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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Helen Sullivan (now); Kevin Rawlinson ,Sarah Marsh, Frances Perraudin , Josh Halliday and Alison Rourke (earlier)

US oil market collapses into negative prices – as it happened

The US oil market has collapsed unto negative prices for the first time in history.
The US oil market has collapsed unto negative prices for the first time in history. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP via Getty Images

We’ve fired up a new blog at the link below – follow me there for the latest updates:

The US president ended today’s briefing citing a range of different numbers for the potential deaths the US could have experienced, saying if the country hadn’t done lockdowns, there could have been 700,000 deaths, a million deaths, or maybe “millions”.

As of today, there have been more than 41,000 deaths recorded in the US. Experts fear that the country could experience surges and second waves if states reopen too soon and if there is not enough testing and contact tracing in place.

Get in touch with me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

That White House Press Briefing is now over. We’ll bring you a summary shortly.

Asked why he didn’t take the virus seriously in the early phases of its spread in the US, the president repeated his claims about that his travel restrictions against China made a difference and saved many lives: “People should say I acted very early.”

In fact, the administration’s travel policy did not cut off all travel from China. Although non-US citizens were prohibited from entering the country if they had traveled to China within the previous two weeks, American citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family members were exempt. Similarly, Trump’s European travel restrictions exempted citizens, residents and their families. And initially, the restrictions didn’t apply to the UK and Ireland, as well as most Eastern European countries.

Epidemiologists have told the Guardian that these policies likely had little impact, as they were enacted after the virus was already spreading within the US.

“We are in a war. This is a World War Two this is a World War One,” says Trump.

Watch the White House press conference live below:

Trump is back on the World Health Organization. The WHO “covered up for China,” he says repeatedly.

He also says he’s going to win “in a landslide” in November.

He adds that stopping arrivals from China and Europe were very difficult decisions that he took, which, he says, Dr Deborah Birx herself has said saved “tens of thousands of lives”.

The truth here is obviously that tens of thousands more could have been saved.

The current death toll in the US, the highest in the world, is 41,816, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The number of confirmed infections, at 783,000, is almost four times higher than those in the next worst-affected country, Spain, which has 200,210. Spain has 20,852 deaths.

Trump is being asked, just after saying “I cannot tell a lie,” (a quote from a made up story about George Washington confessing to chopping down his father’s cherry tree), why he feels that criticism of the administration doing too little testing too late is a bipartisan, personal attack.

He responds that he “doesn’t view it as personal at all”:

If we have enough tests to go into phase 1, why is the governor of Maryland having to get half a million tests from South Korea? Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir is asked.

He responds: “I don’t know what the governor of Maryland is doing in South Korea but there’s excess capacity every day.”

Trump then attacked Hogan for securing tests, saying, “He could’ve saved a lot of money ... He needed to get a little knowledge, that would’ve been helpful.”

Regarding testing facilities in his state, Hogan just told CNN “more than half [of those listed by the federal government] in Maryland were federal facilities that we have desperately been trying to get help from, or military facilities”.

From my colleague Sam Levin:

Earlier in the conference, vice president, Mike Pence, praised the testing efforts in Arizona, Florida, California, Michigan, and other states. He also claimed the US currently has “enough testing capacity” for every state to start phase one of the White House recommendations for re-opening their economies.

In fact, a number of governors have expressed concerns that the testing capacity is not yet adequate for reopening the country. Most prominently this week, Republican governor Larry Hogan of Maryland has said his state was dealing with a shortage and negotiated to get 500,000 tests from South Korea.

Updated

Trump says he will look into stopping oil shipments from Saudi Arabia, and that his administration will either ask congress’ permission to buy oil, “or we will store it.”

It’s quite a graph:

US crude prices are at their lowest since the contract began in 1983
US crude prices are at their lowest since the contract began in 1983:

Updated

Trump is back on the podium and says that testing might not even be that important (it is).

Now he is talking about oil – as the market collapses to negative pricing.

“Nobody’s ever heard of negative oil before but it’s for a short term,” Trump says. Just before this he said again, “It’s for the short term. A lot of people got caught.” The oil decline was largely a “financial squeeze”, he said.

Asked if he would like Opec+ to make more cuts, he said “we’ve already done that”.

He said oil producers need to “do more by the market” in terms of production cuts.

The full story on the price drop below:

The US oil market has collapsed into negative prices for the first time in history as North America’s oil producers run out of space to store an unprecedented oversupply of crude left by the pandemic:

Updated

US vice president Mike Pence said the US has enough tests for those states that are ready to reopen – that meet the conditions for Phase 1 – and that the US will continue to ramp up testing in the meantime.

Fact check: testing quality

Trump claimed the US is “way advanced” on testing.

In fact, some of the initial coronavirus tests sent out to states were seriously flawed. Part of the problem came from the CDC shunning the World Health Organization (WHO) template for tests, and insisted on developing a more complicated version that correctly identified Covid-19, but also flagged other viruses – resulting in false positives.

Other countries – after their first coronavirus case – swiftly asked private companies to develop their own tests. South Korea, which recorded its first case on the same day as the US, did so within a week. The US only allowed laboratories and hospitals to conduct their own tests on 29 February, almost six weeks after the first case was confirmed.

You can watch the White House press conference live below:

“‘Testing’ is a big word,” says Trump. “Remember when it was all ventilators? Now the US is the king of ventilators.

“So they said, ‘Oh, now we’ll get him on testing.’”

Updated

Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now, sticking with Trump’s press conference, where he is talking about what he is calling “the plague, the scourge” of coronavirus.

Get in touch with me on Twitter: @helenrsullivan.

Updated

Todd Semonite, the Army Corps of Engineers chief, is here at the press conference talking about hospital work during coronavirus. Trump took a break from talking about the pandemic to request that Semonite provide an update on construction of the president’s border wall, which continues during the Covid-19 crisis.

Trump told Semonite he could stay to keep watching the press conference, but Semonite declined, saying he had a lot of building to continue doing.

Read more on the continued construction of the border wall:

The president also said there are efforts to ensure Americans have access to tests, including African Americans and Latinos who have been particularly hard hit by coronavirus.

Overall, the US had administered more than 3.5m coronavirus tests so far, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Recently, it matched the rate of testing per capita of South Korea, though countries, including Germany, have tested a larger proportion of its population.

From a very slow start, the US, with a population of 329 million, had ramped up to a testing rate of one in every 100 people — similar to South Korea. Germany has done even better, testing every 1 in 63 people.

The UK, however, is behind, having tested only 1 in 230 people.

In America, despite the recent increase in testing, backlogs are reported in labs across the country, and many people with symptoms — including health workers — are still struggling to access tests.

Read more:

Updated

Trump praised a conservative journalist, Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, calling him “respected”. CNN’s fact checker notes that the president is not always a fan:

Trump has complained again about the media coverage of ventilators, saying: “Ventilators, ventilators, ventilators! ... It was all ventilators ... We did a great job with the ventilators.” He said “at some point soon”, the US would be helping Mexico and Italy with ventilators.

It is true that some states, so far, have ended up with more ventilators than they originally projected they would need. California has loaned 500 ventilators to states like New York. California hospitals managed to increase their stock from 7,500 machines to more than 11,000, according to the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom. “That has put less strain and pressure on the state’s effort to procure additional ventilators,” Newsom said.

However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a national shortage. The US has roughly 173,000 ventilators, according to the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University. Experts from Harvard Medical School predict that the US could end up needing 31 times that number to treat coronavirus patients.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine published on Wednesday 25 March categorically concluded that the US does not have enough ventilators to treat patients with Covid-19 in the coming months.

The authors, American public health experts, wrote: “There is a broad range of estimates of the number of ventilators we will need to care for U.S. patients with Covid-19, from several hundred thousand to as many as a million. The estimates vary depending on the number, speed, and severity of infections, of course, but even the availability of testing affects the number of ventilators needed.... current estimates of the number of ventilators in the United States range from 60,000 to 160,000, depending on whether those that have only partial functionality are included. The national strategic reserve of ventilators is small and far from sufficient for the projected gap. No matter which estimate we use, there are not enough ventilators for patients with Covid-19 in the upcoming months.”

Read more:

Updated

Trump said New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, is coming to the White House tomorrow, and also implied Cuomo praised him today and that states like New York have the supplies they need.

The governor of New York, however, said in a late March briefing that the Trump administration had forced the states into a bidding war: “You have 50 states competing to buy the same item,” he said.

“We all wind up bidding up each other and competing against each other, where you now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you.’ It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”

Yesterday, Trump played misleading clips of a Cuomo press conference:

Trump claimed at the start of the press conference that the coronavirus rate was better in the US than many other places in the country.

While the death rates in the US, both in comparison to the number of confirmed cases and in comparison to the population, are relatively good, they are not the best in the world based on the most reliable available data - which even experts agree may not be all that reliable.

Research by the US’s Johns Hopkins University showed that as of April 13, the death rate in the US was 4% of cases and 6.73 deaths per 100,000 population. That is significantly better than rates in hard hit countries such as Italy, Spain, the UK and France, and similar overall to Iran, which was also an early hotspot. But death rates are higher in the US than Germany, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and many other countries.

The death rate in China had been recorded as 4% of cases and 0.2 deaths per 100,000 population. That was before the Chinese government increased the official death toll from Wuhan, the original base of the outbreak, by 50%. And there are ongoing questions about all of China’s reported numbers in relation to the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has published a long and useful article detailing the enormous difficulties in pinpointing death rates in different countries and even different areas and populations within countries.

The virus swept in so quickly and is still so relatively new that we are only now grasping that there may be huge numbers of people who have or had Covid-19 without showing symptoms, have not been tested or who died at home or in a care home without that death every being verified as resulting from coronavirus.

The New York Times gives a rough rule of thumb that, according to various unofficial Covid-19 trackers that calculate the death rate by dividing total deaths by the number of known cases, about 6.4% of people infected with the virus have now died worldwide.

In Washington, the US president Donald Trump is at the podium now, talking about his guidelines for reopening the country.

Supplies of masks to the NHS could be affected if the general public in the UK are advised to wear them, according to Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers.

The US car rental company Hertz plans to lay off 10,000 employees to cut costs amid the pandemic’s economic fallout.

The company will incur employee termination costs of about $30m (£24m), it said in a regulatory filing. The terminations were effective 14 April for non-union employees and effective 21 April for union employees, the company said.

Saudi Arabia has extended the suspension of praying in the Grand Mosque and Prophet’s Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan to stem the spread of the virus, the presidency of the Two Holy Mosques said on Twitter citing its president general Sheikh Dr. Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz Al-Sudais.

For a little background on the official rebuttals emanating from Whitehall this week, see this piece by my colleagues Jim Waterson and Rowena Mason:

Public Health England has launched an unusually strident attack on an attempt by Trevor Kavanagh, the Sun columnist, to transfer blame for failings in preparation for the Covid-19 outbreak from politicians to government advisers.

On Monday evening, PHE published a press release on its gov.uk website dismissing Kavanagh’s claims in a point-by-point rebuttal, variously describing his assertions as “wrong”, “completely wrong”, and “nonsense”.

Writing in the Sun newspaper on Monday, Kavanagh had defended Boris Johnson’s decision to holiday in Mustique and spend his weekends in the country as the pandemic gathered steam. “Presidents and prime ministers have a lot on their plates,” he wrote. “When it comes to health alarms, they rely on experts.”

It was, claimed Kavanagh, the “sprawling” PHE, an “inflexible, politically correct quango”, that was culpable for a deficient stockpile of personal protective equipment, and it had “dragged its feet” over getting hold of ventilators for seriously ill patients, and that it had resisted offers of “outside help” with filling shortages. PHE said in its response:

PHE is not responsible for determining what stock is held in the pandemic stockpile. We are responsible for developing the UK guidance on PPE and advising how to keep clinicians safe. The DHSC is responsible for the procurement of PPE on behalf of the NHS, not PHE.

… PHE does not source or procure ventilators or beds on behalf of the NHS … PHE is not responsible for the supply of PPE. The DHSC and NHS England is leading this work including dealing with offers of help from private companies.

A spokesperson for PHE said the Sun had not put its claims to the agency before publishing Kavanagh’s column.

As healthcare workers in the US states of Colorado and Pennsylvania staged counter-protests against rightwing anti-quarantine rallies that continue to spread across the nation, some experts warn such rallies could cause a surge in coronavirus cases.

In the UK, an emergency consultant has died after contracting Covid-19.

Manjeet Singh Riyat, who died on Monday, has been described as “the father of the current Emergency Department” by his colleagues at the Royal Derby Hospital. The emergency medicine consultant, Susie Hewitt, has said:

Manjeet was enormously valued and much loved as a colleague, supervisor and mentor as well as for his wise council and discreet support in tough times. For many, Manjeet was considered the father of the current Emergency department in Derby and many more will reflect on how his inspiration has shaped their own careers.

The English Football League is to consider preventing clubs who defer the wages of their players from spending money in the transfer market.

In a move to be discussed between the league and its clubs this week, the proposal would necessitate that any money owed to playing staff be paid before a club could add to their squad or increase the collective wage bill.

The idea for a new mechanism, whose details remain uncertain, is one of a number of proposals to be discussed as attempts are made to stave off crisis in the face of the pandemic. A broad range of ideas, up to the possibility of a wage cap, will be under consideration.

Any relaxation of lockdown measures could trigger an exponential rise in cases, UK government scientific advisers have warned ministers, amid a cabinet split about how quickly to ease restrictions.

With the prime minister, Boris Johnson, still recuperating at Chequers, his senior ministers have been at loggerheads over whether the public health and economic impact of the lockdown will soon begin to rival the consequences of the virus itself.

Updated

Back to the UK, where the Speaker of the Commons has said Wednesday’s “hybrid” session will see screens placed around the chamber to allow him and the minister present to see their colleagues as they pose questions and make statements.

Hoyle added that, if successful, the House will consider moving to a fully virtual Parliament, including remote voting.

In times of crisis, we must find new ways of working ... Our new virtual parliament means that MPs are playing the fullest part in the national effort to stay home, protect the NHS and save lives.

Kuwait will extend the suspension of work in the public sector including at government ministries until 31 May and expand a nationwide curfew to 16 hours, a government spokesman has said.

He told a televised news conference that the 4pm-8am curfew will go into effect at the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which could fall on Thursday or later this week depending on the sighting of the new crescent moon.

In the UK, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has said he hopes parliament will resume virtually this week and that in future votes may even be held remotely.

The House has survived being burned down by the great fire of 1834 and bombed during the Second World War.

We now face a new challenge, Covid-19, an invisible killer that has claimed so many lives already. It means that when we come back from the Easter recess, our MPs and the House of Commons will have to work in a different way.

Instead of returning to our hallowed green benches, I am hoping that from Wednesday we can meet virtually instead.

It will be a historic moment in our 700-year history to have MPs contributing to Prime Minister’s Questions, urgent questions and statements via video link from the safety of their own homes and offices.

Pope Francis has postponed two major international Catholic church events by a year because of the uncertainties caused by the pandemic, the Vatican has said.

While it has already postponed events and trips that had been planned for this year, this is the first time the outbreak has affected its long-term planning.

The World Meeting of Families, which was due to take place in Rome next year, was postponed to 2022. World Youth Day, which was scheduled for 2022 in Lisbon, was postponed until 2023.

Both events, which take place in a different location every few years, draw large crowds and involve international travel by most of the participants. They last for several days and the pope traditionally closes both.

The Guardian reported over the weekend that a record 160m barrels of oil was being stored in “supergiant” oil tankers outside the world’s largest shipping ports, including the US Gulf, following the deepest fall in oil demand in 25 years because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The last time floating storage reached levels close to this was in 2009, when traders stored more than 100m barrels at sea before offloading stocks when the economy began to recover.

The price collapse in North American oil markets accelerated because it is the last day oil producers can trade barrels that are scheduled for delivery next month, when oil storage is expected to reach capacity.

Oil prices fall to historic lows

The US oil market has collapsed into negative prices for the first time in history as North America’s oil producers run out of space to store an unprecedented oversupply of crude left by the pandemic, Jillian Ambrose and Martin Farrer write.

US crude prices are at their lowest since the contract began in 1983
US crude prices are at their lowest since the contract began in 1983

The price of US crude oil has fallen by more than 105% on Monday as rising stockpiles of crude threaten to overwhelm oil storage facilities. It is the lowest level since futures contracts began trading in 1983.

The crash in demand caused by the pandemic has forced oil producers in Canada to start paying buyers to take the glut of oil barrels they cannot store, causing the country’s benchmark oil price to plunge into negative territory for the first time.

The global benchmark price for oil, known as Brent crude, has fallen by more than 7% to around $26 a barrel on Monday due to fears that the virus could plunge the global economy into a deep recession. Bjornar Tonhaugen, the head of oil at Rystad Energy, has said:

The real problem of the global supply-demand imbalance has started to really manifest itself in prices. As production continues relatively unscathed, storages are filling up by the day. The world is using less and less oil and producers now feel how this translates.

Updated

I am now handing the live blog over to my colleague Kevin Rawlinson. Thanks everyone.

The World Health Organization chief has warned that the worst is still ahead of us in the coronavirus outbreak, reviving international concern just as many countries ease restrictive measures aimed at reducing its spread.

The director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, didn’t specify why he believed the outbreak that has infected some 2.5 million people and killed over 166,000 could get worse. He and others, however, have previously pointed to the likely future spread of the illness through Africa, where health systems are far less developed.

“Trust us. The worst is yet ahead of us,” Tedros told reporters from WHO headquarters in Geneva. “Let’s prevent this tragedy. It’s a virus that many people still don’t understand.”

Updated

The World Health Organization insisted Monday that it sounded the alarm on the novel coronavirus right from the very start and had hidden nothing from Washington about the deadly pandemic.

The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said there were no secrets at the UN agency after facing scathing criticism from Washington, which has accused the organisation of initially downplaying the outbreak in China.

“We have been warning from day one that this is a devil that everyone should fight,” Tedros told a virtual briefing in Geneva.

Tedros said the presence of embedded US government secondees working at the WHO headquarters in Geneva meant there was nothing being concealed from Washington.

Updated

Oil has plunged below $5 (£4) a barrel as the coronavirus pandemic affects global economies. Buyers in Texas are offering as little as $2 a barrel for some oil streams, raising the possibility that producers may soon have to pay to have crude taken off their hands. Below is a tweet from Bloomberg showing the fall.

I am moving into my last 40 minutes on the blog, so if you want to share are any last minute comments, thoughts or news tips with me then please do via any of the channels below.

Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com

A crowd of hundreds has protested against tough social isolation measures taken against coronavirus in southern Russia, clashing with riot police and issuing demands that the local governor resign.
The protests took place on a central square in Vladikavkaz, the capital of Russia’s North Ossetia region, where locals demanded a relaxation of tough anti-coronavirus measures, including the closure of businesses, and greater financial support for those who had lost their jobs.

Video posted to social media appeared to show protesters pelting the police with rocks, and police making several arrests. Kavkaz.Realiya, a local branch of RFERL, estimated the crowd at 700 people. Police had broken up the protests by Monday evening.

According to Russian media, the protests were called by Vadim Cheldiev, an opera singer and activist who has publicly doubted the existence of a coronavirus pandemic. Late last week, he issued a call for locals to protest and violate the “self-isolation regime” under which Russians are expected to shelter at home.
“It’s all just fake,” he said in one video address posted on Facebook. “And I’m glad more people are starting not to believe in it.”
He was arrested and charged with spreading false information about coronavirus, a charge that can now lead to years in prison if that information contributes to someone’s death.

Updated

Pregnant women in Uganda will no longer need permission to travel to hospital during the Covid-19 lockdown, following reports that some women had died in labour because they were unable to access health services in time.

President Yoweri Museveni said on Sunday that women would no longer require special permission from local authorities to travel to hospitals and health centres during the lockdown, which has been extended until 5 May.

Reuters reported this month that at least seven women had died because they were forced to walk to hospital when they were in labour. Two babies were also reported to have died as a result of the restrictions.

“The transport ban in Uganda caused immense harm,” said Nakibuuka Noor Musisi, from the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development. “Pregnant women and all people in need of health services never should have been subjected to it. While we welcome this development, it has come far too late for many who have already died or suffered preventable complications as a result.”

Last week, 12 civil society groups wrote to the Ugandan prime minister and the World Bank calling for pregnant women and children to be exempt from the transport ban. They also want to see restrictions eased for other people with serious and urgent health issues.

“Children, people living with HIV or TB, and people with other chronic illnesses such as sickle cell anemia, diabetes and cancer must be able to obtain prompt health services even as the government responds to Covid-19,” said Lillian Mworeko, from the International Community of Women Living with HIV Eastern Africa. “Unreasonable movement restrictions on people who have urgent health needs is a clear violation of our rights.”

According to the Ministry of Health, Uganda has 55 confirmed cases of the virus and no deaths.

Updated

Italy's confirmed cases falls by 20

Italy reported 454 new deaths from coronavirus on Monday, 21 more than on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 24,114.

For the first time, the number of people who are infected fell by 20 to 108,237.

“This is positive data as it shows the number of people who are currently positive with the virus is declining,” said Angelo Borrelli, the chief of Italy’s civil protection authority.

Meanwhile, the total cases to date, including victims and survivors, rose by 2,256 to 181,228, the smallest increase since 10 March.

To date, 48,877 people have recovered. Pressure on hospitals in Bergamo, the Lombardy province worst hit by the virus, is beginning to ease as the pandemic slows.

The Chinese couple who were the first confirmed cases in Italy in late January have been discharged from Rome’s San Filippo Neri hospital, where they underwent rehabilitation following over three weeks in intensive care at the Spallanzani hospital for infectious diseases. “They are in excellent condition and sent a letter of thanks to the hospitals which saved them and cared for them,” said Alessio D’Amato, health councillor for the Lazio region.

Updated

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that he understood why some people are protesting the closing down of businesses in response to the coronavirus but argued relaxing restrictions needed to be done in a way that prevented further outbreaks.

“You don’t need protests to convince anyone in this country that we have get back to work and we have to get the economy going and we have to get out of our homes. Nobody,” Cuomo told a briefing.

WHO chief says 'nothing hidden from US' on Covid-19

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said:

For WHO we are open we don’t hide anything... We want all countries to get the same message immediately because that helps countries to prepare well and to prepare quickly... Not only the US but all countries get information immediately.

He added that “anyone dying is the father, grandmother” of someone. “It’s life and that is why we prefer to see the individuals. faces and people. They are not numbers or averages, they are people.”

“That is why we don’t have secrets and as soon as we get information we pass it. We want to save lives, even if it is one life.”

Updated

Albania, which has recorded one of Europe’s lowest numbers of coronavirus cases, sent 60 more nurses to help treat patients in hard-hit neighbour Italy on Monday.

Ogerta Manastirliu, the health minister, saw the nurses off at Rinas airport and said the move was meant “to show hope and solidarity with the friendly Italian people, who have helped us over the years”.


Albania has reported 584 cases of coronavirus and 26 related deaths as of Monday.

Updated

Hello everyone. I running the global live blog now until 7pm GMT, so please do stay in touch with me to share any thoughts or information with me. My contact details are below. Thanks.

Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com

Tedros says that more than 600 hospitals around the world may be ready to enrol patients in WHO’s solidarity clinical trials of drugs, and that the body would ship 180m surgical masks to countries this month and next month.

Updated

WHO warns that easing restrictions is not the end of the epidemic

Tedros says that easing restrictions is not the end of any epidemic and that it will require “sustained effort” on behalf of governments and individuals. So-called lockdowns can help to “take the heat out of a country’s epidemic”, but can’t end it alone, he says. Governments must ensure they can “detect, test, isolate and care for every case and trace every contact”.

Updated

The head of the World Health Organization is opening this afternoon’s press conference (which you can watch at the top of this blog). Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus starts by thanking musicians and entertainers for this weekend’s One World: Together at Home concert, which was broadcast across multiple television and streaming channels around the world.

Updated

The Austrian government has said that roughly a tenth of the country’s population is registered for a state scheme aimed at preventing layoffs that enables employers to keep staff on their books while only paying for hours actually worked.

The scheme, introduced soon after Austria went into coronavirus lockdown roughly a month ago, is a form of “kurzarbeit”, or shorter working hours, a model widely used in German-speaking countries.

Reuters reports that employees registered for it and who earn less than €5,730 a month receive 80-90% of their salary. The company pays only for hours they have actually worked and the government makes up the difference. The Austrian department for labour and social affairs said:

The 63,189 (approved company) corona-kurzarbeit applications are securing 871,039 jobs. That is an increase of almost 50% compared to last week.

That is roughly 9.8% of Austria’s population of 8.9 million, or 19.1% of its workforce of 4.6 million.

Despite the scheme already being in place, unemployment shot up last month to 12.2% by a national measure or more than 500,000 people, its highest level since the data series began in 1946. Hospitality, construction and transport were the sectors with the biggest increases.

Customers queue in front of a specialised shop selling protective masks in Vienna.
Customers queue in front of a specialised shop selling protective masks in Vienna. Photograph: Alex Halada/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

Reuters is reporting that three migrants the US deported two weeks ago to Haiti, on a flight that raised objections from human rights advocates, have tested positive for coronavirus while in quarantine in the Caribbean country.

A Haitian health ministry source told the news agency: “These people who were in quarantine were tested and three … came back positive.” Reuters was unable to independently verify the information.

Several US politicians had also opposed the deportation flight to Haiti given the risk of spreading the virus further in the poorest country in the Americas.

The Caribbean nation had 25 confirmed cases when the flight landed, compared with more than 380,000 in the US. It now has 47 but that number could rise swiftly. A major outbreak of coronavirus could be devastating for Haiti, which has about 100 ventilators for 11 million residents.

A man who was deported from the US and who tested positive for coronavirus looks out of a window from quarantine in Tabarre, Haiti
A man who was deported from the US and who tested positive for coronavirus looks out of a window from quarantine in Tabarre, Haiti. Photograph: Dieu Nalio Chery/AP

Updated

America’s acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, Chad Wolf, has announced that the US, Mexico and Canada are extending restrictions on non-essential travel across their shared borders for another 30 days.

He wrote on Twitter:

Updated

In the UK, the Guardian is running a project to remember the NHS workers who have lost their lives to coronavirus.

If you would like to share any further names and stories with us, or feel there are people we have missed, then please drop an email to sarah.marsh@theguardian.com. We hope to document and pay tribute to those who die working on the frontline of the pandemic.

We will be adding to the cases in a database and hope to examine these deaths further.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she imagined the next European Union budget would look very different and bigger than that which was discussed before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

“One can discuss about new treaties, but this will take two or three years to find solutions,” Merkel told reporerts. “We’ll need quick answers to address this pandemic and Germany will participate in answers of solidarity that go beyond the 500 billion euros that we already have.”

Hello everyone. I am back from my lunch-break and running the global live blog now until 7pm GMT, so please do stay in touch with me to share any thoughts or information with me. My contact details are below. Thanks very much.

Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com

Updated

The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, is giving an update on the city’s coronavirus crisis right now. You can watch the press conference below.

De Blasio says he has an urgent message to the US federal government: “We need more surgical gowns in New York City and we need them now.”

More than 14,400 coronavirus deaths have been reported in New York City to date – representing more than third of the US total of 41,000 deaths from the virus.

The coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating diplomatic “fractures”, heightening US-China rivalry and weakening multilateralism, France’s foreign minister has said.

In an interview with France’s Le Monde newspaper, Jean-Yves Le Drian was quoted as saying:

It seems to me that we are witnessing an amplification of the fractures that have been undermining the international order for years. The pandemic is the continuation, by different means, of the struggle between powers. My fear is that the world after (the outbreak) will strongly resemble the world before, but worse.

Le Drian does not explicitly name the world powers but one assumes he means the US and China. Donald Trump has questioned whether China was “knowingly responsible” for the global spread of the coronavirus and if it was a “mistake that got out of control”.

Beijing has rejected mounting calls for an international investigation into the source of the virus, saying earlier on Monday that any suggestions of a cover-up were “not in line with facts”.

The Le Monde interview is behind a paywall but this is the link.

Russia has quarantined thousands of soldiers who took part in rehearsals for a Victory Day parade that appeared to flout physical distancing guidelines brought in to stem the country’s coronavirus outbreak.

The defence ministry said it would be sending the soldiers, estimated to number 15,000, back to their bases, where they would be put under a two-week quarantine. The ministry did not indicate that any of the soldiers had been infected with the coronavirus.

This is a great 10-minute film on the volunteers helping to keep Italy’s ambulance services running at night.

It follows a day in the life of Matteo, who juggles his job as a watch salesman – and looking after his newborn baby boy, Tommi – while volunteering as an emergency responder at night in Milan.

He is one of hundreds of people giving up their free time to help alleviate the city’s stretched ambulance service, where 80% of the callouts are for patients with Covid-19 symptoms.

Hello. This is Josh Halliday again, taking over while Sarah has a quick break.

The coronavirus has swept through a hostel in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, infecting 138 of the 175 asylum seekers housed there, a municipal official said.

Residents were evacuated from the hostel on Sunday and taken to Lisbon’s Central Mosque for testing after one of them tested positive for the virus, city councillor Carlos Castro told Reuters. The few who did not test positive will be taken back to the hostel, which has been decontaminated.

“We are doing all we can to ensure the safety of these people, and to ensure the safety of everyone in the neighbourhood,” Castro said.

Monica Farinha, the head of the Portuguese council of refugees (CPR), said the case had been handled smoothly but her organisation was concerned about the possibility of contagion in other hostels where social distancing is difficult.

Updated

Vittoria, aged 13, and 11-year-old Carola became social media sensations after they posted video of their game played between two rooftop terraces in Liguria, north-west Italy. on Saturday. Italy is under lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Updated

China has rejected Australia’s call for an investigation into the global response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Washington and several allies have accused China of failing to adequately respond to the viral disease threat in the weeks after it was first detected in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

US president Donald Trump also cut funding to the World Health Organization after accusing it of mismanaging the crisis and covering up the seriousness of the initial outbreak before it spread around the world and killed more than 165,000 people.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the accusations disrespected “the Chinese people’s tremendous efforts and sacrifices” in fighting the contagion.

“Any question about China’s transparency in the prevention and control of epidemic situation is not in line with facts,” Geng told a regular press briefing.

He was speaking in response to a question about Australian foreign minister Marise Payne, who a day earlier said her country would “insist” on the investigation into the response by Beijing and the WHO.

There have been questions about China’s recording of Covid-19 infections, as it repeatedly changed its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak. Authorities in Wuhan initially tried to cover up the outbreak, punishing doctors who had raised the alarm online in December.

Chinese scientists have rejected conspiracy theories pushed by some in the US government claiming the virus could have originated at a maximum-security virology lab in Wuhan.

Trump has suggested that China could have been “knowingly responsible” for spreading the infection and could face consequences as a result.

Updated

I am running the live blog today, updating you on the latest news and from around the world. Please get in touch and share any information, news tips and insight with me or just to say hello. Your input is always very useful. Thanks everyone.

Twitter: @sloumarsh
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Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro said that he hoped this would be the last week of stay-at-home measures to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, wishing for an end to a policy that he has branded an ill-founded jobs killer.

Speaking with supporters in Brasilia, he also opposed the view of a fan who called for the country’s supreme court to be shut, with Bolsonaro saying Brazil was a democratic country and the top court would remain open.

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro. Photograph: Andre Borges/AP

Updated

In the US, Shake Shack Inc said it will return the small business loan it received from the US government to help with the coronavirus lockdown, becoming the first major firm to do so.

The company will immediately return the entire $10 million US Small Business Administration (SBA) loan as it was able to raise additional capital, chief executive Randy Garutti and founder Danny Meyer said. Last week, it raised about $150 million in an equity offering.

The loan is aimed at helping small companies keep paying their employees and their basic bills during the shutdowns so that they are able to reopen quickly when public health allows.

More than 25% of the total $350 billion fund went to fewer than 2% of the firms that got relief, including a number of publicly traded companies with thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales.

This led to a backlash from smaller establishments and mom-and-pop restaurants, one of the hardest-hit sectors as diners stay at home due to lockdowns.

Several franchises of McDonald’s Corp and Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc are also said to have applied for the loan.

Shake Shack, which runs around 189 restaurants with about 45 employees in each outlet, said the money it received could be reallocated to the independent restaurants “who need it most, (and) haven’t gotten any assistance”.

Updated

Iran has reported 91 new deaths from the novel coronavirus. The latest figure comes as the government allowed more economic activity to resume after a gradual reopening in the past 10 days.

After nearly a week of declining fatalities, there has been a slight rise in the past few days for the Islamic republic, one of the world’s hardest hit.

The sanctions-hit country had shut down all non-essential economic activity in mid-March, weeks after its coronavirus outbreak first came to light.

But top officials argued that Iran’s battered economy could not remain shuttered, and president Hassan Rouhani has allowed low-risk businesses to reopen since 11 April.

Shops in passages and bazaars were the latest businesses that were permitted to resume trading as part of Iran’s gradual reopening of its economy.

Nearly all retailers were open at north Tehran’s Tajrish Bazaar, said an AFP correspondent who visited the sprawling complex on Monday.

But health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour appealed for people to remain vigilant as he announced the latest tolls from the deadly virus.

“With some businesses reopening and movement increasing, observing health protocols and social distancing become more and more necessary,” he said.

“It does not mean we should be less careful, but the exact opposite,” he told a televised news conference.

Updated

Germany will cover the cost for treating novel coronavirus patients taken in from European Union neighbour countries as a gesture of goodwill, health minister Jens Spahn said on Monday.

Germany has been spared the worst of the coronavirus crisis seen in some of its hard-hit European neighbours, and has taken in patients, mainly from France, to relieve pressure on their overburdened healthcare systems.

A total of 229 foreign patients have been treated in Germany, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said Monday – 130 from France, 44 from Italy and 55 from the Netherlands.

Their treatment has so far cost about €20m ($21.7m), according to Spahn.

“Germany will cover the treatment costs of these patients, that is what we understand by European solidarity,” Spahn said ahead of a meeting of ministers tackling the virus crisis on Monday.

“The willingness and capacity is there to admit more if necessary,” he added.

The number of coronavirus deaths and infections in Germany has remained well below some of its neighbours.

Updated

Thousands of people in Tel Aviv staged a protest against Benjamin Netanyahu while attempting to maintain physical distancing due to the coronavirus pandemic. Protesters in Rabin Square wore masks and tried to keep 2 metres apart while voicing their anger at the prime minister, who is under criminal indictment in three corruption cases, in which he denies any wrongdoing.

Updated

The UN children’s agency on Monday appealed for $92.4m in new funds for the Middle East and North Africa to help combat the effects of coronavirus on already poverty-stricken areas.

“The region has the biggest number of children in need in the world due to ongoing conflicts and wars,” said Ted Chaiban, Unicef director for the Middle East and North Africa, in a statement.

The combination of a lack of “or inadequate basic services, years of conflict, poverty, deprivation and now Covid-19 are hitting vulnerable children the most, making their hard lives simply unbearable”, he added.

Nearly 25 million children across the region are in need, including many who are refugees and internally displaced, the statement said. The majority were uprooted due to armed conflicts in Iraq, Libya, the Palestinian territories, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, it said.

The devastating effects of population lockdowns – introduced to forestall the spread of coronavirus – on employment and business will drag around eight million more people into poverty regionally, an estimated half of them children, Unicef added.

Around 110 million children are now stuck at home rather than in school, it said.

Updated

While overall India may have recorded its highest spike in cases on Monday, in the southern state of Kerala it is looking like a very different story.

Robust, proactive and compassionate measures by the Kerala government appear to have successfully flattened the curve of cases within the state, and the “Kerala model” is now being widely touted as the example for other Indian states to follow.

Only three of 402 reported cases have died so far, while 67% of patients have been cured, India’s best recovery rate.

The Kerala government is so confident they have the virus under control that on Monday they allowed some restaurants, hairdressers and small workplaces in specific zones to re-open, and cars back on the roads on an odd-even licence plate scheme- a sharp contrast to the rest of the country which remains under a strict lockdown until at least 3 May.

Kerala was the first state in India to record a coronavirus case in January, a student who had returned from Wuhan, but trouble really began in late February when a couple who had returned from Italy skipped the virus screening and did not consult a hospital for over a week when they started showing symptoms.

As a popular tourist destination with a huge population of both expatriates and migrant workers who constantly travel in and out of the state, Kerala was always going to be vulnerable to coronavirus.

But governed by a coalition of left wing and communist parties, Kerala already has the best healthcare system in India, as well as the highest literacy and life expectancy rates. And when faced with a pandemic, the government sprung into action earlier than anywhere else in India.

Health minister, KK Shailaja, who swiftly earned the nickname “Coronavirus Slayer”, was the first in the country to assemble a taskforce in mid-February to begin aggressively contact tracing, testing and quarantining any possible cases. The state also closed all schools, restaurants and banned gatherings before any other and began setting up public sinks and hand sanitiser dispensers in public places, even at bus stops. The state has one of the highest testing rates in India, though it has also faced a shortage of testing kits.

And when prime minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24 with four hours notice, causing havoc for the millions of migrant workers stuck thousands of miles from home. The Kerala authorities set up camps and provided provisions for their three million “guest workers”, preventing the dangerous exodus of people trying to get back home. A total of almost 19,000 relief camps have since been set up in Kerala, providing three meals a day. In comparison, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state which has one of the highest numbers of migrant workers, just 2,000 camps have been set up.

Those in the camps are being given regular health checks and they even made arrangements to charge migrant workers phones, set up a helpline call centre which speaks five Indian languages. They also established a counselling service and when protests broke out in the camps by the migrant workers from northern states that they were only being fed rice, their diet was adapted to suit northern India tastes, including chapati, dal and pickle. In one camp, a Bengali kitchen was established. Across the state, mobile health workers are visiting the elderly and vulnerable.

Nonetheless, experts are warning against celebrating the state’s success too early, especially as cases nationwide continue to steeply increase, and Kerala reported two new cases on Monday. On Sunday the Ministry of Home affairs also issued a rebuke to the Kerala state government for easing restrictions, with Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla issuing a thinly veiled warning against states that were “diluting” the lockdown.

China’s health authority called for a stronger and more rigorous testing regime to ensure that the new coronavirus does not escape detection, whether in travellers arriving from abroad or from other parts of the country.

All localities must improve their testing capabilities, including those at border crossings, and report any epidemic information in a timely manner, the National Health Commission cited its director Ma Xiaowei as saying. Ma made the comments on Saturday, but they were released by the ministry on Monday.

China, where the new virus emerged late last year, reported 12 new confirmed cases on April 19, the lowest since March 13.
Despite the downtrend, officials remain concerned about the re-emergence of local transmissions in parts of the country, including Beijing, where a central district has been re-classified as high-risk following three recent local infections.

Ghana has partially ended a three-week lockdown imposed in its capital Accra and the city of Kumasi from today. The West African country has changed its strategy to fight the Covid-19 outbreak, making it an outlier in Africa.

Public and religious gatherings will still be banned and its borders will remain closed but many have begun to return to work and can go out as long as they wear masks and maintain social distancing measures.

In a televised address on Sunday night, president Nana Akufo-Addo said, “lifting these restrictions doesn’t mean we are letting our guard down.” Authorities would reinstate a lockdown on specific locations where outbreaks occur, he said.

Confirmed cases of Covid-19 are still rising in Ghana - with 1042 infections and 9 deaths - but authorities feel their increasing testing capacity means they can pursue a different strategy.

If they aggressively trace contacts of those who’ve been infected, officials believe they can afford to ease the lockdown to help the most economically vulnerable. 68,000 people have been tested so far, the second highest in Africa.

After five weeks on a luxury Italian cruise ship, 168 passengers disembarked in Barcelona on Monday.

The liner set sail on 5 January from the northern Italian city of Venice on a round-the-world tour, and not a single case of coronavirus has been found onboard.

With 1,800 passengers, the 12-deck Costa Deliziosa docked early on Monday to allow Spanish passengers to disembark on its penultimate stop before heading back to Italy.

The 300-metre ship entered port after receiving the green light from Madrid, days after French officials refused to let it disembark its 460 passengers at the southern port of Marseille.

“The boat has arrived. All the Spanish nationals have disembarked and are on their way home,” said a spokesperson for vessel owner Costa Cruises.

Those authorised to leave disembarked in small groups and were bussed to the city centre, said an AFP correspondent who witnessed the ship’s arrival.

Updated

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russia had managed to curb the coronavirus crisis but the peak of the outbreak still lay ahead. The number of Russian confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 47,000 on Monday with a death toll of 405.

Hello. I am running the live blog for the rest of the day, bringing you the latest news and updates from around the world. Please stay in touch and share any information with me. Your input is always very useful. Thanks everyone.

Twitter: @sloumarsh
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An aid worker for the humanitarian agency Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) has died in Borno State, northeast Nigeria on Sunday from Covid-19. It is the first known case in Borno, the epicentre of jihadist conflict that ravaged the region for over a decade.

According to a statement by MSF this morning, the aid worker, whose identity has not been revealed, tested positive in a post-mortem test. MSF said its teams “have strengthened infection prevention measures, hygiene facilities, infection control and isolation spaces.”

Authorities are now working to trace the worker’s contacts and abate a spread of the virus within one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

Almost two million people are displaced in northeast Nigeria, with almost 3 million in urgent need of food aid according to the World Food Programme. Several humanitarian organisations operate in the region, providing essential help. The insurgency has decimated the key services millions in the region rely on, including its health system.

On Sunday night, the UN said a major priority is to decongest refugee camps, where hundreds of thousands live in squalid conditions, unable to return to their homes. Yet it is a huge challenge as many areas across Borno and the north-east remain unsafe, exacerbated by a recent withdrawal of soldiers into so called super-camps. After relentless attacks by jihadists, soldiers have redeployed to better defend their positions but NGOs in the region say it has left many towns more vulnerable to insurgents.

There are 627 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of 200 million people. Yet the daily rise in cases is gradually accelerating, with 86 new cases confirmed yesterday. Nigerian authorities have only tested about 7,000 people, and whilst countries around the world are struggling to boost testing capacity, many West African countries have tested more per million people.

US scuppers G20 coronavirus statement on strengthening WHO

US hostility to the World Health Organization scuppered the publication of a communique by G20 health ministers on Sunday that committed to strengthening the WHO’s mandate in coordinating a response to the global coronavirus pandemic.

In place of a lengthy statement with paragraphs of detail, the leaders instead issued a brief statement saying that gaps existed in the way the world handled pandemics.

The failure to agree on a statement will underline the extent to which the pandemic has become a theatre for a wider global disagreement between the US and China in which other nation states are finding themselves increasingly forced to take sides.

Donald Trump has suspended US payments to the WHO in protest at what he regards as the body’s China-centric approach, reflected – in his view – by its failure to challenge China sufficiently over the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, the health minister for Saudi Arabia, which was hosting the virtual summit, abruptly cancelled a planned press conference on Sunday, saying he urgently needed to attend a domestic coronavirus taskforce meeting.

Read more here.

Updated

Summary

Here’s a quick rundown of all the latest developments around the world on the coronavirus pandemic.

  • The Spanish government is to propose that the European Union create a €1.5tn (£1.3tn) fund to aid recovery in countries worst-hit by the coronavirus crisis, Spain’s El Pais newspaper reported. Citing an internal document, the paper reported that Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez plans to make a formal proposal to his EU colleagues during a summit on Thursday.
  • The global number of deaths topped 165,000 with more than 2.4 million confirmed cases, according to data compiled by John Hopkins University.
  • US deaths passed 40,000 on Sunday – nearly a quarter of the global total – with infections at just under 760,000, or just under a third of the world’s total.
  • Donald Trump was accused of using another White House coronavirus briefing to broadcast a “campaign ad” in which New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, one of his most trenchant critics, appeared to shower him with praise. The US president dimmed the lights and played two selectively edited videos on screens behind the briefing room podium featuring Cuomo, whose state has been hardest hit by the deadly pandemic.
  • Several countries began to ease their lockdown restrictions. Australians returned to the beach in Sydney but only for exercise. India allowed some industrial and agricultural firms to reopen, while Iran opened some shopping malls and intercity highways.
  • A Japanese specialist in infectious diseases has said he is “very pessimistic” about the likelihood of the Tokyo Olympics going ahead next year.
  • New Zealand’s PM, Jacinda Ardern, has extended the country’s level-4 lockdown for a week, after which schools and daycare centres will be allowed to open, as well as some businesses.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told the leadership of her party that if Germany spent too much on additional coronavirus rescue programmes, Italy and Spain might point to Europe’s largest economy and say it has enough money, participants in the call told Reuters.

Merkel, a Christian Democrat (CDU), reiterated her view that launching eurobonds would be the wrong path.

Chancellor Merkel

Myanmar shipped hundreds of recently released Rohingya inmates back to the country’s restive western borderlands on Monday, after fears that its overcrowded prisons could become hotbeds for runaway coronavirus outbreaks.

Men, women and children belonging to the stateless and long-persecuted Muslim minority were among nearly 25,000 prisoners freed last week by a presidential pardon to mark the country’s April New Year celebrations.

A Navy vessel transported the group from Yangon to western Rakhine state, where most Rohingya live under tight movement restrictions and in conditions Amnesty International has condemned as “apartheid”.

More than 600 disembarked near state capital Sittwe, while another 200 were taken further north to townships on the border with Bangladesh, state immigration department chief Soe Lwin told AFP.

“They will be quarantined,” he added, without giving further details.

Some small shops in Germany reopened on Monday as the country took a cautious step toward returning to normal, though Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a stark warning against complacency in the face of the pandemic.

From florists to fashion stores, the majority of shops smaller than 800 square metres (8,600 square feet) were allowed to welcome customers again in a first wave of scaling back lockdown measures introduced last month.

Merkel and regional state premiers announced the decision to reopen last week, but were careful to cast it as a cautious first step. The government is facing increasing pressure to ease restrictions, especially from industries eager to get business back on track.

Merkel said Monday she was “greatly concerned” the public could let its guard down too fast, speaking in a telephone conference with leaders from her centre-right CDU party.

She urged the public to maintain social distancing measures, such as keeping 1.5 metres (five feet) apart and avoiding gatherings of more than two people, voicing her “scepticism” and “huge concern” over the population’s discipline.

In the UK, Prince Philip, the 98-year-old husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, made a rare statement on Monday to thank those involved in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

As we approach World Immunisation Week, I wanted to recognise the vital and urgent work being done by so many to tackle the pandemic; by those in the medical and scientific professions, at universities and research institutions, all united in working to protect us from Covid-19.

On behalf of those of us who remain safe and at home, I also wanted to thank all key workers who ensure the infrastructure of our life continues; the staff and volunteers working in food production and distribution, those keeping postal and delivery services going, and those ensuring the rubbish continues to be collected.

Philip, who is staying with the queen at her Windsor Castle home during the outbreak, retired from public life in May 2017 and has been rarely seen in public since then.

The Swiss death toll from the new coronavirus has reached 1,142, the country’s public health ministry said on Monday, rising from 1,135 people on Sunday.

The number of positive tests also increased to 27,944 from 27,740 on Sunday, it said. The slowdown in the number of new cases has allowed the Swiss government to start relaxing its lockdown restrictions from April 27.

Updated

The Spanish government will propose to its EU partners that they create a 1.5 trillion euro ($1.63 trillion) recovery fund financed through perpetual debt to aid countries worst-hit by the coronavirus crisis, a discussion paper shows.

Prime minister Pedro Sanchez will outline the proposal to his European colleagues during a summit on Thursday, in a bid to lead the negotiations looking for an acceptable solution after the Netherlands and Germany ruled out common debt issuance, a foreign ministry source told to Reuters.

The new fund proposed by Spain would be financed by perpetual debt backed by the EU budget, and countries would count it as transfers and not debt.

“It would be a different mutualisation scheme than we had in mind...but it is an option that can be agreed by all,” the source said.

The European Commission would act as the main borrower in the scheme that would use the EU budget as a last resort to leverage the new debt.


The Spanish proposal is aligned with that presented by EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

According to the three-page Spanish discussion paper, seen by Reuters, the transfer of funds should be front-loaded to start on the first day of 2021 and be executed during the next two to three years.

Sri Lanka’s election commission is meeting with government officials on Monday to discuss ways to avoid a possible constitutional crisis if the country fails to hold parliamentary elections before a mandated deadline of June 2 because of the coronavirus.

The commission must decide whether to hold the polls, which could expose more people to the virus, or let the country plunge into its second constitutional crisis in less than two years.

Sri Lanka reported 24 new infections on Monday, its most in a single day. It now has a total of 295 confirmed cases, with seven deaths and 96 recoveries.

We will be dealing with legal questions and whether it is safe, said Ratnajeevan Hoole, one of three election commissioners.

Hello. I am going to be running the live blog for the rest of the day, bringing you the latest news and updates from around the world. Please stay in touch and share any information with me.

Twitter: @sloumarsh
Instagram: sarah_marsh_journalist
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com

China has again hit back at international criticism of its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, on Sunday called for an independent investigation into the source of the pandemic and “the openness with which information was shared” by China, amid concern that officials covered-up the true extent of the virus before it spread around the world.

But in Beijing on Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Payne’s remarks were “entirely without factual basis” and that questioning the country’s transparency was unfounded and showed a lack of respect for the sacrifices of its people.

“China expresses deep concern and resolute opposition to this,” Shuang told reporters during a daily briefing.

On the theme of lockdown restrictions being eased, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent Kim Willsher has more from France:

French schools will begin to open next month but the return to classes will be gradual, the prime minister Édouard Philippe has said.

In an address last week, Emmanuel Macron announced nurseries, primary and secondary schools would reopen on 11 May.

Philippe reiterated the president’s fears that certain children were unable to work from home and for “social reasons” were falling through the cracks, saying it would be a “serious danger for the nation if they were lost”, but said it was out of the question that all classes opened at once.

Philippe said:

Our aim is to find a good method and that method will be progressive. They will not open everywhere on 11 May … but we have to start opening schools for the continuity of national life.

Philippe said the government was considering various options, including having half a class in rotation, or opening schools in areas where there have been few or no Covid-19 cases before others.

Asked about teachers who had threatened to stay off work for fear of catching the virus in schools, Philippe said the coronavirus crisis had shown that many jobs dismissed as low level, from cleaners to supermarket shelf-stackers, had shown themselves to be essential. “Teachers are also essential,” he said.

The key to ending the lockdown was the rate of contamination – meaning how many people one person contaminated with the virus would pass it on to – Philippe said. The lockdown had led to fewer contacts, bringing the contamination rate down to one contaminated person spreading the disease to 0.6 others. When the lockdown is lifted the authorities will be looking at keeping the rate at one person contaminating at the most one other, the PM added.

However, he warned the French not to plan too far ahead, saying weddings, parties, and travel outside of France were not immediately on the cards.

“I don’t have answers today … given the barrier rules, it doesn’t seem reasonable that a marriage of say 200 people gathered in a confined place is to be envisaged. For how long I don’t know,” Philippe said.

During the marathon two-hour 15-minute press conference, he promised the government would give detailed plans of how the end of the lockdown would happen in the next two weeks.

Updated

Spain's death rate continues to fall

Spain has reported 399 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, lower than Sunday’s figure of 410 and confirming the downward trend. A total of 20,852 people have died of the disease in Spain, with over 200,000 infected and more than 80,000 cured.

Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez is expected to ask parliament tomorrow to extend the lockdown until 11 May.

As of 27 April, it’s expected that parents will be allowed to take children under 12 years old out for exercise, though there are complaints that this leaves 12- to 16-year-olds in limbo. There are no signs as yet of lifting the restrictions under which people are only permitted to leave their houses to go to work, to buy food or for medical reasons, although there is growing pressure to allow people out for short periods of exercise.

Updated

Several countries ease lockdown restrictions

As world leaders grapple with the competing needs of public health and struggling economies, a growing number have begun easing their lockdown restrictions in the past 24 hours.

In Australia, three of Sydney’s beaches were cautiously reopened on Monday but only for exercise. “Activities such as sitting on the sand, sun-baking or gathering in groups will not be permitted,” said the local mayor Danny Said.

Residents swim at Coogee Beach in Sydney on April 20 2020 after lockdown restrictions eased
Residents swim at Coogee Beach in Sydney on April 20 2020 after lockdown restrictions eased Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

India allowed some industrial and agricultural work to resume, even as the country recorded its single biggest-day rise in coronavirus cases.

In Iran, where the outbreak has killed at least 5,000 people, some social distancing rules were relaxed last week and on Monday some major shopping centres and inner-city highways were reopened. Stores from high-end malls to the meandering alleyways of Tehran’s historic Grand Bazaar opened their doors, the Associated Press reports, though the government limited their working hours until 6 pm. Restaurants, gyms and other locations remain closed.

In Europe, Germany, Poland, Norway, the Czech Republic and Albania are beginning to ease their lockdowns – though France and Spain have decided against relaxing measures at this stage.

Updated

Beijing and the Hong Kong government are using the pandemic as a “golden opportunity” to crack down on dissent and the growing pro-democracy movement, according to a senior protest leader arrested over the weekend.

My colleague Helen Davidson has spoken with Lee Cheuk Yan, a veteran politician and activist who was arrested along with 14 other high-profile people on Saturday. The arrests came amid a series of acts by authorities seen as alarming intrusions on Hong Kong’s autonomy, ahead of elections in September.

One of those arrested, former lawmaker Martin Lee, speaks to journalists in Hong Kong on 18 April 2020
One of those arrested, former lawmaker Martin Lee, speaks to journalists in Hong Kong on 18 April 2020 Photograph: Jérôme Favre/EPA

Lee told the Guardian the arrests – which were condemned by the UK, US and Australian governments and human rights groups – would have had people “pouring out on to the street to protest” in normal times.

“But … Hong Kong people are very alert to the concern of infection, so they are using the chance of the pandemic,” he said. “This is a golden opportunity for them.”

Read the full report here.

Updated

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Afghanistan has passed 1,000, triggered by an increase of infections in the capital Kabul, my colleague Akhtar Mohammad Makoii reports.

The health ministry said there had been 30 new cases and three deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing to total number of infections to 1,026 and fatalities to 36.

The government also confirmed that a fourth doctor had died from Covid-19 in the country and that 110 health workers have so far been tested positive (more than one in 10 of the total number of cases).

Afghanistan is struggling with a shortage of diagnostic testing equipment known as “RNA extraction kits”, which scientists use to isolate the RNA (ribonucleic acid) in samples of the novel coronavirus.

Over the weekend, Ferozuddin Feroz, the country’s health minister, said that Afghanistan, a country of about 30 million, has about 50,000 testing kits “but RNA extraction kits are not enough”. He added that talks are being held with Chinese and Japanese officials about the issue.

The ministry’s spokesman said Afghanistan will receive 5,000 RNA extraction kits from World Health Organization on Monday and “we have also started rapid testing and hope to get some 100,000 more kits from several countries in the future”.

Updated

Singapore has confirmed an additional 1,426 cases of Covid-19 infection, a record daily jump that took the city-state’s tally to 8,014.

Its health ministry said the vast majority of the new cases were among migrant workers living in dormitories. As many as 90% of infections have reportedly been linked to these workers. Singapore’s number of deaths currently stands at 11.

The latest rise means the city-state, which has a population of 5.6 million, has seen its total confirmed cases soar from 2,800 to more than 8,000 in the past seven days, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The table below from World in Data shows that Singapore has one of the highest rates of infections in Asia as a proportion of its population, with 555 cases per 1 million people. This is higher than Kuwait and Armenia, which have slightly smaller populations, but much lower than Qatar, which has 1,189 cases per million people and has a similarly high number of migrant workers.

Confirmed coronavirus cases per million people in Asia

Updated

Hong Kong authorities have reported zero new cases of Covid-19 today. The last time Hong Kong had no new cases was on 5 March.

After initially keeping the number of people infected with Covid-19 below 100 in the first months of the outbreak, Hong Kong saw big rises in confirmed cases after people began returning from overseas in March. It has now recorded 1,026 cases of Covid-19. The daily rate of new cases has been in the single figures for over a week.

The city is currently under strict - but sometimes complicated- social distancing rules, including no more than four people gathering together. Bars, pubs and clubs, as well as gyms, game halls, and beauty parlours are closed.

Updated

Spain to propose €1.5tn EU fund to fight coronavirus - reports

The Spanish government is to propose that the European Union create a €1.5tn (£1.3tn) fund to aid recovery in countries worst-hit by the coronavirus crisis, Spain’s El Pais newspaper is reporting.

Citing an internal document, the paper reports that Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez plans to make a formal proposal to his EU colleagues during a summit on Thursday.

The fund proposed by the Spanish government would be financed by perpetual debt raised by the 27-country EU and the cash sent to the different countries would count as transfers and not debt, the newspaper said.

Updated

India has recorded its biggest single-day rise in coronavirus cases, the Associated Press reports. as the government eased one of the world’s strictest lockdowns.

An additional 1,553 cases were reported over the past 24 hours, raising the total past 17,000. At least 543 people have died and epidemiologists forecast the peak may not be reached before June.

The shelter-in-place orders imposed in India on 24 March have halted all but essential services. But from Monday, limited industry and farming were allowed to resume where employers could meet social distancing and hygiene norms. Migrant workers were also allowed to travel within states to factories, farms and other work sites.

Updated

If you’ve not yet had a chance, please do take a moment to read this superb report from the Guardian’s Beijing bureau chief, Lily Kuo, from Wuhan in China’s Hubei province.

As Wuhan and the rest of China slowly returns to normal, Kuo reports on a residual anger towards the government. The outbreak – which has claimed the lives of at least 4,000 people in China, most of them in Wuhan – has left a “small but significant group of residents” in the city “seeking answers, compensation or simply an apology from officials who took weeks to notify the public of the threat” from the virus.

You can read the piece in full here.

A man wearing a face mask walks at sunset in a park in Wuhan, China.
A man wearing a face mask walks at sunset in a park in Wuhan, China. Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

In the last few hours, the World Health Organization has published a tally of new confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths in the Western Pacific Nations.

Japan, which initially appeared to have the virus under control, reported 390 new cases on Sunday – taking its total to 10,751 and fatalities to 171.

In China, where the rate of infection has fallen sharply, 12 new cases were reported – down from 16 a day earlier. Of the 12, eight were imported, China’s national health commission said.

Updated

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s global liveblog on the coronavirus pandemic. This is Josh Halliday in Manchester, UK, and I’ll be steering you through the next few hours.

I will be handing over to my colleagues in London shortly, but if you are just joining this blog and want to get up to speed quickly, you can find our latest edition of Coronavirus– at a glance, below.

In case you missed our coverage of Trump’s press conference earlier, here he is telling a reporter who challenged him to keep her voice down.

CBS reporter Weijia Jiang asked Trump why he waited so long “to warn people the virus was spreading like wildfire” in February “instead of holding rallies with thousands of people?” An irritated Trump touted his China travel ban as proof he acted fast. Jiang persisted with her point and said: “When you issued the ban, the virus was already here,” to which Trump said: “Do your research.”

And from the same press briefing, you can see Trump reading out positive news stories on his administration’s handling of the crisis, as the US death toll passed 40,000.

Updated

There’s a lot of commentary and some anger today in the British press over delays supply of vital protective equipment for hospitals.

The Times focuses on the lockdown and the Telegraph leads on problems with stay-at-home schooling.

As I mentioned earlier, US oil prices dipped to a 20-year low as deep concerns about the economic impact of the coronavirus continue. You can read Martin Farrer’s global wrap of events below:

Oil prices have slumped to their lowest for two decades as doubts grew about Donald Trump’s hopes of ending the US lockdown and investors braced for a week of potentially damaging figures about the impact of the coronavirus on the world economy.

The price of US crude oil plunged almost 20%, to below $15, in early trading on Monday – its lowest point since 1999 – as stockpiles continued to build owing to a crash in demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Concerns have been heightened by the growing standoff between the US president and state governors over whether the US can begin to lift restrictions on movement and businesses.

It came as the heads of all the UN’s major agencies issued a graphic warning of the risk of coronavirus to the world’s most vulnerable countries after disclosing that international donors had pledged only around a quarter of the $2bn the UN requested for its emergency Covid-19 response in March.

At a daily media briefing that grew increasingly tetchy, Trump said on Sunday night that 4.18 million Americans had been tested for the coronavirus and that the widespread operation was paving the way for parts of the country to reopen for business. “That’s a record anywhere in the world,” he claimed.

A sign at Seaward Park in Seattle telling people to keep moving after city mayor reopened parks that were closed over Easter.
A sign at Seaward Park in Seattle telling people to keep moving after city mayor reopened parks that were closed over Easter. Photograph: Jason Redmond/Reuters

But governors accused the president of being “delusional” and said they could not embark on Trump’s recommended three-phrase programme to ease stay-at-home restrictions because the testing regime was still not good enough.

Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat, told CNN’s State of the Union he had been “fighting” for testing. “For the national level to say that we have what we need, and really to have no guidance to the state levels, is just irresponsible, because we’re not there yet.”

Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, agreed and said it was “absolutely false” to say that governors had enough testing capacity.

Despite the huge fall in the oil price – seen as a barometer of the prospects for the global economy – there were signs from other parts of the world that economies could soon begin getting back to normal.

In Germany, smaller shops were set to reopen on Monday for the first time in a month after politicians declared the coronavirus “under control”. From florists to fashion stores, the majority of shops smaller than 800 square metres (8,600 square feet) will be allowed to welcome customers again, in a first wave of relaxations to strict curbs on public life introduced last month.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional state premiers announced the decision to reopen last week, though they have been careful to cast it as no more than a cautious first step.

On the other side of the world, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the country’s stringent lockdown would be eased next Monday barring any major upsets.

She said the measures had “stopped a wave of devastation” but even under the revised regime, most New Zealanders would still be required to stay at home most of the time. Meal deliveries would be permitted and shops would be allowed to re-open providing they only sell goods online.

In Australia, some beaches in Sydney were reopened in a sign that the country was moving towards normalising daily life. The government wants at least 40% of the population to download a tracing app on their phones to help track cases of the disease before lockdown curbs are eased.

Updated

Here’s some more from Justin McCurry in Toyko on Kentaro Iwata, an expert in infectious diseases at Kobe University Hospital, who has cast doubt on the Olympics in Japan being able to go ahead next year.

Iwata warned that Japan’s hospitals were struggling to deal with Covid-19 patients, adding that the government’s response to the recent rise in infections had been too slow. He said Japan’s initial approach – to identify and contain infection clusters – had worked well until major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka started reporting significant rises in cases from the second half of March.

“Japan’s government should have changed strategy earlier,” Iwata said, referring to the shift to wider testing combined with social distancing. “There was a tremendous delay and that has caused huge problems,” he said.

Hospitals initially designated to treat patients with the illness had become unable to deal with the growing number of cases, leaving other hospitals unprepared to fill the treatment gap.

“If you aren’t prepared and your staff aren’t trained, you can’t just admit Covid-19 patients,” Iwata said. “Many hospitals are not ready to fight against Covid-19. That’s why [there have been reports] of ambulances going from one hospital to another” in Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe and other cities.

He added: “We needed to change strategy immediately, but traditionally, Japan isn’t good at doing that. When we have a plan A we are poor at converting it into a plan B. Bureaucrats don’t like admitting that their original plan failed – that was the main shortcoming.”

Japan has so far avoided a catastrophic outbreak – with a large number of deaths – seen in the US and some European countries, with just over 10,000 cases and around 160 deaths, according to the health ministry.

Tokyo reported 107 new infections on Sunday, bringing the total in the capital to more than 3,000 - the highest among the country’s 47 prefectures.

A man wearing a face mask adjusts his tie at Shinagawa station on Monday during the rush hour after the government expanded a state of emergency to include the entire country following the coronavirus disease.
A man wearing a face mask adjusts his tie at Shinagawa station on Monday during the rush hour after the government expanded a state of emergency to include the entire country following the coronavirus disease. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

To relieve pressure on hospitals, the government has secured 210,000 hotel rooms around the country to accommodate patients with mild or no symptoms, Kyodo news agency said.

“I’m half encouraged and half discouraged,” Iwata said of the situation in Japan. “I’m relieved to see newly infected people is relatively stable. My biggest fear was that we would have thousands of daily cases like New York, which hasn’t happened. Even if testing rates have been low in Japan, these numbers are much better than the worst-case scenario.”

The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other areas in early April that has since been widened to cover the entire country. Local governors can request that people stay home and that nonessential businesses close, but there are no fines or other penalties for non-compliance. In Tokyo, many places have closed their doors, but some bars, restaurants and cafes remain open, with many of the city’s streets far from empty.

Iwata said the lack of urgency implicit in the measures meant people still hadn’t understood the importance of staying home and social distancing.

“The government didn’t send the right message to people – that you need to distance yourself from others to block the route of transmission. And the most effective way to stop transmissions is a lockdown,” he said.

“Japan doesn’t have the legal means to enforce a lockdown, but that doesn’t matter – you can still tell people what they should and shouldn’t do. That could have been communicated continuously and effectively, even without penalties in place.”

Updated

Summary

Here’s a summary of the main points on coronavirus today:

  • Global infections stand at 2,404,071 and deaths at 165,229.
  • US deaths passed 40,000 on Sunday – nearly a quarter of the global total – with infections at just under 760,000, or just under a third of the world’s total.
  • President Trump said some governors had ‘gone too far’ in their lockdown restrictions in a bad-tempered press briefing in which he clashed with several reporters. The president again criticised the WHO and China over the pandemic but also said he was prepared to give Iran help to fight the virus. Domestically, he said a deal on aid for businesses was close to being agreed with the Democrats.
  • New Zealand’s PM, Jacinda Ardern, has extended the country’s level-4 lockdown for a week, after which schools and daycare centres will be allowed to open, as well as some businesses. She warned New Zealanders to: “keep your bubble as small as possible - you can expand your bubble a small amount to include family members, vulnerable people or caregivers”. The country’s virus death toll stands at 12.
  • China reported just 12 new cases on Monday, down from 16 a day earlier, with no new deaths for the third day in a row. There were also 49 new asymptomatic cases reported on Monday. On Friday China revised its death toll up significantly, including by 50% in Wuhan.
  • A leading Japanese infectious diseases expert says he is “very pessimistic” about the likelihood of the Tokyo Olympics going ahead next year. Kentaro Iwata, a professor at Kobe University Hospital said: “I don’t think the Olympics are likely to be held next year. People will be coming from hundreds of nations ... and although Japan might have the disease under control by next summer, I don’t think that will be the case everywhere.”
  • South Korea’s new cases remained under 20 for the third day in a row. On Monday it announced 13 new infections, bringing the nation’s total infections to 10,674.
  • Germany will take its first steps back towards normality on Monday, with smaller shops in some regions opening up for the first time in a month after politicians declared the coronavirus “under control”. From florists to fashion stores, the majority of shops smaller than 800 square metres (8,600 square feet) will be allowed to welcome customers again, in a first wave of relaxations to strict curbs on public life introduced last month.
  • Italy said on Sunday that deaths rose by 433, the lowest daily tally in a week, and the number of new cases slowed to 3,047 from a previous 3,491. That’s a rise of just 1.7%. The total number of deaths now stands at 23,660 – second only to the United States.
  • Iran will extend leave for prisoners for one more month, President Hassan Rouhani announced on Sunday, after the country temporarily released 100,000 detainees to combat the spread of coronavirus.
  • Spain registered a sharp drop in its daily death toll on Sunday with 410 new fatalities. Its death toll reached 20453, with 195,344 infections. The 4,218 new cases announced on Sunday represented an increase of 2.4%.

We’ve heard a good deal about the protests in the US to reopen the Us economy, and President Trump tweeting “Liberate” in support of the rallies. here’s the other side, captured in a picture from Denver, showing nurses opposing protestors.

Germany takes first step in lifting coronavirus restrictions

Germany will take its first steps back towards normality on Monday, with smaller shops in some regions opening up for the first time in a month after politicians declared the coronavirus “under control”.

From florists to fashion stores, the majority of shops smaller than 800 square metres (8,600 square feet) will be allowed to welcome customers again, in a first wave of relaxations to strict curbs on public life introduced last month.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional state premiers announced the decision to reopen last week, though they have been careful to cast it as no more than a cautious first step.

The Kulturbrauerei in the Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin is deserted due to restrictions introduced to halt the spread of coronavirus.
The Kulturbrauerei in the Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin is deserted due to restrictions introduced to halt the spread of coronavirus. Photograph: David Heerde/REX/Shutterstock

While the first shops will open their doors on Monday, each of Germany’s 16 states is set to lift the restrictions at a slightly different pace. In some states such as the capital Berlin, reopening will take a little longer.

Merkel, who has been praised for her handling of the coronavirus crisis, is hoping to reinvigorate the ailing German economy, which officially entered into recession last week.

Germany has been one of the countries worst hit by Covid-19, with 139,897 confirmed cases and 4,294 deaths as of Sunday, but also one of the quickest to react.

On Friday, the Robert Koch Institute for public health announced that the rate of infection - the number of people each ill person contaminates - had dropped below one for the first time, leading Health Minister Jens Spahn to declare the virus “under control”.

Yet Merkel has warned that Germany’s success remains “fragile”.

A ban on gatherings of more than two people and a requirement to stand more than 1.5 metres apart from others in public areas remain in force.

Cultural venues, bars, leisure centres and beauty salons will also remain closed for the time being, while large-scale public events such as concerts and football matches have been banned until 31 August.

Schools will also be partially reopened in the coming weeks, with most states set to welcome back older students from 4 May.

Germany hopes to combine the lifting of restrictions with a more efficient tracing of the spread of Cobid-19.

The country hopes to ramp up testing - it has already tested around two million people - and aims to produce around 50 million protective masks a week from August.

Though not yet obligatory, Merkel said her government “strongly advises” wearing a mask in public.

Japanese expert 'very pessimistic' about Olympics happening next year

A Japanese specialist in infectious diseases has said he is “very pessimistic” about the likelihood of the Tokyo Olympics going ahead next year.

Speaking to journalists in an online briefing on Monday, Kentaro Iwata, a professor at Kobe University Hospital, said: “I don’t think the Olympics are likely to be held next year. People will be coming from hundreds of nations ... and although Japan might have the disease under control by next summer, I don’t think that will be the case everywhere.”

Iwata, who was critical of the Japanese government’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak aboard the Diamond Princess cruise liner in February, added: “In that sense I am very pessimistic about holding the Games next summer, unless they are held in a different way, such as with no spectators or in limited numbers.”

Japan had rescheduled the Olympics to take place in 2021.
Japan had rescheduled the Olympics to take place in 2021. Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters

Iwata is not the first expert to question Tokyo’s ability to host the Games from 23 July to 8 August, 2021, after the coronavirus outbreak forced local organisers and the International Olympic Committee [IOC] to postpone them for a year.

Devi Sridhar, chair of global health at the University of Edinburgh, said last week that hosting the event in just over a year’s time would be “very unrealistic” unless a vaccine became available.

“If we do get a vaccine within the next year then actually I think that (the Olympics) is realistic,” Sridhar said, according to the BBC website. “The vaccine will be the game changer - an effective, affordable, available vaccine. If we don’t get a scientific breakthrough then I think that looks very unrealistic.”

John Coates, the head of the IOC’s coordination commission, told reporters last week that it was still “too early to say” if the outbreak could further impact the Olympics, including forcing another delay or banning spectators.

Updated

Here’s our New Zealand reporter, Charlotte Graham-McLay, in Wellington, on Ardern’s announcement:

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has announced that the country will remain at the strictest level of national lockdown for another week, before loosening restrictions marginally.

“We have stopped a wave of devastation,” Ardern has told a news conference, referring to the four weeks of stringent restrictions that have kept all New Zealanders at home unless they are going to supermarkets or the doctor.

Twelve people have died of Covid-19 in the country. Nine new cases of the virus were recorded on Monday.

The so-called “level four” alert level – the strictest possible – was due to end at 23:59 on Wednesday night, after beginning on 25 March. Ardern said it would remain in place until a minute before midnight next Monday 27 April instead.

Jacinda Ardern has announced New Zealand’s level-4 lockdown, will be lifted to level 3 on Monday 27 April.
Jacinda Ardern has announced New Zealand’s level-4 lockdown, will be lifted to level 3 on Monday 27 April. Photograph: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

After that, level 3 restrictions will be implemented, still requiring most New Zealanders to stay home most of the time. Meal deliveries will be permitted and shops will be allowed to re-open providing they only sell goods online.

Schools and daycare centres will re-open, but only for children whose parents must work, and only for students up to Year 10 (about 14 years old). Everyone is required to work from home if they can.

Ardern has won praise at home and globally for her decision to shut down New Zealand when just over 200 people had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and no one had died.

She acknowledged that adding to the proposed four weeks of lockdown by several days would be tough for New Zealanders, but added that people had “sacrificed too much for us to lose those gains now.”

Ardern said figures showed New Zealanders with Covid-19 had passed it on to less than one person each, against a global average of 2.5 transmissions of the virus per person infected.

Her government will decide on 11 May whether the level-3 alert will remain in place for longer, or whether it can be lifted to level 2 – which would give more social and business freedoms to New Zealanders.

Updated

Ardern is laying out the rules of what level-three lockdown will look like. She says they include:

  • Schools and daycares will reopen for those who need them
  • Some businesses can reopen, but Ardern urges that people must make sure their businesses are safe for people and allow social distancing
  • People can still go outside for exercise, and can travel to the park or beach to do so, but Ardern urges people to “stay regional”, to exercise as safely as possible and to stay two metres away from anyone “outside their bubble”
  • People can slightly expand their social circle. But the prime minister has warned New Zealanders to: “keep your bubble as small as possible - you can expand your bubble a small amount to include family members, vulnerable people or caregivers”
  • Wash your hands, sneeze into your elbow

New Zealand will move out of alert level-four lockdown in one week

Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand has “broken the chain of transmission”, reducing the transmission rate to 0.48, meaning that each infected person infects less than half a person.

Ardern has thanked all New Zealanders for their work to stop “the uncontrolled explosion of Covid-19 in New Zealand”. As a result, she says the country willmove out of alert level four lockdown in a week’s time - at 11:59pm on Monday 27 April.

“We will hold at alert level three for two weeks and review how we are tracking,” she says.

Over the next week, some preparation work will be permitted, for example allowing people to re-enter their business premises to prepare for reopening.

Updated

Some joyful news from Thailand now, where environmentalists say they have found the largest number of nests of rare leatherback sea turtles in two decades on beaches bereft of tourists because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thailand currently has 2,765 infections and has seen 47 Covid-related deaths and has imposed a range of restrictions on residents including a ban on international flights and an appeal to citizens to stay home. The measures have seen a collapse in tourist numbers, but freed up the beaches for wildlife.

Since last November, environmentalists have found 11 nests, the highest number in 20 years. No nests of the leatherback sea turtle had been found in the five years previous.

“This is a very good sign for us because many areas for spawning have been destroyed by humans,” said Kongkiat Kittiwatanawong, the director of the Phuket Marine Biological Center.

“If we compare to the year before, we didn’t have this many spawn, because turtles have a high risk of getting killed by fishing gear and humans disturbing the beach.”

Leatherbacks are the world’s largest sea turtles. They are considered endangered in Thailand, and listed as a vulnerable species globally by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

They lay their eggs in dark and quiet areas, scarce when tourists thronged the beaches. People have also been known to dig into their nests and steal eggs.

In case you missed it, the Guardian’s Edward Hellmore writes that New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, stepped up his campaign for increased federal funding for US cities during the coronavirus crisis, asking Donald Trump whether his administration was “going to save New York City or are you telling New York City to drop dead?”

De Blasio’s dramatic language came during his press conference on Sunday, after he warned last week that he planned to cut a further $2bn from the city’s municipal services budget due to the economic downturn. He said the city was likely to lose at least $7.4bn in tax revenue over the current and next fiscal year.

Bill de Blasio visited a food distribution centre in the Bronx, New York, on the weekend.
Bill de Blasio visited a food distribution centre in the Bronx, New York, on the weekend. Photograph: Gabriele Holtermann-Gorden/Pacific Press/REX/Shutterstock

De Blasio has criticized the $2tn coronavirus relief package that Trump signed last month, saying New York only received $1.4bn from the stimulus, compared with around $58bn for the airline industry. He has called for the next package, which congressional and administration leaders say they are “close” to reaching a deal on, to include tens of billions for states, cities and municipalities.

You can read the full story on this by below:

I mentioned earlier the details of President Trump’s combative White House briefing, during which he played a clip of New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo. The Guardian’s David Smith in Washington writes ...

Donald Trump has been accused of using another White House coronavirus task force briefing to broadcast a “campaign ad” in which New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, one of his most trenchant critics, appeared to shower him with praise.

The US president dimmed the lights and played two selectively edited videos on screens behind the briefing room podium featuring Cuomo, whose state has been hardest hit by the deadly pandemic.

“What the federal government did, working with states ... was a phenomenal accomplishment,” the governor said in the first clip. “These were just extraordinary efforts and acts of mobilisation, and the federal government stepped up and was a great partner, and I’m the first to say it. We needed help and they were there.”

But the films were played just two days after Cuomo, who has emerged as one of the most prominent Democrats during the crisis, eviscerated Trump in scathing 15-minute remarks. “First of all, if he’s sitting home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work, right,” he told reporters on Friday. “Second, let’s keep emotion and politics out of this and personal ego if we can because this is about the people and our job and let’s try to focus on that.”

You can read David Smith’s full story below.

South Korea's new cases stay under 20 for third day

South Korea reported fewer than 20 new cases of coronavirus for the third day in a row.

On Monday it announced 13 new infections, bringing the nation’s total infections to 10,674.

On Sunday the country reported single-digit figures (8) of new cases, for the first time in two months. The country’s centre for disease control said seven of those cases came from overseas.

Health workers wait for cars at a drive-through testing centre in Seoul.
Health workers wait for cars at a drive-through testing centre in Seoul. Photograph: YONHAP/EPA

Chinese state media is reporting that the mega city of Shanghai will hold a late night shopping festival in May to boost consumption.

Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei says a total of 50 migrants deported from the United States have tested positive for coronavirus, including 14 sent to the Central American nation on a flight on Tuesday.
Most of the Guatemalan deportees that have tested positive for coronavirus arrived from the United States on a Monday flight.

US crude falls below $15/barrel

US crude crashed to below $15 a barrel on Monday, its lowest level for over two decades, as concerns about a virus-triggered demand shock and lack of storage eclipsed an output cut deal.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the US benchmark, fell more than 19% to $14.73 a barrel in early Asian trade, before markets steadied and it clawed back some ground to $15.78 a barrel.

International benchmark Brent dropped 4.1%to $26.93 a barrel, before rising and stabilising at $28.11.

Oil markets have plunged in recent weeks as lockdowns and travel restrictions to fight the coronavirus around the world batter demand for the commodity. The crisis was compounded after Saudi Arabia, kingpin of exporting group OPEC, launched a price war with non-OPEC member Russia.

An employee looks on at Saudi Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom agreed with Russia to cut output by almost 10m barrels a day earlier this month.
An employee looks on at Saudi Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom agreed with Russia to cut output by almost 10m barrels a day earlier this month. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Riyadh and Moscow drew a line under their dispute earlier this month when they and other countries agreed to cut output by almost 10m barrels a day to boost virus-hit markets.

But prices have continued to fall heavily, with analysts saying the cuts will not be enough to make up for massive falls in demand caused by the pandemic.

Updated

An aid worker employed by humanitarian agency Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) died in the northeast Nigerian state of Borno after contracting the new coronavirus, a spokesman for the organisation has said.

Reuters reports that Borno is at the centre of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, spawned by a decade-long Islamist militant insurgency that has left 7 million people in need of aid.

The death of an aid worker in a part of Africa’s most populous country where camps house many of the roughly two million people displaced by the insurgency will prompt fears of Covid-19 spreading among malnourished people, many of whom suffer from other diseases.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said on Sunday thatit had recorded a cumulative total of 627 confirmed cases and 21 deaths – including one in Borno.

The Nigerian president’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari (L), pictured with the former US representative to the United Nations, Samantha Power, and Nigeria’s President Mohammadu Buhari (R). Kyari has died from coronavirus.
The Nigerian president’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari (L), pictured with the former US representative to the United Nations, Samantha Power, and Nigeria’s President Mohammadu Buhari (R). Kyari has died from coronavirus. Photograph: Philip Ojisua/AFP via Getty Images

On Saturday it was announced that the chief of staff of Nigeria’s President Buhari had died from Covid-19. Abba Kyari was the top official aide to Buhari and one of the most powerful men in Nigeria. Like Buhari, he was in his 70s, and he had underlying health conditions, including diabetes.

Australian economists call for lockdown conditions to continue

More than 150 Australian economists on Monday warned the government against easing social distancing rules aimed at halting the spread of the new coronavirus even as the rate of infections slowed to a multi-week low.

Australia has so far avoided the high numbers of coronavirus casualties reported around the world after closing its borders and imposing restrictions on public movement.

On Monday, its two most populous states reported just seven new cases in the previous 24 hours: six in New South Wales and only one new case in Victoria. It’s the lowest number of new infections since four were recorded on 10 March.

The economists issued an open letter to call on the government to prioritise containing the spread of coronavirus.

“We cannot have a functioning economy unless we first comprehensively address the public health crisis,” the group of 157 economists from Australian universities wrote.

There are 6,612 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Australia. Seventy people have died.

Debate in the country has turned to the yet to be launched tracing ap, which the government wants Australians to take up to help monitor Covid-19 when restrictions are lifted .... and in Sydney, residents in the city’s east have welcomed the reopening of several beaches in the Randwick council areas – Clovelly, Coogee and Maroubra – for exercise only. The city’s famous Bondi Beach remains closed.

You can follow all of our Australian updates on the Australian live blog here.

Sydney’s Bondi Beach remains closed.
Sydney’s Bondi Beach remains closed. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Updated

Novak Djokovic, the 17 time grand slam tennis champion, says he’s “opposed” to vaccination and would face a difficult choice if one became available for Covid-19.

Reuters reports that during live Facebook chat with several fellow Serbian athletes, Djokovic, who most recently won the Australian Open in January, said he “wouldn’t want to be forced” to receive a vaccine.

“Personally I am opposed to vaccination and I wouldn’t want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel,” Djokovic reportedly

“But if it becomes compulsory, what will happen? I will have to make a decision. I have my own thoughts about the matter and whether those thoughts will change at some point, I don’t know.

“Hypothetically, if the season was to resume in July, August or September, though unlikely, I understand that a vaccine will become a requirement straight after we are out of strict quarantine and there is no vaccine yet.

China reports zero new deaths for third day in a row after revising figures

China has published its daily figures for the virus, reporting 12 new cases for 19 April, down from 16 a day earlier, with no new deaths for the third day in a row. There were also 49 new asymptomatic cases reported on Monday.

Of the total new cases , eight were imported, down from nine on the previous day, the National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin. There were four cases of local infection, including three in the northeastern border province of Heilongjiang and one in Inner Mongolia.

On Friday China revised its death toll up significantly, including by 50% in Wuhan. It came after weeks of scepticism, from both within and outside China, over the officially reported figures. Officials said Friday’s revision was the result of incorrect or delayed reporting and not because information had been suppressed.

CHINA-HEALTH-VIRUSA couple wearing face masks walk after a photo-shoot next to East Lake in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on Sunday.
A couple wearing face masks walk after a photo-shoot next to East Lake in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on Sunday. Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

The number of deaths caused by the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands rose by 83, Dutch health authorities said on Sunday, which was the smallest reported daily increase since 26 March .

The total number of deaths among people known to have been infected with the coronavirus increased to 3,684, while the number of confirmed infections rose by 1,066 to 32,655.

Dutch cyclist Tom Dumoulin rides during the virtual tour of the Amstel Gold Race at a holiday home in Valkenburg on Sunday – the first time in history, the tour has taken place virtually, also encouraging cycling fans to participate in the 26km race, as people are confined to their homes as the Netherlands tries to contain the spread of Covid-19
Dutch cyclist Tom Dumoulin rides during the virtual tour of the Amstel Gold Race at a holiday home in Valkenburg on Sunday – the first time in history, the tour has taken place virtually, also encouraging cycling fans to participate in the 26km race, as people are confined to their homes as the Netherlands tries to contain the spread of Covid-19 Photograph: Robin van Lonkhuijsen/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

France hospital admissions decline for fifth day

France reports another 395 coronavirus deaths, as hospital admissions continue to decline.

The new deaths – 227 in hospitals and 168 in nursing homes – brought France’s total epidemic death toll to 19,718. More than 12,000 have died in the pandemic.

A total of 30,610 people were being treated for a coronavirus infection in hospital, 29 fewer overall than the day before as hospitalisations declined for the fifth day in a row.

The prime minister, Edouard Philippe, told the briefing that the country’s nationwide lockdown since 17 March was starting to bear fruit.

“We are scoring points against the epidemic,” he said, adding the “situation is improving progressively, slowly, but surely.

However, he insisted, “we are not out of the health crisis yet.”

A man walks along an almost deserted street in Paris on Sunday during the country’s lockdown.
A man walks along an almost deserted street in Paris on Sunday during the country’s lockdown. Photograph: Andreina Flores/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Spain death toll drops as Madrid plans to close morgue in ice rink

Spain registered a sharp drop in its daily death toll on Sunday with 410 new fatalities – the lowest in almost a month, Agence France-Presse reports.

“It’s a number that gives us hope,” said health ministry emergencies coordinator Fernando Simon.

“It’s the first time we are under 500 dead since the daily tolls began to climb.”

The total number of fatalities in Spain, the third hardest-hit country in the world after the United States and Italy, has reached 20,453, the health ministry said.

Infections rose to 195,344, with 4,218 new cases in the past 24 hours, an increase of just 2.4%.

But Simon admitted the daily fall could be explained by the lower registration of fatalities over the weekend. Such a drop is often followed by a rise at the start of the week.

Nevertheless, he said that the number of deaths, hospital and intensive care admissions were on a downward trend “which clearly indicates that the transmission of the disease has substantially decreased.”

Health Minister Salvador Illa also said Spain had achieved its objective of “flattening the curve” of transmissions.

On Wednesday, Spain plans to close a temporary morgue set up in a Madrid ice rink.
On Wednesday, Spain plans to close a temporary morgue set up in a Madrid ice rink. Photograph: Comunidad de Madrid via Getty Images

The latest figures have given some relief to the country’s overwhelmed health system.In Madrid, regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso said a makeshift morgue set up at an ice rink would close on Wednesday.

And one unit of a field hospital that was set up inside Madrid’s conference centre to treat up to 1,500 people with coronavirus was closed on Friday.

The Spanish authorities believe the country reached the peak of the pandemic on 2 April when they had counted 950 deaths in 24 hours. But they are not ready to recommend a lifting of the nationwide lockdown, one of the tightest in Europe.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday announced he would ask parliament to extend the lockdown by two weeks to 9 May .

The restrictions currently in place would however be loosened slightly to allow children time outside from 27 April, Sanchez said.

Italy records lowest daily death toll in a week

Italy’s official daily toll from coronavirus edged down to 433 on Sunday, the lowest figure in one week.

The total number of deaths reported by the civil protection services since the start of Italy’s health crisis in February now stands at 23,660 – second only to the United States, which has more than 40,000 deaths.

Sunday’s figure in Europe’s worst affected nation was the second lowest in one month. The 3,047 new virus infections represented a rise of just 1.7%.

*** BESTPIX *** TOPSHOT-ITALY-HEALTH-VIRUS-POPE-MASSTOPSHOT - Bishop Josef Bart clean the street in front of at the Santo Spirito in Sassia church on Sunday before the arrival of Pope Francis for the Holy Mass on Divine Mercy with closed doors due to the social distancing rules.
Bishop Josef Bart clean the street in front of at the Santo Spirito in Sassia church on Sunday before the arrival of Pope Francis for the Holy Mass on Divine Mercy with closed doors due to the social distancing rules. Photograph: AFP Contributor#AFP/AFP via Getty Images

Agence France-Press reports that the new infection rate is being watched close by Italian government as it deliberates on how to exit its lockdown imposed over the first half of March.

The current restrictions are due to be lifted on 4 May, and the government is trying to determine which businesses to allow to resume operations, and whether to let people out of their homes.

The conference has now wrapped up.

One of the last things Trump was asked about was whether he has been inciting violence by calling for people to liberate states.

“They’ve got cabin fever,” he said. “They want to get back. They want their life back. Their life was taken away from them. And you know, they learned a lot during this period. They learned to do things differently than they have in the past and they’ll do it hopefully until the virus has passed. And when the virus passes, I hope we’re going to be sitting next to each other at baseball games, football games, basketball games, ice hockey games. I hope we’re going to be sitting next to each other. The Masters is going to have 100,000 people, not 25 people watching at the course.”

He added: “I’ve never seen so many American flags at a rally as I’ve seen at these rallies. These people love our country. They want to get back to work.

Updated

Things are really going downhill at the White House briefing. CNN’s reporter has just asked Trump if he was duped by President Xi on the virus. “You people are so pathetic at CNN” is Trump’s response.

Trump response to CNN’s reporter: “You people are so pathetic at CNN.”
Trump response to CNN’s reporter: “You people are so pathetic at CNN.” Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

In terms of actual news from this press conference, the top line seems to be that he says a deal with the Democrats is close on the latest relief bill for small businesses and workers ... and could be resolved as soon as tomorrow.

Trump also criticised the WHO and China for their handling of the pandemic and implied that the World Trade Organization hadn’t been doing a very good job either.

And he said he would offer Iran aid over the virus if asked.

Updated

We’re going to get straight into Donald Trump’s daily news conference, where angry exchanges with journalists are continuing in the question and answer phase. He’s just been asked by a CNN journalist why he (Trump) finds it necessary to play video clips in his conferences praising his response to the virus. Trump is very unhappy about the question.

“What I’m doing is I’m standing up for the men and women that have done such an incredible job,” he says. “Nothing is about me.”

He continued: “You are fake news, you are CNN,”

“You’re never going to treat me fairly, many of you. And I understand that. I got here with the worst, most unfair press treatment they say in the history of the United States for a president. They did say Abraham Lincoln had very bad treatment, too.”

President Trump is clearly not happy with some of today’s questions at the White House briefing.
President Trump is clearly not happy with some of today’s questions at the White House briefing. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

This followed two angry exchanges with female journalists. One asked him why he didn’t warn Americans about the virus earlier. Trump responded by asking the reporter which network she was from (CBS). She followed up her question and he tells her to “relax”. He didn’t answer and went back to his stock answer that he put a ban on flights from China in the end of January.

He then got quite angry. In a back and forth with the reporter, Trump told her to “keep your voice down”, then raised his voice over her, including saying that she should say to him “thank you very much for (my) good judgement”.

He has since digressed to what he calls the poor treatment of General Michael Flynn, who was briefly a national security adviser to the president. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his dealings with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office and the president is considering pardoning him.

Trump says the FBI treated him badly and describes the FBI as “human scum”.

Updated

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. Here’s a summary of the main news to get us started:

  • The global death toll is approaching 165,000, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The total number of infections worldwide is at 2,394,291.
  • President Trump criticises the WHO, China and World Trade Organization at his daily press conference, and also says he would be prepared to give aid to Iran over the pandemic.
  • US deaths have passed 40,000, with more than 755,000 infections.
  • US governors have accused Donald Trump of making “delusional” and “dangerous” statements amid mounting tensions between the president and state leaders over coronavirus testing and pressure to roll back stay-at-home measures.
  • Italy said on Sunday that deaths from the coronavirus pandemic rose by 433, the lowest daily tally in a week, and the number of new cases slowed to 3,047 from a previous 3,491.
  • Turkey’s death toll has passed 2,000, with the announcement of 127 new deaths bringing the official death toll to 2,017.
  • Poland recorded its biggest spike in coronavirus cases on Sunday with 545 new infections registered, a day before the country plans to ease some of its restrictions.
  • Iran will extend leave for prisoners for one more month, President Hassan Rouhani announced on Sunday, after the country temporarily released 100,000 detainees to combat the spread of coronavirus.
  • Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US president Donald Trump have agreed on a phone call to cooperate in protecting healthcare and economies from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
  • The British government will charter flights to repatriate the most vulnerable Britons stranded in New Zealand this week.
  • France has doubled its production of face masks from 4m to 8m a week and there are now enough for essential healthcare and frontline staff.
  • Peru has reported over 15,000 cases of coronavirus, the second-highest tally in Latin America after Brazil. The country has reported a total of 15,628 cases and 400 deaths, according to the health ministry.
  • Tunisia is extending its lockdown to 4 May, then it will ease restrictions gradually on some economic activities, prime minister Elyes Fakhfakh has said.
  • Thousands of Israelis have demonstrated against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu while maintaining social distancing measures, calling on Gantz’s Blue and White party not to join in a coalition led by a premier charged with corruption.

If you would like to get in touch, you can reach me at alison.rourke@theguardian.co.uk

Updated

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