president who helped build the modern EU, warned last weekend that lack of solidarity across the bloc posed “a mortal danger to the European Union”.

Italy’s former prime minister, Enrico Letta, said the EU faced a “deadly risk” from the global pandemic.

“We are facing a crisis that is different from previous crises,” he told the Guardian – partly, he said, because of the unpredictable progression of the virus, partly because “Europeanism” has been weakened by other crises of the past decade.

“The communitarian spirit of Europe is weaker today than 10 years ago,” he said, adding that the biggest danger for the EU was “the Trump virus”.

If everyone took the strategy of “Italy first”, “Belgium first” or “Germany first”, he said, “we will all sink altogether”.

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Thailand is giving its public free mobile data to help companies initiate work-from-home policies and schools to use remote learning amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Takorn Tantasith, secretary general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission, said on Tuesday that individuals would be able to register for 10GB of data per month from 10 April.

A spokesman said separately that the commission would compensate operators.

“The government is giving the data so the public can stay home and limit the spread of Covid,” Takorn said.

On Tuesday, the country reported 127 new coronavirus cases, bringing the national total to 1,651 since its first case was reported in January. There have been 10 deaths.

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Edinburgh’s five August festivals, including the world’s biggest arts festival Fringe, have been cancelled due to ongoing concerns about the spread of coronavirus.

The festivals, featuring 25,000 artists from more than 70 countries, attract audiences of around 4.5m people to Scotland’s capital annually.

Shona McCarthy, the chief executive of the Fringe Society, said the decision had not been taken lightly. She also held out hope that they would find ways of “uniting people” under a fringe umbrella.

“It’s too early to say what this will look like,” she said, “but we are confident that as a collective we can find a way to reach through the walls that currently surround us and inspire, cheer and connect.”

The European commission has proposed a short-time work scheme to avoid mass lay-offs across the bloc during the coronavirus pandemic. The scheme, which is modelled on Germany’s Kurzabeit programme, was announced by commission head Ursula von der Leyen in a video message.

She did not confirm how it would be funded, but said it would be guaranteed by all 27 EU countries.

Von der Leyen said:

Companies are paying salaries to their employees, even if, right now, they are not making money. Europe is now coming to their support, with a new initiative.

“It is intended to help Italy, Spain and all other countries that have been hard hit. And it will do so thanks to the solidarity of other member states,” she said.

Under the German scheme, the government pays part of a worker’s wages when companies cut their hours during a slowdown to prevent them from losing their jobs.

More details of the plans would be available on Thursday, the commission said.

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Italy has extended lockdown restrictions until 13 April as signs emerge indicating the coronavirus contagion might be reaching a “plateau”.

“Italians have shown great maturity,” Roberto Speranza, the health minister, told parliament on Wednesday. “Experts say we are on the right track, and that the drastic measures taken are starting to give results.” However, Speranza warned “we must not drop our guard” as the recovery will be “prudent and gradual”.

“It would be unforgiveable to mistake this first result for a
definitive defeat of Covid, it’s a long battle.”

The number of new confirmed infections rose by 2,107 on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases to 77,635, according to figures from Italy’s civil protection authority. The rise in infections was higher than the daily increase registered on Monday (1,648), but lower than Sunday’s increase of 3,815.

On Tuesday, there was a 2.8% increase in new (ie current) infections, compared with an average daily rise of 15% during one of the most critical weeks.

The death toll rose by 837 on Tuesday to 12,428, higher than the 812 deaths registered on Monday. The number of people who have recovered from the virus rose by 1,109 to 15,729 on Tuesday, following a record leap of 1,590 on Monday.

The daily death toll and infection rate have also started to slow in Lombardy, the region worst-affected by the virus.

“The curve tells us that we’re at a plateau,” said Silvio Brusaferro, the president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS).

“That doesn’t mean we’ve hit the peak and that it is over, but that we must start the descent and you start the descent by applying the measures in force.”

Brusaferro added that Italy was set to widen coronavirus testing to include “broader swathes of the population”. As of Tuesday, 506,928 people had been tested for the virus.

Although the situation in Italy’s northern region is more severe, Angelo Borelli, the chief of the civil protection authority, warned on Wednesday that the south of the country was “still at risk”. The southern region with the highest number of cases is Lazio (3,095 as of Tuesday), followed by Campania, Puglia and Sicily.

“The ‘escape’ from the north to the south during the first weeks of March was a serious event and no doubt contributed to a rise in the spread of the virus in other regions,” Borelli told Corriere della Sera.

“The situation in the northern regions remains the most dramatic, but the south is still at risk. We must not drop our guard – the virus has shown it can cross oceans and continents.”

Updated

Confirmed coronavirus infections in the Netherlands have risen by 1,019 to 13,614 on Wednesday. Health authorities also confirmed that there had been 134 new deaths from Covid-19.

Updated

Summary

  • Italy’s lockdown measures have been extended to 13 April. Health minister Roberto Spenaza said “positive signals” in data, showing the pace of growth in cases was slowing, should not be confused with an “’all-clear’ signal”.
  • Spain passes 100,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19. Health officials confirmed the number on Wednesday. According to official figures, the country has more cases than any country except Italy and the US.
  • UK government will test 25,000 people a day within a fortnight. Housing minister Robert Jenick said the government aimed to reach the figure by mid-April. The Covid-19 death toll in the UK jumped by 381 yesterday and stands at 1,789.
  • Vladimir Putin is handling duties remotely, the Kremlin has said. It comes a day after a doctor who met the Russian president last week said he had been diagnosed with the virus.

Updated

Italy's lockdown measures to be extended to 13 April

Anti-coronavirus lockdown measures in Italy are to be extended to 13 April, health minister Roberto Speranza has said.

He told the upper house Senate on Wednesday:

We must not confuse the first positive signals with an ‘all clear’ signal. Data shows that we are on the right path and that the drastic decisions are bearing fruit.”

Although data has shown that the total number of cases in the country is slowing – with 4,053 new infections on Tuesday – the death toll remains at over 800 a day.

Italy became the first western country to impose a lockdown on 9 March 2020.

Speranza added that the “battle (against the virus) is still very long.”

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A deserted Sant’Angelo bridge in Rome on April 1, 2020. The country’s anti-coronavirus lockdown has been extended to April 13.
A deserted Sant’Angelo bridge in Rome on Wednesday. The country’s anti-coronavirus lockdown has been extended to 13 April. Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images

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Health workers in Uganda have accused the government of endangering lives by requiring that people seek permission to travel to hospitals.

President Yoweri Museveni imposed a 14-day virtual lockdown on Monday to try to clamp down on the spread of Covid-19, which has infected 44 people in the east African country so far.

Private cars have been banned from roads, with the government assisting expectant mothers and those in medical emergencies to secure transport to hospitals.

However, there are no functioning public ambulances, meaning that citizens are relying on private means to get to hospital.

Prior to Museveni’s announcement, all public transport had been prevented from operating.

Ekwaro Obuku, a former head of Uganda’s national association of physicians, told Reuters the order was likely to worsen an already high maternal mortality rate. He said:

Other medical emergencies like maternal have not stopped because coronavirus has come.

“No mother in labour pains should ask for permission to deliver her baby. We will end up having unnecessary and preventable deaths.”

Critics and activists in the country have also accused the government of using brute force to impose the lockdown measures.

Last week, members of the police and the military were filmed beating people, including women selling fruit in a city centre, accusing them of defying orders to stay home.

I’m Amy Walker, taking over from my colleague Simon Murphy. You can follow me on Twitter @amyrwalker.

Updated

Here’s some context to earlier news that the number of Covid-19 cases in Spain has passed 100,000. Figures from the country’s health ministry suggest the spread of the virus may be continuing to slow as Spain passes into what the government has called the “stabilisation phase”.

By Wednesday, Spain had recorded 102,136 cases and 9,053 deaths, and the past 24 hours have seen yet another record single-day death toll of 864.

However, health officials say a “trend change” has been seen over recent days. Between 15 and 25 March, new cases were growing at a rate of 20% a day. From 25 March, however, that rate dropped to 12%.

On Monday, the government said the figures needed to be treated “extremely carefully”, but added they showed that the lockdown measures were paying off. María José Sierra of Spain’s centre for health emergencies said the latest figures showed that the situation was continuing to level out.

“Generally speaking, we can say that yesterday’s rise in cases – which was around 8% – tells us that we’re carrying on in the stabilisation phase of the pandemic,” she told a press conference on Wednesday morning.

If we only look at cases of people who are being treated in hospitals – which are the figures that allow for a precise analysis of the spread of the epidemic and of the effectiveness of our measures against the virus, such as social distancing – then the percentage is still coming down in comparison with previous days. That helps tell us that the social distancing measures are really working.”

Sierra pointed out that 22% of those who had caught the disease – 22,647 people – had recovered, but said health authorities were focusing on the patients in the country’s overstretched intensive care units.

“The figures when it comes to both the number of people in ICUs and the number of people who have died are really telling us what happened two or three weeks ago, when people became infected,” she added.

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A bleak report from Reuters in Delhi, India’s capital, on the desperate plight of the homeless amid the coronavirus pandemic. “Some of us will die, some of us will live to suffer,” warns one local.

In a densely packed neighbourhood of Delhi, hundreds of homeless people queued up this week as volunteers doled out rice and peas from a vat in the back of a van.

Only a handful of the people in the crowd wore masks. There were no hand sanitizers or wash basins in sight and no social distancing.

“I need the food,” said a man in the queue, Shiv Kumar. “If I stand apart, someone else might come in between.”

Volunteers say such scenes are playing out daily across India, as labourers and waste pickers – most of them homeless or too poor to afford a meal – are among the hardest hit by prime minister Narendra Modi’s three-week nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Most of the estimated 4 million-plus homeless people in India have had no way of earning a living since the lockdown began on 25 March. With streets deserted, even begging is not an option.

Many wander aimlessly, some find refuge at homeless shelters where ranks of people sleep beside each other. While the plight of India’s migrant workers has garnered headlines, with thousands forced to walk miles to reach home since the lockdown began, many aid workers say the millions of homeless in India face a bigger risk.

Officials say the shutdown is necessary to stem the spread of the coronavirus. India has reported more than 1,500 cases and 38 deaths from the outbreak.

But rights groups have criticised the government over what they say has been inadequate planning ahead of the lockdown.

“You cannot impose such drastic measures on a population the size of India all of a sudden,” said Shivani Chaudhry, executive director of Housing and Land Rights Network, a non-profit group that works with the homeless. “In shelters, we face serious challenges such as the lack of adequate space and sanitation,” she said. “If one person in a shelter gets infected, it’s going to be very hard to control its spread.”

“Some of us will die, some of us will live to suffer,” said Zakir Hussain, a 45-year-old labourer, standing near a homeless shelter in Delhi. “We are poor. We’ve been left here to die. Our lives are of no value to anyone.”

Updated

The German government has rejected calls for a country-wide mandatory use of masks while also calling on manufacturers to ramp up their production of protective facial gear.

Austria’s chancellor had on Monday announced his government would make it compulsory for shoppers to wear facial masks in supermarkets from this Wednesday, leading to calls on the German government to copy its southern neighbour.

Two cities in eastern Germany, Jena and Nordhausen, have already taken unilateral steps to follow down Austria’s path. But a shortage of effective facial masks are a problem in both German-speaking countries. The Austrian government on Wednesday announced it would postpone the mandatory use of masks in supermarkets until next Monday, because of a supply shortage.

On Tuesday, German finance minister Olaf Scholz said the government would financially support companies taking a gamble on switching their production to making facial masks.

Unlike in the US, however, German politicians have declined to force industry to retool to produce protective gear or respirators. “We cannot put ourselves into the position of the companies who will know which machinery, which capacities and which parts they will need or can currently get hold of”, interior minister Horst Seehofer told newspaper Bild.

The debate comes amidst a growing sense that the relatively stable situation in German hospitals could be about to become a lot more serious as the virus moves on to the elderly population.

A number of reports from up and down the country today about outbreaks in care homes for the elderly. Numerous regional newspapers up and down the country on Wednesday reported outbreaks of the Covid-19 virus in care homes for the elderly, including in Munich, Heilbronn, Wolfsburg and Tornesch.

The number of people on ventilators in German hospitals jumped up by around 20% on Tuesday, to 1,189. According to the Robert Koch Institute, 8,954 out of 16,319 intensive care beds registered with the government’s central health body are currently occupied.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a government meeting today by video conference, the Kremlin has said.

It comes a day after a doctor who met Putin last week said he had been diagnosed with the virus. Denis Protsenko last week gave Putin a tour of Moscow’s main coronavirus hospital and shook hands with the Russian leader. Protsenko is now self-isolating in his office, Reuters reports.

The Kremlin, which has said that everything is fine with Putin’s health, said he is keeping his distance from other people and preferred to work remotely.

As Greece enters its third week since restrictive measures were first imposed to combat the spread of coronavirus, there is mounting concern that fatigue is setting in amid signs of people beginning to flout the policies.

Speaking to ANT1 TV, the government spokesman Stelios Petsas said the centre-right administration was now considering placing a time limit on the movement of citizens outdoors.

The prospect of allowing people out of their homes only “once or twice [a day] and combining their movements [so that] they are brief” was being mulled, he said.

Currently residents are permitted outdoors for six reasons only: going to a pharmacy or visiting a doctor; buying provisions; going to a bank when electronic transfers are not possible; caring for people in need; attending a funeral wedding or baptism; and short bouts of exercise.

Authorities have to be informed of any prior movement either electronically or by text. Handwritten forms are also allowed as long as individuals carry them with ID cards or passports.

Government officials have been alarmed by the sight of long queues of (mostly elderly) Greeks witnessed outside banks as of yesterday.

In a statement, Wednesday, Greek police said there had been a total of 13,195 violations of the restrictions on movement since March 23 when the full lockdown came into effect with fines [of 150 euro] being handed out accordingly.

On Tuesday, alone, 2,561 violations had been recorded. Since March 12 when shops were ordered to close, there had been 318 violations across the country with 326 arrests, the statement said.

Greece was among the first countries in Europe to enact tough measures against the spread of Covid-19. This morning the Greek theoretical computer scientist Constantinos Daskalakis, who is based in Boston where he teaches at MIT, said he believed the timely measures had helped save “tens of thousands of lives”.

“Without the measures the dead in our country would have soared between the tens of thousands to half a million [figure],” he told the local MEGA TV channel.

To date, Greek officials have confirmed 1,314 cases of coronavirus. The death toll from Covid-19 currently stands at 49.

Updated

The world’s biggest medical glove manufacturer is battling with a shortage of workers as it tries to meet a huge surge in demand, with countries running low on personal protective equipment stocks due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Malaysia’s Top Glove Corp Bhd, which makes one out of every five gloves in the world, needs to urgently recruit up to 700 more employees as orders in the past few weeks have doubled, the company has told Reuters.

The company will not be able to meet all of the increased demand, and its struggle to recruit workers could make the task of quickly adding production lines even more difficult, it said.

But the hiring drive has been hampered by Malaysia’s month-long curbs on travel as well difficulties in flying in workers from countries such as Nepal, the company’s main source of labour. A relatively industrialised nation of 32 million, Malaysia heavily relies on labour from South Asian countries. The firm’s executive chairman Lim Wee Chai said:

We were already experiencing a shortage of workers in the beginning of the year, which has now become more serious following the implementation of Malaysia’s movement control order.

“At the moment, due to the surge in demand, we require unskilled workers, especially to speed up the packing function and quality assurance function, so that the ready output can be shipped out quickly to our customers.”

A former Vietnam war era refugee camp on an uninhabited island in Indonesia is being repurposed to house a new emergency hospital to treat Covid-19 patients.

Indonesia, which has recorded 1,677 cases of coronavirus and 157 deaths, will next week open the hospital on the island of Galang.

Located on one of a chain of islands off Sumatra and south of Singapore, the new hospital includes 360 additional hospital beds, isolation facilities and helipads. It will be used to treat coronavirus patients and as a quarantine facility, Reuters reports.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said it would be open by next Monday at the latest. “We’re hoping not to use these (beds), but we’ve prepared from the beginning, to brace for this,” said the president.

Some health experts and officials believe the true infection rate among Indonesia’s population of 260 million could be substantially higher than reported figures. Meanwhile, official data from mid-March shows the country has only about 12 hospital beds per 10,000 people.

My colleagues Sam Jones and Kim Willsher report that a 99-year-old who was the last living survivor of La Nueve - a company of mainly Spanish troops that was the first to enter Paris August 1944 marking the city’s liberation from Nazi occupation – has died after contracting coronavirus in a nursing home in Strasbourg.

Rafael Gómez Nieto grew up in Andalucia near Almeria, the son of a career soldier who had been part of the royal guard to the Spanish king Alfonso XIII. He was a veteran of the Spanish civil war, having fought in the four-month Battle of Ebro, the longest and largest battle of the conflict, in 1938. At the end of the war in Spain he crossed the border into France where he was briefly interned before travelling to north Africa where he joined La Nueve.

La Nueve, the 9th Regiment de Marche du Tchad, part of the 2nd Armoured Division (Division Leclerc), was overwhelmingly made up of Spanish republican fighters who were among the 500,000 Spaniards who fled across the border into France in 1939 as Franco’s forces closed in on victory. One hundred and forty-six of the company’s 160 men were Spanish and, despite serving in the French army, they were permitted to stitch the red-yellow-and-purple flag of Spain’s second republic on to their uniforms. They were also allowed to paint the flag on their vehicles, which rolled into Paris emblazoned with names such as Guernica and Don Quichotte (Don Quixote). Spanish was the common language within the company. All had fought during the liberation of French north Africa.

The company, also known as La Española because of the number of Spanish soldiers, was the first to enter Paris on 24 August 1944. While awaiting the surrender of the German governor of occupied Paris, La Nueve troops were sent to occupy public buildings and those taken over by the German military command as well as Place de la Concorde.

Allied troops led by GenCharles de Gaulle entered Paris the following day. More than 50 members of La Nueve received the Croix de Guerre for bravery.

La Nueve’s contribution to the liberation of Paris has only recently been recognised. After the liberation, the company was forgotten or left out of the French history books for political reasons – the liberation being presented as an exclusively French triumph. It was only in August 2004 – 60 years later – that Paris officially paid homage to the division with a plaque.

Later, Gómez Nieto was awarded the Grande Médaille de Vermeil and the Légion d’Honneur.

Updated

The coronavirus death toll in Iran has passed 3,000. The Iranian health ministry reported 138 new deaths of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number of deaths to 3036.

Some 2,987 new positive cases have also been recorded in the same period of time, taking the total number infections in the country to 47,593.

Kiyanoush Jahanpour, spokesman for the health ministry, said 3,871 patients are in critical condition, adding that 15,473 patients have recovered so far.

Updated

Spain passes 100,000 confirmed cases

Spain has crossed the threshold of 100,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, health officials said on Wednesday.

According to official figures, it now has more cases than any country except Italy and the US. Spain also reached a new record single-day death toll between Tuesday and Wednesday, with a total of 864 deaths. The country has now logged 102,136 cases of the virus and 9,053 deaths.

Updated

A medical worker watches from a platform of the Gare d’Austerlitz station through the window of a medicalised TGV high-speed train before its departure to evacuate patients infected with Covid-19 in Paris, France
A medical worker watches from a platform of the Gare d’Austerlitz station through the window of a medicalised TGV high-speed train before its departure to evacuate patients infected with Covid-19 in Paris, France. Photograph: Thomas Samson/EPA

It is an image that brings home the grim reality of the coronavirus pandemic facing the world. A health worker peers through the window of a train carriage as colleagues treat a patient battling Covid-19 inside.

The train was due to depart the Gare d’Austerlitz train station in Paris as part of an evacuation of patients infected with the coronavirus to other hospitals in Brittany, western France, where the outbreak has been limited so far.

France, which has been on lockdown since 17 March, has a coronavirus death toll of more than 3,500 with nearly 53,000 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Updated

Japan is struggling to hold the line against the growing threat of the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s prime minister has warned, with a risk of a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases.

So far the country has 2,200 coronavirus cases and 66 deaths, relatively few compared with other nations, but infections are rising. There were 105 reported on Wednesday, 65 of them in the capital, Tokyo.

“We are barely holding the line and remain at a critical point where virus cases could surge if we let down our guard,” Shinzo Abe told a parliamentary committee.

He is set to hold a meeting of his coronavirus task force as he faces pressure to declare a state of emergency that would allow authorities to impose lockdowns and restrict movements on a voluntary basis, Reuters reports.

Economics minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said infectious disease experts were alarmed about medical preparations in Tokyo, which now has about 500 cases. He said:

Many experts expressed very strong sense of crisis and opinions over the spread of infections in Tokyo and the current state of medical preparedness. We must prevent infections from spreading further no matter what. We have come to the edge of edges, to the very brink.”

Meanwhile, the governor of Tokyo has requested that residents of the city of nearly 14 million people stay indoors and avoid restaurants and bars.

Updated

A smartphone app designed to keep tabs on people who have been ordered to stay at home because of the coronavirus has been unveiled in Russia, as the country expands its lockdown.

In Moscow – the centre of Russia’s Covid-19 outbreak where a partial lockdown was announced on Sunday – authorities have developed a smartphone app for residents who have contracted the virus to download that would allow them to be monitored, Reuters report.

The app is still in testing, official Eduard Lysenko told the Ekho Moskvy radio station. The city is also preparing to roll out a city-wide QR-code system where each resident that registers online will be assigned a unique code that they can show to police officers if stopped when going to the shop or the chemist, the official said.

It comes as Russia’s official tally of Covid-19 cases rose to 2,777 on Wednesday, a one-day increase of 440. Twenty-four people have so far died, authorities say.

Residents in Moscow have been told they can only leave their home to buy food or medicine nearby, get urgent medical treatment, walk the dog or empty their bins. Eight southern Russian regions rolled out similar lockdown measures to Moscow on Wednesday, meaning that more than 60 of Russia’s more than 80 regions are in a state of partial lockdown.

Updated

The people of Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus is thought to have originated, know better than most about living under the spectre of Covid-19. As the city of 11 million people begins to ease lockdown measures, Reuters have compiled a snapshot of residents’ experiences and advice:

Mu Zi, taxi driver

In the beginning, I was quite scared because my job involves meeting lots of people, so I went home and quarantined myself. After the government measures to control the epidemic started to work in February, I became more relaxed and in a better mood. And since my housing compound has had no cases, they’ve started allowing us to go out.

The situation overseas, especially in Italy, really makes my heart ache. I hope that overseas coronavirus patients will be able to overcome this.”

Ding Fan, 27, employee

In the beginning I was pretty scared, because the week after the lockdown was when the infections in Wuhan peaked, and the numbers published every day made me very sad.

I wasn’t used to being at home and I would feel very anxious because everyone was very nervous; you’d open the windows to look outside and it would be completely empty, you wouldn’t even see a shadow. It felt very miserable and not like my home, a city usually bustling with life.

We live in the same world, and we need to work hard together to defeat this illness. Everyone should go out less, stay at home to read books, watch television and play games with the family.”

Zhang Jianjun, 33, works in property planning

You have to stay hopeful, limit contact with others, reduce visits to crowded places. These are the only way you can protect yourself and your family.”

Hu Yong, 40, disinfectant sprayer

I’ve been working as a volunteer and recently joined a disinfectant company to spray shops and streets. This epidemic has made me feel that we Chinese are really strong.

As someone who has lived through this, I would like to tell everyone don’t panic, you have to adjust your state of mind. Secondly make sure you take precautions, like washing your hands, ensuring good ventilation and exercising regularly.”

Geng Yi, hotel staff

I have seen how medical workers have helped Wuhan. We are very grateful. Now that it feels like we’re close to victory, I would like to tell the world’s citizens ‘add oil’, keep going! Let’s work hard together and I’m sure everyone will beat this.”

Yuan Yanzhong, 59, retiree

I am a Wuhan native. Since the city’s lockdown, I haven’t left the house. In the beginning, I was quite panicked, because this epidemic is very severe.

I had stocked up on some essential goods before the Lunar New Year holiday, later my neighbourhood set up a group-buying chat group so we could buy food that would be delivered in bulk. Life wasn’t easy but staying at home was more safe.

Based on the Wuhan experience, a good way to beat this is to stay at home, don’t go out, limit contact, bore this virus to death by staying at home. This is the best solution.”

Yang Yuanfang, 39, community volunteer worker

My aunt was diagnosed as having the virus on Jan. 22 and then slowly her family got infected. At the time they received a lot of help from the community.

I chose to volunteer because I found it very difficult to just stay on the sidelines. The situation made me very emotional. Wuhan is my home. This virus is very scary. To fight it we need to keep a positive attitude and be united.”

Qiu Xiaoying, 72, shopowner

We basically didn’t go out and didn’t visit other people’s houses. Everything stopped. We didn’t even visit our relatives or have meals together during the Lunar New Year holiday.

If we in China can overcome this epidemic, other countries can definitely triumph over their difficulties. You have to rely on your willpower, figure out ways to make it retreat, learn from China to have a responsible attitude, don’t take the virus lightly and don’t go out on the streets without masks.”

Updated

Emmanuel Macron has said France will invest €4bn in “strategic” health products including masks and respirators, with the aim of making the country “fully and completely self-sufficient” by the end of this year.

“Our priority today is to start producing from now on in France,” Macron said during a visit to a factory producing masks near Angers in the Maine-et-Loire region on Tuesday.

We have to produce in France, on our territory, from now on. Certain products and certain materials have a strategic importance and we need Europe to be independent (in their production) to reduce our dependence.

“The day after (the coronavirus) will not be like the day before; we must rebuild out national and European sovereignty,” Macron added.

Macron and his centrist government have been criticised for not anticipating the crisis and acting sooner to begin production of masks - instead buying them in from China - and his remarks brought a chorus or responses from opposition parties.

“Aaahhh, he’s beginning to understand. Let’s relocate the production lines! A bit more effort!”, tweeted Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the hard-left La France Insoumise (Unbowed France - LFI).

Manuel Bompard, a Euro-MP for LFI, added: “Right up until its closure two years ago the Sperian firm at Plaintel could produce almost a million masks a day. The company was bought out by the US firm Honeywell then moved offshore. The machines were destroyed. Macron and Le Maire (economy minister) were warned at the time, but did nothing.”

Weekly mask production is being ramped up from 3.3m to 15m but French officials admit more are needed.

A medically adapted TGV will evacuate 36 coronavirus patients from hospital in Paris to Brittany today. The Ile-de-France (Paris region) is the worst hit in France and hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of Covid-19 cases. Government figures show there are 8,615 patients with the virus in hospital in the Ile-de-France. The Grand-Est (eastern France) region is the second worst hit with 4,246 coronavirus patients). There are currently 22,757 people with the coronavirus in hospitals across France, 5,565 of them in intensive care.

French prime minister Édouard Philippe and health minister Olivier Véran will be quizzed by the lower house of parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, today on the “impact, handling and consequences” of the coronavirus crisis.

Updated

UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab says he is relieved to have British nationals who were trapped in Peru home after behind-the-scenes footage emerged of them flying back to the UK.

After a British Airways pilot yesterday shared footage from one of Tuesday’s repatriation flights from Peru, Dominic Raab tweeted: “Relieved to have you home. Many thanks to all the BA crew and staff.

“I spoke to my Peruvian opposite number yesterday, to discuss how to return the remaining Brits who are confined because of domestic restrictions, and get them home safely.”

During the footage, a British woman on the flight says: “We’re so relieved to be heading back to the UK today. We’ve been stuck in Lima for a couple of weeks now on lockdown so, yeah, we’re just incredibly grateful to British Airways and [the] Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the armed forces who have just done an incredible job of coordinating us and lots of other people getting home today.”

Updated

Britons working from home and adapting to an unfamiliar routine may be putting themselves at risk due to potentially dangerous electrical set-ups and practices, a consumer safety charity is warning today.

New research from Electrical Safety First found that more than two-thirds of those currently working from home are using extension leads or adaptors with the electronic device they’re working on, while 38% have more appliances plugged into one than they usually would.

Yet more than one in three are either unaware of the risks of overloading plug sockets or how to check whether they’re doing so. By using extension leads and adaptors to plug additional devices into a socket, there is a danger that they could be overloaded, creating the risk of fire.

At the same time 44% of those currently working from home using extension leads or adapters admit to ‘daisy-chaining’ them together. This involves plugging one extension into another in order to reach further or plug more appliances in, but is advised against in all circumstances.

And more than half said they sometimes place an electrical item such as a laptop or phone on their bed while it is charging as part of their WFH set up. The charity says electrical items should only ever be left on hard, non-flammable surfaces unless switched off and not charging to avoid the risk of overheating.

Electrical Safety First is recommending those working from home take advantage of its Socket Overload Calculator to check they’re not plugging too many appliances in at once, and to pay extra attention to their electrical safety during their period of remote working.

Lesley Rudd, chief executive of Electrical Safety First, said:

With 70% of those currently working from home doing so for the first time due to Covid-19, it’s unsurprising that not everyone will have a had a chance to ensure their work stations are free from electrical hazards. “Take a few minutes to make sure you’re not daisy-chaining extension leads of overloading your plug sockets and that you are charging your devices on hard, non-flammable surfaces. We should all pay extra attention to electrical safety during our period of remote working.”

The number of Covid-19 deaths in the UK is likely to get worse before the situation improves, housing minister Robert Jenrick has warned.

The next couple of weeks will be “critical”, Jenrick stressed, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

It’s likely the numbers will get worse in the coming days before they get better.

If we all adhere to the measures then there is reason to believe they will begin to flatten the curve and we could see the evidence coming through that the NHS is being able to cope with the situation as best as possible.

If that is the case then there may be the potential to relax measures in a sensible way in accordance with medical advice in the weeks and months that would follow that.”

The UK’s Covid-19 death toll jumped 381 in a single day yesterday, with overall fatalities standing at 1,789. More than 25,000 people have tested positive for the virus.

On protective equipment, Jenrick earlier said there is a “military operation” ongoing to move stocks around the country and national distribution companies are also being used to “get the stocks out in a more organised and sustainable way”.

He continued: “That model should be in place in the next fortnight.”

Updated

A hospital trust in the UK has issued a plea to firms which have shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic to donate protective equipment so they can be used by frontline staff.

Goggles and masks are among items that Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust is asking for to help protect healthcare workers.

It comes amid a global shortage of the gear used by medics to keep themselves safe has led to shortfalls in the UK, with at least one GP practice forced to order face shields on Amazon.

In a Facebook post, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust thanked firms for the food, drink and supplies already provided, then added: “If you have any additional equipment such as goggles or masks that you no longer need due to the shutdown and would be interested in donating please get in touch and we can put them to good use.”

Afghanistan has reported 22 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to 196 as the disease continues to spread. Four have died in the country after contracting Covid-19, the country’s health ministry also confirmed.

Of the new cases, 12 were reported in western province of Herat, which borders Iran and is Afghanistan’s worst affected area with 143 positive cases of Covid-19. Around 75% of patients brought the virus from Iran, Afghanistan’s health ministry spokesman said.

Six cases have been confirmed in the country’s capital Kabul. One patient tested positive in Farah province, which also has a border with Iran, one of the world’s worst affected countries with around 2,900 deaths.

Afghanistan is implementing a partial curfew in all three provinces which have a border with Iran in a bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus. But testing remains low and experts fear the full extent of the spread is not known.

In another development, the U.N. Security Council urged Afghanistan’s warring parties to heed the U.N. secretary-general’s call for an immediate cease-fire to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure delivery of humanitarian aid throughout the country, AP reported.

UK government will test 25,000 a day for Covid-19 within a fortnight, minister says

The UK government is aiming to test 25,000 a day for Covid-19 within a fortnight, housing minister Robert Jenrick has said.

Downing Street is facing mounting criticism over a perceived lack of testing compared with other nations, with only 143,186 carried out to date. By comparison, Germany is testing 70,000 a day.

The UK’s Covid-19 death toll jumped 381 in a single day yesterday, with overall fatalities standing at 1,789. More than 25,000 people have tested positive for the virus.

Asked when the country will be up to 25,000 tests a day, Jenrick told Sky’s Kay Burley: “We’ve said that we hope to be in that position by mid-April. We think within days we’ll be able to go from our present capacity, as I say, of 12,750, to 15,000. So that’s a significant increase but still not as far as we’d like it to be.

“And then mid-April is when we expect to be at 25,000. But we now do have enough tests, and this is an important point I was trying to make, to test not just those patients in critical care but to begin to test NHS staff which is obviously absolutely essential.”

Meanwhile, Jenrick also appeared on Good Morning Britain where he was grilled by Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid:

Updated

The British housebuilding firm Taylor Wimpey has scrapped annual bonuses and announced its board will take a 30% pay cut.

It comes after the company temporarily closed all of its show homes, sales centres and construction sites due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A planned 2% annual salary increase set to come into force from today for executive directors will be cancelled, the company said. “The objective of these changes is to conserve cash, with a particular focus on protecting the long-term financial security of the business as a whole, for the benefit of all of the company’s stakeholders,” Taylor Wimpey said in a statement to shareholders this morning.

Updated

To recap for those waking up in the UK, it has emerged that a British national is among four people who have died on a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship.

Two of those who have died onboard the Zaandam have been confirmed to have had Covid-19, with a further nine people also testing positive, and 189 reporting flu-like symptoms.

The ship, which is carrying more than 200 British nationals and is operated by Holland America cruse line, is embroiled in a bitter dispute over plans to let passengers disembark in the US.

“One of the deceased passengers is from the UK,” a spokesman for Holland America said. “Due to US … laws, we cannot provide any additional medical and health details.”

The Zaandam, and its sister ship the Rotterdam, passed through the Panama Canal on Monday after being denied entry to several ports. Both ships are seeking to dock in Florida later this week.

But Florida’s governor is reluctant to allow disembarkation for the more than 1,000 people aboard the Zaandam. However, Donald Trump appears set to overrule him.

“They’re dying on the ship,” Trump said. “I’m going to do what’s right. Not only for us, but for humanity.”

Updated

Lockdown measures in Wuhan, the centre of the coronavirus outbreak in China, may slowly be starting to lift but life is still far from ordinary for the city’s residents.

In one neighbourhood, residents and traders are doing business over two-metre plastic walls set up early in the crisis to enforce social distancing.

Today shoppers stood on chairs to peer over at goods on sale on the other side, shouting down to vendors to check on prices, as well as using payment apps on their mobile phones rather than risk grubby cash, to pick up groceries. Reuters reports:

It’s safer for us to sell behind these barricades,” the owner of a pork stall said.

Whiteboard signs hung up on the barriers told shoppers what was for sale on the other side. Most listed vegetables, rice, oil and meat but one promised crayfish, a local delicacy.

Some supermarkets also reopened on Wednesday, with one attracting a long line of shoppers – everyone spaced 1.5 metres apart – that snaked around blocks.

Some people wore raincoats or shower caps to ward off the virus. All wore masks and all seemed happy to finish with online shopping and delivered supplies.

“It wasn’t fresh,” said one 68-year-old man who gave his surname as Dong as he stood in the queue, referring to the groceries dropped off at his home by volunteers during the lockdown. “They didn’t look good, didn’t taste nice. If we go to the supermarket ourselves we’ll have more choice.”

On 8 April, people in Wuhan will be allowed to leave home for the first time since 23 January.

Updated

Hello readers, it’s Simon Murphy here taking the helm of the live blog from the UK to steer you through today’s world coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Summary

  • Global deaths pass 42,000. Data collected by Johns Hopkins University researchers show at least 42,332 people have died across the world. At least 859,556 have been infected.
  • US deaths could reach 240,000 according to the White House, whose models indicate at least 100,000 will die. Trump said the country should expect a “very, very painful two weeks.” US deaths currently exceed those in China. Monday was the deadliest day yet for the US, which has now lost more than 4,076 people.
  • A British national is among four people to have died on the coronavirus-stricken Zaandam cruise ship embroiled in a bitter dispute over plans to disembark passengers in the US, PA Media news agency reports.
  • China’s national health commission on Wednesday reported 36 new Covid-19 cases and 130 new asymptomatic cases, bringing the total number of such cases under observation to 1,367. Previously, China has regarded asymptomatic patients as a low risk and not included them in its tally of confirmed cases.
  • A US Navy captain asked permission to isolate crew on shore. The captain of aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is facing a growing outbreak of the coronavirus, is asking for permission to isolate the bulk of his roughly 5,000 crew members on shore, which would take the warship out of duty in an effort to save lives.
  • Saudi Arabia urged Muslims to wait before making Hajj plans, until there is more clarity about the pandemic.
  • Japan remains on the brink of a state of emergency as the rate of coronavirus infections continues to increase in the country, its top government spokesman said on Wednesday.
  • Cuba said on Tuesday it was suspending the arrival of international passenger flights and asking all foreign boats to withdraw from the Caribbean island’s waters to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
  • Turkmenistan banned the media from using the word “coronavirus”. An international media freedom watchdog says the autocratic ex-Soviet nation of Turkmenistan has banned the media from using the word “coronavirus”, AP reports.
  • California hospitalisations double in four days, ICU patients triple. California governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that the number of Covid-19 hospitalisations in the state had nearly doubled over the past four days and the number of ICU patients tripled during that time.
  • Twenty-eight students who returned to Texas after spring in Mexico have tested positive for coronavirus, although Mexican officials pushed back against the suggestion that they picked up the virus at the tourist spot, Reuters reports.
  • France, Spain, Russia and the UK recorded their highest daily deaths. UK deaths were up 381 from 1,408 on the previous 24 hours and represent a 27% day-on-day increase – by far the biggest.

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. It has been a pretty sombre start to April, even by the standards of this crisis. As New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said last week, things are going to get worse before they get better.

My colleague Simon Murphy will be taking you through the latest developments for the next few hours.

Updated

The Bangladesh government appears to have lifted an internet ban imposed on more than 1 million Rohingya refugees living in cramped camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Rohingya refugees wait after their boat capsized near the Saint Martin’s island in the Bay of Bengal, in Teknaf, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, 11 February, 2020.
Rohingya refugees wait after their boat capsized near the Saint Martin’s island in the Bay of Bengal, in Teknaf, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, 11 February, 2020. Photograph: Reuters

Wai Wai Nu, Rohingya activist and founder of the Women’s Peace Network, tweeted on Wednesday morning: “I am so happy to hear from my sisters and brothers after long time.”

She urged Myanmar to also lift a long-standing internet ban imposed on Rakhine state. A military crackdown in Rakhine in 2017 forced 730,000 Rohingya people to flee over the border to Bangladesh, where refugees now live in cramped conditions with limited hygiene facilities.

The lifting of the internet ban in Bangladesh follows warnings that panic and rumours were spreading in the camps, and that reliable information was desperately needed.

There are growing fears that the virus could spread rapidly in Cox’s Bazar, where a first case was confirmed last week.Volunteers have been playing public health information from radios and loudspeakers to spread awareness, but said the internet would allow messages to be shared far more quickly.

Updated

China pivots to tackle ‘silent’ Covid-19 carriers as US says a quarter of cases may have no symptoms

Chinese authorities have shifted their focus to tackling “silent”, or asymptomatic, carriers of the coronavirus as part of the next phase of the pandemic, amid concern among US health chiefs that a quarter of patients do not suffer symptoms.

The National Health Commission in China said it would start releasing a tally of asymptomatic patients from Wednesday and would order those cases into quarantine for 14 days, after the mainland witnessed its first rise in infections in five days.

Authorities reported 130 new asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of such cases under observation to 1,367.

Recent new infections likely caused by asymptomatic patients have prompted widespread public concern as the country lifts lockdown measures and citizens go back to work.

Those concerns were reflected on Tuesday by Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who said in a rare interview that as a many as one in four cases have no symptoms.

As a result, the CDC was now “aggressively reviewing” its recommendations on use of face masks, potentially extending their use based on the assumption that more people in “high transmission zones” were already infected but without symptoms.

China new cases

China’s National Health Commission on Wednesday reported 36 new Covid-19 cases and 130 new asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of such cases under observation to 1,367.

Previously, China has regarded asymptomatic patients as a low risk and not included them in their tally of confirmed cases.

The move to disclose the number of asymptomatic cases comes amid scrutiny of China’s reported figures, which previously only included people who exhibited symptoms.

The commission said all but one of the 36 new cases was imported from abroad, while seven more deaths from the disease had been reported over the previous 24 hours.

Updated

More on Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David’s coronavirus message shared late on Tuesday in the US.

The comedian, 72, warned older people are being endangered by those going outside for non-essential trips and “socialising too close”.

In a video shared by the Office of the Governor of California, David said:

“Obviously, somebody put me up to this because it’s generally not the kind of thing I do, but I basically want to address the idiots out there - and you know who you are.

“You’re going out - I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re socialising too close, it’s not good.”

David, who created hit sitcoms Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, said people flouting the stay-at-home order could make elderly relatives ill.

He said: “You’re hurting old people like me - well, not me. I have nothing to do with you. I’ll never see you. But, you know, other - let’s say, other old people who might be your relatives! Who the hell knows.”

David also warned people were missing a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to “stay in the house, sit on the couch and watch TV”. “I don’t know how you’re passing that up,” he added.

The UK papers on 1 April, 2020 after the very long month of March:

A British national has died on the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship heading to Florida

A British national is among four people to have died on a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship embroiled in a bitter dispute over plans to disembark passengers in the US, PA news agency reports.

Passengers use binoculars onboard Holland America’s cruise ship Zaandam as it entered the Panama City bay to be assisted by the Rotterdam cruise ship with supplies, personnel and Covid-19 testing devices, eight milles off the coast of Panama City, 27 March, 2020.
Passengers use binoculars onboard Holland America’s cruise ship Zaandam as it entered the Panama City bay to be assisted by the Rotterdam cruise ship with supplies, personnel and Covid-19 testing devices, eight milles off the coast of Panama City, 27 March, 2020. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images

In what is being described as an unfolding humanitarian crisis, so far two of the four people to have died on the cruise ship Zaandam have been confirmed to have had Covid-19, with nine people aboard testing positive and 189 reporting flu-like symptoms.

“One of the deceased passengers is from the UK,” a spokesman for the Holland America cruise line, which operates the Zaandam, said in an email to the PA news agency.

“Due to US ... laws, we cannot provide any additional medical and health details.”

The Zaandam, which is carrying more than 200 British nationals, and its sister ship the Rotterdam, passed through the Panama Canal on Monday after being denied entry to several ports. Both ships are seeking to dock in Florida later this week.

But the state’s governor is reluctant to allow disembarkation for the more than 1,000 people aboard the Zaandam.

Updated

Public schools in Tokyo could remain closed for a second month, according to media reports, as speculation mounts that the government could declare a state of emergency in response to a rise in Covid-19 infections in the capital and other parts of Japan.

Hitomi Sato helps her daughters Yurina (L) and Hinano (R) to do their homework while schools are closed in Tokyo, Japan.
Hitomi Sato helps her daughters Yurina (L) and Hinano (R) to do their homework while schools are closed in Tokyo, Japan. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images

While Japan, with around 2,200 cases and 66 deaths, has been spared the devastation seen in the US, Europe and China, it reported a record daily rise in infections on Tuesday.

The chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said the government was prepared to “whatever is needed” to contain the outbreak, which has already left the world’s third-biggest economy teetering on the brink of recession.

Calls have intensified for the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to declare a state of emergency - a move that would enable prefectural governments to urge people to avoid nonessential trips outside the home. Those steps would be voluntary, rather than legally binding, however.

Abe this week dismissed as “fake news” social media speculation that a more draconian form of lockdown was imminent.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that the Tokyo metropolitan government was considering keeping the city’s schools closed until May, despite suggestions that some could reopen this month to coincide with the start of the new academic year. Japan’s schools closed at the beginning of March at Abe’s request.

Here are the latest global figures now, according to Johns Hopkins University.

There are just shy of 860,000 confirmed cases worldwide, with the total currently at 859,796.

There have been 42,332 deaths. Here are ten worst-affected countries by number of confirmed cases, with the US more than 80,000 cases ahead of the next worst-affected country, Italy.

Confirmed US cases account for roughly 1 in 5 worldwide.

  1. US: 189,510
  2. Italy: 105,792
  3. Spain: 95,923
  4. China: 82,294
  5. Germany: 71,808
  6. France: 52,836
  7. Iran: 44,605
  8. United Kingdom: 25,481
  9. Switzerland: 16,605
  10. Turkey: 13,531

Here are the ten countries with the highest number of coronavirus-related deaths:

  1. Italy: 12,428 deaths
  2. Spain: 8,464 deaths
  3. US: 4,079 deaths
  4. France: 3,523 deaths
  5. China: 3,310 deaths
  6. Iran: 2,898 deaths
  7. United Kingdom: 1,789 deaths
  8. Netherlands: 1,039 deaths
  9. Germany: 775 deaths
  10. Belgium: 705 deaths

There have been 178,301 recoveries.

People are sharing before and after shots on Twitter – where “before” is the beginning of March and “after” is now:

Updated

Cuba suspends international passenger flights

Cuba said on Tuesday it was suspending the arrival of international passenger flights and asking all foreign boats to withdraw from the Caribbean island’s waters to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.

Cuban doctor Liz Caballero, from El Vedado polyclinic in Havana, walks with two students as they go door by door looking for possible coronavirus cases on 31 March, 2020.
Cuban doctor Liz Caballero, from El Vedado polyclinic in Havana, walks with two students as they go door by door looking for possible coronavirus cases on 31 March, 2020. Photograph: Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images

Cuba, which has confirmed 186 cases of the fast-spreading disease, partially closed its borders last week, banning the arrival of foreign tourists and the departure of Cubans.

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero clarified that Cuba would remain open for commerce and donations.

Cuba first reported cases of the new coronavirus three weeks ago in a group of Italian tourists and has since reported six deaths from the disease.

Nearly 3,000 people it suspects could have it are being monitored in state isolation facilities. Authorities have carried out 2,322 tests.

New Zealand on Wednesday reported 61 new cases of the coronavirus, but said it was too early to assess if the lower number of cases this week meant the nationwide lockdown measures were working.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks during her media update at the Beehive Theatrette, Parliament on 1 April, 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks during her media update at the Beehive Theatrette, Parliament on 1 April, 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand. Photograph: Getty Images

The new cases take the country’s total to 708.

The number of new Covid-19 cases was as high as 85 last week, but has stayed lower this week. More than half of the cases was related to overseas travel and community transmission cases were about 1%.

“While on the face of it that might seem a heartening number relative to some of the other figures we have had now, I want to emphasise it’s too early to assess if our measures are successfully slowing Covid-19,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a news conference.

The number of cases in Germany has risen by 5,453 to 67,366, according to the RKI health institute.

That rise is up from yesterday’s +4,615 cases.

Germany confirmed 149 new deaths.

Summary

  • Global deaths pass 42,000. Data collected by Johns Hopkins University researchers show at least 42,332 people have died across the world. At least 859,556 have been infected.
  • US deaths could reach 240,000 according to the White House, whose models indicate at least 100,000 will doe. Trump said the country should expect a “very, very painful two weeks.” US deaths currently exceed those in China. Monday was the deadliest day yet for the US, which has now lost more than 4,076 people.
  • A US Navy captain asked permission to isolate crew on shore. The captain of US Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is facing a growing outbreak of the coronavirus, is asking for permission to isolate the bulk of his roughly 5,000 crew members on shore, which would take the warship out of duty in an effort to save lives.
  • Saudi Arabia urged Muslims to wait before making Hajj plans, until there is more clarity about the pandemic.
  • Japan remains on the brink of a state of emergency as the rate of coronavirus infections continues to increase in the country, its top government spokesman said on Wednesday.
  • Turkmenistan banned the media from using the word “coronavirus”. An international media freedom watchdog says the autocratic ex-Soviet nation of Turkmenistan has banned the media from using the word “coronavirus”, AP reports.
  • California hospitalisations double in four days, ICU patients triple. California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that the number of Covid-19 hospitalisations in the state had nearly doubled over the past four days and the number of ICU patients tripled during that time.
  • Twenty-eight students who returned to Texas after spring in Mexico have tested positive for coronavirus, although Mexican officials pushed back against the suggestion that they picked up the virus at the tourist spot, Reuters reports.
  • France, Spain, Russia and the UK recorded their highest daily deaths. UK deaths were up 381 from 1,408 on the previous 24 hours and represents a 27% day-on-day increase – by far the biggest.

Updated

The first two cases of the coronavirus were confirmed among Colombia’s indigenous people on Tuesday, local authorities said, fanning fears that the highly contagious disease could decimate vulnerable tribal communities, Reuters reports.

The cases were found in two people from the Yukpa group who live in dire poverty in a cluster of makeshift shelters and tents in the northern border city of Cucuta, according to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), the country’s leading indigenous authority.

Health experts said they fear the coronavirus could spread rapidly among tribes who have little immunity to diseases common in the general population.

Their immune systems often are weakened as well by malnutrition, hepatitis B, diabetes and respiratory diseases like tuberculosis, experts say.

As it eases its strict coronavirus curbs, China has urged authorities to pay more attention to asymptomatic cases, part of efforts to allay public fears that large numbers of infectious people have gone unreported.

A community volunteer wearing a hazmat suit guards the entrance of a compound along in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on 1 April, 2020.
A community volunteer wearing a hazmat suit guards the entrance of a compound along in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on 1 April, 2020. Photograph: Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

China is easing travel restrictions and allowing people to return to work in the city of Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei after two months of strict curbs on people’s movements with no new cases of the coronavirus reported in the region where it emerged last year for seven days.

But several studies have raised the possibility that the attempt to restore normal life might be premature, warning that lifting the restrictions in Wuhan so soon could lead to a second wave of infections.

Puerto Rico on Tuesday closed its fourth police station in a week, raising concerns about the ability of the US territory to respond to the coronavirus pandemic as officers accused the government of exposing one of the largest police departments in a U.S. jurisdiction to Covid-19.

More than 100 officers now remain quarantined as dozens of police await test results on an island that has reported eight deaths and more than 230 confirmed cases amid a month long curfew that has shuttered beaches, parks and non-essential businesses.

The first police station to close is located in the popular tourist town of Rincon, where the 42-year-old wife of one officer recently died from Covid-19, according to health officials. A couple of days later, authorities shuttered the police station in the eastern town of Aguas Buenas after one officer tested positive. Two more then closed over coronavirus infection fears.

Shortly afterward, the government announced that it also closed a station in the western town of Moca and sent more than 40 officers home after the relative of one policeman showed symptoms that could be related to Covid-19.

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has offered a prayer for the national cabinet to stay “strong and united” and committed the Australian nation to God during times of “great need and suffering” as it responds to Covid-19.

The prayer is contained in a video, first published by Eternity News but later removed and republished by Queensland Parents for Secular State Schools, in which Morrison explains his faith gives him “enormous encouragement” in how to respond to the crisis.

Morrison, Australia’s first evangelical Christian prime minister, has made no secret of his religious faith, referring to his re-election in 2019 as a “miracle”.

But glimpses of Morrison’s personal practice of Christianity are rarer, such as his decision to invite cameras into Horizon church at Easter in 2019.

Thousands of people have urged Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to let them briefly walk pets during a curfew introduced over the coronavirus crisis, local media reported Tuesday.

A closed farmers market in Belgrade, Serbia, 31 March 2020.
A closed farmers market in Belgrade, Serbia, 31 March 2020. Photograph: Andrej Cukic/EPA

Serbia has declared a state of emergency and adopted strict measures to curb the Covid-19 outbreak, including a curfew from 5:00 pm to 5:00 am during the week and from three pm to five am on weekends.

The Balkan country has confirmed 900 cases of Covid-19 and 23 deaths.

A very worrying report out of the Pacific region now.

The Northern Mariana Islands, which is a US commonwealth in the north Pacific, has seen its first coronavirus-related death – a 70-year-old man. The commonwealth now has six confirmed cases of coronavirus and officials warn there is evidence of community transmission.

This brings the Pacific region’s death toll to three. Two people have died in Guam, which is located just to the south of the Northern Marianas.

Map

There are grave fears for the Pacific region in relation to coronavirus.

So far, there have been a relatively low number of cases across the Pacific, but in many of Pacific countries and territories, health systems are very weak and doctors struggle to have the resources to deal with even ordinary illnesses. There are fears that if the virus reached pandemic levels in these countries, the death toll would be huge.

The Northern Marianas does not have any testing capacity for coronavirus and tests have been sent to Guam, but as Anita Hofschneider from Hawaii’s Civil Beat, a Marianas local, reports only a handful of cases from the Marianas have been tested so far.

A pet cat has tested positive for the coronavirus in Hong Kong after its owner was confirmed with having the virus, the city’s Agricultural and Fisheries department said, cautioning that the animal has not shown any signs of the disease.

A ginger and white Tabby cat – not the infected animal.
A ginger and white Tabby cat – not the infected animal. Photograph: Pearl Bucknall/Alamy Stock Photo

In a notice late on Tuesday, the department said there is currently no evidence that pet animals can be a source of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and owners should not abandon their pets, Reuters reports.

The World Health Organization also states on their website that there is no evidence that a dog, cat or any pet can transmit Covid-19.

The cat is the third animal to test positive in Hong Kong, following earlier cases in which two dogs tested weak positive or positive during repeated tests for the virus. Authorities said the cat will continue to be monitored and examined.

There has only been one other reported case of coronavirus in a cat, in Belgium, which is believed to have become infected from its owner, according to a statement from the Hong Kong Veterinary Association.

Japan on the brink of a state of emergency, top government spokesperson says

Japan remains on the brink of a state of emergency as the rate of coronavirus infections continues to increase in the country, its top government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters controlling the virus was a top priority, and that the government would do “whatever is needed” to minimise the economic impact after a nationwide poll released earlier in the day showed a pessimistic turn in sentiment among manufacturers because of the virus.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) attends an Upper House Accounts Committee meeting in Tokyo, Japan, 01 April 2020.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) attends an Upper House Accounts Committee meeting in Tokyo, Japan, 01 April 2020. Photograph: Jiji Press/EPA

Updated

Taiwan’s economic stimulus response to the coronavirus outbreak could reach T$1 trillion (US$33.09 billion), Taiwan media reported late on Tuesday citing Premier Su Tseng-chang.

A woman wearing a face mask walks in front of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei on 31 March, 2020.
A woman wearing a face mask walks in front of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei on 31 March, 2020. Photograph: Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images

The government is already rolling out a T$60 billion package to help the export-dependent economy, and President Tsai Ing-wen has said another T$40 billion is available.

Taiwan’s central bank said last month it was making T$200 billion available in loans for small and medium-sized businesses to help them cope with the impact of the virus, and said this week it could increase that if needed.

Tsai is due to hold a news conference later on Wednesday.

28 spring break students test positive after returning from Mexico

Twenty-eight students who returned to Texas after spring break at Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas beach resort have tested positive for coronavirus, although Mexican officials pushed back against the suggestion that they picked up the virus at the tourist spot, Reuters reports.

The 28 confirmed cases are self-isolating and dozens more are under quarantine while being monitored and tested, the city of Austin said in a statement on Tuesday, drawing attention to possibly low detection of cases in Mexico.

However, the Los Cabos Trust, which runs tourism sites including the resort where the vacationers stayed, said the group departed on 11 March, implying they did not come in contact with the coronavirus until later.

“Twenty days after their return to Austin, Texas, they had already passed the incubation period established by the World Health Organization,” the trust said in a statement. It added that no resort staff member presented coronavirus symptoms.

Mexico’s health ministry on Tuesday registered 1,215 cases of coronavirus in the country, up from 1,094 the day before.

It also said 29 people died from the virus in Mexico, up from 28 a day earlier.

At the time of the trip, Mexico was not under a US federal travel advisory, but had advised against non-essential travel.

“A leisure vacation of any kind is not considered essential,” the city said.

Updated

NHS Nightingale: inside London’s temporary coronavirus hospital

Britain’s first coronavirus field hospital has been built in London and will treat up to 4,000 previously fit and healthy people struck down by Covid-19. London patients in need of intensive care but with the best chance of survival will be taken to the Nightingale hospital, which has been constructed within the ExCel arena in the capital’s Docklands area in the space of a week.

California hospitalisations double in four days, ICU patients triple

California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that the number of Covid-19 hospitalisations in the state had nearly doubled over the past four days and the number of ICU patients tripled during that time.

By Monday, 1,421 California patients had been hospitalised with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, up from 746 four days ago, Newsom said. The number of patients requiring intensive care beds rose to 597 from 200, he said. Altogether, 5,763 people have tested positive for the disease in the state, he said.

Red Cross trucks are parked outside the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles California 30 March, 2020. The California National Guard is currently setting up the convention center as a field hospital to help lessen the strain on LA-area hospitals during the coronavirus crisis.
Red Cross trucks are parked outside the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles California 30 March, 2020. The California National Guard is currently setting up the convention center as a field hospital to help lessen the strain on LA-area hospitals during the coronavirus crisis. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images


The rapid increase in the need for hospital and ICU care led Newsom to set up a website to connect retired doctors and nurses, as well as medical and nursing students, to hospitals and clinics that need them. The state will help retirees activate their licenses and students obtain licensing.
“If you’re a nursing school student, a medical school student, we need you,” Newsom said. “If you’ve just retired in the last couple of years, we need you.”

The state is hoping its initiative, dubbed California Health Corps, will bring on board enough staff to handle an additional 50,000 hospital beds, Newsom said.

In a livestreamed video with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Newsom thanked the couple for a previously unannounced $25 million donation in support of the health corps.

A Facebook spokeswoman said the donation was coming from the company and would help cover costs like temporary housing near health care sites, child care costs and licensing fees.

An executive order signed on Monday also temporarily allows physician assistants and nurse practitioners to perform some duties normally performed by physicians and registered nurses, and waives other state rules during the crisis.

In New York, a surge in deaths has overwhelmed the city’s permanent morgues and filled storage spaces in many hospitals to capacity.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending 85 refrigerated trucks to serve as temporary morgues, the city said.

Its been that way for days at Brooklyn Hospital Center, which said in a statement that the unprecedented crisis calls for extraordinary measures and that extra storage is needed to accommodate the tragic spike in deaths, placing a strain on the entire system of care from hospitals to funeral homes.

“Grieving families cannot quickly make arrangements, and their loved ones who have passed are remaining in hospitals longer, thus the need for this accommodation,” the hospital in Brooklyns Fort Greene neighbourhood said.

The city’s medical examiner’s office has also started operating a makeshift morgue, as it did after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to provide emergency capacity as the city’s permanent facilities fill up.

The city’s coronavirus death toll more than doubled in the past four days, surging from 450 on Friday to 932 as of Tuesday morning, AP reports.

“I basically want to address the idiots out there”: Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David has filmed a stay-home message for the Office of the Governor of California.

“You’re hurting old people like me. Well, not me... I’ll never see you,” he says.

Updated

More now on that warning from US Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said the world faces the most challenging crisis since the second world war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

There is also a risk that the combination of the disease and its economic impact will contribute to enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict, the UN chief said at the launch of a report on the socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19.

Guterres called for a much stronger and more effective global response to the coronavirus pandemic and to the social and economic devastation that Covid-19 is causing.

“We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations. One that is killing people, spreading human suffering, and upending peoples lives,” the report said.

“The secretary-general told reporters: The magnitude of the response must match the scale of the crisis large-scale, coordinated and comprehensive, with country and international responses being guided by the World Health Organization.”

He stressed that we are still very far from where we need to be to effectively fight the virus and its impacts worldwide.

He said many countries are not respecting WHO guidelines, and that while US$5 trillion has been mobilised, most of that money was from and for the developed world, including $2 trillion in the United States to support their own economy.

The New York Times reports that the US Centers for Disease Control is reconsidering its guidelines on masks, as it warns that up to 25% of people infected with the virus do not show symptoms.

Teargas, beatings and bleach: the most extreme Covid-19 lockdown controls around the world

As coronavirus lockdowns have been expanded globally, billions of people have found that they are now faced with unprecedented restrictions. Policeacross the world have been given licence to control behaviour in a way that would normally be extreme even for an authoritarian state.

On Tuesday, police in Kenya gave their “sincere condolences” after a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed on his balcony in Nairobi as police moved through the neighbourhood, enforcing a coronavirus curfew.

“They come in screaming and beating us like cows, and we are law-abiding citizens,” said Hussein Moyo, the father of Yasin, the boy who was shot.

Relatives and friends pray over the body of 13-year-old Yasin Hussein Moyo at his burial, at the Kariakor cemetery in Nairobi, Kenya Tuesday, 31 March 31, 2020.
Relatives and friends pray over the body of 13-year-old Yasin Hussein Moyo at his burial, at the Kariakor cemetery in Nairobi, Kenya Tuesday, 31 March 31, 2020. Photograph: Brian Inganga/AP

Concerns are growing that police forces around the world are using gruelling and humiliating punishments to enforce quarantine on the poorest and most vulnerable groups, including tens of millions who live hand-to-mouth and risk starving if they do not defy lockdowns and seek work.

South Korea has reported 101 new cases of the virus, which is in keeping with the average.

Yesterday it reported 125 new cases, higher than the around 100 cases reported daily for the past three weeks.

The total number of cases is 9,887.

US Navy captain asks for permission to isolate crew on shore

The captain of a US Navy aircraft carrier facing a growing outbreak of the coronavirus is asking for permission to isolate the bulk of his roughly 5,000 crew members on shore, which would take the warship out of duty in an effort to save lives, AP reports.

In a memo to Navy leaders, the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt said the spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating, and said that removing all but 10% of the crew is a necessary risk in order to stop the spread of the virus. The ship is docked in Guam.

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt transits the Pacific Ocean.
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt transits the Pacific Ocean. Photograph: Paul L Archer/US NAVY/AFP via Getty Images

US Navy leaders on Tuesday were scrambling to determine how to best respond to the extraordinary request as over 100 crew members tested positive.
The outbreak on the carrier may be the Navys most dramatic, but it tracks an accelerating upward trend across the military. The Pentagon said the number of cases in the military reached 673 on Tuesday morning, a jump of 104 from the day before and up from 174 a week ago.
Since March 20, the total has surged tenfold, even as the Pentagon has taken many steps to try to limit the spread, including halting nearly all movement of troops overseas.

Updated

If you have questions, stories you think we should be covering, tips, or something on the lighter side to share you can get in touch with me directly on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Panama has announced strict quarantine measures that separate citizens by gender, AFP reports.

From Wednesday for 15 days, men and women will only be able to leave their homes for two hours at a time, and on different days. On Sunday all outings are banned.

Panama has confirmed 27 deaths and 1,075 coronavirus cases.

Two people walk wearing masks and gloves in Panama City, Panama, 31 March 2020.
Two people walk wearing masks and gloves in Panama City, Panama, 31 March 2020. Photograph: Carlos Lemos/EPA

President Trump has said he will speak to Florida governor about two coronavirus-stricken cruise ships stranded at sea during his White House Press briefing on Tuesday.

Four people have died, nine people have tested positive for Covid-19 and dozens are ill on the Zaandam and Rotterdam ships, which are traveling towards Florida to attempt to dock after several Latin American countries refused to allow them into port.

Port Everglades has not yet confirmed whether the boats will be allowed to dock in Fort Lauderdale.

Holland America’s cruise ship Zaandam (L) and the Rotterdam cruise ship are seen in Panama City bay on 28 March,2020.
Holland America’s cruise ship Zaandam (L) and the Rotterdam cruise ship are seen in Panama City bay on 28 March,2020. Photograph: Ivan Pisarenko/AFP via Getty Images

On Monday, Ron DeSantis has said passengers on the ships cannot be “dumped”in his state, dismissing them as mostly “foreigners”. But President Trump said he did not want the cruise liners to become “ghost ships” and said he would do the right thing “for humanity”.

President Trump told reporters: “You have people that are dying on the ship who are least very sick, but they are dying on the ship. I’m going to do what is right. Not only for us but for humanity. These are two big ships and they have a lot of very sick people. I’ll be speaking to the governor.”

The operator of a coronavirus-stricken cruise liner has warned that more people could die at sea after several Caribbean countries refused to accept two emergency medical evacuations from the ships.

Turkmenistan bans media from using the word “coronavirus”

An international media freedom watchdog says the autocratic ex-Soviet nation of Turkmenistan has banned the media from using the word “coronavirus”, AP reports.

Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday the word also has been removed from health information brochures distributed in schools, hospitals and workplaces. The gas-rich Central Asian nation that neighbours Iran so far has reported no cases of the new coronavirus. Iran has reported more than 44,000 cases.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said people wearing face masks or talking about the coronavirus are liable to be arrested by plainclothes police. Ranked last in the group’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index, Turkmenistan is one of the world’s most closed countries.

Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has ruled the country since 2006 through an all-encompassing personality cult that styles him as Turkmenistan’s “arkadaq,” or protector.

Here is our story on that Trump press conference on Tuesday:

Donald Trump has warned America to brace for a “very, very painful two weeks” as the White House projected that the coronavirus pandemic could claim 100,000 to 240,000 lives, even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.

Striking an unusually sombre tone at the start a marathon two-hour briefing, the US president defended his early handling of the crisis and displayed models that, he said, justified his decision to keep much of the economy shut down.

“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks. This is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks.”

The US death toll from the coronavirus climbed past 3,800 on Tuesday, eclipsing China’s official count. Trump has been widely condemned for exacerbating the crisis by failing to prepare testing kits, breathing apparatus and other equipment.

On Tuesday his experts said their models showed between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could die from the coronavirus even if the country keeps mitigation measures in place.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has released a statement saying two local US embassy staff members have died in Jakarta, Indonesia and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo Foreign Policy reports:

In the US, Politico reports: “Trump officials have decided against reopening Obamacare enrolment to uninsured Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, defying calls from health insurers and Dems to create a special sign-up window amid the health crisis.”

Trump and officials in his administration had said they were considering relaunching the federal Obamacare enrolment site.

“However, a White House official on Tuesday evening told POLITICO the administration will not reopen the site for a special enrollment period, and that the administration is ‘exploring other options’.”

Trump has just meanwhile published a link to the full “Coronavirus Guidelines for America”, which includes social distancing measures:

Updated

In lighter news, with humans sheltering indoors to escape the new coronavirus, mountain goats are taking advantage of the peace and space to roam in frisky clumps through the streets of Llandudno, a town in North Wales.

These goats aren’t kidding around.

Andrew Stuart, a video producer for the Manchester Evening News, has been posting videos of the furry adventurers on his Twitter feed.

He said the goats normally keep largely to themselves in a country park nearby. But now, emboldened by the lack of people and cars, the long-horned animals are venturing deeper into the seaside town.

Updated

Health experts call virus pandemic a window into future climate threats

The coronavirus pandemic is a preview of the types of global health threats that will emerge as the planet becomes hotter, and how it is tackled has implications for dealing with climate threats as well, health experts said on Tuesday. Reuters reports:

Growing destruction of forests and farming expansion are both driving climate change and bringing people into closer contact with wild animal diseases, said Mandeep Dhaliwal, director for HIV, health and development for the United Nations Development Programme, speaking during an online panel at the Skoll Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the coronavirus pandemic had its origin in bats, with early infections linked to a large live animal market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Dr. David Nabarro, a special envoy to the World Health Organization (WHO) on the pandemic, said about a third of the world’s countries were on lockdown.
That was forcing leaders into “awful political tradeoffs” between protecting lives and keeping economies functioning - the kind of tradeoffs that could become more frequent as climate-linked disasters from wildfires to drought worsen, he said.

Gary Cohen, head of Healthcare Without Harm, an organisation that works in 53 countries to make health care systems environmentally sustainable, said climate change, like coronavirus, was a “force multiplier” for economic and social injustices.

“Those living on the edge, without enough food, with poor or no housing, with no health care... those are the people that are going to suffer most. We’re already seeing that in the response to the Covid-19 crisis,” he said.

US president Donald Trump has shared guidelines on Twitter under the heading “30 Days to Slow the Spread”.

The points mainly relate to those who are sick, elderly or have underlying health conditions – all of these people should stay home and not go to work.

Trump issues “Guidelines for America” during coronavirus pandemic.
Trump issues “Guidelines for America” during coronavirus pandemic. Photograph: social media

Trump earlier today said of the pandemic: “It’s going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month.”

Updated

Saudi Arabia urges Muslims to wait before making Hajj plans

Moving away from the US now to Saudi Arabia, which has urged Muslims to wait before making plans to attend the annual Hajj pilgrimage until there is more clarity about the pandemic.

Some 2.5 million pilgrims from around the world usually flock to the holiest sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina for the week-long ritual, which is a once-in-a-lifetime duty for every able-bodied Muslim and a major source of income for the kingdom.

Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba and pray at the Grand mosque at the end of their Hajj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia 13 August, 2019.
Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba and pray at the Grand mosque at the end of their Hajj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia 13 August, 2019. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

The largest annual gathering of Muslims is scheduled to begin in late July, but the coronavirus outbreak has raised questions about whether it can or should go ahead given the risk of spreading the disease further in large gatherings.

Saudi Arabia has already suspended the smaller, year-round umrah pilgrimage until further notice, halted all international passenger flights indefinitely and last week blocked entry and exit to several cities, including Mecca and Medina.

The kingdom has reported 10 deaths among 1,563 cases of coronavirus, which has infected some 800,000 people globally and killed more than 38,000.

Cancelling the Hajj would be unprecedented in modern times, but curbing attendance from high-risk areas has happened before, including in recent years during the Ebola outbreak.

Updated

Trump also said that “nobody knew how contagious this virus was”.

My colleagues have fact checked this:

Fact check: “Nobody knew”

“Nobody knew how contagious this was,” Trump said. “I don’t think any doctor new it at the time. People have not seen anything like this.”

In fact, as the disease spread through China, public health experts were warning for weeks that the coronavirus threat could grow into a pandemic.

Moreover, epidemiologists have been predicting this sort of pandemic for years. The US intelligence community, in its January 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment, wrote: “We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”

US president Donald Trump has just finished a White House briefing, one of the more memorable because of the predictions coming out of the coronavirus task force’s modelling.

“It’s an incredibly dark topic,” Trump said, before leaving the podium. “An incredibly horrible topic. And it’s incredibly interesting. That’s why everybody is, They’re going crazy, they can’t get enough of it.”

Between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans will die, the White House modelling says.

Trump told people to prepare for a “very, very painful two weeks”.

The graph showing those numbers listed those possible deaths as “goals” in the mitigation:

Updated

Summary

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, which the UN secretary general António Guterres called the greatest challenge faced by the planet since the second world war.

There are now more than 850,000 cases worldwide, a fifth of which are in the United States. Tuesday saw several countries, including France, the US, Spain, Russia and the UK declare record daily increases in pandemic-related deaths.

I’ll be taking you through the next few hours of news. If you have questions, stories you think we should be covering, tips, or something heartwarming you can get in touch with me directly on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

  • Global deaths pass 40,000. Data collected by Johns Hopkins University researchers show at least 40,636 people have died across the world, while 174,019 people have recovered after becoming infected. At least 850,000 people have been infected.
  • US deaths could reach 240,000 according to the White House. Trump said the country should expect a “very, very painful two weeks.” US deaths currently exceed those in China. Monday was the deadliest day yet for the US, which has now lost more than 3,400 people. The figures mean the coronavirus death toll has now surpassed that of the 11 September terror attacks and is greater than that of China – 3,309.
  • France, Spain, Russia and the UK recorded their highest daily deaths. UK deaths were up 381 from 1,408 on the previous 24 hours and represents a 27% day-on-day increase – by far the biggest.
  • Boy, 13, becomes UK’s youngest victim. A 13-year-old boy in London who tested positive has died, Kings College hospital has said. He is believed to be the youngest victim of the outbreak in the UK.
  • Worst FTSE quarter since 1987. The FTSE 100 posts its worst quarter since autumn 1987 as it closes for the night at 5671 points (up 108 points, or 1.95% today). That means it has shed 24.8% of its value in the last three months. That’s its second-worst quarter since being created in 1984.
  • More than 1,000 have now died in the Netherlands. The number of deaths in the Netherlands resulting from the epidemic rises by 175 to 1,039. The number of confirmed infections has increased by 845 to 12,595, the Netherlands’ National Institute for Health (RIVM) says.
  • UK shows early signs of flattening the curve. The NHS needs everyone to play their part in reducing transmission of the virus, the medical director of NHS England Stephen Powis says, as signs emerge that physical distancing measures are beginning to work.
  • ‘Stay healthy!’ US urges Americans left behind in Pakistan. A US government-arranged flight is to leave Islamabad in Pakistan on Wednesday night to repatriate Americans in the country. But not all US nationals will be on it. Their embassy’s advice to them while they await a plan to get them home is: “Stay healthy!”
  • Ireland: confirmed cases of coronavirus halve. Ireland on Monday confirmed 295 new cases, the second highest daily number, bringing the total to 2,910. It recorded eight deaths, bringing the death toll to 54. Northern Ireland has 533 confirmed cases and 22 deaths.
  • Burundi and Sierra Leone confirmed their first cases, and Slovakia and Oman registered their first deaths.

Updated

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