We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic from around the world:
Beyond the hot spots of Brazil and Mexico, the coronavirus is threatening to overwhelm Latin American cities large and small in an alarming sign that the pandemic may be only at the start of its destructive march through the region.
More than 90% of intensive care beds were full last week in Chile’s capital, Santiago, whose main cemetery dug 1,000 emergency graves to prepare for a wave of deaths, AP reports.
In Lima, Peru, patients took up 80% of intensive care beds as of Friday. Peru has the world’s 12th-highest number of confirmed cases, with more than 90,000.
“Were in bad shape,” said Pilar Mazzetti, head of the Peruvian governments Covid-19 task force. “This is war.”
In some cities, doctors say patients are dying because of a lack of ventilators or because they couldn’t get to a hospital fast enough. With intensive care units swamped, officials plan to move patients from capitals like Lima and Santiago to hospitals in smaller cities that aren’t as busy running the risk of spreading the disease further.
Latin American countries halted international flights and rolled out social distancing guidelines around the same time as the US and Europe, delaying the arrival of large-scale infection, said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases at the Pan American Health Organization.
Latin America is the worlds most unequal region, a reality that Espinal said made it difficult to balance health and economic growth, with millions facing increased poverty during quarantines, curfews and shutdowns.
Updated
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
-
The Covid-19 crisis could push 60 million people into poverty, the head of the World Bank, David Malpass, said. Malpass said his bank had so far loaned money to about 100 countries, accounting for 70% of the world’s population.
- The World Health Organization’s annual assembly passed a resolution on the need to investigate the global response to the pandemic. None of the WHO’s 194 member states raised objections to the resolution brought by the EU on behalf of more than 100 countries.
- The UK reported 545 more deaths, taking its total to 35,341. The environment secretary, George Eustice, announced the latest figure at the government’s daily briefing on the epidemic. The UK remains the world’s second-worst affected country by deaths after the US.
- Rishi Sunak, the UK’s chancellor, said the country is facing “a severe recession the likes of which we haven’t seen”. Giving evidence to the Lords economic affairs committee, he said he expects the unemployment rate to be in double figures by the end of the year.
- Cambridge University will not hold traditional lectures in the 2020/21 academic year.There will be no “face-to-face lectures” at the University of Cambridge in the 2020/21 academic year, the institution has said. Lectures will continue virtually, while it may be possible for smaller teaching groups to take place in person if it conforms to social distancing requirements.
- Afghanistan recorded its biggest one-day rise in infections as about half of tests done in a 24-hour period came back positive. The health ministry confirmed 581 new cases out of 1,200 tests, marking the country’s worst day of the crisis – the previous high was 414.
- The border between Canada and the US will remain closed to non-essential travel until 21 June. The closure was set to expire this week after the two governments announced a 30-day extension of the restrictions last month.
- Spain reported a death toll below 100 for the third consecutive day, confirming 83 deaths from coronavirus in the past 24 hours. The latest figures from the health ministry showed the majority of the latest deaths were in some of the hardest-hit areas of the country.
- The Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, will reopen next week, authorities said. The Islamic endowment overseeing the site in Jerusalem under Jordanian custodianship had taken the unprecedented step of closing it to worshippers in March.
- People living within a kilometre of Barcelona’s beaches will be able to return to the sand from Wednesday, as the local lockdown eases. People will be able to make “recreational use” of the Catalan capital’s beaches as long as they respect physical distancing.
- Half a dozen people from three English Premier League football clubs tested positive for Covid-19 in the space of two days, dealing a blow to hopes of top-flight English football resuming next month.
Trump has signed an executive order encouraging agencies to cut regulations in the name of economic recovery.
“Agencies must continue to remove barriers to the greatest engine of economic prosperity the world has ever known: the innovation, initiative, and drive of the American people,” the order states.
President Trump signs Executive Order giving Cabinet members authority to cut regulations.
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 19, 2020
Full video here: https://t.co/1NXrzbhqNL pic.twitter.com/P6j6ikzavC
Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus news from around the world for the next few hours.
Please do get in touch with any comments, questions, tips, stories or jokes on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan[at]theguardian.com.
Two months ago, he was simply Capt Tom Moore.
When his fundraising exploits inspired the nation, he was made an honorary colonel to mark his 100th birthday.
And now, the British war veteran whose sponsored walks in his garden raised £33m for NHS charities, is to receive a knighthood.
Donald Trump has reignited a controversy over the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine after telling reporters he was taking the latter to protect himself against coronavirus. What do we know about these drugs?
What is hydroxychloroquine?
Hydroxychloroquine, which Trump says he has been taking for about two weeks, was developed as an antimalarial but it is also used to treat conditions like lupus, an anti-immune disease, and arthritis, where it can help combat inflammation. It has been licensed for use in the US since the mid 1950s and is listed by the World Health Organization as an “essential” medicine.
What’s the state of the current evidence?
In May, the British Medical Journal reported on a randomised (although still problematic) clinical trial in China that found little evidence hydroxychloroquine worked, with serious adverse events noted in two patients.
A second study reported in the BMJ last week on a French trial also concluded that hydroxychloroquine does not significantly reduce admission to intensive care or improve survival rates in patients hospitalised with pneumonia owing to Covid-19. Overall, 89% of those who received hydroxychloroquine survived after 21 days, compared with 91% in the control group.
The US Food and Drug Administration in a safety alert issued on 24 April warned that it had received reports that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine could have serious side-effects and that the drugs should be taken only under the close supervision of a doctor in a hospital setting or a clinical trial.
What are the risks in taking hydroxychloroquine?
There are several side-effects. The most serious is that it can interfere with the rhythm of the heart. Other side-effects include headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, skin rash or itching or hair loss. Research published by the Mayo Clinic has suggested that “off-label” repurposing of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine could lead to “drug-induced sudden cardiac death”.
Although Trump’s official physician has said he was in “very good health” at his last official checkup, the president is 73 and his recorded weight would put him in a BMI category of “clinically obese”.
In the US, Donald Trump has claimed that scientists carried out a study of the effects of hydroxychloroquine, the results of which suggested he is wrong to tout it, because they oppose him politically.
The study of hundreds of patients at US veterans health administration medical centers showed that those who took hydroxychloroquine had a 27.8% death rate, while those who did not had an 11.4% death rate. Trump said:
"That was a false study done. Where they gave it very sick people. Extremely sick people. People that were ready to die. It was given by obviously not friends of the administration" -- Trump defends hydroxychloroquine by suggesting a study of VA patients was fruit of a conspiracy pic.twitter.com/a3neqa2U4y
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 19, 2020
Joanna Walters writes that Trump also falsely claimed evidence suggests hydroxychloroquine does not have negative side effects. In reality, the Food and Drug Administration has said it should only be used as a coronavirus treatment in hospital settings due to “reports of serious heart rhythm problems” in virus patients who had received the drug.
When a reporter mentioned the FDA guidance, Trump said, “That’s not what I was told.”
*We originally inaccurately reported that this study was published in the New England Journal of Medecine. The research was published as a pre-print — it has not yet gone through a rigorous process of peer review.
Updated
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 933 more deaths and 24,481 more cases, taking the totals to 90,340 and 1,504,830, respectively.
Donald Trump has announced that he will sign an executive order directing federal agencies to eliminate “unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery”. According to Reuters, he told a Cabinet:
I’m directing agencies to review the hundreds of regulations we’ve already suspended in response to the virus and make these suspensions permanent where possible.
President Trump is signing an exec order directing agencies to slash regulations. Outside conservative groups have been pushing this version of Phase 4 relief - stimulating the economy through deregulation instead of another trillion dollar relief package. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/zOFQ3vd0PV
— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) May 19, 2020
Trump also tweeted this. Hand-shaking, back-slapping, not a mask in sight:
THANK YOU @SenateGOP! https://t.co/wbgqxD6TPR
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
This as the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said any action on a new pandemic response bill could be weeks away.
Cambridge University will not hold traditional lectures
There will be no “face-to-face lectures” at the University of Cambridge in the 2020/21 academic year, the institution has said.
Lectures will continue virtually, while it may be possible for smaller teaching groups to take place in person if it conforms to social distancing requirements. A spokesman for the university said:
The university is constantly adapting to changing advice as it emerges during this pandemic.
Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the university has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year.
Lectures will continue to be made available online and it may be possible to host smaller teaching groups in person, as long as this conforms to social distancing requirements.
This decision has been taken now to facilitate planning but, as ever, will be reviewed should there be changes to official advice on coronavirus.
Updated
Officials in the Bolivian city of Trinidad are to give out free doses of the anti-parasite drug ivermectin in a bid to combat the epidemic. Authorities will go house-to-house to pass out about 350,000 doses of the drug in an area that has seen 581 confirmed cases and 41 deaths.
The Ministry of Health said it can be used under proper medical protocol, while noting the lack of evidence for it as a treatment for Covid-19. The health minister Marcelo Navajas told local media:
It is a product that does not have scientific validation in the treatment of the coronavirus. It does serve to treat parasitic diseases and other types of diseases. Therefore, we ask our medical colleagues who are going to use this product to do so with informed consent.
McDonald’s has been accused of endangering employees and their families by failing to adopt government safety guidance during the pandemic.
Five workers in Chicago have filed a class action lawsuit against the chain, saying it failed to provide adequate hand sanitiser, gloves and masks. They also allege that McDonald’s has not been notifying staff when an employee became infected.
McDonald’s said the allegations were inaccurate and that safety, including wellness checks and protective gear, was a top priority.
The Trump administration is poised to extend non-essential travel restrictions at the land borders with Canada and Mexico, the acting US Department of Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf has indicated.
We really have to see what is the health care situation like in Mexico and Canada, how are their cases, have they hit their curve?
What we don’t want to do is try to open up parts of our economy and have a lot of folks coming across the border that we haven’t seen in the past 50 or 60 days.
Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau had already said his country and the US have agreed to extend the ban at their shared border by another 30 days, after reports earlier in the day suggested such a move was likely.
South Africa is also easing its lockdown measures, resume classes for some pupils on 1 June.
Those in grades seven and 12, usually aged 13 and 18, will return to class and the country’s minister of basic education Angie Motshekga said that, under strict social distancing rules, other grades would be able to attend lessons in schools with fewer than 150 pupils. Larger schools will open for other grades at a later date.
The Netherlands will press ahead with a further easing of lockdown measures in June due to a steadily declining number of infections and hospital admissions, its prime minister Mark Rutte has said.
The country’s 17 million inhabitants have been living under the lockdown measures for about two and a half months. Rutte told them:
We earned the space we are getting for sticking to the guidelines. We have to stick to the rules because we know the virus can flare up again.
The number of infections rose by 108 to 44,249 on Tuesday, with 21 new deaths over the last 24 hours. The death toll stood at 5,715, national health authorities said.
Summary
Here are the latest headlines from our global coronavirus coverage:
- The Covid-19 crisis could push 60 million people into poverty, the head of the World Bank, David Malpass, said. Malpass said his bank had so far loaned money to about 100 countries, accounting for 70% of the world’s population.
- The World Health Organization’s annual assembly passed a resolution on the need to investigate the global response to the pandemic. None of the WHO’s 194 member states raised objections to the resolution brought by the EU on behalf of more than 100 countries.
- The UK reported 545 more deaths, taking its total to 35,341. The environment secretary, George Eustice, announced the latest figure at the government’s daily briefing on the epidemic. The UK remains the world’s second-worst affected country by deaths after the US.
- Rishi Sunak, the UK’s chancellor, said the country is facing “a severe recession the likes of which we haven’t seen”. Giving evidence to the Lords economic affairs committee, he said he expects the unemployment rate to be in double figures by the end of the year.
- Afghanistan recorded its biggest one-day rise in infections as about half of tests done in a 24-hour period came back positive. The health ministry confirmed 581 new cases out of 1,200 tests, marking the country’s worst day of the crisis – the previous high was 414.
- The border between Canada and the US will remain closed to non-essential travel until 21 June. The closure was set to expire this week after the two governments announced a 30-day extension of the restrictions last month.
- Spain reported a death toll below 100 for the third consecutive day, confirming 83 deaths from coronavirus in the past 24 hours. The latest figures from the health ministry showed the majority of the latest deaths were in some of the hardest-hit areas of the country.
- The Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, will reopen next week, authorities said. The Islamic endowment overseeing the site in Jerusalem under Jordanian custodianship had taken the unprecedented step of closing it to worshippers in March.
- People living within a kilometre of Barcelona’s beaches will be able to return to the sand from Wednesday, as the local lockdown eases. People will be able to make “recreational use” of the Catalan capital’s beaches as long as they respect physical distancing.
- Half a dozen people from three English Premier League football clubs tested positive for Covid-19 in the space of two days, dealing a blow to hopes of top-flight English football resuming next month.
That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, until tomorrow.
Covid-19 continues to sweep across the Peruvian Amazon with deadly ferocity. Pucallpa, on the country’s eastern border with Brazil, follows Iquitos as the second Peruvian Amazon city to be ravaged by the deadly virus, writes Dan Collyns.
Social media images showed sick people lying in motorised rickshaws outside one hospital which had shut its doors and refused to take more patients. Other images showed doctors and nurses protesting about the lack of PPE, medicines and oxygen.
At least 45 members of the 30,000-strong Shipibo Konibo indigenous people have died from the coronavirus in Ucayali, the Amazon region of which Pucallpa is the capital, according to the local indigenous federation Feconau. Many more are sick as Covid-19 has penetrated villages that self-isolated when the pandemic reached South America.
“In Pucallpa there is a total collapse of the three public hospitals, the private clinics are shut, and people are dying here every day,” said Miguel Hilario-Manenima, a local university professor with a PhD from Stanford university.
As desperate patients gasp for air, an oxygen plant lies inoperative in the city, part of newly built hospital that was never completed, an investigation by El Comercio newspaper revealed.
As in Iquitos, oxygen has become a precious and overpriced resource in the hands of private companies who have quintupled the cost of a typical 10m3 canister, all sources consulted by The Guardian concurred.
Aoife Bennett, an honorary research associate from Oxford University working in Pucallpa, said indigenous communities were clubbing together to try to buy oxygen which had reached “extortionate” prices. A cylinder which cost about 600 soles (£144) before the pandemic began now costs between 3,500 soles (£843) and 5,000 soles (£1,205).
“I put money towards buying a ridiculously expensive cylinder of oxygen because I’m trying to save a friend’s life,” said Bennett. “But it’s absolutely disgusting that this should happen.”
Peru’s state social security body EsSalud said last week it expected to build a 100-bed field hospital in Pucallpa for Covid-19 patients which would be ready in three weeks.
Official figures for Ucayali report 2,032 coronavirus cases and 91 deaths but local accounts report hundreds of deaths. One local cemetery reported 421 deaths above the average number of deceased during the last month.
Coronavirus cases in Peru rose to more than 94,000 on Monday, with a death toll of 2,789 according to official figures. Only Brazil has a higher infection rate in Latin America, surging to third place in the world with 257,396 confirmed cases and sixth place for coronavirus deaths with 16,941, according to John Hopkins University.
Ireland has reported sixteen more deaths from Covid-19, bringing the country’s total death toll to 1,561.
According to the department of health, 51 more people have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) May 19, 2020
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre @hpscireland has today been informed that a total of 16 people with #Covid19 have died.
There have now been a total 1,561 #COVID19 related deaths in Ireland. Validation of data at @hpscireland has resulted in the denotification of 2 deaths. The figure of 1,561 deaths reflects this.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) May 19, 2020
As of 11am Tuesday 19 May @hpscireland has been notified of 51 confirmed cases of #COVID19.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) May 19, 2020
There is now a total of 24,251 confirmed cases of COVID19 in Ireland.
For more detailed case information data please visit: https://t.co/RjyC3RrpgD
The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has recommended that the annual gathering of world leaders in late September be scaled back because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reports.
In a letter to the president of the UN general assembly, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, Guterres suggested that only one New York-based diplomat from each of the 193 UN member nations gather in the general assembly hall, with heads of state and government instead delivering pre-recorded messages.
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande has said a decision on the annual gathering will be made after consultations with member states.
This year was expected to bring an especially large number of leaders to UN headquarters to celebrate the founding of the supranational body in 1945 on the ashes of the second world war.
Twenty-eight more people have died from Covid-19 in Turkey, while 1,022 more have tested positive for the coronavirus, continuing a downward trajectory in new deaths and infections, the Associated Press reports.
The health minister, Fahrettin Koca, tweeted new figures showing a total of 4,199 deaths and 151,615 reported positive cases since 11 March, when the first infection was confirmed.
Koca said the decrease in patients needing intensive care continued and the number of patients who recovered reached 112,895.
Turkey has opted for partial lockdowns, contact tracing and early treatment in combating the novel coronavirus. Fifteen provinces, including Istanbul, are in the final day of a four-day lockdown.
The president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Monday that he hoped the upcoming nationwide lockdown during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr from 23-26 May would be the final round.
Brazil has overtaken the UK to become the country with the third-highest number of confirmed coronavirus infections, amid warnings from its former health minister that three painful months lie ahead, write Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and David Agren in Mexico City.
Latin America’s largest economy has now recorded 254,220 cases, placing it behind only the US and Russia, and ahead of the UK, which on Monday had 247,706.
Meanwhile, in Mexico – the region’s number two economy – allegations that Covid-19 deaths were being dramatically undercounted added fuel to an increasingly acrimonious political battle over the government’s response to the pandemic.
Brazil has officially suffered 16,792 Covid-19 deaths – the world’s sixth-highest number – although under-reporting and low testing rates mean the true figure is likely to be considerably higher.
Updated
Covid-19 crisis will push 60m into poverty says World Bank chief
Coronavirus shutdowns around the world could undo three years of gains in alleviating poverty, the president of the World Bank has said.
In the latest apocalyptic prediction by a member of the global financial elite, David Malpass said that up to 60 million people could be pushed below the poverty line, according to World Bank estimates, as the global economy shrinks by around 5%.
Malpass said that the World Bank group had so far loaned money for emergency programmes in 100 countries, accounting for about 70% of the world’s population, in response to the crisis. He said the money would “reinforce healthcare systems” as well as pay for medical equipment and supplies.
According to a transcript of his speech on the World Bank website, he said:
The health and economic impacts that the Covid-19 pandemic and shut down have inflicted on developing countries are severe. Our estimate is that up to 60 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty – that erases all the progress made in poverty alleviation in the past three years. And our forecasts indicate deep recession this year as much as minus five percent recession for the global economy. Families have lost loved ones, millions of jobs and livelihoods are lost, the health systems are under enormous strain worldwide.
Updated
UFC president Dana White has taken a leaf out of his friend Donald Trump’s playbook, and launched an attack on the media for its reporting on the promotion, the Guardian’s sport desk reports.
UFC recently resumed competition without live audiences. However, many publications – including the New York Times and the Guardian – expressed concern about Covid-19 safety protocols at the fights as well as the fact that UFC tried to silence fighters and journalists covering the events.
White said in an appearance on Fox News’s Hannity show
We were trying to figure out solutions to the problems [of enforcing coronavirus protocols] and [asking] how do you bring sports back safely and health and safety is an issue for us. Every single weekend when we were leading up to these events, we had so many, you know, New York Times and so many other media people trying to sabotage the events so that it couldn’t happen.
Jamie Dimon, the billionaire chief executive of JP Morgan, said on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic must serve as a “wake-up call” to build a fairer society, writes Dominic Rushe for the Guardian US in New York.
He wrote in a memo issued ahead of his bank’s annual shareholder meeting:
It is my fervent hope that we use this crisis as a catalyst to rebuild an economy that creates and sustains opportunity for dramatically more people, especially those who have been left behind for too long ...
The last few months have laid bare the reality that, even before the pandemic hit, far too many people were living on the edge.
This is not the first time that Dimon has criticised the system that built his $1.2bn fortune. Last year, when leftwing Vermont senator Bernie Sanders was leading in Democratic polls, he acknowledged the “flaws” in capitalism, but warned that socialism led to “stagnation, corruption and often worse”.
Dimon has been tipped as a possible treasury secretary should Joe Biden be successful in his presidential bid.
Biden is also reportedly considering his former presidential rival Michael Bloomberg, the multi-billionaire founder of the Bloomberg news service, as a future head of the World Bank.
There were 162 fatalities from coronavirus in Italy on Tuesday, up from 99 on Monday, bringing the death count to 32,169, writes Angela Giuffrida, the Guardian’s Rome correspondent.
There were 813 new infections, up from 451 in the last 24 hours, according to the civil protection authority. More than half of the new cases were in the Lombardy region.
Civil liberties were extended on Monday, with people allowed to travel within their regions, while bars, restaurants, shops, museums and libraries reopened.
People must maintain social distancing, however police said a crowd of 300 gathered without face masks in Foggia, Puglia, to celebrate the feast of the Madonna del Soccorso, on Monday night, while another group commemorated a local mafia boss.
The Italian government has warned of an immediate return to lockdown if the epidemic curve increases again. The country has registered 226,699 cases to date.
Updated
UK reports 545 deaths from Covid-19
The UK has reported 545 more deaths from Covid-19, taking its total to 35,341.
The environment secretary, George Eustice, announced the latest figure for Europe’s current coronavirus hotspot at the government’s daily briefing on the coronavirus outbreak.
The UK remains the world’s second-worst affected country by deaths after the US.
Updated
Sweden has had more deaths per capita from Covid-19 than any country in Europe over the past seven days, Reuters reports.
Most schools, restaurants and businesses in Sweden have remained open throughout the pandemic, after it decided to eschew a wide-ranging lockdown of the economy to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Critics of Sweden’s approach are likely to use the latest figures as ammunition against a policy they say has left its population exposed to Covid-19.
While deaths are on the decline Sweden had 6.25 deaths per million inhabitants per day in a rolling seven day average to 19 May, according to Ourworldindata.org.
It was the highest in Europe and just above the UK, which had 5.75 deaths per million despite having closed schools and most businesses, and imposing restrictions on people’s movement outside their homes.
Overall, Sweden still has fewer deaths per capita from Covid-19 than the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium and France, which have all opted for lockdowns, but much higher than Nordic neighbours Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Sweden’s strategy, mostly based on voluntary measures regarding social distancing and basic hygiene, has been criticised by some as a dangerous experiment with peoples lives but also been put forward as a future model by the World Health Organization.
Sweden’s open strategy seems to have softened the blow on the economy, with growth shrinking much less than in Denmark and Norway in the first quarter.
Singapore is to begin easing its coronavirus restriction on 2 June, although government said the relaxing of measures will likely see a rise in daily cases, Reuters reports.
Businesses that operate in settings with lower transmission risks may resume activities, such as those in manufacturing, finance, insurance and wholesale trade. A third of the workforce will resume on-site operations, while the remainder would work from home, the trade and industry minister, Chan Chun Sing, told a news conference.
The plan is the first phase of lifting of Singapore’s so-called “circuit breaker” restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which expire on 1 June.
“This will be done in phases to reduce the risk of a second wave of cases of infections, as many countries have experienced, after they lifted their control measures,” the health minister, Gan Kim Yong, said.
“As we begin to resume more activities, we do expect to see a rise in daily new cases.”
Schools will also start reopening in the city-state from next month.
The announcement came as Singapore reported that 451 more people had tested positive for the coronavirus, all but one of whom were migrant workers.
As of 19 May 2020, 12pm, we have confirmed and verified an additional 451 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. Breakdown: 0 imported, 1 case in the community, 0 Work Permit holders residing outside dorms, 450 Work Permit holders residing in dorms. https://t.co/fkSZRdVzb6
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) May 19, 2020
Of the new cases, 99% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing. https://t.co/fkSZRdVzb6
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) May 19, 2020
As of 19 May 2020, 12pm, 530 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 10,365 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged. https://t.co/fkSZRdVzb6
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) May 19, 2020
There are currently 1,004 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 10 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. https://t.co/fkSZRdVzb6
— Ministry of Health (@sporeMOH) May 19, 2020
Updated
UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov says his father is in critical condition after being infected by Covid-19, and he has lost several relatives to the virus.
Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov has played a large part in his son’s wildly successful mixed martial arts career, and encouraged his son to wrestle from when he was young. Khabib is undefeated in all 28 of his professional fights.
Nurmagomedov said during an Instagram live chat on Monday:
There is a lot written on the internet about my father. My father, right now, is in a hospital. He is in critical condition as a result of this virus. It impacted his heart because last year he had a surgery there, and right now, they did another surgery. He is in a very difficult situation, very difficult. We are asking Allah that he returns him to us.
Spain death toll below 100 for third consecutive day
Eighty-three people have died from the coronavirus in Spain over the past 24 hours, making Tuesday the third consecutive day on which the death toll has been below 100, writes Sam Jones, the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent.
However, the latest figures from the health ministry show that the majority of the latest deaths were in some of the hardest-hit areas of the country: 31 in the Madrid region; 25 in Catalonia, and seven were in Castilla y León.
Of the 166 new hospital admissions for Covid-19, 67 were in Madrid and 38 in Catalonia.
The Madrid region, the Barcelona metropolitan area and parts of Castilla y León remain in the preliminary phase of Spain’s lockdown de-escalation, while 70% of the country has moved to the next phase. The continuing lockdown has sparked protests in wealthy parts of the capital and in other cities.
To date, Spain has reported 232,037 cases using PCR tests, and recorded 27,778 deaths.
On Wednesday, Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition government will seek a fifth, two-week extension of the state of emergency that has been in force since 14 March. The wearing of face masks in all public places where social distancing cannot be observed is also to become compulsory.
Updated
Canada-US border to remain closed until 21 June
According to the Associated Press, the border between Canada and the US will remain closed to non-essential travel until 21 June.
Ahead of the announcement by Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister (see last post), the agency spoke to a senior government official who confirmed the extension of the agreement, which had been set to expire this week.
The two governments announced a 30-day extension of the restrictions last month.
The US president, Donald Trump, has said that the U.S. and Canada are doing well in handling the pandemic. But with the US counting more confirmed deaths and cases than any other country in the world, Canadians have feared a reopening.
Essential cross-border workers such as healthcare professionals, airline crews and truck drivers are still permitted to cross. Truck drivers are critical as they move food and medical goods in both directions.
Much of Canada’s food supply comes from or via the US.
Updated
#BREAKING: PM Justin Trudeau says Canada and the US have agreed to extend border closure measures for another 30 days. #covid19canada pic.twitter.com/JW6dAPXuts
— Kamil Karamali (@KamilKaramali) May 19, 2020
Most people in Spain support the lockdown and believe it should be extended, a survey showed on Tuesday, AFP reports.
Figures from a survey by the state-run Centre for Sociological Studies (CIS) showed 95% of respondents believed the measures to fight the epidemic were necessary or very necessary.
Despite the widespread approval of the lockdown there have been angry protests in Madrid and elsewhere denouncing the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Spain has suffered one of the most-deadly outbreaks of the epidemic, counting more than 231,000 cases and nearly 28,000 deaths, although the numbers peaked on 2 April.
Six out of 10 respondents said they believed the strict conditions of the lockdown, which was imposed on 14 March but is being slowly eased, should be extended for longer, while 29% said they wanted more freedom of movement.
But the population appears divided over how the government of prime minister Pedro Sanchez has handled the crisis, with 46% saying they had a lot, or quite a lot, of confidence in its policies, while 48% said they had little or none.
Carried out between 4 and 13 May among a sample of 3,800 respondents, the survey was published days after anti-government demonstrations took place in several districts of Madrid and in other cities, some involving hundreds of people.
Banging saucepans, waving Spanish flags and calling for “freedom”, the demonstrators demanded Sanchez resign in a series of protests firmly backed by rightwing and far rightwing parties.
Updated
Carbon dioxide emissions have fallen dramatically since lockdowns were imposed around the world due to the coronavirus crisis, writes Fiona Harvey, the Guardian’s environment correspondent.
Daily emissions of the greenhouse gas plunged 17% by early April compared with 2019 levels, according to the first definitive study of global carbon output this year.
The findings show the world has experienced the sharpest drop in carbon output since records began, with large sections of the global economy brought to a near standstill. When the lockdown was at its most stringent, in some countries emissions fell by just over a quarter (26%) on average. In the UK, the decline was about 31%, while in Australia emissions fell 28.3% for a period during April.
International cooperation should be a no-brainer during a global pandemic, the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday, in an apparent dig at the US.
“The greatest act of courage is to play as a team,” she told a virtual World Health Assembly.
Updated
France’s foreign minister has said the country hopes to begin easing its border restrictions with EU countries from mid-June, writes Kim Willsher, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent.
French borders have been closed to all but essential crossings since early April and only those with “compelling professional and personal reasons” or French residents returning home are allowed in.
Jean-Yves Le Drian said any changes would be on the basis of a reciprocal arrangement with France’s neighbours.
“I think progressively from 15 June we can arrive at a general easing (of restrictions), at least that is what I hope,” Le Drian told French radio.
Le Drian said from tomorrow – Wednesday 20 May – French nationals returning from outside the EU would be asked to self-quarantine for two weeks, but added this would be “voluntary”.
Earlier, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, the transport secretary, said if the “conditions were right”, Orly airport, closed since the end of March, could reopen around 26 June.
Djebbari told BFMTV French police had carried out 200,000 checks on roads and issued 950 fines for those in contravention of the regulation limiting journeys to 100km without a compelling reason. The rule was introduced last Monday (11 May) at the end of France’s strict eight-week lockdown.
France has reported 28,239 deaths in hospital and care homes attributed to Covid-19. There are fewer than 2,000 people in intensive care in French hospitals with the virus, the lowest number since March.
Updated
Member states have backed a resolution strongly supportive of the World Health Organization, after Donald Trump issued a fresh broadside against the UN body, giving it 30 days to make unspecified reforms or lose out on US funding, write Patrick Wintour and Julian Borger.
A resolution that backed the WHO’s leadership and said there needed to be an investigation into the global response to the coronavirus pandemic won endorsement at the WHO’s annual ministerial meeting on Tuesday.
The US president launched his attack late on Monday, sending a lengthy letter outlining America’s belief that the WHO had not been sufficiently independent of China, and had been too willing to accept its explanations for the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.
As the pandemic worsens in the US, and other countries begin a tentative recovery, Trump has sought to blame China and the WHO. The letter accused the WHO of making repeated mistakes, meaning thousands of lives had been lost, and America’s interests not served.
For nearly five full years, Virginia Peña Zamudio has been searching: trawling prisons, markets and forensic records for the slightest trace of her missing son, writes Madeleine Wattenbarger in Mexico City.
Rosendo Vazquez Peña was kidnapped from a car repair shop in Mexico’s Veracruz state in September 2015 and has not been seen here since.
Since then Peña Zamudio has, like thousands of Mexican parents and spouses, thrown herself into a life of hunting, joining a search “brigade” of grieving relatives determined to find their loved ones, dead or alive.
But the coronavirus, which has killed at least 5,000 people in Mexico, has brought the hunt for its desaparecidos to a sudden and traumatic halt.
“We’re shut inside, we can’t even move,” said Peña Zamudio. “As a mother, I want to be able to break all of these barriers, but I can’t.”
The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the stark inequality in access to effective health services between developed and undeveloped countries, the Red Cross’s chief medic has said.
In a statement on Tuesday, Esperanza Martinez, the head of health for the International Committee of the Red Cross, also said that healthcare workers were also coming under attack while working in the midst of the pandemic.
She said:
This crisis underlines the chasm between health services in developed and developing countries. We talk about increasing ICU beds in one while a clinic in another has no running water. You can’t prevent and control this disease without the basics, including water and essential supplies. Strengthening health systems in developing and conflict-affected countries must now become a global priority.
We’ve also seen a worrying increase in attacks against health-care workers and facilities linked to Covid -- more than 200 globally -- right when communities need these services the most. Ensuring that health-care workers are safe and able to carry out their jobs is crucial for stemming the spread of this disease and caring for the people affected. This is an urgent call for collective action.
The condition of a British man who is Vietnam’s most seriously ill Covid-19 patient has improved, with portions of his lungs improving. However, doctors believe his best hope of survival still lies in a lung transplant.
“About 20 to 30% of his lungs have recovered, which gives us faint hope,” Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh Châu, director of Ho Chi Minh City’s hospital for tropical diseases, was reported as saying by Vietnam News on Tuesday.
The 45-year-old patient, a pilot with Viet Nam Airways, has been kept alive on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (Ecmo) machine for 43 days.
So far, 40 people, including a 70-year-old war veteran, have registered to donate lungs to the patient, Vietnam’s transplant authority has said. The country has so far recorded no deaths from Covid-19.
Updated
World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is addressing the World Health Assembly in Geneva.
He said he welcomes the adoption of the EU resolution calling for an independent evaluation of the international response to the coronavirus pandemic, “including but not limited to WHO’s performance”.
Ghebreyesus said the WHO “wants accountability more than anyone” and that his organisation would continue “providing strategic leadership” the world on the issue.
This comes after Donald Trump’s attack on the body, calling for it to make unspecified reforms or risk losing out on US funding within 30 days.
We will post a fuller report on Ghebreyesus’ speech later but here are some more of his words:
"Dark & difficult days may lie ahead.
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 19, 2020
But guided by science, together we will overcome.
Let hope be the antidote to fear.
Let solidarity be the antidote to division.
Let our shared humanity be the antidote to our shared threat.
Now, more than ever"-@DrTedros#COVID19 #WHA73
Italy’s prime minister has been addressing a virtual meeting of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva. Earlier today, the World Health Assembly agreed to an independent investigation into the WHO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic (see here).
Giuseppe Conte said he was cautiously optimistic about the next phase of the pandemic as the country eases coronavirus measures, Reuters reports.
He said: “We are entering this phase with cautious optimism and a sense of responsibility. We know that our struggle is far from being over.”
He also said that global health should be a “shared priority” shortly after the assembly adopted an EU resolution on the pandemic.
Twenty one more people have died from Covid-19 in the Netherlands, the lowest number reported on a Tuesday since March, taking the total death toll in the country to 5,715.
According to the latest update from the Dutch national institute for public health and the environment (RIVM), a further 108 people tested positive for the virus, the lowest number of new daily infections recorded since 10 March. So far, 44,249 confirmed cases have been reported.
In a statement accompanying Tuesday’s figures, RIVM said there had been a decrease in the number of people sick due to coronavirus.
The number of people who have fallen ill due to the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands has been decreasing since the end of March. This is apparent from the decrease in the number of newly reported patients, hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths per day.
The number of people who visit their GP because of symptoms that are consistent with the coronavirus is still decreasing. This is evident from figures provided by the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (Nivel).
The virological daily updates show that, despite a broader testing policy, the number of people who were tested due to symptoms remained around 30,000 in the last three weeks. The percentage of confirmed Covid-19 cases in these people who were tested is steadily decreasing. Last week this figure was 5%, but at the end of March, 29% of tests were positive for the coronavirus.
Updated
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus across Africa has passed 86,000, the regional office of the World Health Organization has said.
Unlike in Europe, a widespread outbreak seems yet to happen in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people. There had been fears that its comparatively limited healthcare infrastructure would be overrun by patients with Covid-19.
Over 86,000 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent - with more than 33,000 recoveries & 2,700 deaths. View country figures & more with the WHO African Region COVID-19 Dashboard: https://t.co/V0fkK8dYTg pic.twitter.com/t8kU48MI7R
— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) May 19, 2020
Sweden’s public health authority on Tuesday reported a further 45 deaths from coronavirus, bringing the total death toll in the country, which controversially chose not to impose a lockdown, to 3,743.
According to the latest update, 422 more people tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 30,799.
Death toll figures in Sweden generally fall over the weekend, due to a lack of reporting, then increase again during the week as health authorities catch up. Today’s figure was the lowest reported on a Tuesday for six weeks, suggesting the outbreak in the country is now in abeyance despite a relative lack of measures to curb the spread of the virus.
Basing its approach on a so-called “principle of responsibility”, Sweden has kept schools open (indeed compulsory) for children under the age of 16, along with cafes, bars, restaurants and businesses, and urged people to respect social distancing guidelines.
Statistics released on Monday showed that Sweden had its deadliest month in almost three decades in April, with a total of 10,458 deaths recorded in the country of 10.3 million people.
“We have to go back to December 1993 to find more dead during a single month,” Tomas Johansson, population statistician at Statistics Sweden, said in a statement.
In total, 97,008 deaths were recorded in Sweden during the whole of 1993, which in turn was the deadliest year since 1918, when the Spanish flu pandemic ravaged the country. Johansson told AFP there was no official breakdown explaining the high death toll in December 1993 but said there was a flu epidemic at the time.
Updated
WHO assembly approves Covid-19 response audit
A resolution on the need to investigate the global response to the coronavirus pandemic won endorsement at the World Health Organization’s annual ministerial meeting on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
None of the WHO’s 194 member states - which include the US – raised objections to the resolution brought by the European Union on behalf of more than 100 countries including Australia, China and Japan.
“Is the (World) Health Assembly prepared to adopt the draft resolution as proposed? As I see no requests for the floor, I take it that there is no objection and the resolution is therefore adopted,” said Keva Bain, the Bahamas ambassador who serves as the assembly’s president.
Updated
Barcelona to reopen beaches
People living within a kilometre of Barcelona’s beaches will be able to return to the sand to sunbathe from Wednesday, the city council has announced, writes Sam Jones, the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent.
From tomorrow, people will be able to sunbathe and make “recreational use” of the Catalan capital’s beaches - as long as they respect social distancing, according to the deputy mayor for safety, Albert Batlle. However, people will not be allowed to swim and must spend no longer than an hour on the beach.
They must also adhere to the time slots for different age groups and activities: 6am to 10am for adult exercise and walking; 10am to 12pm and 7pm to 8pm for older people and those who require assistance; 12pm to 7pm for children accompanied by an adult, and 8pm to 11pm for professional sportspeople.
Like the Madrid region and parts of Castilla y León, the Barcelona metropolitan area remains in the preliminary phase of lockdown de-escalation, whil 70% of Spain has passed into the next stage.
Updated
In the midst of a city-wide lockdown to try to contain the spread of coronavirus, police moved into clear protesters in southern Santiago, Chile, on Monday, as local officials warned of food shortages in poor neighbourhoods.
According to Reuters, protesters threw rocks, shouted and burned piles of wood along a street in a destitute neighbourhood on Santiago’s southern fringe. Images on social media and local television showed police spraying tear gas and water cannons to disperse the growing crowd.
The municipality said in a statement that families were going hungry in the poorest sectors of El Bosque, a district where many work informally, or not at all. The city district has been under quarantine since mid-April, city officials said in a statement.
States of emergency are being used to attack indigenous peoples around the world, the UN rapporteur for indigenous peoples has said.
In a statement published on Monday, José Francisco Cali Tzay said he was receiving reports every day about how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting indigenous communities, “and it deeply worries me to see it is not always about health issues,” he said.
There have been a number of reports about the danger that the pandemic could pose to indigenous groups, but Tzay said greater danger lay in governments using the crisis as an excuse to marginalise and dispossess them. In his statement, Tzay went on:
States of emergency are exacerbating the marginalisation of indigenous communities, and in the most extreme situations, militarisation of their territories is taking place.
Indigenous peoples are being denied their freedom of expression and association, while business interests are invading and destroying their lands, territories and resources.
In some countries, consultations with indigenous peoples and also environmental impact assessments are being abruptly suspended in order to force through megaprojects relating to agribusiness, mining, dams and infrastructure.
Indigenous peoples who lose their lands and livelihoods are pushed further into poverty, higher rates of malnutrition, lack of access to clean water and sanitation, as well as exclusion from medical services, which in turn renders them particularly vulnerable to the disease.
Updated
Ireland began phase one of its emergence from its coronavirus lockdown yesterday, expanding the number of shops that could open and easing restrictions on social contact.
We are moving together into Phase One.
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) May 19, 2020
That means #COVID19 restrictions have eased to allow more essential retailers to open.
Travel more 5km for this essential shopping, but remain within 5km of home for leisure/sport.
More info on Phase One here: https://t.co/ZzAQ63yGWe pic.twitter.com/WOLQVX1sev
Eleven more people have tested positive for coronavirus in Zambia.
The southern-central African country has so far reported 772 cases of coronavirus and seven deaths from Covid-19.
Daily #COVID19 update: in the last 24 hrs, #Zambia recorded 11 new cases out of 644 tests. Cases are from Chirundu (4), Nakonde (3), Solwezi (1), Kasama (1), Isoka(1) and Mungwi (1). Cases include truck driver, persons with history of travel to Nakonde and routine/mass testing pic.twitter.com/NybxsGdl24
— Zambia National Public Health Institute (@ZMPublicHealth) May 19, 2020
Al Aqsa mosque to reopen next week
The Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, will reopen next week, after weeks of closure aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus, authorities said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
The Islamic endowment overseeing the site under Jordanian custodianship had taken the unprecedented step of closing it to worshippers in March as other major holy sites were shuttered across the Middle East.
The endowment said that in light of the relative decline of the spread of the virus it would reopen the site to worshippers after the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which will begin this weekend and last for three days. A mechanism and procedures regarding lifting the suspension will be announced later, it added.
Wildcat strikes, walkouts and protests over working conditions have erupted across the US throughout the coronavirus pandemic as “essential” workers have demanded better pay and safer working conditions, Michael Sainato reports for Guardian US.
Working conditions, low pay and lack of safety protections have triggered protests throughout the pandemic as workers across various industries, including food service, meat processing, retail, manufacturing, transportation and healthcare have come together to protest about issues, many of which were apparent before the coronavirus.
Deborah Berkowitz, director of worker safety and health for the National Employment Law Project, said:
There are no federal mandates or requirements to implement the social distancing guidance or anything else. It’s only guidance and employers can choose to implement them or not. And that is why, in an unprecedented way, they are walking out to bring public attention to the fact that their companies are not protecting their safety and health.
Afghanistan sees biggest one-day rise in new infections
Afghanistan has recorded its biggest one-day rise of new infections to Covid-19 as around half of tests came back positive in last 24 hours, amid a continued surge of transmissions in Kabul and intensified war across the country, writes Akhtar Mohammad Makoii for the Guardian from Herat.
The health ministry confirmed 581 new cases out of 1,200 tests, marking the war-torn country’s worst day of the crisis - the previous high record number was 414. Five patients also died of Covid-19 overnight, taking death toll to 178. Out of a total 7,653 infections there have been 850 recoveries.
The heath ministry has pledged to increase number of daily tests. So far 24,697 suspected patients have been tested.
Wahid Majroh, the deputy health minister, has warned citizens if they continue to break lockdown rules there will be another wave of the virus in the country. Despite a government imposed lockdown in several provinces, streets are still crowded.
Meanwhile, the health minister, Ferozuddin Feroz, who was infected to the virus, has recovered and will soon back to his work, the ministry said. He was isolated at home.
Kabul, which is the country’s worst affected area, and the eastern province of Nangarhar recorded 299 new cases combined. The total number of infections in Kabul is 2,231 and in Nangarhar it stands at 444. Concerns are high in Nangarhar as the virus has spread in the province’s prison.
More than 80 prisoners and prisons’ employees have so far been tested positive in Afghanistan.
The remote province of Zabul reported its first death. Zabul’s only hospital was destroyed in a Taliban attack last year. The province has recorded 38 confirmed cases so far.
At least four civilians, including two children were killed in the province on Monday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle, the interior ministry said.
The northern city of Kunduz, which was under attack from the Taliban last night, reported 4 new cases.
At least 11 Taliban fighters were killed and eight others were wounded in the attack on Kunduz city as the Taliban attack was pushed back by Afghan forces, the defence ministry said, while at least two people were killed in the explosion of a bomb placed in a bicycle, Tuesday afternoon.
In response to an attack on a maternity hospital last week, the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, ordered a resumption of a full offensive against the Taliban and other militant groups, ending a period of reduced military activity ahead of US-brokered peace talks that had been expected to start this year.
Deborah Lyons, the UN secretary general’s special representative for Afghanistan, asked warring sides on Tuesday to halt the fighting and to “respect humanitarian law”.
Updated
More than three times as many people may have died from Covid-19 in Mexico City than have been accounted for in official estimates, according to death certificates issued since the start of Mexico’s epidemic, the Associated Press reports.
The anti-corruption group Mexicans Against Corruption said in a report on that it got access to a database of death certificates issued in Mexico City between 18 March and 12 May. It showed doctors had included the words SARS, COV2, COV, Covid 19, or new coronavirus in explanatory notes attached to 4,577 certificates.
The federal government acknowledges only 1,332 confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in Mexico City.
Sars-CoV-2 is the technical name of the virus. The notes the group counted included terms like “suspected,” “probable”, or “possible” role of the virus in the deaths.
In 3,209 of the certificates, it was listed as a suspected contributing factor along with other causes of death, like pneumonia, respiratory failure, septic shock or multiple organ failure.
Only 323 certificates list confirmed coronavirus as a cause of death; 1,045 other death certificates listed COVID-19 but didn’t specify if it was suspected or confirmed.
On Tuesday Mexico reported 155 more deaths from Covid-19, bringing the total official death toll in the country to 5,332. According to the latest update, 2,414 more people tested positive for the coronavirus, bring the total number of confirmed cases to 51,633.
The prime minister of Thailand has announced the government will not fund the continuing operation of Thai Airways, instead putting the flag carrier into court-supervised restructuring.
In a speech on Tuesday, Prayut Chan-o-cha said he wanted to save the country’s money “to help the public in the months ahead,” warning that the economic crisis to come would be “even more serious” than the pandemic, which has had a limited impact in Thailand.
According to a transcript of his speech, published on Facebook, he said:
We have made good progress in trying to control the health crisis from Covid, especially when compared with other countries. But, the Covid crisis is not just about health. We are about to enter an even more serious crisis: the financial crisis that is hitting every person in Thailand. People have lost their livelihoods and still do not know when they may be able to go back to earning a normal income. This is an economic crisis that is likely to get even more serious.
This is why I must save the people’s money for programmes that can directly help them survive and then rebuild their lives, and the country’s economy.
Sixty-two more people in Iran have died from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, a similar number to that reported nearly every day this month, bringing the total death toll in the country to 7,119, the health ministry has said.
In his daily televised address, Kianoush Jahanpour, the health ministry spokesman, said that 2,111 more people had tested positive for Sars-CoV-2. The total number of confirmed cases in Iran, which was one of the first countries outside China to suffer a major outbreak, is 124,603.
Of those, 97,173 have recovered while 2,698 remain in a critical condition in hospital.
Jahanpour said 716,176 tests have so far been carried out in Iran, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Fourteen more people - 11 men and three women - have tested positive for coronavirus in Ethiopia, the ministry of health reported on Tuesday.
According to a report circulated by Lia Tadesse, the health minister, on Twitter, 3,271 have been tested for the virus in the past 24 hours.
The total number of confirmed cases in the country is now 365. So far five patients have died from Covid-19 and 120 have recovered, according to the report.
Report #68
— Lia Tadesse (@lia_tadesse) May 19, 2020
የኢትዮጵያ የኮሮና ቫይረስ ሁኔታ መግለጫ
Status update on #COVID19Ethiopia pic.twitter.com/41Jt2ZUrjr
Greece has signalled it will announce its hotly-awaited operational plan reviving the tourism sector tomorrow, writes Helena Smith, the Guardian’s Athens correspondent.
Media reports this morning suggest that the country’s borders may be re-opened by mid-June, two weeks earlier than expected. Under the plan, to be announced by prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, travellers from across the EU as well as Israel would be allowed into Greece. It is unclear whether they would be subjected to a Covid-19 blood test or be asked to adhere to other health protocols.
Greek outlets reported that travellers would be obliged to maintain social distancing rules at airports and wear masks during flights.
The news came as RyanAir, the no-frills airline, announced that it would be resuming flights to destinations in Greece, including Corfu.
In a country where tourism accounts for 25 percent of GDP, the government is hoping to capitalise on its successful handling of the pandemic to attract what Mitsotakis has called “a larger piece of Europe’s smaller tourism pie.”
“Given the importance of tourism and the catering sector for the country’s economy, particularly during the second half of the year, our plan will have a three-pronged strategy covering employment, taxation and liquidity,” the government spokesman, Stelios Petsas said on Monday. “This summer will not be like last year.”
In 2019 a record 33 million tourists visited Greece – the equivalent of three times its population.
On Monday some 200 archaeological sites, closed to contain the spread of the virus, were re-opened to the public as Greece began preparing for the tourism season.
Updated
Hi, this is Damien Gayle, taking charge on the live blog for the next eight or so hours, with the latest headlines and breaking stories from the coronavirus crisis around the world.
As usual, I’m keen to hear your comments, tips and suggestions for coverage. If you want to get in touch, please do drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.
That’s all from me today, I’m now handing over to my colleague Damien Gayle - thanks for reading along.
Summary
Global cases pass 4.8 million. There are 4,817,105 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins university data. The death toll stands at 318,775. US deaths, the highest worldwide, passed 90,000, and the number of cases climbed above 1.5m.
Trump threatens to make WHO funding freeze ‘permanent’. Late on Monday evening, Donald Trump tweeted a letter addressed to World Health Organization director general saying that if the WHO “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary [funding] freeze permanent and reconsider our membership of the organization”. He also claimed the WHO had shown an “alarming lack of independence” from China.
In response, China accused Trump of trying to “smear China” and “shirk responsibility and bargain over its international obligations to the WHO”, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
WHO chief promises review of coronavirus response. Before Trump’s letter was released, the World Health Organization said an independent review of the global coronavirus response would begin as soon as possible.
A resolution drafted by the European Union calling for an independent evaluation of the WHO’s performance appeared to have won consensus backing among the WHO’s 194 states. The motion is expected to be voted on on Tuesday.
Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine. His doctor released a letter confirming that they had discussed the use of the drug and “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks”. The US Food and Drug Administration has cautioned against use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for Covid-19 outside of a hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems.
Brazil cases overtake UK to become third-highest worldwide. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil stands at 255,368, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, making the country the third-worst affected in terms of cases.
UK jobless claims soar by nearly 70% in April. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits increased in April by the most since records began, to reach almost 2.1 million.
The Office for National Statistics said about 856,500 people signed up for universal credit and jobseeker’s allowance benefits in April, driving up the overall UK claimant count by 69% in a single month.
Russia coronavirus cases edge towards 300,000. Health officials reported 9,263 new infections, bringing the total to 299,941 - the fourth day in a row new cases fell below 10,000.
The prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, who returned to work today after testing positive for the virus, said the country had stopped the growth of new infections but cautioned that the situation remains “difficult”.
Hong Kong blocks Tiananmen Square vigil with gathering ban. It has in effect banned the annual vigil by extending its physical distancing measures for another 14 days. The restrictions were due to expire this week but will now end no earlier than 5 June, the day after the event commemorating the Chinese army’s brutal crackdown on protesters in 1989.
Czech coronavirus cases show biggest jump in four weeks. The number of new cases climbed above 100 for the first time this month, partly due to an outbreak at a coal mine in Karvina.
Chinese authorities have sealed off the north-eastern city of Shulan, home to about 700,000 people, after an outbreak of coronavirus, imposing measures similar to those used in Wuhan.
All villages and residential compounds in the city were closed off, and only one person from each household allowed out for two hours every second day for essentials.
The development came as Beijing signalled it could ease some border restrictions as it prepares for the start of its signature political event on Thursday, the Communist party’s delayed annual congress, also known as the “two sessions”.
In Shulan, residential compounds were restricted to just one entry and exit for emergency vehicles, and banned non-residents and vehicles from entering. If there are confirmed cases in a community residence, no one can enter or leave.
Last week, the city was reclassified as high risk after a cluster of cases emerged connected to a woman with no known history of travel or exposure to the virus. In response, authorities ordered the temporary closure of public places, schools and public transport.
With Portugal easing out of confinamento, Porto’s residents are enjoying cafes once again, but miss the tourists more than they were expecting.
Today’s reopening is not as I’d imagined it. Confined to home since mid-March, I’d played over this moment many times.
My first sip of machine-made espresso; a look over the newspaper; perhaps a cheeky pastel de nata.
In my mind’s eye, it would be a joyous moment, full of noise and merriment, but this relative quiet is disconcerting.
On reflection, it’s perhaps not so surprising. People are still wary. There’s a nervous guardedness about the city, like we’re enduring a collective first day back at school.
I’m surprised also by the emotions stirred up by the lack of tourist crowds. I thought their absence would be, well, liberating. A chance to seize back the city; a welcome break from hearing English spoken at every turn.
But it’s not like that. Tourists may be here today and gone tomorrow but, in a way that I’d never appreciated before today, they’re an intrinsic part of the city.
An annoying one, at times, certainly. On my cycle into work, someone will almost always step into my path while staring down at a map or city tracking App. But today, nothing.
Updated
A dispatch from Wilfredo Miranda Aburto in Managua:
Shortly after midnight, five ambulances pull up at the German Nicaraguan hospital in Managua – lights flashing, but no sirens wailing.
The gates quickly close behind them, but reopen after less than half an hour, and the convoy heads out again into the dark streets.
All through the night, ambulances come and go from the hospital, which has become a key battleground in Nicaragua’s fight against the coronavirus.
And alongside them, there is a constant traffic of hearses and pickup trucks, driven by men in full protective gear, ferrying away victims of the pandemic.
‼️Una noche en el hospital Alemán Nicaragüense😷
— Wilfredo Miranda (@PiruloAr) May 15, 2020
.
Hilo 🧵
.
➡️Una caravana de ambulancias 🚑 llega cargada de pacientes. En el Alemán solo atienden casos respiratorios y de #Covid19. Fuentes médicas confirman que son pacientes remitidos desde centros de salud con síntomas pic.twitter.com/qwGAdYM3ez
Unlike other Central American leaders, president Daniel Ortega has consistently downplayed the scale of the coronavirus threat, refusing to impose social distancing measures and encouraging mass gatherings of supporters.
Officials claim the country has seen just a handful of deaths and insist that there is no community transmission.
Now, however, the government appears to have gone one step further, and is actively attempting to cover up the scale of the disaster.
Doctors and health workers say that deaths from Covid-19 are attributed to hypertension, diabetes or respiratory illnesses – and the victims are rushed away for burial in the dead of night.
These “express burials” involve sealed caskets and bodies wrapped in plastic – as recommended by the country’s health ministry in coronavirus deaths – but the dead are not included in the official Covid-19 death toll.
Updated
Hong Kong has effectively banned an annual vigil for the Tiananmen Square massacre by extending its social distancing measures for another 14 days.
After two consecutive days without local transmissions of Covid-19, the city state’s authorities announced some restrictions would ease, but those limiting gatherings to a maximum of eight would be extended for another 14 days.
The restrictions were due to expire this week but will now end no earlier than 5 June, the day after Hong Kong’s annual vigil commemorating the Chinese army’s brutal crackdown on protesters in 1989.
The event has been held every year since 1990. It is the biggest and traditionally the only major commemoration of the incident allowed in China, sometimes drawing more than 100,000 people.
Macau has traditionally held a photo exhibit on “tank man”, but last week authorities withdrew approval.
At a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Hong Kong’s secretary for food and health, Sophia Chan, said the city didn’t have the right conditions yet to relax social-distancing laws and denied the extension was designed to stop the vigil.
“All along we have extended bans by 14 days,” she said. “Our overall consideration is about public health and there is no other factor coming into account.”
The Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is back at work today after being diagnosed with Covid-19, the Kremlin has said.
The Kremlin said president Vladimir Putin had signed a decree cancelling a temporary transfer of Mishustin’s duties to the first deputy prime minister, Andrey Belousov, who had been Russia’s acting prime minister since 30 April.
Germany’s national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, is to double the number of train cleaners during journeys over the summer.
So-called Unterwegsreiniger or ‘in transit cleaners’ will be increased to 500 in July, and to 600 in August, when summer travel is expected to be at its peak.
This is in addition to its regular team of over 4,000 cleaners.
Usually the cleaners concentrate on emptying rubbish bins and cleaning the toilets, but they will now have to pay particular attention to any contact surfaces such as door handles, vertical poles and grips, ticket machines and any surface such as tables or armrests on chairs, as well as toilets, where the virus might be present.
On platforms, particular attention will be paid to the regular cleaning of ticket and snack machines, according to a report seen by the news network Funke Mediengruppe.
DB is also planning to install free disinfectant dispensers at 180 railway stations to encourage individuals to take care of their own hygiene.
While passengers are encouraged to bring their own face coverings with them, in compliance with the requirement for every passenger to wear one on public transport, DB has acquired 19m face masks, which it will sell on board.
The United Kingdom’s official Covid-19 death toll has reached nearly 43,000, according to a Reuters tally of data that includes suspected cases, and confirms the country’s status as the worst-hit in Europe.
New figures from the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales brought the death toll to at least 42,990, the tally showed, including previously published data from Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well recent hospital deaths data in England.
The wearing of facemasks is to become compulsory in Spain, the government has announced.
The decision follows a meeting yesterday between the government and representatives of Spain’s 17 self-governing regions.
“Masks will be obligatory on public transport - as they already are - but also in enclosed spaces and on the streets if the minimum safety distance of two metres can’t be observed,” the government said in a statement. Orders officially stipulating their use will be made over the next few days.
Last week, Fernando Simón, the head of Spain’s centre for health emergencies, hinted that the use of masks could be expanded, saying: “The use of facemasks is very advisable and everyone who can should use them in public spaces.”
MPs are due to vote tomorrow on the government’s request for a fifth and final extension of the state of emergency, which has been in place since 14 March.
The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, wants an extension to 27 June, arguing that it is “the only possible path” to safeguarding the gains made in the fight against the virus.
The government secured the current extension, which expires on 24 May, despite fierce opposition from the conservative People’s party and the far-right Vox party.
It faces an uphill battle in congress on Wednesday, and will have to rely on the support of smaller parties to get the extension approved.
Only a simple majority - more yes votes than no votes - is needed. The government has also suggested that the extension need not last a whole month in areas that progress more quickly than others.
Meanwhile, protests against Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition have continued in wealthy neighbourhoods of Madrid and have spread to some other cities.
Although 70% of the country is now in the second phase of lockdown de-escalation, the Madrid region, the Barcelona metropolitan area and parts of Castilla y León remain in the preliminary phase, meaning people cannot meet up in groups of up to 10, nor have a drink or a meal on the terraces outside cafes and bars.
Updated
British politicians heaped fresh pressure on the government for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak today, calling its testing regime “inadequate” in the early stages.
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been criticised for his initial response to the global pandemic, and has faced weeks of pressure about the availability of tests for the virus.
The country has recorded 34,796 deaths – the second highest toll in the world behind the US – and 246,406 cases, according to the latest figures.
But despite a recent surge in daily tests and the expansion of eligibility, MPs on a parliamentary committee said: “Testing capacity has been inadequate for most of the pandemic so far.”
In a 19-page letter to Johnson, they said:
Capacity was not increased early enough or boldly enough.
Capacity drove strategy, rather than strategy driving capacity.
The findings by the House of Commons science and technology committee come after six sessions of evidence involving scientists, public health experts and government advisers, which also looked at other countries’ responses to the virus.
On Sunday, Britain carried out 100,678 tests for coronavirus, but only 1,215 tests were performed on 10 March – two weeks before a nationwide lockdown was ordered as cases spiked.
MPs said there was “consensus … that testing capacity has been too low”.
Reacting to the report, the work and pensions minister, Thérèse Coffey, told the BBC: “The capacity is there.”
Updated
China says US trying to shift blame for mishandling coronavirus crisis
Beijing has accused Donald Trump of smearing China and shirking American responsibilities to the World Health Organization, after the US president threatened to pull out of the UN health body.
The American leader has been locked in a bitter war of words with Beijing, alleging it covered up the initial outbreak in central China late last year before the disease spread globally.
Trump on Monday called the WHO a “puppet of China” before tweeting a letter he had sent to the organisation’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, threatening to make permanent a temporary freeze on funding from the US.
China in response accused Trump of trying to “smear China” and “shirk responsibility and bargain over its international obligations to the WHO”, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing Tuesday.
Zhao said:
The US leader’s open letter you mentioned is full of hints, ‘perhaps’, and ‘maybes’, and tries to use specious methods to mislead the public, and achieve the goals of smearing China’s anti-virus efforts, and shirk responsibility for the United States’ own insufficient response.
The US tries to use China as an issue to shirk responsibility and bargain over its international obligations to the WHO. This is a miscalculation and the US has picked the wrong target.
Zhao added the US was attempting to deflect from its own “insufficient prevention and control” against the virus.
With more fatalities and cases in the United States than any other country by far, Trump has blamed the WHO for not doing enough to combat its initial spread.
“The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China,” Trump’s letter read.
Updated
A prolonged global slump and surge in bankruptcies arising from the coronavirus pandemic are the foremost concerns for companies surveyed in a World Economic Forum report out today.
Recessions on a scale not seen since the 1930s Great Depression demand more action from governments to ensure a timely recovery and to put growth on a healthier path, the report also said.
The survey of 347 company risk managers looked at the biggest concerns for the next 18 months, after the pandemic shuttered large swathes of production and forced massive rescue packages by governments around the world.
They identified the most likely fallout as an extended downturn, a jump in company failures allied, along with high youth unemployment.
The debt accrued in the rescue packages could depress government and hold back growth for years, and also stymie efforts to combat climate change, the report said.
The crisis has “revealed the inadequacies of the past”, Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum, said.
We now have a unique opportunity to use this crisis to do things differently and build back better economies that are more sustainable, resilient and inclusive.
A second wave of Covid-19 was another concern identified in Tuesday’s report, along with the dangers of cyberattacks and data fraud as much corporate activity shifts online.
A consortium of British companies said they were ramping up ventilator production to make sure there were enough available should there be a second spike in the coronavirus outbreak.
Dick Elsy, chairman of VentilatorChallengeUK - a consortium of industrial, technology and engineering businesses - said:
We are continuing to scale up our production capabilities to make sure that there is always a ventilator available when a patient needs it should a second wave strike the UK.
A healthcare worker has written this incredibly moving first-hand piece about caring for a Covid-19 patient on a ventilator in hospital.
Why was she so special to me? Despite having done this job for a few years, sometimes it is impossible to predict which patients will be the ones you take home with you, the ones you think about as you cry yourself to sleep.
Maybe it’s because she was one of us – a healthcare worker. I know this could happen to me or any of my loving colleagues. I am aware of this risk every time I get into my car to come to work, every time I put on my personal protective equipment (PPE) – I wonder, “Will this mask protect me this time?”
Or maybe it’s because she is a mother, whose family cannot be there for her, to sit by her; to cheer her on with soft words of encouragement and love, to hold her hand, to cry over. Is this what would happen if my mother became ill right now? Who would hold her hand?
Russia coronavirus cases edge towards 300,000
The number of coronavirus cases in Russia has risen to nearly 300,000, with authorities registering more than 9,000 new infections after saying the virus situation had stabilised.
Health officials reported 9,263 new infections in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 299,941, the second highest in the world after the United States.
The prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, who along with several other senior officials has tested positive for the virus, said on Monday the country had stopped the growth of new infections but cautioned that the situation remains “difficult”.
Tuesday’s tally saw new cases fall below 10,000 for the fourth day in a row, after Monday’s count saw new infections under 9,000 for the first time since the beginning of May.
There were 115 new coronavirus fatalities since the last update on Monday, bringing Russia’s total to 2,837.
Critics have cast doubt on Russia’s low official mortality rate, accusing authorities of under-reporting in order to play down the scale of the crisis.
Russian health officials say one of the reasons the count is lower than in the United States and parts of western Europe is that only deaths directly caused by the virus are being included.
Authorities also say that since the virus came later to Russia, there was more time to prepare hospital beds and launch wide-scale testing to slow the spread.
Updated
Unemployment surges in the UK
British unemployment jumped in the first quarter on the back of coronavirus, despite a lockdown being imposed only near the end of the period, official data has shown.
The total number of unemployed people rose 50,000 to 1.3 million in three months to March from a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said.
The ONS also revealed that jobless claims, made under the Universal Credit welfare support system, surged 69% or 856,000 to 2.1 million in April from March.
Britain had imposed a lockdown on 23 March in a bid to halt the spread of the coronavirus, and launched a so-called furlough jobs retention scheme under which the government stepped in to back up employee wages.
Jonathan Athow, ONS deputy national statistician for economic statistics, said:
While only covering the first weeks of restrictions, our figures show Covid-19 is having a major impact on the labour market.
In March employment held up well, as furloughed workers still count as employed, but hours worked fell sharply in late March, especially in sectors such as hospitality and construction.
The ONS also signalled in an early estimate that the number of paid employees in April fell by 1.6% compared to March.
“Through April... there were signs of falling employment as real-time tax data show the number of employees on companies’ payrolls fell noticeably, and vacancies were sharply down too, with hospitality again falling steepest,” added Athow.
The finance minister, Rishi Sunak, last week extended the furlough policy by four months until the end of October.
The government scheme is supporting 7.5m jobs, ensuring employees receive 80% of their monthly pay up to £2,500 ($3,100, €2,800).
You can follow developments in the UK more closely with our UK coronavirus live blog, currently being headed up by my colleague, Frances Perraudin.
Updated
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by coverage of the pandemic, try this daily list of non-coronavirus articles our readers spent the most time with.
Today’s round up features the Kaiser Chiefs, Saturday Night Live, and king pairs - the greatest indignity in cricket.
Austria insists that the European Union’s emergency aid for coronavirus-hit member states should be based on repayable loans not grants, Austrian daily Die Presse reports.
The European Union’s biggest powers, Germany and France, proposed a €500bn ($546bn) fund on Monday that would offer non-repayable grants to EU regions and sectors hit hardest by the pandemic, with the cash borrowed by the bloc as a whole rather than by individual member states.
The plan requires the consent of all EU members.
“We will continue to show solidarity and support countries most affected by the corona crisis, but this must be done through loans and not through grants,” the paper quoted a chancellery statement as saying.
Authorities in eastern India and Bangladesh were relocating tens of thousands of villagers away from the coastline on Tuesday ahead of a super cyclone that is expected to inflict large-scale damage as both countries struggle to contain the coronavirus.
Coronavirus quarantine shelters in India were being converted to cyclone shelters, leaving authorities to manage social distancing to try and prevent the spread of coronavirus.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, officials were moving people to higher ground and urged them to maintain social distance and wear masks as the country has recorded over 20,995 coronavirus cases and 314 deaths so far.
India’s weather office said the super cyclone Amphan had reached winds of up to 240 kmh (145 mph) with gusts of around 265 kph (165 mph) over the Bay of Bengal on Monday night and was expected to make a landfall on Wednesday.
Such wind speeds, according to weather officials, could make Amphan one of the biggest storms to hit Indian in about a decade.
The cyclone comes as India eased the world’s biggest lockdown imposed in April to contain the coronavirus which has infected more than 100,000 people in the country and killed 3,163.
The states of Odisha and West Bengal were moving families to more than 1,000 shelters in government offices and educational centres, and were hastily converting coronavirus quarantine centres into cyclone shelters.
SG Rai, an official in federal disaster management office, told Reuters:
We have just about six hours left to evacuate people from their homes and we also have to maintain social distancing norms … the cyclone could wash away thousands of huts and standing crop.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, officials intensified rescue operations as the cyclone could trigger the worst storm in about 15 years along the country’s low-lying coast.
“We have prepared 12,000 cyclone centres, where more than five million people can take shelter. We have also taken necessary steps so that people can maintain distance and wear masks,” said Enamur Rahman, the junior minister for disaster management and relief in the capital, Dhaka.
Updated
Czech coronavirus cases show biggest jump in four weeks
The number of new coronavirus cases in the Czech Republic showed its biggest daily rise in four weeks and climbed above 100 for the first time this month.
The health ministry said 111 new cases had been recorded on Monday, bringing the total in the central European country to 8,586. It reported no new deaths, leaving the toll at 297.
The rise is partly due to an outbreak reported by state-owned coal miner OKD at its Darkov mine near the eastern town of Karvina, close to the Polish border, Czech Radio reported.
The radio said 53 cases had been confirmed among 860 miners tested by Monday evening.
The Czech Republic, like others in central Europe, closed schools, shops and borders when the outbreak started in March and has seen a increase in the number of people recovering.
Authorities have been reopening the economy in recent weeks by reopening most shops along with cinemas, theatres and outdoor dining places.
There are plans to let restaurants open indoor areas next week.
The government is also planning to ease travel to and from countries deemed safe from risks of coronavirus from 8 June, the health minister, Adam Vojtěch, said on Monday.
Updated
Farmers in China are being offered cash to stop breeding exotic animals as pressure grows to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade that has been blamed for the coronavirus outbreak.
Authorities have for the first time pledged to buy out breeders in an attempt to curb the practice, animal rights activists say.
China has in recent months banned the sale of wild animals for food, citing the risk of diseases spreading to humans, but the trade remains legal for other purposes including research and traditional medicine.
The deadly coronavirus – first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan – is widely believed to have passed from bats to people before spreading worldwide.
Two central provinces have outlined details of a buyout programme to help farmers transition to alternative livelihoods.
Hunan on Friday set out a compensation scheme to persuade breeders to rear other livestock, or produce tea and herbal medicines.
Authorities are offering to pay 120 yuan ($16) per kilogram of cobra, king rattlesnake or rat snake, while a kilogram of bamboo rat will fetch 75 yuan.
A civet cat – the animal believed to have carried Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) to humans in another coronavirus outbreak nearly two decades ago – is worth 600 yuan.
Neighbouring Jiangxi province has also released documents on plans to help farmers dispose of animals and financial aid.
Both Jiangxi and Hunan border Hubei, the province where the coronavirus first emerged in December.
Animal rights group Humane Society International (HSI) said Hunan and Jiangxi are “major wildlife breeding provinces”, with Jiangxi seeing a rapid expansion of the trade over the last decade.
Revenues from breeding reached 10bn yuan in 2018, it said.
HSI China policy specialist Peter Li told AFP that similar plans should be rolled out across the country.
But he cautioned that Hunan’s proposals leave room for farmers to continue breeding exotic creatures as long as the animals are not sent to food markets. The province’s plan also does not include many wild animals bred for fur, traditional Chinese medicine or entertainment.
Li said Chinese authorities are nevertheless moving in the right direction.
In the past 20 years, a lot of people have been telling the Chinese government to buy out certain wildlife breeding operations, for example bear farming.
This is the first time that the Chinese government actually decided to do it, which opens a precedent... (for when) other production needs to be phased out.
Updated
A photograph of a migrant labourer, his face contorted with anguish as he sits on the roadside in Delhi speaking to his wife about their sick baby boy, has come to symbolise the ordeal of India’s daily wage workers; penniless, and unable to get home to their families because of the lockdown.
Rampukar Pandit, a construction worker in the Indian capital, had heard that his 11-month-old son was seriously unwell. With no public transport to reach his home in Begusarai in Bihar, 1,200 km (745 miles) away, he started walking. He reached Nizamuddin Bridge where, exhausted and hungry, he could go no further.
Atul Yadav, a photographer with the Press Trust of India, was heading home from work on 11 May when he saw Pandit, 38, sobbing his heart out. Pandit refused his offer of biscuits and water, saying food would “choke” him because he couldn’t eat while his son was unwell.
“He was so emotional I had to stop shooting. He had been sitting on the road for three days,” said Yadav.
‘We labourers don’t belong to any country,” Pandit told Yadav. “All I want is to go home and see my son.”
Later that evening, he reached a nearby police station. He was still waiting for the police to help when a group of well-wishers, having seen Yadav’s tweet about Pandit, arrived in the area and managed to find him at the station.
By now, he was full of grief. His wife, Bimal Devi, had just called to say their son had died. One of the well-wishers, a woman, paid for and arranged for his train ticket home. “He wept with gratitude at strangers helping him,” said Yadav.
Updated
Lockdowns around the world have dramatically reduced the number of street protests and political demonstrations.
Photographs taken in Bangkok in May contrast with images from 10 years ago when the capital was in the throes of anti-government protests and occupations which culminated in a military crackdown that cost dozens of lives.
Tanzania’s divisive president, John Magufuli, has said the economy is “more important than the threat posed by coronavirus”, adding that he wants to reopen the country for tourism despite warnings that Africa could face the next wave of the disease.
The comments by Magufuli, who has modelled his populist response on that of Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro – in repeatedly denying the risk of the pandemic to his country – come amid mounting alarm among Tanzania’s neighbours over his approach.
So far there have been 21 officially recorded Covid-19 deaths in Tanzania.
Magufuli made the remarks on Sunday during a mass in his hometown of Chato, where he said he intended to keep Tanzania’s borders open with its eight neighbours. The remarks follow a series of statements in recent weeks minimising the threat of coronavirus.
In a video, the Tanzanian president once again touted natural remedies for coronavirus, saying these had helped his son.
In a video that went viral, he said:
My own son, after contracting the virus, closed himself in his room, took a lemon and ginger solution before getting well and is even able to do push-ups.
We have had a number of viral diseases, including Aids and measles. Our economy must come first. It must not sleep. If we allow our economy to sleep, we will not receive salaries … Life must go on.
As I am talking here, some airline operators are fully booked – until August – with tourists who want to visit Tanzania.
The president’s latest comments follow several bizarre interventions – including his order that animals and fruit be tested for the virus as a demonstration of “false positives”. He has also been accused by health professionals of covering up the true number of infections.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 513 to 175,210, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases shows, with new infections accelerating after decelerating the previous four days.
The reported death toll rose by 72 to 8,007, the tally showed.
Updated
The US will announce on Tuesday that it has signed one of its largest ever contracts to boost pharmaceutical manufacturing in the country.
The $354m, four-year contract with a company in Virginia is to make generic medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients needed to treat Covid-19 that are currently largely imported from abroad, the New York Times has reported.
The contract was awarded to Phlow Corp, a generic drugmaker that makes medicines overseas, mostly in India and China, according to the NYT.
Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, called this “a historic turning point in America’s efforts to onshore its pharmaceutical production and supply chains”.
The US health secretary, Alex Azar, called the initiative “a significant step to rebuild our domestic ability to protect ourselves from health threats”, in a statement the administration plans to make public on Tuesday morning, according to the NYT.
The NYT added that the contract may be extended for a total of $812m over 10 years, making it one of the largest awards in the authority’s history.
Updated
Hello everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be running the global blog for the next few hours, following the latest coronavirus developments across the world.
As always, please do feel free to get in touch if you would like to share your own experiences or thoughts.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
I’ll do my best to respond to as many as I can!
Phew. Between Trump and, well, Trump, it’s been quite a day so far. That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan.
My colleague Jessica Murray is joining you now for the next few hours.
Thanks as always for following along.
Summary
- Global cases pass 4.8 million. There are 4,805,005 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The death toll stands at 318,534. US deaths, the highest worldwide, passed 90,000, and the number of cases climbed above 1.5m, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
- Trump threatens to make WHO funding freeze ‘permanent’. Late on Monday evening, Donald Trump tweeted a letter addressed to World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying that if the WHO “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership of the organization”. The letter does not detail what the improvements are.
- WHO chief promises review of coronavirus response. Before Trump’s letter was released, the World Health Organization said on Monday that an independent review of the global coronavirus response would begin as soon as possible . A resolution drafted by the European Union calling for an independent evaluation of the WHO’s performance appeared to have won consensus backing among the WHO’s 194 states. The motion is expected to be voted on on Tuesday.
- Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine. After the US president told reporters at the White House that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine, his doctor released a letter confirming that they had discussed the use of the drug and “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks”. A White House spokesperson told the New York Times that Trump was prescribed the drug and is taking it. The US Food and Drug Administration has cautioned against use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for Covid-19 outside of a hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems.
- Brazil cases overtake UK to become third-highest worldwide. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil stands at 255,368, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, making the country the third-worst affected in terms of cases.There are 16,792 officially confirmed deaths in Brazil, which is lower than the UK, Italy, Spain and France.
- IMF chief says full economic recovery unlikely in 2021. The global economy will take much longer to recover fully from the shock caused by the new coronavirus than initially expected, the head of the International Monetary Fund said, and she stressed the danger of protectionism. Managing director Kristalina Georgieva said the IMF was likely to revise downward its forecast for a 3% contraction in GDP in 2020, but gave no details. That would likely also trigger changes in the fund’s forecast of a partial recovery of 5.8% in 2021.
- Deaths in Australia reach 100. The death toll in Australia has reached 100, following the death of a 93-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with Covid-19.The woman had been a resident at Newmarch House, the care home in western Sydney that has been the site of a cluster of cases.
- India cases pass 100,000. The number of confirmed cases in India has passed 100,000, standing at 100,328 according to Johns Hopkins University figures.The country has recorded 3,156 deaths. The government this week extended a nationwide lockdown to the end of May, but with significantly reduced restrictions, including allowing markets and standalone shops can reopen from Monday, with social distancing measures. Inter and intra-state road travel resumed with the agreement of states, but air travel, both domestic and international is still banned.
Updated
Government wage subsidies for disabled and vulnerable workers could be drastically scaled back from August under Treasury plans to wind down its Covid-19 furlough scheme, employers’ groups have warned.
Charities and social enterprise employers have been told by the government that its plan to bring the coronavirus job retention scheme to an eventual close this autumn does not currently include an exemption for vulnerable workers.
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, announced last week that the furlough scheme – under which the government pays 80% of staff wages up to £2,500 a month – would be extended until October. However, state support will be scaled back from August, with employers expected to contribute to maintain a wage packet of at least 80% for furloughed workers.
Although a final decision has yet to be taken, the chancellor is believed to favour a universal approach to scaling back the scheme for all employers, without tailoring it to reflect a gradual return to work for firms and workers.
Italy has started easing coronavirus lockdown restrictions and some shops, restaurants and museums have reopened for the first time in two months. Physical distancing remains but people in Rome were able to enjoy a drink or visit mass. In Venice, stores and restaurants reopened, though without the usual crowds of tourists around:
Children in Australia’s most populated state will return to school full-time next week, a major step towards normalising life amid the coronavirus pandemic, as the nation on Tuesday recorded its 100th fatality from the disease.
The directive from New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian to reopen schools full-time lifts childcare responsibilities for the parents and carers of around 800,000 children in public schools as Australia seeks to stem a surge in unemployment and restart the economy.
The decision caught the state’s teachers union by surprise, with Teachers Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos saying it “caused a lot of concern, frustration and anger among teachers and principals.”
“They turned themselves inside out, not once, not twice, but repeatedly, trying to come to terms with this crisis and fulfilling their professional and social and moral responsibilities,” Gavrielatos told Australian Broadcasting Corp television.
Australia’s states and territories are beginning to allow more public activity under a three-step federal government plan to end two months of shutdowns that officials have credited with keeping the country’s exposure to the pandemic relatively low.
UK front pages Tuesday, 19 May
Tuesday’s Guardian:
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) May 18, 2020
Revealed: how agency care home staff spread Covid-19 #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/MRzEHNXmsB
Tuesday’s The Scotsman: Testing for all as Scotland prepares to ease lockdown #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/XoVgmOV2OE
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) May 18, 2020
Tuesday’s Independent: Everyone over five now eligible for testing #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/KpoA3Z7vVg
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) May 18, 2020
Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph: ‘Air bridge’ plan to save holidays abroad #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/M8PbgiSqwo
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) May 18, 2020
Tuesday’s Times: ‘Air bridges’ plan revives hope of summer flights #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/hMkUDNNAlO
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) May 18, 2020
Tuesday’s Financial Times: Germany and France join forces to call for €500bn EU recovery fund #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/tw8fnvACvA
— Helena Wilkinson (@BBCHelena) May 18, 2020
Thailand on Tuesday confirmed two new coronavirus cases and no additional deaths, bringing its total to 3,033 infections, a senior official said.
The two new cases were in the south in a province bordering Malaysia, Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, said at a daily briefing.
There have been 56 deaths since the outbreak began in January and 2,857 patients have recovered.
Global report: Trump threatens to pull out of WHO over ‘failed response’ to pandemic
The Guardian’s Julian Borger and Alison Rourke report:
Donald Trump has threatened to cut funding to the World Health Organization permanently and even pull the US out of the global body altogether unless it makes “major substantive improvements” which the president did not explain.
On Monday night, the president published the letter, citing a timeline of the organisation’s alleged failings, which was based on a selective version of the pandemic, highlighting where the WHO had publicised Chinese findings on the nature of the disease, but ignoring or glossing over clear warnings from the organisation about the dangers of the contagion.
The move came hours after the US president told reporters he had been taking hydroxychloroquine for a couple of weeks, despite warnings from his administration that it is dangerous. “I think it’s good, I heard a lot of good stories … I take a pill every day,” he said.
The letter is the latest salvo in a war of words between Trump and the WHO that has unfolded in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The US president, who is under pressure at home over his response to the pandemic, temporarily froze funding to the WHO in April, accusing the global body of “severely mismanaging and covering up” the threat. At the time, critics were stunned at the move to cut money from a critical UN agency during a global pandemic.
Before Trump’s letter, Tedros acknowledged there had been shortcomings and told the virtual assembly he welcomed calls for a review. “I will initiate an independent evaluation at the earliest appropriate moment to review experience gained and lessons learned, and to make recommendations to improve national and global pandemic preparedness and response,” he said. “But one thing is abundantly clear. The world must never be the same.”
India cases pass 100,000
The number of confirmed cases in India has passed 100,000, currently standing at 100,328 according to Johns Hopkins University figures.
The country has recorded 3,156 deaths.
The government this week extended a nationwide lockdown to the end of May, but with significantly reduced restrictions. Markets and standalone shops can reopen from Monday, with social distancing measures, but malls will remain closed.
Inter and intra-state road travel can resume with the agreement of states, but air travel, both domestic and international is still banned. Metro rail services, cinemas and gyms remain closed. Restaurants can open for home delivery, but schools and places of worship will remain closed.
Schools and places of worship remain closed, domestic and international air travel will not be allowed and a 7pm-7am curfew on movement stays in place. The government has also advised people over 65, those with co-morbidities, pregnant women, and children below the age of 10, should stay at home.
States will have the power to determine red, orange and green zones, as well as so-called containment zones, where large outbreaks or clusters happen, and different rules will apply in each zone. The country has been under lockdown since 25 March.
Summary
Here are the main developments from the last few hours:
- Global cases pass 4.8 million. There are 4,805,005 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The death toll stands at 318,534.
- WHO chief promises review of coronavirus response. The World Health Organization said on Monday an independent review of the global coronavirus response would begin as soon as possible . A resolution drafted by the European Union calling for an independent evaluation of the WHO’s performance appeared to have won consensus backing among the WHO’s 194 states, but has not yet passed. It is expected to pass on Tuesday.
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Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine. The president said he has been taking hydroxychloroquine, his doctor released a letter confirming that they had discussed the use of the drug and “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.” A White House spokesperson told the New York Times that Trump was prescribed the drug and is taking it. The US Food and Drug Administration cautions against use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for Covid-19 outside of a hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems.
- Trump warns WHO must make ‘major improvements’ or funding freeze to be ‘permanent’. Late on Monday evening, US President Donald Trump released a letter addressed to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The letter states that if the WHO “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership of the organization.” The letter states that the Trump administration’s review into the WHO’s response to the coronavirus outbreak “confirmed many of the serious concerns I raised...and identified others that the World Health Organization should have addressed, especially the World Health Organization’s alarming lack of independence from the People’s Republic of China.”
- US deaths pass 90,000. The coronavirus death told in the US passed 90,000 Monday, and the number of cases climbed above 1.5m, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
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Brazil cases overtake UK to become third-highest worldwide. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil stands at 255,368, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, making the country the third-worst affected in terms of cases.There are 16,792 officially confirmed deaths in Brazil, which is lower than the UK, Italy, Spain and France.
- IMF chief says full economic recovery unlikely in 2021. The global economy will take much longer to recover fully from the shock caused by the new coronavirus than initially expected, the head of the International Monetary Fund said, and she stressed the danger of protectionism. Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the Fund was likely to revise downward its forecast for a 3% contraction in GDP in 2020, but gave no details. That would likely also trigger changes in the Fund’s forecast of a partial recovery of 5.8% in 2021.
- Deaths in Australia reach 100. The death toll in Australia has reached 100, following the death of a 93-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with Covid-19.The woman had been a resident at Newmarch House, the aged care home in western Sydney which has been the site of a cluster of cases.
- India cases pass 100,000. The number of confirmed cases in India has passed 100,000, currently standing at 100,328 according to Johns Hopkins University figures.The country has recorded 3,156 deaths. The government this week extended a nationwide lockdown to the end of May, but with significantly reduced restrictions, including allowing markets and standalone shops can reopen from Monday, with social distancing measures. Inter and intra-state road travel resumed with the agreement of states, but air travel, both domestic and international is still banned.
- Some areas of New York City have seen death rates nearly 15 times higher than others, according to data released by New York City’s health department, showing the disproportionate toll taken on poorer communities. The highest death rate was seen on the edge of Brooklyn in a neighbourhood dominated by a large subsidised-housing development called Starrett City.
- Qatar will close all shops and halt all commercial activities, from 19 to 30 May, state news agency QNA has reported, citing a decision by Qatar’s cabinet. The closure excludes pharmacies, food supply stores and food deliveries.
- Italy registers lowest deaths since March as bars, restaurants, shops, hairdressers, museums and churches reopen. Italy registered 99 deaths and 451 infections on Monday. There is also a significant fall in new infections in Lombardy, the region worst affected by the virus, from 326 on Sunday to 175 on Monday.
Australia had been one of the most vocal and early advocates of an independent international investigation into the origins and handling of Covid-19. Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, had originally called for “an independent review mechanism” and argued it could not be overseen by the WHO because “that strikes me as somewhat poacher and gamekeeper”.
Earlier today, the Chinese embassy in Canberra declared it is “nothing but a joke” for Australia to claim vindication over the growing global support for an international review into the handling of Covid-19.
The comments came as trade tensions intensify over China’s decision to hit Australian barley imports with tariffs of more than 80% – a move that Australia will weigh up challenging through the World Trade Organization.
A motion calling for an independent evaluation of the global response to the pandemic, drafted by the European Union, is expected to pass the World Health Assembly on Tuesday.
The motion – co-sponsored by about 120 countries – calls on the WHO’s director general to initiate a “stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” to review the lessons learned from the international health response to Covid-19.
This process should be launched “at the earliest appropriate moment” and in consultation with WHO member states.
The wording of the EU-drafted motion which has wide support at the World Health Assembly allows for the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to be the one to initiate “a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” at a future date. While the exact forms of the review are not yet settled, the motion allows for the possibility of “using existing mechanisms, as appropriate”.
That could include a role for the WHO’s Independent Oversight Advisory Committee - which Tedros specifically mentioned in his speech to the World Health Assembly yesterday. Tedros said he would initiate an independent evaluation at the earliest appropriate moment so the world could learn the lessons from the pandemic. “To be truly comprehensive, such an evaluation must encompass the entirety of the response by all actors, in good faith.”
Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
Some claims in the letter are false, for example that Taiwan had warned about human-to-human transmission of the disease on 31 December. On that date Taiwan sent a letter to the WHO noting the reported spate of unexplained pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China, and that the patients were in isolation, and asking for further details.
As the pandemic has worsened in the US, even as other countries have begun a tentative recovery Trump has sought to blame China and the WHO. He has suspended US funding to the organisation, pointing to the disparity between US and much smaller Chinese contributions and accusing Tedros and his team of being China-centric.
Trump ended the letter with an ultimatum calling for “ major substantive improvements” by the WHO. He did not make clear what “substantive improvements” the US wanted to see. The US health and human services department has circulated a discussion document with other member states that was largely seen as moderate, calling for the WHO’s powers of inspection to be strengthened for example. Similar proposals were included in a resolution that appeared to have majority support at Monday’s World Health Assembly.
However, some US officials have suggested more drastic measures, like making the WHO emergency programme semi-autonomous from the main organisation. That would be seen as unpalatable by many member states.
Here is that concluding paragraph, where Trump threatens to “permanently” end the US’s funding to the WHO and to end its membership:
It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world. The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China. My Administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organization. But action is needed quickly. We do not have time to waste. That is why it is my duty, as President of the United States, to inform you that, if the World Health Organization does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization. I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America’s interests.
You can read the letter for yourself here:
This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
The letter from the US president, images of which were tweeted by Trump late on Monday night in the US, also takes personal issue with the leadership of World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:
Perhaps worse than all these failings is that we know that the World Health Organization could have done so much better. Just a few years ago, under the direction of a different Director-General, the World Health Organization showed the world how much it has to offer. In 2003, in response to the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, Director-General Harlem Brundtland boldly declared the World Health Organization’s first emergency travel advisory in 55 years, recommending against travel to and from the disease epicenter in southern China. She also did not hesitate to criticize China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak through its usual playbook of arresting whistleblowers and censoring media. Many lives could have been saved had you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example.
Updated
The focus of this letter is undoubtedly not the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic in general, but what Trump alleges is its “alarming lack of independence from the People’s Republic of China.”
While many of the claims may be factually accurate, Trump is arguably seeking to scapegoat China and the WHO in order to distract from his own lack of leadership.
The US is the worst-affected country globally – and by a long shot.
It has over 1.5 million cases of the virus, and more than 90,000 people have died.
The five countries with the next highest cases have each confirmed fewer than 300,000, according to Johns Hopkins figures. Even with underreporting, there is a significant gap.
The UK has the next highest deaths, with 34,876.
Trump writes in the letter:
Throughout this crisis, the World Health Organization has been curiously insistent on praising China for its alleged “transparency.” You have consistently joined in these tributes, notwithstanding that China has been anything but transparent. In early January, for example, China ordered samples of the virus to be destroyed, depriving the world of critical information. Even now, China continues to undermine the International Health Regulations by refusing to share accurate and timely data, viral samples and isolates, and by withholding vital information about the virus and its origins. And, to this day, China continues to deny international access to their scientists and relevant facilities, all while casting blame widely and recklessly and censoring its own experts.
I will continue to post key extracts from the letter, but in the meantime it is worth returning to this piece by my colleague Julian Borger from 9 April: Trump scapegoating of WHO obscures its key role in tackling pandemic.
Trump claimed that his ban “shut down” intercontinental transmission of the virus, but an ABC television investigation found that there were 3,200 flights from China to the US in the critical period between December and March.
By the time Trump’s ban was announced, it was far too late to stop the virus entering the US. It was already rampant in US communities, but Trump continued to tell Americans that the outbreak would not affect them, and wholesale US testing failed to get off the ground for another six weeks.
Trump writes in the letter to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:
On March 3, 2020, the World Health Organization cited official Chinese data to downplay the very serious risk of asymptomatic spread, telling the world that “COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza” and that unlike influenza this disease was not primarily driven by “people who are infected but not yet sick.” China’s evidence, the World Health Organization told the world, “showed that only one percent of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within two days.” Many experts, however, citing data from Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere, vigorously questioned these assertions. It is now clear that China’s assertions, repeated to the world by the World Health Organization, were wildly inaccurate.
The remarks Trump is referring to state:
Both COVID-19 and influenza cause respiratory disease and spread the same way, via small droplets of fluid from the nose and mouth of someone who is sick.
However, there are some important differences between COVID-19 and influenza.
First, COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza, from the data we have so far.
With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19.
On 13 March the Guardian’s science editor Ian Sample reported:
Many coronavirus infections may be spread by people who have recently caught the virus and have not yet begun to show symptoms, scientists have found.
An analysis of infections in Singapore and Tianjin in China revealed that two-thirds and three-quarters of people respectively appear to have caught it from others who were incubating the virus but still symptom-free.
The finding has dismayed infectious disease researchers as it means that isolating people once they start to feel ill will be far less effective at slowing the pandemic than had been hoped.
The letter also states that “the World Health Organization has repeatedly made claims about the coronavirus that were either grossly inaccurate or misleading.”
He has referred to the World Health Organizations’ “political gamesmanship” as “deadly”, writing in the letter that:
Your political gamesmanship on this issue was deadly, as other governments, relying on your comments, delayed imposing life-saving restrictions on travel to and from China.
The wording is extremely strong.
Trump also again praises his decision to close borders and takes issue with the lack of praise from the WHO:
You also strongly praised China’s strict domestic travel restrictions, but were inexplicably against my closing of the United States border, or the ban, with respect to people coming from China. I put the ban in place regardless of your wishes.
Among the claims the letter alleges were “grossly innacurate or misleading” are:
On January 14, 2020, the World Health Organization gratuitously reaffirmed China’s now-debunked claim that the coronavirus could not be transmitted between humans, stating: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) identified in Wuhan, China.” This assertion was in direct conflict with censored reports from Wuhan.
On January 21, 2020, President Xi Jinping of China reportedly pressured you not to declare the coronavirus outbreak an emergency. You gave in to this pressure the next day and told the world that the coronavirus did not pose a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Just over one week later, on January 30, 2020, overwhelming evidence to the contrary forced you to reverse course.
On January 28, 2020, after meeting with President Xi in Beijing, you praised the Chinese government for its “transparency” with respect to the coronavirus, announcing that China had set a “new standard for outbreak control” and “bought the world time.” You did not mention that China had, by then, silenced or punished several doctors for speaking out about the virus and restricted Chinese institutions from publishing information about it.
Further claims made in the US president’s letter include:
According to Dr. Zhang Yongzhen of the Shanghai Public Health Clinic Center, he told Chinese authorities on January 5, 2020, that he had sequenced the genome of the virus.
...
The World Health Organization has been conspicuously silent both with respect to the closure of to the closure of Dr. Zhang’s lab and his assertion that he had notified Chinese authorities of his breakthrough six days earlier.
Here is an earlier Guardian blog post on that incident:
The Chinese laboratory that first sequenced and shared the coronavirus genome publicly has been closed down by the authorities for “rectification”, the South China Morning Post reports.
On 12 January, a day after the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre’s laboratory shared the information online – a move that helped companies to devise new diagnostic kits for the virulent respiratory illness – officials from the Shanghai Health Commission ordered it to close.
The PHCC lab is a level-three biosafety facility that had only last month passed its annual inspections. It had obtained the necessary credentials and permissions to research the coronavirus, SCMP reported.
It seems that scientists at the laboratory acted unilaterally in releasing the virus because they thought authorities were taking too long to act. The SCMP said the team at the lab, led by Prof Zhang Yongzhen, had isolated and finished the genome sequence of the then-unknown virus on 5 January and reported its findings to the China’s national health commission the same day.
Among the claims made in US President Donald Trump’s letter to the head of the WHO are that his administration’s review “of the organization’s failed response to the COV1D-19 outbreak” found that the WHO:
- “Consistently ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from the Lancet medical journal.”
- “Failed to independently investigate credible reports that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts, even those that came from sources within Wuhan itself.”
- “Knew that there was a ‘major public health’ concern in Wuhan”, he writes, “no later than December 30, 2019”
Trump accuses WHO of 'alarming lack of independence' from China
The letter tweeted out by US President Donald Trump and addressed to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus states that his review into the WHO’s response to the coronavirus outbreak “confirmed many of the serious concerns I raised...and identified others that the World Health Organization should have addressed, especially the World Health Organization’s alarming lack of independence from the People’s Republic of China.”
This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
Updated
Trump warns WHO must make 'major improvements' or funding freeze to be 'permanent'
US President Donald Trump has tweeted out a letter addressed to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The letter states that if the WHO “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership of the organization.”
This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
More soon.
Updated
Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain and one of the most recognisable peaks in the world, will be off-limits to climbers for the first time in 60 years this summer to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Authorities in Shizuoka prefecture, where three of the four major routes to the summit are located, said the paths would be closed during the 10 July-10 September climbing season, when tens of thousands of people normally hike to the top of the 3,776-metre mountain.
The announcement comes after Yamanishi prefecture, home to the fourth and most popular route, said it would also ban climbers this year.
“We’re taking this measure so as not to spread the coronavirus,” a Shizoka official told Agence France-Presse. The mountain, a Unesco world cultural heritage site, is located just 100km (60 miles) from Tokyo and is clearly visible from the capital.
The move will come as a huge disappointment to the country’s amateur climbers.
Last year, an estimated 236,000 people made their way to the top of the active volcano, which last erupted just over 300 years ago.
Roughly 4.1 million US mortgage borrowers have had their payments paused or reduced as the novel coronavirus outbreak hits household finances, Reuters reports, but the increase in the number of people needing such help is slowing, the latest weekly survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed on Monday.
The share of mortgages in forbearance rose to 8.16% from 7.91% in the May 4-10 period, the industry lobbying group said, the smallest increase since March 16. The number of new requests for relief also fell relative to the prior week for the fifth consecutive survey period, the MBA said.
Ginnie Mae loans once again had the highest percentage of loans in forbearance by investor type, at 11.26% of loans. The share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance increased to 6.25% from 6.08%.
Deaths in Australia reach 100
The death toll in Australia has reached 100, following the death of a 93-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with Covid-19.
The woman had been a resident at Newmarch House, the aged care home in western Sydney which has been the site of a cluster of cases.
More on the Newmarch House story below:
Updated
China reported six new coronavirus cases for 18 May, compared to seven a day earlier, the health authority said on Tuesday.
The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that three of the six new cases were imported. The imported cases were all detected in Inner Mongolia.
Of the three new local transmissions, two were in the northeastern border province of Jilin and one in Hubei, where the coronavirus was first identified.
The commission also reported 17 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases on 18 May, compared to 18 on the previous day.
Trump calls WHO a "puppet" of China, confirms he is considering slashing funding
In Washington, President Donald Trump attacked the World Health Organization as a Chinese “puppet” on Monday and confirmed he is considering slashing or canceling US support.
“They’re a puppet of China, they’re China-centric to put it nicer,” he said at the White House.
Trump said the United States pays around $450 million annually to the World Health Organization, the largest contribution of any country. Plans are being crafted to slash this because “we’re not treated right.”
“They gave us a lot of bad advice,” he said of the WHO.
Podcast: How coronavirus led to rough sleepers being housed in hotels
Amelia Gentleman reports on life inside the hotels that are now housing some of the more than 5,400 homeless people across England and Wales. It is part of an unprecedented emergency operation to get all rough sleepers off the streets:
In Australia, the Chinese Embassy has said that the World Health Assembly motion for an independent inquiry into the global response to the coronavirus pandemic is not “vindication” of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s own call for an independent inquiry.
This week, the ABC reports, Australian government MPs claimed vindication after 62 nations backed a European Union (EU) draft motion calling for an “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of the “international health response to Covid-19”.
But the Chinese embassy says that claim is “nothing but a joke” and that the WHA motion is “totally different” to Australia’s.
My colleague Amy Remeikis points out that a key difference is that the WHA motion “allows for the World Health Organisation to lead the inquiry, which was the main thing Australia did not want.”
Breaking - the Chinese Embassy in Canberra says the WHA #covid inquiry motion which China is backing is "totally different" to the Morrison Government's original call for an independent investigation. It says for Australia to claim vindication is "nothing but a joke" pic.twitter.com/5K2cCqbtD3
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) May 19, 2020
China has meanwhile put punitive tariffs of more than 80% on barley imports from Australia.
Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham indicated Australia may appeal the imposition of a 73.6% anti-dumping tariff and a 6.9% anti-subsidy tariff applied to all Australian barley from Tuesday.
“Australia is deeply disappointed with China’s decision to impose duties on Australian barley,” he said in a statement.
“We reject the basis of this decision and will be assessing the details of the findings while we consider next steps.
The Guardian’s Charlotte Graham-McLay reports:
New Zealand has recorded another day of no new cases of Covid-19.
The country’s confirmed number of cases went up by four on Tuesday, due to several recorded cases in people who returned to New Zealand while infected with the virus in April. All have since recovered.
As they had tested positive for the illness while they were in Uruguay, there had been some uncertainty about which country’s total they should be added to, according to Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health.
There are two people in New Zealand hospitals with Covid-19. Neither are in intensive care units.
Only New Zealand citizens and residents and their immediate families are currently allowed to enter the country. They must spend a mandatory two weeks in government-run quarantine.
New Zealand – which eased its lockdown restrictions further last Thursday, allowing shops and cafes to re-open under physical distancing rules – has recorded five days of no new cases of the virus in the past week, and two days of one new case.
Fewer than 1,500 people have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in New Zealand. Its government has drawn praise for shutting down the country in late March when just over 200 cases, and no deaths, had been recorded. 21 people have now died.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has weighed in on Trump’s hydroxychloroquine use:
“I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group, and in his, shall we say, weight group: ‘Morbidly obese,’ they say,” says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Pres. Trump’s revelation he is taking hydroxychloroquine. pic.twitter.com/0ImjpEjg9q
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) May 19, 2020
As Covid-19 reached remote indigenous lands in Brazil’s Amazon, the government agency responsible for protecting native people brushed off calls for action, focusing instead on waging ideological battles, according to agents from the institution itself and others, AP reports.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s repeated promotion of developing the vast Amazon has for months prompted indigenous activists, celebrities and agents on the ground to sound the alarm. In the face of a spreading pandemic, they warn inaction is enough to wipe out many indigenous people.
The Associated Press spoke to four agents who work with indigenous peoples in the farthest reaches of Brazil’s Amazon, and they were unanimous in their conclusion: The national Indian foundation, known as FUNAI, is hardly doing anything to coordinate a response to a crisis that could decimate ethnic groups.
There’s not enough protective equipment for agents who enter indigenous territories or meet with native people in cities. Necessities like kerosene and gasoline are in short supply. Food deliveries only began last week a month after indigenous people were instructed to remain in their villages and remain vastly insufficient.
Since the pandemic’s onset, there has been fear about the vulnerability of native people who live far from urban health facilities and whose communal lifestyles render them susceptible to swift transmission.
At least 88 indigenous people have already died of Covid-19 in the Amazon, according to a tally by the Brazilian indigenous organization APIB that includes health ministry figures and information from local leaders. The count is likely higher, because hospitals often don’t use patients’ indigenous names when admitting them.
Brazil cases overtake UK to become third-highest worldwide
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil stands at 255,368, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, making the country the third-worst affected in terms of cases.
There are 16,792 officially confirmed deaths in Brazil, which is lower than the UK, Italy, Spain and France.
The Johns Hopkins figures come from official data, however, and are likely to be higher in some countries due to underreporting.
These are the ten worst-affected countries worldwide according to that data:
- US cases: 1,508,168 (deaths: 90,338)
- Russia cases: 290,678 (deaths: 2,722)
- Brazil cases: 255,368 (deaths: 16,853)
- United Kingdom cases: 247,709 (deaths: 34,876)
- Spain cases: 231,606 (deaths: 27,709)
- Italy cases: 225,886 (deaths: 32,007)
- France cases: 180,051 (deaths: 28,242)
- Germany cases: 176,551 (deaths: 8,003)
- Turkey cases: 150,593 (deaths: 4,171)
- Iran cases: 122,492 (deaths: 7,057)
White House spokesperson confirms Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine
The White House Director of Strategic Communications has confirmed that Trump was prescribed hydroxychloroquine and is taking it, the New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman has tweeted:
POTUS spoxwoman @Alyssafarah confirms yes POTUS was prescribed and yes POTUS has been taking hydorxychloroquine.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 19, 2020
Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, released a memorandum stating that he and the doctor had discussed the use of the drug, but did not confirm in the memo that the US president was actually taking the drug.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been warning since April that the drug should not be used for that purpose because it could cause irregular heartbeats and other cardiac trauma.
Updated
In case you missed it earlier, here is our full story on US President Trump saying that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine:
Donald Trump has told reporters at the White House that for “a couple weeks” he has been taking a malaria drug as a defense against Covid-19 – despite warnings from his administration that it is dangerous.
Trump said he was taking hydroxychloroquine – a drug approved to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis – in response to the coronavirus threat.
But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been warning since April that the drug should not be used for that purpose because it could cause irregular heartbeats and other cardiac trauma.
Updated
Trump's physician releases memo on use of hydroxychloroquine
US President Donald Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, has released a memorandum stating that:
After numerous discussions [Trump] and I had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxycholorquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”
Updated
IMF chief says full economic recovery unlikely in 2021
The global economy will take much longer to recover fully from the shock caused by the new coronavirus than initially expected, the head of the International Monetary Fund said, and she stressed the danger of protectionism.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the Fund was likely to revise downward its forecast for a 3% contraction in GDP in 2020, but gave no details. That would likely also trigger changes in the Fund’s forecast of a partial recovery of 5.8% in 2021.
In an interview with Reuters, she said data from around the world was worse than expected. “Obviously that means it will take us much longer to have a full recovery from this crisis,” Georgieva said in an interview. She gave no specific target date for the rebound.
In April, the global lender forecast that business closures and lockdowns to slow the spread of the virus would throw the world into the deepest recession since the 1930s Great Depression. But data reported since then points to “more bad news,” Georgieva said earlier this month.
The IMF is due to release new global projections in June.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday he would issue a statement about the World Health Organization in the near future and said it had “done a very sad job” in its handling of the coronavirus.
Trump told a White House event he would make a decision about US WHO funding soon, and that he had he considered reducing it to $40 million, but some felt that was too much. Asked why he had not addressed a virtual ministerial meeting of the WHO earlier in the day, he replied:
“I chose not to make a statement today. I’ll be giving them a statement, sometime in the near future, but ... I think they’ve done a very sad job in the last period of time.”
US deaths pass 90,000
The coronavirus death told in the US passed 90,000 Monday, and the number of cases climbed above 1.5m, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
The milestone came as more states seek to loosen restrictions and the president tweeted, “REOPEN OUR COUNTRY!”
REOPEN OUR COUNTRY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2020
The president has questioned the death toll, suggesting that the numbers have been inflated. But researchers from the CDC who analyzed deaths in New York over the past two months concluded that the actual death toll is likely higher than the reported number.
All the states, except Connecticut, have relaxed stay-at-home orders, to varying degrees. But only 18 states showed a downward trend of new cases according to data from Johns Hopkins.
WHO chief promises review of coronavirus response
The World Health Organization said on Monday an independent review of the global coronavirus response would begin as soon as possible, and received backing and a hefty pledge of funds from China, in the spotlight as the origin of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made his promise during a virtual meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, at which Chinese President Xi Jinping defended his country’s own handling of the crisis.
US President Donald Trump has fiercely questioned the WHO’s performance during the pandemic, withdrawing US funding after accusing it of being too China-centric, and at the same time leading international criticism of China’s lack of transparency in the early stages of the crisis.
Tedros, who has always promised a post-pandemic review, said it would come “at the earliest appropriate moment” and provide recommendations for future preparedness. He received robust backing from the WHO’s independent oversight panel.
A resolution drafted by the European Union calling for an independent evaluation of the WHO’s performance appeared to have won consensus backing among the WHO’s 194 states.
In its first report on the WHO’s handling of the pandemic, the seven-member oversight committee said the UN agency had “demonstrated leadership and made important progress in its Covid-19 response”.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s coronavirus live blog.
I’m Helen Sullivan, with you for the next few hours.
The US president Donald Trump has said he is taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug approved to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, as a precaution against coronavirus, despite warnings from the Food and Drug Administration that the drug should not be used for that purpose because it could cause irregular heartbeats and other cardiac trauma.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease doctor, and a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, has repeatedly warned that there is no conclusive evidence to support using the drug.
Meanwhile deaths in the US passed 90,000 and confirmed infections topped 1.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University figures. The US Centers for Disease Control have projected that deaths in the US could reach 100,000 by 1 June.
Here are the main developments from the last few hours:
- Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine. The president said he has been taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug he has fiercely touted in the past but that was found to have a very mixed effect on patients. The US Food and Drug Administration cautions against use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for Covid-19 outside of a hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems.
- Some areas of New York City have seen death rates nearly 15 times higher than others, according to data released by New York City’s health department, showing the disproportionate toll taken on poorer communities. The highest death rate was seen on the edge of Brooklyn in a neighbourhood dominated by a large subsidised-housing development called Starrett City.
- Qatar will close all shops and halt all commercial activities, from 19 to 30 May, state news agency QNA has reported, citing a decision by Qatar’s cabinet. The closure excludes pharmacies, food supply stores and food deliveries.
- Italy registers lowest deaths since March as bars, restaurants, shops, hairdressers, museums and churches reopen. Italy registered 99 deaths and 451 infections on Monday. There is also a significant fall in new infections in Lombardy, the region worst affected by the virus, from 326 on Sunday to 175 on Monday.
- Saint Peter’s Basilica reopens. Visitors are allowed to return to Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican after more than two months of lockdown. A handful of visitors queue up, observing social distancing rules and under the watch of police officers wearing face masks, before having their temperatures taken to enter the church.
- A total of 14,790 people died in April in Belgium. It’s the worst daily toll since the second world war, according to a study.
- Quarantine for UK arrivals expected to cover air, rail, car and sea. Enforced quarantine measures at the UK border expected to be unveiled this week are to cover arrivals by sea, car and international rail, as well as air, the Guardian understands.
- Macron and Merkel present joint EU recovery plan. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have presented a joint plan to spur EU recovery after weeks of debate over how to deploy billions of euros needed to quickly end a painful recession. The full text of the plan is here.
- EU may give green light to sale of possible Covid-19 treatment.The European Union may give an initial approval for sale of the drug remdesivir as a Covid-19 treatment, the head of its medicines agency says, fast-tracking the drug to market amid tight global competition for resources.
- UN chief calls for an “end to hubris”. The pandemic should serve as a wake-up call to a world that must be more united, the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, says.
- Spain reports lowest death toll for two months. Monday’s overnight death toll in Spain is 59, the lowest figure in two months, the country’s government says. The cumulative death toll rises to 27,709, while the number of confirmed cases increases to 231,606 from 231,350 the previous day, according to health ministry figures.
