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Just shortly after Donald Trump undermined recommendations that Americans should wear masks, Melania Trump has urged people to “take social distancing & wearing a mask/face covering seriously”.
As the weekend approaches I ask that everyone take social distancing & wearing a mask/face covering seriously. #COVID19 is a virus that can spread to anyone - we can stop this together.
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) April 3, 2020
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now recommending Americans cover their faces when outside. But, at his daily press briefing, the US president Donald Trump said he would not be following the guidance. “I’m choosing not to do it,” he said, repeatedly noting that wearing non-medical grade masks is a “voluntary” option.
Summary
Hello this is Rebecca Ratcliffe, taking over from Kevin Rawlinson. Here’s a summary of the latest developments:
- Aleast 58,773 people across the world have now died as a result of the pandemic, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
- The UK has endured its deadliest day so far, with 684 more people dying in UK hospitals. This brings the total number of UK fatalities to 3,605. The country’s Department of Health and Social Care says 173,784 people have been tested; of whom 38,168 were positive.
- Americans should cover their faces when outside, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommending. But the US president Donald Trump has undermined the guidance, saying: “I’m choosing not to do it.”
- Italy has recorded 766 more deaths, but the infection rate has continued to slow. Some 85,388 people are currently infected, with an increase of 2,339 new cases; 138 fewer than Thursday.
- The Falklands Islands has confirmed its first case. The patient has been hospitalised since 31 March and developed a range of Covid-19 symptoms, tested positive for the virus, and is now in a stable condition.
- The number of cases detected in Egypt jumped to 985, the country’s health ministry said.
- A large-scale public inquiry into the UK response is now inevitable, a former head of the country’s civil service has said.
- There are demands for better protection for the UK’s healthcare workers following the deaths of two nurses in their 30s, while another frontline worker quit her job after being forbidden from wearing a face mask.
- Albania reported 27 new cases – its second biggest daily increase – and ordered a third 40-hour lockdown over the weekend.
- Police surrounded Geneva’s main prison after some 40 prisoners refused to return to their cells from their daily walk, complaining about measures taken due to the pandemic.
Updated
The daughter of a Dutch man, who died aboard a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship that docked in Florida Thursday after 12 days stranded at sea, says her family has been told it will be unable to recover his remains, Erin McCormick and Patrick Greenfield report.
Angelique Slagmolen of the Netherlands, said her 72-year-old father Albert Slagmolen died after several days on a ventilator onboard the ship.
But she said, after her family filled out forms to try to bring his remains home, they were informed matter of factly by officials in Florida that he would be cremated there.
“I don’t even know where my dad is,” said Slagmolen. She said she felt her father, who had several pre-existing conditions and was generally in poor health, had been well cared for aboard the ship. But the situation had turned into a nightmare for her family.
“It’s like a bad movie – and the movie is getting worse every day,” she said.
The Guardian has been contacted by the Broward County medical examiner about the issue who said there will not be a cremation without family approval.
“We want him to go home as much as anyone else does,” said Broward County Medical Examiner Craig Mallak.
Updated
“I don’t know,” said Trump in response to a question asking where Dr Anthony Fauci is today. Fauci has not joined in the briefing today. “Whenever he’s not here,” Trump complained, “the fake news” will ask about him.
You can follow our US-focused coronavirus coverage here:
The masks are more for the protection of other people than oneself, the US surgeon general has clarified. Wearing a cloth face covering will help contain you coughs and sneezes, reducing chances that you’ll spray infectious droplets into the air, and risk transmitting the disease the others.
Still “maintaining six feet of social distancing remains key”, he said. Masks are “not a replacement for social distancing”.
All Americans, including those without health insurance, will be able to receive treatment without worrying about the cost, according to the vice-president, Mike Pence.
But it’s unclear what provisions will be made to ensure that — the administration has repeatedly ignored calls from Democratic lawmakers to reopen the Obamacare exchanges to allow the uninsured to purchase insurance.
Returning to Washington DC, here’s more from the CDC:
CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.
Health officials say the previous distancing and hygiene guidance remains in place.
Equipment shortages within England’s health service are such that one NHS trust has had to put out a call for donations on social media:
Macclesfield Hospital are in urgent need of scrubs for our staff who are caring for patients. Do you or someone you know have access to scrubs or similar workwear that they could donate? If you think you can help please contact your.voice@nhs.net
— East Cheshire NHS (@EastCheshireNHS) April 3, 2020
Trump says he is directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prevent the export of N95 masks under the Defense Production Act.
Earlier, the US was accused of “modern piracy” after reportedly diverting a shipment of masks intended for the German police, and outbidding other countries in the increasingly fraught global market for coronavirus protective equipment.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now recommending Americans cover their faces when outside, the White House says. But, at his daily press briefing, the US president Donald Trump has repeatedly undermined the guideline.
“I’m choosing not to do it,” he said, repeatedly noting that wearing non-medical grade masks is a “voluntary” option.
Updated
Falklands confirm first case
The Falkland Islands government has confirmed the island territory’s first case.
The patient has been hospitalised since 31 March and developed a range of Covid-19 symptoms, tested positive for the virus, and is now in a stable condition and being cared for with necessary isolation procedures.
Demands for better protection for the UK’s healthcare workers are growing following the death of two nurses in their 30s, while another frontline worker quit her job after being forbidden from wearing a face mask, Haroon Siddique, Nazia Parveen and Alexandra Topping write.
Areema Nasreen, 36, died shortly after midnight on Friday at Walsall Manor hospital in the West Midlands, where she had worked for 16 years. Aimee O’Rourke, 38, who joined the NHS in 2017 and worked at Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospital in Margate, Kent, died hours earlier, on Thursday night. Both were mothers of three children.
Two NHS healthcare assistants have also died. The family of Thomas Harvey, 57, who worked in north-east London, believe he would still be alive today if he had been given proper personal protective equipment (PPE), they told Sky News.
The number of cases detected in Egypt has jumped by more than 100 for the first time, bringing total infections to 985, the country’s health ministry has said.
It announced that 120 new cases and eight more deaths have been recorded. That brought the total number of deaths to 66.
Egyptian officials have said that once the number of known infections surpasses 1,000, the task of tracing contacts and quarantining those affected would become harder. The prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, has said the next week will be critical in Egypt’s efforts to contain the illness.
Updated
UK biomedical scientists and National Health Service laboratory staff have expressed “frustration” at a lack of resources preventing them from carrying out larger numbers of tests.
On Thursday, the country’s health secretary Matt Hancock committed to raising testing numbers to 100,000 a day by the end of April. But the Institute of Biomedical Science has said:
The UK has numerous high-quality accredited laboratories with suitable equipment, with the capability to process over 100,000 tests per day, set up and ready to meet testing targets.
Staffing levels are currently adequate to expand Covid-19 testing. Biomedical scientists across the UK have already been re-trained to carry out testing or free up virology-trained staff to focus on testing.
Currently, England could process up to 25,000 a day, which by May could rise to 100,000, meeting the ambitious target set down by Matt Hancock, all within the NHS. However, there is a material supply issue with a worldwide shortage in reagent kits.
The supply of precision plastics that are used with the reagents are not due to be ready until mid-May.
Updated
Police have surrounded Geneva’s main prison after some 40 prisoners refused to return to their cells from their daily walk, complaining about measures taken due to the pandemic. Laurent Forestier, the spokesman for prisons in Geneva, has said:
There was a refusal to go back to their cells. At the end of the afternoon, the prisoners who were finishing their walk inside the prison refused to go back to their cells Discussions are continuing and it’s not over yet.
There has been one confirmed infection in the facility, Forestier said, adding that the person had been hospitalised. French-language Swiss broadcaster RTS said on Twitter that police have surrounded the area. The chronically-overcrowded Champ-Dollon prison, located in the Geneva countryside, was built for 400 inmates but had some 600 last month, the daily Le Temps said.
Muhammad Siddique, the father of my Guardian colleague Haroon Siddique, died last week after being hospitalised with coronavirus symptoms. Haroon has written this beautiful obituary in his father’s memory:
Albania has reported 27 new cases – its second biggest daily surge – and ordered a third 40-hour lockdown over the weekend to halt the spread of the highly contagious pathogen that has killed 17 in the country so far.
Albania had reported its largest single day of confirmed cases on March 26 with 28. After declaring the pandemic a natural calamity, Albania extended the shutdown of any activity, its borders, businesses and transport, except for a few essential industries during an eight-hour daily window.
Updated
Telecoms engineers are facing verbal and physical threats during the lockdown, as baseless conspiracy theories linking coronavirus to the roll-out of 5G technology spread by celebrities such as Amanda Holden prompt members of the public to abuse those maintaining vital mobile phone and broadband networks.
Warehouse workers for the fast fashion brands Pretty Little Thing and Boo Hoo are begging consumers to stop ordering non-essential items such as £6 boob tubes and £8 false eyelashes after orders at one depot more than tripled in a week, Helen Pidd and Amy Walker write.
Morale is said to be “rock bottom” at Pretty Little Thing’s fulfilment centre in Tinsley, Sheffield, where workers doing 12-hour shifts said they were processing orders for 400,000 items this week, up from 120,000 in a “normal” week.
They also complain it is “practically impossible” for hundreds of staff on each shift to keep two metres apart and still meet their hourly targets of picking 80 items. They also clock on using an unhygienic fingerprint scanner, though Pretty Little Thing (PLT) says a staff member thoroughly wipes the equipment after every use.
The work of the Reuters news agency in Iraq has been suspended for three months after the outlet reported that the country’s government was underreporting confirmed cases.
Reuters was also fined 25 million Iraqi dinars (about £17,000 or $20,800), according to a statement posted on the official Communication and Media Commission website.
The Reuters story cited multiple sources who said the government was vastly misreporting cases of coronavirus in the country, saying the true number of those infected was in the thousands.
The country’s health ministry said on Friday there were 820 confirmed cases and 54 deaths. The Reuters report said the true number ranged from 3,000 to 9,000.
Reuters said it has not received any notification from Iraqi authorities regarding their license and were seeking clarification on the matter. The agency said it stood by its report.
The scale of the coronavirus outbreak and the response it has required from the UK government means a large-scale public inquiry is now inevitable, a former head of the country’s civil service has said.
Sir Bob Kerslake said the scope of the decision-making undertaken by politicians and officials had been vast, and, as some of it had already been challenged, there would need to be a chance to reflect upon the UK’s response in case of another pandemic.
There will need to be some sort of inquiry after we get through this to learn lessons. This is one where we might face the same situation again.
I hope that even during this clear crisis moment there is a proper record being kept of who made decisions and why, because that will be very, very important. Not to lay blame – though clearly there will be a bit of that – but to plan for the future. We could face this again and it could be even worse.
Disney is delaying the release of upcoming films because of the pandemic.
The action epic “Mulan” will come out in July and Marvel’s “Black Widow” will be available in November. Among other changes, Disney postponed the release of a new “Indiana Jones” film by one year to July 2022.
Updated
The UK government’s pledge to carry out 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month is “realistic”, Public Health England’s director of public health improvement has said.
Prof John Newton has told Channel 4 News:
It is realistic. We have some really good progress. We’re using tried and tested technology, this is not innovation – it’s massive, industrial-scale rollout of these three big mega-labs in Milton Keynes, Manchester and Glasgow.
And they are already delivering tests – many thousands of tests a day – and we are really looking forward to seeing that number go up soon.
The number of funerals in Jakarta rose sharply in March, a development the governor of Indonesia’s capital city said suggested that deaths from the new coronavirus may be higher than officially reported.
Nearly 4,400 burials occurred in the month; 40% higher than any month since at least January 2018, according to a Reuters review of statistics from the city’s Department of Parks and Cemeteries.
Jakarta’s governor, Anies Baswedan, and some public health experts suspect the number of infections and deaths in Jakarta has been significantly under-reported due to one of the world’s lowest rates of testing.
It is extremely disturbing. I’m struggling to find another reason than unreported Covid-19 deaths.
Summary
- Known global death toll passes 55,000. At least 55,781 people across the world have now died as a result of the pandemic, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed cases passed a million on Thursday and at least 1,056,777 people are now known to have been infected. The true scale of the outbreak is likely to be greater due to suspected underreporting by some nations.
- UK endures deadliest day so far. It is confirmed that 684 more people have died in UK hospitals, bringing the total to 3,605 and making the 24 hours to 5pm on Thursday (BST) the deadliest since the outbreak began. The country’s Department of Health and Social Care says 173,784 people have been tested; of whom 38,168 were positive.
- New York reports nearly 3,000 deaths. The state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, announcesd that 2,935 people have now died. The toll, up from from 2,373 a day earlier, represents the highest single-day rise since the coronavirus crisis struck. There are 102,863 confirmed cases in New York. Cuomo said that hospitals havein effect turned into ICU hospitals for Covid-19 patients.
- Italy records 766 more deaths – but infection rate slows. The number of deaths on Friday was relatively steady, when compared to those seen the previous day. But new infections continue to slow down, raising hopes of turnaround. Some 85,388 people are currently infected, with an increase of 2,339 new cases; 138 fewer than Thursday. Italy remains the world’s worst-hit country, having suffered a total of 14,681 deaths.
- More than 250,000 EU citizens stranded abroad. Some 350,000 have been repatriated but that still leaves a quarter of a million EU citizens trying to get home. Josep Borrell, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, says operations are under way to retrieve them. But he adds: “One could not imagine that there are so many Europeans stranded in the world: tourists; visitors; short-term workers.”
- Swiss death toll rises to 484. The Swiss government announced an increase in the number of deaths, adding that the number of positive cases now stands at 19,903. Switzerland has closed schools and many businesses, as well as banning gatherings of more than five people.
- WHO said countries must avoid a cycle of lockdown, relaxation, and further lockdown. The organisation called on countries to develop a just transition strategy that gets them in control of the virus.
- English Premier League asks players to take 30% wage cut. Premier League clubs announce they are “committing £20m to support the NHS, communities, families and vulnerable groups during the pandemic”.
While older people are more likely to die if they contract coronavirus, evidence continues to show that younger people are also being severely impacted.
Dr David Hepburn, ICU consultant at Newport’s Royal Gwent hospital in south Wales, has said all the patients there are under-50.
Speaking to Channel 4 News, he said:
The pattern of illness that we’ve seen in Gwent, and I can’t speak for anywhere else, is much younger patients than we were expecting. When the reports started coming out of Wuhan, we were led to believe that this was something that was particularly dangerous for the more elderly patients but I would say all the patients we’ve got an intensive care are in their 50s or younger at the moment.
Our youngest patient is in her early 20s. And there are, you know, there are patients who are very well, you know, a chap who’s a fitness professional but you know there are a lot of patients who are not, do not have any pre-existing medical conditions. They’re not diabetic or anything like that.
We’ve got 16 ventilated patients in the intensive care unit at the minute, which has led us to completely run out of space. So we’ve taken over theatre recovery, and we’ve got a further eight there. I think by the end of today, we will fill recovery. So that’ll bring us up to 25 patients.
And then we have another area prepared, which is the old high dependency unit and coronary care that we’ve taken over as well. We can fit a further 22 patients in that area. The way things are going at the minute, the rate of growth and the amount of admissions that we’re seeing, I would say we will fill that by the end of the week, probably.
Updated
The WHO briefing ends with Georgieva saying the world will get through the epidemic, but how quickly that happens depends on the actions that countries take now.
Adhanom added that “both lives and livelihoods matter”.
When asked about the effectiveness of using masks, Ryan said there is a very healthy debate going on.
He said countries must prioritise giving surgical and medical masks for healthcare workers. WHO already advises that people use medical masks for people who are ill at home and people caring for people at sick at home.
He added the evidence suggests that wearing a mask in public doesn’t necessarily protect someone, but it can be of use to someone who is experiencing symptoms and thus reduce the rate that an infected individual infects others.
WHO said countries need a transition strategy that gets them in control of the virus. Countries need to avoid a cycle of lockdown, relaxation of rules, followed by a further lockdown.
Updated
Ryan said WHO has repeatedly warned that young people are also at risk from this virus.
He said even in South Korea, which has managed to control the disease, one in six deaths have been of people under 60. In Italy, over the last six weeks, at least 10-15% of people in intensive care have been under 50, Ryan explained.
Ryan said:
It’s not that anything has changed. It’s that we collectively have been living in a world where we’ve tried to convince ourselves that this disease is mild in the young people and it’s more severe in older people and that’s where the problem is.
I think the evidence has been there all along that there is a spectrum of severity and its definitely more severe in older age groups, but there is a spectrum of severity in younger people as well.
When asked what WHO’s stance is on antibody testing and immunity passports, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said WHO is “working with a number of countries that are looking into the use of serologic assays in the form of research.” The test will estimate the antibody levels in populations in a country.
She added it is a positive sign that there are a number of tests being rapidly developed.
Updated
The IMF has been asked whether it would grant debt relief to African nations where citizens who are following social distancing guidelines are now more worried about dying from hunger than the coronavirus.
IMF’s Kristalina Georgieva said it’s important to provide significant financial support to African countries. She said the board approved emergency finances for Rwanda and two more African countries are in discussion for approval today.
The briefing has now moved to questions from journalists.
The first question asked if there is anything in the diet, lifestyle or drug protocol that Americans or Europeans use that make this virus more severe
Dr Michael J Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, said the evidence so far would indicate that antihypertensive drugs that many people are on does not have any impact on the severity of the disease.
The difference in mortality rates between countries could be down to the age profile of the country, some have a higher population of older populations, and the presence of underlying conditions.
Italy records 766 more deaths from Covid-19 on Friday
Italy registered 766 more deaths from Covid-19 on Friday - 6 more than Thursday - and remains the country worst affected by the outbreak with a total of 14,681 deaths. However, new infections continue to slow down, raising hopes of turnaround.
Some 85.388 are currently infected with an increase of 2339 new cases, 138 less than Thursday. Some 1.480 have recovered in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number to 19.758.
In total, 119.827 people have tested positive with coronavirus in Italy, including people who have died, recovered and the ones who are currently infected.
Lockdown in the country could be extended until May 1 and ‘phase two’ of living with the virus can begin in mid-May, Emergency Commissioner Angelo Borrelli said Friday.
The government has officially extended the coronavirus lockdown until Easter in mid-April, but Borrelli stressed the importance of keeping to “the most rigorous conduct in observing lockdown rules’’.
‘’The date of emerging from lockdown is still not certain at all”, Borrelli added.
In the meantime, 77 health workers in Italy have died from coronavirus since the outbreak there began, as medics work relentlessly to try to turn the tide in Europe’s worst-affected country.
The majority were on the frontline in the badly affected northern regions and contracted the illness at the start of the outbreak when protective equipment was lacking.
Adhanom said almost $690 million has now been pledged or received since it asked for support nearly two months ago
Tedros Adhanom, WHO’s director general, is leading a press conference on the coronavirus. He has called for countries to provide free care and testing for covid-19, regardless of a person’s insurance, citizenship or residency status.
“This is an unprecedented crisis which requires an unprecedented response,” he said.
Adhanom added that country’s should consider using cash transfers for the most vulnerable households.suspend
Ontario has been lagging behind other Canadian provinces in testing for coronavirus because in the early weeks of the outbreak its public labs relied heavily on a single company for needed chemicals, Reuters reports.
There are thought to be thousands of backlogged cases in Ontario, Canada’s most heavily populated region. The province is focused on ramping testing back up, particularly for healthcare workers.
As of Wednesday, Ontario had tested 4,188 per million residents, less than every Canadian province except New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, which have far fewer cases. Alberta had tested 11,139 per million, and Quebec 8,216 per million.
The provincial public health agency’s labs were heavily dependent on one company’s system to extract RNA, the virus’s genetic material, the agency told Reuters.
Updated
Hundreds of US citizens stranded in Moscow following the Russian government's ban on all international flights
Hundreds of US citizens have been stranded in Moscow after an evacuation flight to New York was grounded at the last moment due to a Russian ban on all international flights.
The Aeroflot flight was meant to carry US citizens seeking to leave Russia, and then repatriate hundreds of Russians stranded in the US. Russia has closed its international borders for most travellers, and this afternoon announced it would impose a ban on all international flights in and out of Russia as of Saturday morning.
The cancellation came after passengers had already boarded the flight. Some had been trying to leave Russia for weeks. Others had been living in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for days, waiting for a chance to leave the country.
на борту того самого рейса "Аэрофлота", который должен был лететь в Нью-Йорк, но был отменен в последний момент (самолет уже рулил к полосе), начался ужасный скандал
— Liza Fokht (@lizafoht) April 3, 2020
автор видео – артист балета Джулиан Маккей, который летел в Америку к умирающем отцу (https://t.co/VbOeFo4ItI) pic.twitter.com/qayxMUnPLz
Nicholas Mackay, a ballet photographer who lives in Russia, said that he has been trying to travel to the US for several weeks to reach his father, who has cancer.
“We were already on the flight, and then a flight attendant came on over the intercom and told us that we are not flying out, the flight is cancelled and all flights are cancelled by the Russian government,” he said by telephone. “There’s no information. We’re not even able to get any money back from our flight. We’re only able to change for a different day. A different day is no day, because no one knows when international travel will be OK in this whole situation.”
A video uploaded by his brother, Julian, showed angry passengers reacting to the flight cancellation. “It’s chaos,” he said.
A US embassy spokesperson said: “The US embassy is aware of the inexplicable cancellation of today’s Aeroflot flight to New York. The flight was full of US citizens anxious to get home. We are awaiting an explanation from the Russian Federation. We continue to work to find ways to help US citizens return home.”
Updated
Canada has recorded almost 12,000 cases of coronavirus, according to the country’s public health agency. The death toll increased to 152 on Friday.
Quebec, which has 5,518 confirmed cases as of Friday, is the country’s worst affected region, followed by Ontario, with 3,255 confirmed cases.
Updated
The Spanish government has said it is working to roll out some form of guaranteed income that could benefit as many as 5 million people as the country reels from the coronavirus epidemic.
“We’re working on a minimum income,” the country’s labour minister, Yolanda Díaz, said on Friday. “We need it now more than ever.”
Spain has emerged as one of the world’s hardest-hit countries, with the virus claiming 10,935 lives. More than 117,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19.
The rapid spread of the virus has decimated the country’s tourism industry – which accounts for nearly 12% of the country’s GDP – while the near-total lockdown has shuttered bars, restaurants and non-essential shops and halted construction.
Nearly 900,000 workers have lost their jobs since the lockdown began on 14 March, while another 620,000 people have been temporarily laid off, government data showed this week, sparking worry in a country where the unemployment rate already ranks among the highest in the Eurozone.
“The data is extraordinary,” the social security minister, José Luis Escrivá, said on Thursday. “It’s unprecedented.”
The government has announced a series of measures aimed at softening the blow of the epidemic, including a moratorium on mortgages payments and the suspension of evictions for those affected by the crisis.
The minimum income is aimed at complementing these measures, Díaz, the labour minister, told the Spanish broadcaster Cadena Ser, as it will provide protection for vulnerable residents not served by other government measures. She declined to provide more details or a timeline for the measure.
Updated
New York reports nearly 3,000 coronavirus deaths
The death toll in New York from the coronavirus has jumped to 2,935, governor Andrew Cuomo announced.
The death toll, which is up from from 2,373 a day earlier, represented the highest single-day rise since the coronavirus crisis struck the state.
There are 102,863 confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York. Cuomo said that hospitals have effectively turned into ICU hospitals for Covid-19 patients.
Updated
The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda has written to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to call for debt relief for his country and other small economies hit suffering economic crises caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
In a two-page letter published on Thursday to his Facebook page, Gaston Browne, who also finance minister of the Caribbean nation, said that the crisis had already led to the loss of a fifth of GDP, and was only likely to get worse.
With airlines grounded, cruise ships berthed and hotels closed in an effort to curb the international spread of the coronavirus, the tourism industry in the region had ceased and governments had taken a huge hit to revenue, Browne said.
“All of this translates into very high unemployment, and an increase in poverty levels that, inevitably, will spur more and varied crime – drug trafficking, probably becoming rampant”
He pointed out that his country and others in the region are trying to battle outbreaks at the same time as preparing what is forecast to be an “above average” hurricane season, with as many as four major hurricanes expected.
“In the region’s already precarious state, the effects of a hurricane would be catastrophic.”
Updated
Slovenia will introduce a mandatory 14-day quarantine for most people entering the country from Saturday, Reuters reports.
The quarantine will apply to both Slovenian citizens and foreign nationals, the government said on Friday. The penalty for those flouting the decree will be 400 euros ($430), the government said.
The new rule will not apply to people who have to travel to the country for work and will not include those involved in cargo traffic or who are passing through Slovenia on their way to another country without staying overnight.
Last month, Slovenia closed all schools, bars, restaurants, hotels, sports centres, cultural institutions and shops, except food and drug stores. It has also shut down all public transport.
Slovenia has confirmed 934 coronavirus cases and 20 deaths.
Updated
Premier League players will be asked to take a 30% drop in their wages, via cuts or deferrals or both, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the clubs agreed at a meeting on Friday.
The move came as the 20 top-flight teams said they would give £125m to the EFL and National League to help their clubs through the crisis and donate £20m to support the NHS, communities, families and vulnerable groups.
A Premier League statement said: “In the face of substantial and continuing losses for the 2019-20 season since the suspension of matches began, and to protect employment throughout the professional game, Premier League clubs unanimously agreed to consult their players regarding a combination of conditional reductions and deferrals amounting to 30% of total annual remuneration.”
More than 250,000 European Union citizens stranded abroad
More than 250,000 European Union citizens are still trying to get home after the EU has repatriated some 350,000 people, Reuters reports.
“We have brought home 350,000 Europeans but there are still 250,000 remaining and many operations are under way,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief told reporters.
“One could not imagine that there are so many Europeans stranded in the world: tourists, visitors, short-term workers. We are not talking about permanent residents,” Borrell added.
With a mix of chartered and military planes, EU institutions are helping member states cover the costs of repatriation on flights with passengers of more than one EU country.
Updated
How has coronavirus affected global air traffic? Niko Kommenda, the Guardian’s visual projects editor, analysed the data and found thousands of planes are still in the air despite the mass cancellation of flights.
Updated
French police have increased checks at train stations and motorways on Friday to stop people breaking a national lockdown ahead of school holidays this weekend.
Reuters reports 5,307 people have died from the coronavirus in France. Almost 60,000 people there been diagnosed with the illness, and almost 6,400 are on life-support machines, which has put the health system under pressure and overwhelmed hospitals in the Paris and eastern regions.
The number of people entering intensive care units has fallen over the last three days and the daily death toll in hospitals stabilised after the government imposed a lockdown on the country’s 67 million population on 17 March, which was extended until 15 April.
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The government of Jersey has announced a plan to test every citizen for Covid-19 in a programme to be rolled out over the coming weeks.
The British crown dependency says it has ordered up to 150,000 antibody test kits which are due to arrive in batches. Known as serology tests, they measure the presence of antibodies in the blood which are known to be produced by those who have already contracted the virus.
Jersey went into lockdown on Monday and 96 islanders have so far tested positive. Frontline staff and key workers will be tested first, in order to check whether they have had the disease and therefore potentially gained immunity, meaning they can return to work.
The scheme will then be rolled out to other islanders. The first delivery is due by the middle of April. Government medical officer Dr Ivan Muscat said arrangements for expanding testing into the community may involve sending out mobile testing units.
“Obviously, we would be very interested in working out who is infected and who isn’t,” said Muscat at a press conference, “in order to determine what someone’s diagnosis is and where they’re looked after if they’re admitted to hospital, for example.”
Fellow crown dependency the Isle of Man has taken a different approach, choosing to align with UK government advice, which is that antibody test kits are not reliable enough for widespread use in the community.
“The latest advice I’ve received is that so far they are only 30% reliable,” first minister Howard Quayle told the island’s parliament Friday. “We are obviously watching this and when our medics feel that the test is reliable … then of course we will be looking to implement that on the Isle of Man too.”
Updated
Ireland has had a more than fourfold increase in coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes in the space of a week, Reuters reports.
The rate of increase in infections has more than halved across the country since the government implemented restrictions in mid-March.
Despite these restrictions, the number of nursing homes reporting clusters of cases rose to 38 from nine from 24-31 March, according to the most recent data released on Friday from Ireland’s health service executive (HSE).
“A manifestation of where Covid-19 is at the moment is that the health now of those who are in our nursing homes is a matter of real concern for the government,” the finance minister, Paschal Donohoe, told reporters.
“We are looking at the moment at what additional measures need to be put in place in nursing home environments.”
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The global scramble to source protective equipment is heating up, Kim Willsher and Oliver Holmes reports.
Valérie Pecresse, the influential president of the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris, described the race to get hold of masks as a “treasure hunt”.
Pecresse said:
I found a stock of masks that was available and Americans – I’m not talking about the American government – but Americans, outbid us.
They offered three times the price and they proposed to pay upfront. I can’t do that. I’m spending taxpayers’ money and I can only pay on delivery having checked the quality.
So we were caught out.
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About 90% of Americans are under stay-at-home orders as the US tries to get a handle of the rapid spread of coronavirus by enforcing social distancing guidelines. But there are still frustrations with the handful of governors who are resisting issuing statewide orders.
The US reported 1,169 coronavirus deaths on Thursday, the highest one-day death toll of any country so far.
My colleague Joan Greve is now liveblogging all US-related coronavirus news.
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A coalition of governments and research institutions from 30 countries has been launched to work on tackling Covid-19 in lower-income countries.
The 70 institutions signed up said states with limited resources are being forgotten in the pandemic response, and that very few related clinical trials had been planned for poorer countries despite their wealth of expertise.
They called for greater coordination of research efforts in Africa, Latin America, Asia and eastern Europe.
“The more players we have in research and development, the more rich it will be,” said Jean-Michel Piedagnel, the south-east Asia director for the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, one of the 70.
“You will develop treatment options that are more aligned with the needs of the country and with the means of the country. If you do your clinical trial in a setting where healthcare is underfunded or resource-poor, you will do a different clinical trial, you will do a different treatment.”
The World Health Organization’s chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, said the initiative would help coordinate a global response.
“We must prepare now for the consequences of this pandemic in more resource-constrained settings or we stand to lose many more lives,” she said.
Evans Amukoye, the director of scientific programmes at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, said in the past treatments were often beyond the means of poorer countries.
“A lot of people had died before it became accessible. If you look at some diseases you see that where there is no profit there is no investment,” said Amukoye.
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Russia will suspend all flights bringing Russians home from abroad from Friday night, reports the Interfax news agency.
The announcement was made with no explanation. The foreign ministry said on Wednesday that 25,000 Russians abroad had appealed for help getting home, with many still stranded as measures to curb the spread of coronavirus have limited travel options.
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UK hospital deaths rise by 684 to 3,605
The UK has endured its deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic, with 569 fatalities recorded in 24 hours.
As Downing Street comes under mounting pressure over its perceived failure to accelerate nationwide testing to combat the virus, the country’s Covid-19 death toll continues to rise.
A total of 2,921 people had died in hospitals after testing positive for the disease as of 5pm on Wednesday, representing a slightly bigger increase than the previous day, when there were 563 deaths.
Don’t forget, you can also follow our UK coronavirus blog:
Updated
Russian police have detained a doctors’ rights activist who has been highly critical of the Kremlin’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
Anastasia Vasiliyeva, the head of the opposition-leaning Alliance of Doctors union, was detained with other activists last night while attempting to deliver medical equipment in Russia’s Novgorod region.
Video of the incident showed Vasiliyeva being dragged into a local police station by police officers and other men in medical masks. In a post, the organisation said Vasiliyeva lost consciousness during the arrest, possibly because she was choked.
⚡⚡⚡Полицейские напали на Анастасию Васильеву, силой пытались затащить в ОВД. Анастасия потеряла сознание, возможно её удушил один из сотрудников в штатском. Это настоящий фашизм. pic.twitter.com/jUPsCCkfHE
— Альянс врачей (@alyansvrachey) April 2, 2020
She is still in custody as of Friday afternoon and has reportedly received citations for violating mandatory quarantine measures and for resisting police orders.
Vasiliyeva and the Alliance of Doctors have been highly critical of the government’s preparations for the coronavirus outbreak, accusing the government of faking official statistics about the number of coronavirus cases in Russia and blasting the government for failing to equip hospitals with needed medical supplies.
The group had also criticised the government’s airlift of medical equipment and ventilators to the US.
“Well, great,” the group wrote. “We raise money all over the country to buy medical protective equipment, and our government sells PPE to the USA. It’s a mockery.”
Ну замечательно. Мы собираем деньги всей страной, чтобы купить медикам средства защиты, а наши власти продают СИЗ в США. Просто какое-то издевательствоhttps://t.co/lE0DpB3eVt
— Альянс врачей (@alyansvrachey) April 2, 2020
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Greta Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swedish activist who inspired the global school climate strikes, posted a picture of herself striking at home.
School strike week 85. Act responsible, your actions can be the difference between life and death for others.#climatestrikeonline #StayAtHome #fridaysforfuture #schoolstrike4climate #flattenthecurve pic.twitter.com/NXvn7wOL66
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 3, 2020
Last week, Thunberg said in a post on Instagram that she had self-isolated after she and her father returned from a trip around central Europe about two weeks ago.
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The Swiss government is doubling the size of its coronavirus emergency loan scheme to 40bn Swiss francs ($40.94bn), Reuters reports.
The government said on Friday it was inundated by requests for help by businesses and would be expanding bridging loan guarantees from an initial 20bn francs after banks made loans of 14.3bn francs in the first few days of the scheme.
So far, more than 76,000 agreements have been made, the government said.
The Swiss death toll from coronavirus rose to 484, from 432 on Thursday, while the number of positive tests rose to 19,303.
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Hi, I’m Aamna taking over the liveblog from my colleague Ben. If you want to get in touch, you can email me (aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com) or tweet at me.
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, said on Friday he was remaining in isolation with mild symptoms of the coronavirus, including a high temperature, seven days after he first tested positive.
“Although I’m feeling better and I’ve done my seven days of isolation, alas I still have one of the symptoms, a minor symptom, I still have a temperature,” Johnson said in a video message posted on Twitter.
“So in accordance with government advice I must continue my self isolation until that symptom itself goes.”
Johnson announced a week ago that he had tested positive and would be isolating in Downing Street.
In his address, the prime minister told Britons that they needed to stick to the rules on staying at home unless it was essential to go out, ahead of a weekend when good weather is forecast.
“I just urge you not to do that (go out). Please, please stick with the guidance now,” he said. “This country has made a huge effort, a huge sacrifice, done absolutely brilliantly well in delaying the spread of the virus. Let’s stick with it now.”
When asked earlier on Friday if Johnson would be out of isolation on Friday, his health minister, Matt Hancock, said: “I’ve absolutely no idea but what I do know is he’s still working.”
Hancock tested positive for coronavirus last week at about the same time as Johnson, but he has since left isolation and is working as scheduled.
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A drive-through coronavirus screening centre in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi has become a go-to destination for many wanting reassurance during the pandemic.
The facility, believed to be the first of its kind in the Gulf, greets around 600 people a day in the 12 hours it is in service.
The test is free for the elderly, pregnant women and anyone showing symptoms of Covid-19. Others can get tested for 370 dirhams ($100).
A nurse approaches the car to take the passengers’ temperatures and then takes a nasal swab - a five-minute procedure.
“It is safer than going to the hospital, which is scary these days, especially for children,” said Mohammed Abdullah al-Thahnani, who took his family to get tested after a 14-day quarantine upon arriving from abroad.
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French high-school school students will not sit the traditional baccalauréat (bac) exam this summer due to the coronavirus, the education minister has said, an unprecedented move that highlights the scale of disruption caused by the pandemic.
It is the first time since its inception in 1808 under Napoleon Bonaparte that the ‘bac’ exam will not take place in its traditional form. Even the sweeping student and labour protests of May 1968 did not prevent the exam going ahead.
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In the UK, Prince Charles opened a new 4,000-bed temporary hospital in a conference centre in east London, the first of several being built in Britain to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.
The new state-run National Health Service (NHS) hospital is named after the trailblazing 19th-century nurse Florence Nightingale and has been built in just nine days.
NHS Nightingale London will initially take 500 people in the coming days, said the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who has also tested positive for Covid-19.
It will take intensive care patients with Covid-19 from other London hospitals, which have had the highest number of cases across Britain.
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There are initial signs that the trend in new coronavirus infections in Germany is flattening off, the health minister, Jens Spahn, said on Friday.
Speaking during a visit to a logistics company involved in distributing supplies of medical protection equipment, Spahn said Germany had already obtained 1,500 new ventilators – essential to treating patients with acute cases of the novel coronavirus – and added that these would be in clinics by April.
Efforts to boost the number of intensive care beds available in recent days had resulted in 40% of them being free to receive patients, Spahn said.
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China’s central bank said on Friday it would cut the reserve requirements for smaller banks to release around 400bn yuan ($56.3bn) in liquidity, a move to counter the coronavirus impact on enterprises.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement it will also slash the interest it pays on financial institutions’ excess reserves for the first time in 12 years, to encourage them to use the cash rather than store it with the central bank.
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New registrations of cars on German roads plunged in March to its lowest in almost three decades, data shows, as restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus inflicted a heavy blow.
Sales tumbled 38% year-on-year to just over 215,100 according to data from the KBA vehicle licensing authority.
“Necessary health policy measures, like the massive limits on public life, closure of car dealerships and limited ability to work in the licensing offices” had put the brake on the car trade, the VDA carmakers’ federation said.
Domestic demand fell 30%, while foreign orders were down 37%.
In a quarterly comparison, sales in January-March were down 20% year-on-year.
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The Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, on Friday said the coronavirus situation in Russia could yet develop into a worst-case scenario, and that the epidemic has not peaked there yet.
“It is clear that the peak of infections has not yet passed, and we can’t rule out the situation developing into the most difficult scenario,” said Mishustin.
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I am covering the blog for the next hour. Please share your thoughts, news tips and any insights from where you are with me.
Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
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Police in India barricaded parts of one of Asia’s biggest slums on Friday after two coronavirus deaths. It comes as prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to dispel “darkness and uncertainty” with a national light show.
India so far has largely escaped the pandemic, with 2,300 infections and 56 deaths, according to official figures. However, two fatalities and a third infection in the Dharavi neighbourhood of Mumbai have set alarm bells ringing.
Authorities have set up eight “containment zones” in the area, which was made famous by the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire.
“We have home-quarantined people from these buildings and cordoned off the area so people can’t enter them, and enforced social distancing,” said Vijay Khabale-Patil, spokesman of Mumbai’s city authority.
“We sprayed hydrochloric acid to disinfect these buildings and nearby areas as well … People from Dharavi are following the rules and keeping themselves and their kids inside homes.”
Police on Friday were not letting anyone in or out of the cordoned areas.
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In the UK, the deadliest peak of the coronavirus outbreak could be on Easter Sunday, according to the health secretary, Matt Hancock.
When asked about reports that the death rate could peak on 12 April, Hancock told Sky: “I defer to the scientists on the exact predictions, I’m not going to steer you away from that. That is one perfectly possible outcome.”
Reuters reported on Thursday that the British government’s worst case scenario envisaged the Covid-19 death toll of 50,000 if self-isolation was not fully adhered to and that the worst day for deaths was projected to be 12 April.
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Iran has announced 134 more deaths from the novel coronavirus, bringing the officially total to 3,294.
Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told a news conference that 2,715 new infections had been confirmed in the past 24 hours, with cases now rising to 53,183.
Iran is one of the countries worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic and has been struggling to contain the outbreak since it reported its first deaths on 19 February.
Jahanpour said 17,935 of those hospitalised with the virus had recovered, while 4,035 were in a critical condition.
The government has banned all intercity travel until at least 8 April, and has repeatedly urged Iranians to stay at home. There is no official lockdown inside Iran’s cities.
President Hassan Rouhani warned on Thursday that there was no quick fix and that Iran might have to battle the pandemic for another year.
Authorities have closed schools and universities as well as four key Shiite pilgrimage destinations, including the Fatima Masumeh shrine in Qom, the city where the first deaths were reported.
They have also cancelled the main weekly Friday prayers and temporarily closed parliament.
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Singapore will close schools and most workplaces for a month as part of stricter measures to curb a recent jump in coronavirus infections, it said on Friday, an announcement that sent locals racing to supermarkets to stock up on staples.
The city-state has won international praise for its two-month long battle against a virus that has infected over a million people globally, avoiding lockdown measures increasingly common around the world.
But authorities said record jumps in new infections this week, taking its total to 1,114 cases, pointed to the need for a tougher approach.
Disease experts have said breaches in Singapore’s lauded virus defence have underlined the challenge of containing the pandemic around the world.
Updated
Hello everyone. I am taking over the live blog while my colleague Ben Quinn gets some lunch. Please do share any thoughts or insights from where you are with me via any of the channels below.
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Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
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Hungarian journalists voice concerns at new law
Hungarian journalists say a new law supposedly aimed at fighting the coronavirus will make objective reporting of the pandemic harder and leave them open to facing court cases or even jail time for their reporting.
The measures, in place since Monday, have been roundly criticised for the sweeping powers they hand to the nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree. Another part of the bill provides penalties of up to five years in prison for those spreading misinformation during the pandemic.
Journalists in the country say the new law is already being used to deny them access to information, and on occasion to threaten them.
One Budapest-based journalist, who requested anonymity given the current situation in the country, said she had called a hospital over the weekend to follow up on a tip-off about a group of doctors who had reportedly contracted the coronavirus there.
“A few minutes later, the hospital’s chief communication officer called me back and asked if I think it’s a good idea to keep asking about this, a day before the government’s bill will be passed,” she said.
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Swiss death toll rises to 484
The death toll in Switzerland has risen to 484 while the number of positive cases stands at 19,903, the Swiss government has said.
The country has closed schools, shuttered many businesses and banned gatherings of more than five people as it fights the outbreak.
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The Premier League’s position at the top of world football could be in danger if a solution to reducing player wages during the coronavirus crisis is not found, an analyst has warned.
A week of talks between football bodies and the players’ union, the PFA, has led to little movement before an extraordinary Premier League shareholders meeting on Friday.
Away from negotiations, debate has centred on the tone-deafness of some clubs seeking taxpayers’ money to furlough non-playing staff.
According to one expert, however, it is also possible that substantial wage bills could hinder the Premier League’s ability to bounce back after the crisis, leaving leading players as easy pickings for rival leagues.
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South Korea has denied entry to eight foreign nationals after they refused to comply with strict quarantine requirements introduced this week to help the country tackle a rise in coronavirus infections, as anger mounts over visitors who have been caught breaking self-isolation rules.
The visitors, from six countries, were deported after they refused to self-isolate for two weeks, the justice ministry said. Media reports said the passengers had been informed of the rules before they boarded their flights
Justin McCurry, in Tokyo, and Nemo Kim, in Seoul, report that the rule, which came into force on Wednesday, requires all overseas arrivals – including South Koreans – to quarantine at home or at government-designated facilities for 14 days.
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YouTube is profiting from videos promoting unproven coronavirus treatments, a report has found, as the company struggles to crack down on misinformation.
The Google-owned tech company is running advertisements with videos pushing herbs, meditative music, and potentially unsafe over-the-counter supplements as cures for Covid-19, according to a report published on Friday by the Tech Transparency Project, a not-for-profit watchdog organisation.
The report found at least seven videos hawking such dubious treatments with advertisements from sponsors including Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, Facebook, Liberty Mutual Insurance, the streaming startup Quibi, and Masterclass.com.
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In Spain, 932 people have died in the past 24 hours, a slight drop from the 950 deaths recorded one day earlier and marking the first drop in the daily death toll this week.
Spain has seen 10,935 deaths from the virus, the health ministry said on Friday, accounting for about 20% of the global death toll. On Friday, authorities in Madrid said they were working to convert a second ice rink in the region into a makeshift morgue for coronavirus victims, after carrying out a similar transformation on another ice rink last month.
The number of confirmed cases in the country has grown to 117,710, surpassing the number of known cases in Italy but still behind the more than 245,000 confirmed cases in the US.
Amid the bleak news was a glimmer of hope: this week has seen a drop in the rate of new infections across Spain, suggesting the outbreak is slowing. The number of hospitalisations grew by around 10% this week, compared to around 30% in weeks earlier, health officials said Friday.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” the country’s health minister, Salvador Illa, told parliament on Thursday. “We are in a phase of stabilisation and, with caution and prudence, I would say that we’re seeing a slow down.”
At one of Madrid’s hardest-hit hospitals, one doctor said there were now eight empty beds in his critical care unit, one of several such units in the hospital, and that his unit had not seen any new patients in 48 hours.
Spain has documented more than 30,500 recoveries from Covid-19, second only to the more than 76,000 reported recovered in China. Those who left the hospital this week included 101-year-old Encarna Buisán, who was wheeled out of the hospital to the raucous applause of healthcare workers. “I want this to give hope for everyone,” said Mari Carmen, one of her daughters. “Mom entered when she was 100 and turned 101 in the hospital, she made it out.”
Some 70 tonnes of protective gear arrived in Spain this week to help the country’s beleaguered healthcare workers. At least 9,400 have tested positive for Covid-19 after a shortage of supplies left them re-using masks and crafting protective gowns out of garbage bags to fight the epidemic.
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A video purporting to show thousands of Russian troops taking part in rehearsals for the country’s Victory Day parade has raised questions about the Kremlin’s efforts to fight the spread of coronavirus in the armed forces.
The video, which was posted to a military affairs group in the social network Vkontakte, shows thousands of soldiers lined up apparently at the Alabino training grounds outside of Moscow. It was posted anonymously and its author has not yet been verified.
In the video, an unidentified man behind the camera says: “How many people are there, 15,000? Fuck, and they’ve said no more than 50 are supposed to gather in one place. Not one fucking mask.”
Video purportedly of Russian troops at the Victory Day Parade rehearsals in Alabino who aren't quite meeting the 1.5 meter social distancing requirement instituted by local officials.https://t.co/Zhut8EX9gt pic.twitter.com/JIQLTPFUMQ
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 2, 2020
Russia has not yet cancelled its plans to hold Victory Day celebrations on 9 May, the country’s most important state holiday. The Russian defence ministry said last month it planned to hold rehearsals at parade grounds outside of Moscow that copy the dimensions of Red Square.
Other videos have appeared that confirm that some rehearsals are taking place for the country’s Victory Day parade.
The military news agency Zvezda has posted videos of T-34 tanks, the model used in the second world war, practising manoeuvres at the parade grounds in Alabino.
Легендарные Т-34 после реставрации: кадры прибытия исторических танков в Алабино pic.twitter.com/kFPRXd9rjK
— zvezdanews (@zvezdanews) March 31, 2020
Updated
Frances mobilises police ahead of Easter holidays
Tens of thousands of extra police and gendarmes are being posted across France to ensure people respect the lockdown and to stop the traditional “Grand Depart” for the Easter holidays on Friday.
Patrols will set up checkpoints on all major roads and motorways out of towns and cities with orders to turn back those attempting to break the rules.
Officials in areas popular with holidaymakers and where there is a high proportion of second homes have also been ordered to carry out checks to ensure there is no sudden influx of visitors.
“The virus is not on holiday,” the French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, said in a televised address on Thursday evening.
Philippe was echoing the interior minister, Christophe Castaner, who only hours earlier had warned: “Absolutely do not go on holiday during the lockdown period … people must remain confined. Any abuse will be punished.”
Laurent Nunez, the French transport minister, echoed the stern instructions on Friday morning saying an extra 60,000 police and gendarmes will be carrying out checks in addition to the 100,000 normally on duty.
“You cannot leave your home to go to a resort or a second home. There will be no leaving for holiday … there will be checks across the country,” Nunez told RTL radio.
Updated
Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has returned to her office after ending her self-quarantine today. She had been isolating after being informed that a doctor who administered a vaccine to her has tested positive.
Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, said this morning that the prime minister, Boris Johnson, who has “been working throughout” after he tested positive for the virus, is a “bit under the weather” but is also “up and about and on the Zoom conference calls a huge amount, and on the phone”.
Updated
Hungary’s prime minister, who has been given new powers to effectively rule by decree, has been hitting out again at a favourite target, the philanthropist George Soros.
In another big test for the European Union, Politico’s Lili Bayer tweets that Viktor Orbán has suggested that criticism of new laws have come from a “network” led by the Hungarian-born billionaire.
Soros, who has also long been a target of what some regard as blatant antisemitic vilification by Orbán’s party, has donated $1.1m to help Budapest prepare for the coronavirus pandemic.
Orbán says on Hungarian state radio that criticism of Hungary's law is due to network, led by George Soros, which is trying to get the country's resources, and this network has people in Brussels posts. Wonder how @vonderleyen @VeraJourova @dreynders will respond to that one.
— Lili Bayer (@liliebayer) April 3, 2020
On Monday, Hungary’s parliament passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for spreading misinformation and gives no clear time limit to a state of emergency that allows Orbán to rule by decree.
Parliament voted by 137 to 53 on Monday afternoon to pass the measures, with the two-thirds majority enjoyed by Orbán’s Fidesz party enough to push them through in spite of opposition from other parties, which had demanded a time limit or sunset clause on the legislation.
The bill introduces jail terms of up to five years for intentionally spreading misinformation that hinders the government response to the pandemic, leading to fears that it could be used to censor or self-censor criticism of ministers.
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A $100m aid plan to help Afghanistan’s fight against coronavirus has been approved by the World Bank as 34 new Coronavirus cases were confirmed in the country in the last 24 hours.
The figure pushes the total number of confirmed infections to 273 although testing remains low in Afghanistan and experts fear that the full extent of the spread is not known.
There has also been a sixth confirmed death. Fifteen of the new infections have been recorded in the western province of Herat, raising the total number of infections in Afghanistan’s worst affected area to 199.
The World Bank said in a statement: “To slow and limit the spread of Covid-19 through enhanced detection, surveillance, and laboratory systems, as well as strengthen essential healthcare delivery and intensive care.”
Updated
The work of doctors, nurses and other staff treating patients with Covid-19 in Barcelona has been documented by a team of journalists from the Associated Press, who accessed a makeshift Intensive Care Unit there.
In an extraordinary dispatch, they report:
The tension is palpable. There is no non-essential talking. An orchestra of medical monitors marks the tempo with an endless series of soft, distinct beeps.
Never have so many people been inside the library of the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital in north-eastern Spain. But the healthcare workers in improvised protective gear aren’t consulting medical books. Instead, they’re treating patients in critical condition suffering from pneumonia caused by the coronavirus.
From the outside, this makeshift intensive-care unit in Badalona, near Barcelona, looks nothing like a library. The bookshelves have been removed to make room for up to 20 hospital beds, breathing machines and an array of medical equipment after the longstanding ICU and other areas of the hospital flooded with Covid-19 patients.
With the scarcity of full-body protective suits across Spain, doctors and nurses are employing what they can find, reusing masks, layering oversized surgical gowns with plastic aprons and running through an infinite number of latex gloves.
Like scuba divers, they apply a small dose of detergent to their goggles just before stepping into the sweltering, virus-laden room in the hopes of mitigating the inevitable fogging of their eye protection caused by their own breathing.
Updated
Challenges in keeping people apart have been underscored by data released by Google for 131 countries showing whether the number of visits to shops, parks and workplaces dropped in March, when many states issued stay-at-home orders to rein in the spread of coronavirus.
While visits to supermarkets and grocery stores surged in Singapore, the UK and elsewhere before travel restrictions were imposed, visits to retail and recreational places fell 26% in Japan, where authorities have been relatively relaxed in urging social distancing measures but where calls have been growing daily for a state of emergency. Visits to workplace dropped just 9%.
Google’s analysis of location data from billions of users’ phones is the largest public dataset available to help health authorities assess if people are abiding with shelter-in-place and similar orders issued across the world.
Its reports show charts that compare traffic from 16 February to 29 March at underground, train and bus stations, grocery stores and other broad categories of places with a five-week period earlier this year.
In Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus, visits to
retail and recreation locations, including restaurants and movie theaters, plunged 94% while visits to workplaces slid 63%.
Reflecting the severity of the crisis there, grocery and pharmacy visits in Italy dropped 85% and park visits were down by 90%.
In the US, California, which was the first in the with a statewide lockdown, cut visits to retail and recreation locations by half.
By contrast, Arkansas, one of the few states without a sweeping lockdown, has seen such visits fall 29%, the lowest for a US state.
Updated
Interactive maps charting the spread of the virus, and where it has been most deadly, have been launched by the Guardian.
While the disease is hitting Italy and Spain with particular cruelty, the trajectory in many countries is the same; the UK and US are a couple of weeks behind Italy in the progress of the pandemic.
Updated
Unable to access state benefits, food and even running water as Zimbabwe shuts up shop, people in the capital, Harare ,and elsewhere fear the worst.
While affluent Zimbabweans stocked their pantries with food last weekend in preparation for the lockdown, which began on Monday, poor people were unable to do so, Nyasha Chingono reports in this piece for Guardian development.
She spoke to Nelson Mahunde, a 70-year old who had no idea Zimbabwe has been plunged into a 21-day national lockdown to curb the spread of Covid 19.
“No one in my village told me that the banks would be closed today. I don’t even know what to do. My family depends on that money for survival. If it is true that no one will be moving for 21 days, then my family will starve,” he said.
Updated
Norway’s rate of unemployment rose sixfold in March to 14.7%, the Labour and Welfare Agency (NAV) has said, the highest level on record as the economy ground to a halt amid efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic.
As many as 10.7% were fully unemployed, while the remaining 3% were registered as partially unemployed, Reuters reported.
The Norwegian government three weeks ago announced emergency shutdowns of many public and private institutions, including schools and kindergartens, sending the economy into a tailspin and triggering hundreds of thousands of layoffs.
Singapore’s prime minster is doing a live briefing (watch here) on Facebook about new measures, which will involve the closure of most of the state’s workplaces, except for essential services and key economic sectors.
Lee Hsien Loong has said, as part of tighter measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus
, that people should avoid socialising with others beyond their own households and go out only to do essential things, such as buy food at markets.
The government will be distributing face masks to households in the coming weeks, he added.
Updated
Two months ago Ireland’s economy was humming: stellar growth, fiscal surplus, near full employment. What a difference a pandemic makes.
The central bank on Friday warned that this year the economy will shrink by 8%, perhaps 15%, if lockdown continues beyond June. Instead of a €2.2bn surplus the government faces a €19.6bn deficit. And unemployment has just exploded to an all-time high of 513,350, more than a fifth of the labour force, with worse to come.
“The starting point for the recovery will depend on the depth and duration of the downturn, which is, as yet, unknown,” said Mark Cassidy, the bank’s director of economics and statistics.
Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach, said Irish people had suffered enough after the 2008 crash and that the government would strive to cushion the aftershocks. “The objective, if I have anything to do with it, will be to avoid another era of austerity,” he said.
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Talks were under way among European Union member states over whether or not to extend border closures beyond Easter in order to tackle the coronavirus crisis, according to the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.
“We are in consultation with member states on how to proceed beyond Easter,” she told Europe 1 radio.
Von Der Leyen also reiterated that the next EU budget should take the form of a new “Marshall Plan” to drive Europe’s recovery from the coronavirus outbreak, and that she felt Europe would emerge from the coronavirus crisis in a stronger state.
Eurozone states that need aid from the bloc’s bailout fund to tackle the coronavirus should get it quickly and not be first subjected to visits from officials proposing policies like during the euro zone crisis, Germany’s finance minister said last night.
Olaf Scholz told the broadcaster ARD that he was convinced the European Stability Mechanism - a bailout fund with €400bn ($433.88bn) in firepower - had instruments suitable for use during the coronavirus outbreak, which has hit eurozone countries like Italy and Spain hard.
The comments by Von der Leyen and Scholz come amid rising tensions - EU flags have been burned in Italy where polls show an uptick in unhappiness with the union - and proposals by France for a coronavirus ‘rescue fund’ for states.
Updated
Iraq bans Reuters over coronavirus reports
Iraq has banned the Reuters news agency from operating in Iraq for three months for reporting that the number of coronavirus cases in the country is much higher than acknowledged by officials.
The agency reported that the actual number of those suffering from the virus could be thousands higher than the official tally of 772 and that the scale of the outbreak has been downplayed to avoid public panic.
The report adds impetus to concerns reported in the Guardian this week that state figures of suspected Covid 19 patients in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon may be substantially lower than real numbers. Hezbollah has said it is opening treatment centres in southern Lebanon that supplement the state’s health system. However, there are fears that a parallel state structure could obscure real numbers of those infected with the virus.
All three countries have links to Iran, the centre of a pandemic in the region that has taken root among religious pilgrims and merchants who had travelled back to Baghdad, Beirut and Damascus, many since returning to communities outside the capitals.
Updated
This piece of Chinese technology - tweeted here by China social trend watcher Manya Koetse - looks interesting.
A very China 2020 way of checking body temperature. #COVID19 #Beijing pic.twitter.com/0gOPEGingC
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) April 3, 2020
Updated
Police in Israel have surrounded the city of Bnei Brak with barricades and begun evacuating around 4,500 elderly people after the densely-populated area saw an explosion of Covid-19 cases.
Predominately populated with ultra-Orthodox Jewish people, Bnei Brak is near the commercial capital of Tel Aviv but is poor and congested.
Some ultra-orthodox rabbis – long distrustful of the Israeli state’s authority over their way of life – had also initially rejected stringent coronavirus measures, playing down the risk and refusing to close synagogues and packed religious seminaries.
Medical experts estimate up to 38% of Bnei Brak’s roughly 200,000 inhabitants could be infected, significantly higher the national average.
Israel’s cabinet declared the city a “restricted zone” on Thursday night, with measures imposed early on Friday. Around 1,000 police officers had been dispatched. Residents will not be allowed to leave the city except under special circumstances.
Police in Pakistan will today enforce a strict lockdown to prevent people from going to mosques to offer Friday prayers and fuel a rise in coronavirus infection, officials have said, after failing to prevent large congregations last week.
Health experts have warned of an epidemic in South Asia, home to a fifth of the world’s population, that could easily overwhelm its weak public health systems.
But authorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh, another Muslim majority nation, and even India have struggled to persuade conservative religious groups to maintain social distancing in order to curb the spread of the virus.
The government in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, home to the country’s largest city, Karachi, will enforce a “curfew-like” lockdown for three hours beginning 12 noon Friday to deter people from coming out of their homes for prayers, Reuters reported.
Concern is growing that a woefully inadequate health system will leave Malawi unable to cope when Covid-19 arrives.
In Malawi only 20 people a day can be tested for the virus, and there are just 25 intensive care unit beds and seven ventilators in the country of more than 18 million people, John Vidal reports in this piece for the Guardian.
Since February, however, the government has been racing to curb Covid’s arrival.
It has wheeled out a £24m preparedness plan, suspended international flights, banned weddings and gatherings of more than 100 people, closed schools and universities, and is making anyone arriving from Europe, China, or the US self-isolate.
According to the ministry of health, 4,603 people who have entered the country in the past few weeks are “under surveillance”.
UK peak likely to come slightly sooner - health minster
Britain’s ‘peak’ for coronavirus infections will be slightly sooner than previously thought and will be in the next few weeks, the UK’s health minster has said, but it is very very sensitive to how many people continue to follow the social distancing guidelines.
Hancock went on to say he was open to people and companies contacting him with ideas for how to resolve the problems and questions which his department was attempting to solve.
“I saw what happened with the ventilators when we got non ventilator companies in to build companies side by side with the smaller but expert ventilation companies,” he added.
Updated
UK still searching for reliable antibody test - Health Minister
The UK still does not currently have a reliable home test at the moment to carry out home blood tests that would enable people to know if they have had coronavirus, Britain’s health secretary has said.
Matt Hancock has been pressed in morning interviews on how many of the new UK target of 100,000 tests a day – up from much lower figures – would be composed of the blood, or antibody test.
Hundreds of formulas and details for proposed ways of doing the antibody tests had been sent in to the government by experts but a good enough one has not been found.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “We haven’t yet found one that works to be good enough to use. I get pressure on this. I get people saying ‘oh come on it may not be perfectly accurate but can’t we just use it.’ The test problems is that with a test that is not of high quality you end up giving false assurance.”
People could go into harm’s way when they may have immunity to the virus in those circumstances, he added.
In another interview, Hancock described having coronavirus as a “pretty unpleasant experience” and said he had lost half a stone during the illness and said it was “like having glass in my throat”.
He said: “For me it was short-lived and I was able to come back to work yesterday and I’m in full health. But it is worrying. I’ve lost half a stone, it’s quite a serious impact directly. But thankfully for me I could get through it.”
China advises foreign diplomats to stop coming to Beijing
China’s foreign ministry is advising foreign diplomats to stop coming to Beijing, after the country temporarily banned most foreigners from entering to prevent a resurgence of a coronavirus epidemic, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters during a daily briefing that the ministry was aware of confirmed coronavirus cases among foreign diplomats in China.
The Hong Kong government has accused a media organisation of “breaching the One-China principle” after a reporter asked a senior World Health Organization (WHO) adviser a question about Taiwan during an interview.
RTHK’s Yvonne Tong asked WHO adviser Bruce Aylward whether the organisation would reconsider Taiwan’s membership, long objected to by Beijing. Aylward appeared not to hear Tong, and then either hung up on her or was disconnected.
On Thursday, Hong Kong’s secretary for commerce and economic development, Edward Yau, accused RTHK of breaching its charter obligations, which include “promoting understanding of the concept of ‘one country, two systems’.”
Updated
UK supermarket chain removes customer purchase limits
The British supermarket group Sainsbury’s has said it would start to remove the customer purchasing limits it imposed as a response to increased demand during the coronavirus emergency.
“As stock continues to build, we have been reviewing whether we still need to limit the number of items people buy. I am pleased to tell you that we will start to remove limits from Sunday,” Chief Executive Mike Coupe said in a letter to customers.
Limits will remain in place on the most popular items which include UHT milk, pasta and tinned tomatoes, he said. Here’s a link on the company’s website.
Updated
British parliamentarians have called for strict curbs on gambling during the Covid-19 lockdown, including a moratorium on advertising, calling the betting industry’s own proposals “very weak”.
An industry body, the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC) issued a 10-point pledge last week, promising extra steps to ensure firms do not exploit vulnerable people and addicts who may be at increased risk due to the inertia inherent in staying at home for long periods.
But in a letter to the government – and the BGC – 22 MPs, two lords and one of the UK’s foremost gambling addiction experts said the measures put forward by the trade body were either weak, vague or already formed part of requirements of their licence to operate.
Updated
In the UK, the government is to follow through today on its attempt to regain the initiative around plans for mass testing after announcing last night it is to move from 10,000 tests a day to a new target of 100,000 a day by the end of the month.
It comes as the new Nightingale hospital opens in London at the ExCeL conference centre. Other field hospitals in England have been announced in Bristol and Harrogate while there are temporary hospitals for Birmingham and Manchester. Similar initiatives are being rolled out in Glasgow and Cardiff.
Heathrow airport has also announced it is to operate with just one runway from next Monday. While there are significantly fewer flights, it said it needed to remain open for vital foot and medical supplies.
The airport has two runways and will alternate which one they keep open on a weekly basis, a spokesman said. In 2018, Heathrow served 80.1 million passengers,
This is Ben Quinn in London picking up the blog now.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of the main events so far today.
- There are more than 1,002,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide and more than 51,400 deaths.
- In the UK, there are more than 34,000 cases after a sharp rise in the number of confirmed cases on Thursday, and more than 2,900 deaths. A temporary hospital, built in nine days, will open in London on Friday.
- The US, which has the largest number of cases of any country, has more than 236,000 confirmed cases and more than 5,600 deaths.
- President Trump tested negative to the virus on Thursday, and 6.7 million Americans joined unemployment queues over the past week.
- In the US, the Zaandam cruise liner, on which four people have died, has docked in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after previously being denied entry. Dozens of other passengers are sick with flu-like symptoms on the vessel. It’s sister ship, the Rotterdam, also docked in Florida.
- Residents of Wuhan were warned to stay indoors and strengthen protection measures, a few days before travel restrictions on the city at the centre of the pandemic are scheduled to be lifted.
- China will hold a national day of mourning on Saturday for “martyrs” who died in the fight against the epidemic, the official Xinhua news agency says. China recorded 31 new cases on Friday, 29 of which were imported.
- New Zealand’s health minister has apologised to the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, after he was photographed mountain-biking, apparently flouting the government’s own advice to exercise safely and locally during a countrywide lockdown.
- Australia’s chief medical officer, Dr Brendan Murphy, has said worldwide cases of Covid-19 could be “five to 10 times” higher than the one million known currently. Murphy says the only numbers he has total faith in are the Australian numbers, because “we have the highest testing rate in the world” (Trump has also claimed this mantle).
- A row has erupted in the US over the sacking of the commander of the US Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, which is docked in Guam. Capt Brett Crozier had written a scathing letter asking for stronger measures to control a coronavirus outbreak onboard his warship, which was subsequently leaked to the media.
- Hong Kong’s airline, Cathay Pacific, carried just 582 passengers one day this week, with a load factor of 18.3%, Reuters reports, quoting an internal memo. Its CEO and chairman have agreed to take a 30% base salary cut until December.
- Also in Hong Kong, pubs and bars were ordered to close for two weeks from 6pm on Friday as the financial hub steps up social distancing restrictions and joins cities around the world in the battle to halt the spread of coronavirus.
- Governments in the Middle East need to act fast to limit the spread of the coronavirus after the number of cases rose to nearly 60,000, almost double their level a week earlier, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
Updated
Here’s a look at some of today’s front pages in the UK.
Friday’s GUARDIAN: No 10 admits mistakes over testing as it sets new target #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/J1sBbJKj5U
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 2, 2020
Friday’s TIMES: 100,000 virus tests a day #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/QR5VfOAA5k
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 3, 2020
Friday’s SUN: Bad to Wurst #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/xcQIrZFwmt
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 2, 2020
Friday’s TELEGRAPH: 100,000 tests a day promised as ministers seek end to lockdown #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/4waID9LRaK
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 2, 2020
Friday’s MIRROR: Heroes face test wait #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/gi6euSl6J8
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 2, 2020
Friday’s MAIL: Don’t fail this test, Minister #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/ikCzYQDzIw
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 2, 2020
Friday’s EXPRESS: Virus pledge ti test 100,000 a day #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/rvhmshJcij
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 2, 2020
Friday’s FT : Jobless claims surge in Europe and US as global economy stalls #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Bd2sk4hw9z
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) April 2, 2020
Prince Charles to open new Covid-19 hospital
Prince Charles will open the new NHS Nightingale hospital at the ExCeL conference centre in London Docklands on Friday, which will eventually be capable of providing support for up to 4,000 coronavirus patients if required.
Charles, recently recovered from a mild case of Covid-19, will conduct the ceremony via videolink from his Scottish residence at Birkhall, where he self-isolated for seven days last week.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, also recently out of self-isolation following a positive test for coronavirus, and Prof Charles Knight, chief executive of NHS Nightingale, will join a small group representing medical staff, the Ministry of Defence, contractors and volunteers at the new hospital.
It comes as the NHS announced two further NHS Nightingale hospitals will be built in Bristol and Harrogate to provide hundreds of extra beds if local services need them during the peak of coronavirus, in addition to the one at the ExCeL.
The NHS England chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, will confirm on Friday that the extra sites in south-west England and Yorkshire – which will have up to 1,500 beds if needed – have joined Manchester and Birmingham as the latest locations for major new facilities outside of London. Each of the five Nightingale hospitals will serve the wider regions in which they are located.
The new hospital in east London is the first to open and will initially provide up to 500 beds equipped with ventilators and oxygen. The capacity will then increase, potentially up to several thousands beds should it be required.
Constructed within nine days, the conversion of the ExCeL conference centre into a field hospital has been cited as perhaps the most ambitious medical project Britain has seen since the end of the second world war, and will dwarf all other hospitals in the UK.
Planning has involved soldiers with experience from Afghanistan and the west African Ebola crisis working in support of health service staff. Up to 200 soldiers a day have been working alongside NHS staff and civilian contractors.
Charles is expected to pay tribute to those who have worked tirelessly to create the new medical facility, and to the people across the UK who are delivering frontline care to those affected by the coronavirus crisis.
Natalie Grey, head of nursing at NHS Nightingale, will unveil a plaque on behalf of Charles marking the occasion.
Stevens said: “It’s nothing short of extraordinary that this new hospital in London has been established from scratch in less than a fortnight … Now we are gearing up to repeat that feat at another four sites across the country to add to the surge capacity in current NHS hospitals.
“We’re giving the go ahead to these additional sites, hoping they may not be needed but preparing in case they are. But that will partly depend on continuing public support for measures to reduce growth in the infection rate by staying at home to save lives.”
The new hospital in Manchester will be built at the city’s Manchester Central complex while the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham will take care of patients as needed in the West Midlands, the region second hardest hit by the virus.
Each of these new services will initially have up to 500 beds, potentially offering as many as 3,000 more between them if cases escalate.
Updated
Elton John, Paul McCartney among stars thanking NHS
Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and David Beckham were among the stars paying tribute to NHS staff risking their lives fighting the coronavirus pandemic, PA reports.
In a video shared online by NHS England, stars from film, TV, music and sport held up a placard bearing the slogans OurNHSPeople and ThankYouNHS.
Sir Elton, Sir Paul and Beckham were joined by A-listers including Sir Mick Jagger, Kate Winslet, Daniel Craig, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Dame Kristin Scott Thomas.
Kylie Minogue, Naomi Harris, Eddie Redmayne Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill and Sir Mo Farah also featured.
The video was shared hours before the nation saluted key workers for a second successive Thursday.
Up and down the country grateful Britons stood on their doorsteps and hung out of windows to clap, cheer and bang pots and pans to show their appreciation for key workers.
Our @CNOEngland Ruth May is joined by some familiar faces to say a very big #ThankYouNHS to all of the incredible staff, carers and volunteers across health and care. 💙 #COVID19 #ThankYouThursday #OurNHSPeople pic.twitter.com/X96HuTWoos
— NHS England and NHS Improvement (@NHSEngland) April 2, 2020
I mentioned earlier that the Asian Development Bank had said Vietnam’s GDP growth will slow to 4.98% this year, versus 7.02% last year.
I now have a fuller copy of the report, which says regional economic growth in developing Asia will decline sharply in 2020. It forecasts regional growth of 2.2% in 2020, down from the 5.5% the ADB had forecast in September.
But the ADB says growth is expected to rebound to 6.2% in 2021, assuming that the outbreak ends and activity normalises.
“The evolution of the global pandemic—and thus the outlook for the global and regional economy—is highly uncertain. Growth could turn out lower, and the recovery slower, than we are currently forecasting. For this reason, strong and coordinated efforts are needed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and minimise its economic impact, especially on the most vulnerable,” said ADB Chief Economist Yasuyuki Sawada.
The ADB estimates the pandemic will:
- reduce China’s growth to 2.3% this year, before rebounding to 7.3% in 2021.
- It estimates growth in India will slow to 4.0% in fiscal year 2020 before strengthening to 6.2% in 2021.
- Economic activity in the Pacific subregion is expected to contract by 0.3% in 2020 before recovering to 2.7% in 2021.
New Zealand’s health minister has apologised to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern after he was photographed mountain biking, apparently flouting the government’s own advice to exercise safely and locally during a country-wide lockdown.
David Clark told Ardern on Thursday night that he had driven to a park 2km from his Dunedin home.
You can read our full story below.
Here’s our latest global wrap on the coronavirus pandemic, toplining with the citizens of Wuhan being told to stay inside and be vigilant as the date for their travel restrictions being lifted approaches (8 April). As I mentioned earlier, tomorrow will be a national day of mourning in China. Get the full story below:
Updated
In Hungary journalists say a new law supposedly aimed at fighting the coronavirus will make objective reporting of the pandemic harder and leave them open to facing court cases or even jail time for their reporting.
The measures, in place since Monday, have been roundly criticised for the sweeping powers they hand to the nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree. Another part of the bill provides penalties of up to five years in prison for those spreading misinformation during the pandemic.
Journalists in the country say the new law is already being used to deny them access to information, and on occasion to threaten them.
You can read the Guardian’s full story below:
Crops at risk in Europe without migrant workers
Farmers across Europe bank on improvised armies of pickers to save harvest, as coronavirus lockdowns have stopped migrant workers from arriving to carry out the work.
Fruit and vegetable crops in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, the UK and other countries risk rotting in the fields – putrefying testaments to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It won’t be pretty,” said Eamonn Kehoe, a soft fruit specialist with Ireland’s agri-food agency, Teagasc. “If they don’t have the staff it won’t be picked. It’s a nightmare, a perfect storm.”
He was referring to Ireland’s growers, but farmers and agriculture officials across Europe have equally grim warnings about abandoned fields and lost crops unless they can conjure improvised armies of pickers.
Spain, which is the EU’s biggest exporter of fruit and vegetables, is already feeling the impact. “We’re very limited at the moment when it comes to having enough hands to pick and harvest,” said Pedro Barato, the president of Spain’s largest farming association, Asaja.
You can read the full story below:
Updated
Australia's chief medical officer says global cases could be '5-10 times higher' than reported
Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Brendan Murphy has said worldwide cases of Covid-19 could be “five to 10 times” higher than the one million known currently. Murphy says the only numbers he has total faith in are the Australian numbers, because “we have the highest testing rate in the world” (Trump has also claimed this mantle).
I think China is in a really difficult position. They did clamp down incredibly hard and they stopped transmission. But their population is not immune. They still have a lot of people in their population and they are, obviously, trying very hard to prevent second waves. I think they have been pretty transparent but as I said, I’m only confident about our numbers. I’m certainly not confident even the numbers out of the US are much higher than being reported because nobody else in the world has been doing testing like we have. Nobody else in the world got on to all those original cases out of Wuhan in January and contained them. That’s why we are now dealing with what we know rather than a huge community transmission that happened all through February in countries like Italy and the US. We’re on top of our cases. But we still have a long way to go.
At the same press conference, Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, said modelling done for the government shows that “at the current rate” Australia is “tracking well”.
At the current rate if we keep doing what we’re doing and keep doing the work to upgrade ICU capacity and secure the extra ventilators then right now that trajectory is promising, it’s encouraging, but there are no guarantees. This virus writes its own rules.
You can follow all of the developments in Australia’ on Guardian Australia’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Updated
The Asian Development Bank says that Vietnam’s GDP growth will slow to 4.98% this year, versus 7.02% last year.
Still with business and share markets have had a sticky day after hopes of a Saudi-Russia deal on oil production faded.
Donald Trump talked up the hope of a deal that would reverse a decision last month by the two countries to boost production, which shocked investors and saw prices plunge to $20 a barrel.
But that looks less certain now and the price of Brent crude slipped more than 1% in the Asia trading session. Shares also struggled and Wall Street was set to open down on Friday. All the main indices in Asia Pacific, from Sydney to Seoul, are in the red.
Updated
Some more details from my colleague Helen Davidson about the capacity cuts at Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong-based airline that has been devastated by the city protests and now the virus.
Augustus Tang, the chief executive, says the airline’s passenger fleet “has been virtually grounded as the remaining demand has disappeared”, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
Just in: Hong Kong flagship airline @cathaypacific further cuts its capacity due to #coronavirus. As the airline carried on average 582 passengers each day, CEO Augustus Tang announces to operate two flights per week and reduce senior management’s wage by 25-30% from Apr to Dec. pic.twitter.com/KWsORyZXEQ
— Ezra Cheung (@ezracheungtoto) April 3, 2020
“We carried 582 customers on one day this week, with a load factor of just 18.3%,” he said, adding that a usual day would see 100,000 passengers.
Cathay’s passenger capacity will now be further reduced from the previously announced “skeleton schedule” to two weekly flights to four long-haul destinations- London Heathrow, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Sydney.
So basically you're telling me Cathay is closing shop except air cargo for the next two months???
— Trinh Nguyen (@Trinhnomics) April 3, 2020
Super worrying for Hong Kong economy. https://t.co/M5o2hSrYun
Tang said they hoped to maintain three weekly flights on regional services to Tokyo, Taipei, New Delhi, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore, as well as three weekly flights to Beijing, Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur.
He will take a 30% cut to his base salary from April to December, as will Chairman Patrick Healy, with executive directors taking a 25% cut, the memo said.
Updated
This week the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7.30 Report TV programme asked viewers if any of their children had messages to send to their grandparents, who they couldn’t see at the moment because of the home isolation requirements. The result was terrific.
#Coronavirus has made it impossible for some children to see their #grandparents in person. Hundreds of kids sent #abc730 video messages of love to their grandmas and grandpas to help bridge the gap. pic.twitter.com/M4z48cSpWs
— abc730 (@abc730) April 3, 2020
China records 31 new cases
China has released its latest daily figures. They include 31 new cases, 29 of which were imported.
The Chinese mainland on Thursday reported 31 more #COVID19 cases, 29 of which were imported and 60 new asymptomatic #COVID19 patients.
— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) April 3, 2020
Latest figures:
- 81,620 total confirmed cases
- 3,322 total deaths
- 76,571 discharged pic.twitter.com/oMhLsZk0Kh
Updated
A row has erupted in the US over the sacking of the commander of the US Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, which is docked in Guam. Captain Brett Crozier had written a scathing letter asking for stronger measures to control a coronavirus outbreak onboard his warship, which was subsequently leaked to the media.
Acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said the commander exercised poor judgment. Modly said the letter was sent through the chain of command but Crozier did not safeguard it from being released outside the chain.
“He sent it out pretty broadly and in sending it out pretty broadly, he did not take care to ensure that it couldn’t be leaked and that’s part of his responsibility,” Modly said.
“It raised alarm bells unnecessarily,” he added.
Over 100 personnel on the Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for the coronavirus so far.
In the four-page letter, Crozier, who took command in November, described a bleak situation aboard the nuclear-powered carrier as more sailors tested positive for the highly contagious respiratory virus.
He called for “decisive action”: removing over 4,000 sailors from the ship and isolating them. He said that unless the Navy acted immediately, it would be failing to properly safeguard “our most trusted asset - our sailors.”
The ship has since docked at US naval base in Guam.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said the Trump administration’s decision to remove the commander showed “poor judgement”.
Fujifilm Holdings Corp says it has developed a new test for the coronavirus that reduces the results time to about two hours.
The test was developed by subsidiary Fujifilm Wako Pure Chemical Corp and will be released on 15 April, Reuters reports.
The SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR Detection kit will be able to deliver results for the virus that causes Covid-19 faster than existing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which presently take four to six hours, the company said.
Jazz guitarist John Bucky Pizzarelli dies in outbreak
Jazz guitarist John Bucky Pizzarelli who was inducted to the New Jersey Hall of Fame, has died at the age of 94.
The virtuoso who had played for presidents at the White House during his long and esteemed career died on Wednesday at his home in New Jersey.
His family told the New York Times they believe the cause of death was the coronavirus. And the Bergen Record reports that Pizzarelli tested positive for the virus on Sunday.
Associated Press says:
Pizzarelli was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and had a career that spanned eight decades.
He showed off his musical chops for former presidents like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and played alongside musical icons like Frank Sinatra.
Jazz guitar wouldn’t be what it is today without Bucky Pizzarelli, said jazz guitarist Frank Vignola. He and Freddie Green were responsible for a style of rhythm guitar playing that has lasted until 2020.
Pizzarelli died with his wife, Ruth, his son Martin, and his caregiver at his side.
China to hold national day of mourning on Saturday
China will hold a national mourning on Saturday for “martyrs” who died in the fight against the epidemic, the official Xinhua news agency says.
Three minutes of silence will be observed at 10am on 4 April across the country “while air raid sirens and horns of automobiles, trains and ships will wail in grief,” Xinhua said.
China has reported a total of 81,589 confirmed cases, which exclude asymptomatic patients, and 3,318 deaths from the outbreak.
Updated
Just while I’m on the airline industry, Hong Kong’s carrier Cathay Pacific carried just 582 passengers one day this week, with a load factor of 18.3%, Reuters reports, quoting an internal memo. It’s CEO and chairman have agreed to take a 30% base salary cut until December.
Updated
International airline seat capacity drops 80% from a year ago
We have written quite a lot about the dire state of the airline industry, but here’s a little more woe to add to it ...
International seat capacity has dropped by almost 80% from a year ago and half the world’s airplanes are in storage, new data shows, suggesting the aviation industry may take years to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Carriers including United Airlines Holdings Inc and Air New Zealand have warned they are likely to emerge from the crisis smaller, and there are fears others may not survive.
“It is likely that when we get across to the other side of the pandemic, things won’t return to the vibrant market conditions we had at the start of the year,” said Olivier Ponti, vice president at data firm ForwardKeys.
“It’s also possible that a number of airlines will have gone bust and uneconomic discounts will be necessary to attract demand back,” he said in a statement.
There seems to be some movement on whether or not Americans should wear face masks routinely, outside of the house.
Speaking at a White House briefing, Dr Deborah Birx, a member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would issue guidelines in the coming days on the use of face coverings.
Birx however cautioned that Americans, who have been admonished to stay at home except for essential outings, should not develop a “false sense of security” that they are fully protected from the respiratory illness by wearing a mask.
New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, urged residents to wear face coverings, citing studies showing that the virus can be transmitted by infected people who are showing no symptoms.
“What that means is when you put on that face covering you’re protecting everyone else,” de Blasio said. The Democratic mayor suggested New Yorkers use scarves or other home-made masks because medical-grade protective gear was in short supply.
The WHO has said only people who are sick or treating or assisting people who are sick should wear masks.
The Guardian asked four experts for their advice on face masks.
In case you missed this, the Guardian’s Yang Tian has written about her anticipation of receiving a care package from her father in Beijing: “Dad has always sent care packages from China. Now it’s face masks instead of snacks.”
Hong Kong orders pubs and bars to close
Hong Kong has ordered pubs and bars to close for two weeks from 6 pm on Friday as the financial hub steps up social distancing restrictions and joins cities around the world in the battle to halt the spread of coronavirus.
Reuters reports that anyone who violates the new law faces six months in jail and a fine of HK$50,000 ($6,450).
The extraordinary move comes a week after the government stopped all tourist arrivals and transit passengers at its airport and said it was considering suspending the sale of alcohol in some venues.
“Any premises (commonly known as bar or pub) that is exclusively or mainly used for the sale or supply of intoxicating liquors ... must be closed,” the government said in a statement late on Thursday.
It added that 62 confirmed coronavirus cases in the city had been linked to bars, leading to 14 further infections, including a 40-day-old baby.
Hong Kong has 802 cases of coronavirus and four deaths from the disease.
Alcohol will still be available in supermarkets and convenience stores.
Here are some of the images from Fort Lauderdale, where the Zaandam cruise liner has finally docked. It’s a salient reminder of the human cost of this tragedy.
Virus-stricken Zaandam cruise liner docks in Florida
The Zaandam cruise line, on which four people have died, has docked in Fort Lauderdale, after previously being denied entry. Dozens of other passengers are sick with flu-like symptoms on the vessels.
Earlier this week the ship offloaded its healthy passengers onto its sister-ship, the Rotterdam, which has now also been given permission to dock in Florida’s Port Everglades.
The Zaandam cruise liner last entered port in Valparaíso, Chile, more than two weeks ago and has been stranded at sea with a Covid-19 outbreak onboard worsening after several Latin American countries refused to let it dock.
The agreement to let both ships dock in Florida comes after opposition from the state governor Ron DeSantis and several Broward county commissioners who feared that they could not cope with an influx of sick passengers.
You can read our full story here
Risk in Wuhan remains high, says party chief
Residents of the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus began, have been told to strengthen self-protection measures and avoid going out unless it is necessary.
The City’s Communist party chief, Wang Zhonglin, was quoted as saying in a statement published by the Wuhan city government that the risk of a rebound in the city’s coronavirus epidemic remained high due to both internal and external risks and that it must continue to maintain prevention and control measures.
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UK to build two temporary hospitals
Britain will build a further two temporary hospitals to treat coronavirus patients, the National Health Service said as its first field hospital prepares to open in London on Friday.
The NHS said it would build a 1,000-patient facility at a university in Bristol, south-west England, and a 500-bed facility at a conference centre in Harrogate in the north of the country.
That means it is now planning to open five field hospitals in the coming weeks. The first, the NHS Nightingale in east London will receive its first patients next week. It will be located in Docklands and will eventually be capable of providing support for up to 4,000 coronavirus patients if required. It will initially provide up to 500 beds
Prince Charles will open the hospital via video link from his Scottish residence, where he is recovering from Covid-19.
Iran's parliament Speaker tests positive
In case you missed it, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, has contracted the coronavirus, the highest-ranking official among several senior government figures to catch the disease, the Associated Press reports.
The parliament in Iran announced Larijani’s illness on its website, saying he was receiving treatment in quarantine.
Iran’s health ministry said Thursday the coronavirus had killed another 124 people, pushing the country’s death toll to 3,160.
'Worrying spike' in cases and deaths in Middle East, says WHO
Governments in the Middle East need to act fast to limit the spread of the coronavirus after cases rose to nearly 60,000, almost double their level a week earlier, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
“New cases have been reported in some of the most vulnerable countries with fragile health systems,” said Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the WHO’s director for the Eastern Mediterranean region, which includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Djibouti, as well as Middle Eastern states.
“Even in countries with stronger heath systems, we have seen a worrying spike in the numbers of cases and deaths reported,” he said in a statement.
Outside of Iran, which has reported just over 50,000 cases, confirmed coronavirus numbers have been relatively low in the Middle East compared to Europe, the United States and Asia.
But health officials fear that cases of the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the virus are under-reported and that many countries with weak governments and health systems eroded by conflict will struggle to cope.
“I cannot stress enough the urgency of the situation,” said Mandhari. “The increasing numbers of cases show that transmission is rapidly occurring at local and community levels.”
“We still have a window of opportunity, but this window is slowly closing day by day,” he added.
Heathrow to close one runway due to drop in air traffic
In a sign of the sizeable impact that this pandemic is having on travel, London’s Heathrow airport has said it will close one of its runways from Monday because of a fall in traffic.
The airport has two runways and will alternate which one they keep open on a weekly basis, a spokesman said.
They added: “Although we are seeing significantly fewer flights at the moment, Heathrow will remain open so that we can continue to play a crucial role in helping to secure vital medical goods and food for the nation during this unprecedented epidemic.”
On Thursday BA suspended 30,o00 staff from cabin crew to ground staff, engineers and head office employees, until the end of May under the government furlough scheme for companies hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2018, Heathrow served 80.1 million passengers, according to their website. A total of 475,624 flights took off from the west London site in the same year.
Gatwick Airport has also significantly scaled back its operations, closing one of its two terminals on Wednesday and its runway will only be open for scheduled flights between 2pm and 10pm. The measures will be in place for a minimum of one month.
Gatwick recorded 47 million passengers last year.
Trump blames states for lack of supplies
For those of you who may not have seen some of our coverage of President Trump’s recent press conference, there were a few key lines:
- The president blamed the states for lack of supplies in fighting the virus.
- One of the key medical faces of the virus fight, Dr Deborah Birx, said not everyone was adhering to social distancing rules: “I can tell by the curve as it is today that not everyone is following the social distancing guidance,” Birx said. “We can bend our curve, but everyone has to take responsibility as Americans.”
- Newly approved testing kits will be able to give results in 15 minutes, Birx said.
- Trade and economic adviser, and Defence Production Act policy coordinator, Peter Navarro, said that the bidding on supplies inside the US is due to a “black market” of bidders driving up prices. He said domestic supplies are being bought up and sent abroad.
- Vice president Mike Pence said the US had the “greatest healthcare system in the world”.
- Jared Kushner addressed the briefing but said very little, other than people were working hard and doing a good job.
A visual representation of when you have a word count but have run out of words. https://t.co/3k0pSCLMwB
— Alex Goy (@A1GOY) April 2, 2020
You can stay up to date on all of our live coverage from the US on our US blog:
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Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m Alison Rourke and will be steering our coverage for the next few hours.
As the number of infections rose past one million, and deaths passed 50,000, countries, including the United Sates, are taking increasing measures to combat the virus. New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, has warned his state will run out of ventilators in six days.
Donald Trump has issued orders to use the defence production act to make ventilators. The president has also confirmed in his daily press briefing that he has tested negative for Covid-19. The US now has just under 240,000 infections and 5, 798 deaths according to the Johns Hopkins university tracker.
Here’s a summary of the other top points:
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Global cases of the virus have passed one million, according to figures collected by researchers from Johns Hopkins University. Deaths worldwide have passed 50,000.
- In terms of deaths, Italy remains the country worst affected by the outbreak, with 13,915 fatalities, followed by Spain, with 10,003 deaths. The US is now the third worst affected country, with 5,316 total deaths.
- Governments in the Middle East need to act fast to limit the spread of the coronavirus after cases rose to nearly 60,000, almost double their level a week earlier, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
- The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the government was hoping to build an “at-scale” diagnostics industry to reach 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month, as he unveiled his five-pillar strategy. Just 5,000 NHS staff have been tested so far.
- More than 6.65 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in the US last week, according to the latest official figures, highlighting the devastating economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the American economy.
- The pro-independence leader of Catalonia, the region of Spain hardest hit by the coronavirus after Madrid, has abandoned his government’s initial reluctance to seek help from the Spanish army, saying any assistance would be gratefully received.
You can get in touch with me via email alison.rourke@guardian.co.uk. For now, let’s get underway.
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