We’ve fired up a brand new blog at the link below – head there for the latest coronavirus pandemic news from around the world:
Summary
Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now. Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
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Cases worldwide passed 9.5 million on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections to pass 10 million by the end of the week. The current total stands at 9,523,858. At least 484,880 people have died so far.
- Brazil confirms 39,483 new cases. Brazil now has 1,228,114 confirmed cases. The death toll is nearing 55,000, with 54,971 fatalities currently confirmed.
- Florida reports more than 5,000 new cases. For the second consecutive day, Florida has reported more than 5,000 new confirmed cases of Covid-19. Thursday’s rise in reported cases was lower than Wednesday’s record-setting mark, but it is only the second time the state has crossed the 5,000-case mark in a day. In total, the state has reported more than 114,000 confirmed cases and at least 3,327 coronavirus-related deaths.
- Mexico’s finance minister, Arturo Herrera Gutiérrez, has announced he has tested positive for coronavirus but is experiencing only “minor” symptoms.
- Cases continue to surge in the Americas, with Texas announcing it is halting its reopening after an alarming rise in infections and hospitalisations. US government experts have said they believe more than 20 million Americans could have contracted the coronavirus, 10 times more than official counts. Mexico confirmed its second-highest daily coronavirus death toll so far, with 947 fatalities on Wednesday.
- Europe has seen a surge of Covid-19 cases since countries began easing restrictions, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has told reporters. “Last week, Europe saw an increase in weekly cases for the first time in months,” he said, adding that more than two dozen countries in Europe had recorded resurgences of the deadly virus.
- In Portugal, several parts of Greater Lisbon will have to go back into lockdown from next week as Portuguese authorities deal with a worrying wave of coronavirus on the city’s outskirts.
- Israel is also experiencing an alarming surge in new coronavirus cases, which has prompted the government to approve the reimposing of a controversial tracking system administered by the country’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet.
- The decline in the number of people in England estimated to have Covid-19 has levelled off, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest. The body said the percentage testing positive has “clearly decreased over time” since the first measurement on 26 April and that “this downward trend has now flattened”.
- The World Health Organization has warned that hospitals are facing a shortage in oxygen concentrators, which are needed to support the breathing of Covid-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress, as 1m new cases of coronavirus are confirmed worldwide per week.
- Volunteers in the UK, Brazil and South Africa received their first doses of an experimental vaccine as part of a human trial run by Oxford University.
- China reported 19 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus amid mass testing in Beijing, where a recent outbreak appears to have been brought under control. Of the new cases it reported on Thursday, 13 were in Beijing and one in the neighbouring province of Hebei. Officials say the other five were brought by Chinese travellers from outside the country. No new deaths were reported.
Updated
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the number of Covid-19 cases in the US may be 10 times higher than reported.
By those measures, an estimated 20 million Americans have been infected by the virus, compared to the official number of 2.45 million infected. The CDC released the new estimate based on testing for antibodies across the country.
“Our best estimate right now is that for every case that’s reported, there actually are 10 other infections,” CDC director Dr Robert Redfield said on a call with reporters Thursday.
That’s because many cases of the illness come with no symptoms, Redfield noted. That does not undermine how dangerous the disease is, he noted. On Thursday, the CDC also expanded its list of who is at greatest risk of Covid-19 complications, removing the age cutoff of 65.
“There’s not an exact cutoff of age at which people should or should not be concerned,” Jay Butler of the CDC said.
Meanwhile, vice president Mike Pence and other members of the Trump administration were criticised on Thursday for touring Lordstown Motors, in Lordstown, Ohio, without wearing masks.
Updated
A preliminary study of patients hospitalised with coronavirus has found the disease can damage the brain, causing complications such as stroke, inflammation, psychosis and dementia-like symptoms in some severe cases.
The findings are the first detailed look at a range of neurological complications of Covid-19, the researchers said, and underline a need for larger studies.
“This (is) an important snapshot of the brain-related complications of Covid-19 in hospitalised patients. It is critically important that we continue to collect this information to really understand this virus fully,” said Sarah Pett, a University College London professor, who co-led the work.
The study, published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, looked in detail at 125 cases from across the UK. Co-lead researcher Benedict Michael, from Liverpool University, said it was important to note that it focused on severe cases.
The most common brain complication seen was stroke, which was reported in 77 of 125 patients. Of these, most were in patients over 60, and most were caused by a blood clot in the brain, known as an ischaemic stroke.
Researchers also found that 39 of the 125 patients showed signs of confusion or changes in behaviour reflecting an altered mental state. Of these, nine had unspecified brain dysfunction, known as encephalopathy, and seven had inflammation of the brain, or encephalitis.
Updated
Fewer than one in a hundred children who test positive for Covid-19 end up dying although a small but significant percentage develop severe illness, according to a new Europe-wide study.
A team of researchers led by experts in Britain, Austria and Spain looked at the outcomes of nearly 600 children under 18 infected with coronavirus and found that only a quarter had pre-existing medical conditions.
This is in sharp contrast to adults, among whom the vast majority of patients have underlying health problems.
The team found that more than 60% of children with the virus required hospital treatment and that 8% needed intensive care.
Of the 582 children studied, four died. On the other hand, more than 90 children, or 16%, showed no symptoms at all.
Marc Tebruegge, from University College London’s Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, said: “The case fatality cohort was very low and it is likely to be substantially lower still, given many children with mild disease would not have been brought to medical attention and therefore not included in this study.
“Overall, the vast majority of children and young people experience only mild disease,” added Tebruegge, lead author of the study published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.
“Nevertheless a notable number of children do develop severe disease and require intensive care support, and this should be accounted for when planning and prioritising healthcare resources as the pandemic progresses.”
Updated
Brazil death toll creeps towards 55,000
Brazil has recorded 1,228,114 confirmed cases, up from 1,188,631 yesterday.
The death toll has risen to 54,971, up from 53,830 yesterday, the country’s health ministry said.
At least 65 meatpacking employees in the US and 28 food-processing employees have died from Covid-19, the country’s largest meatpacking union said.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said that more than 196 of its members who work in meat and food plants, grocers and healthcare facilities have died from the virus.
More than 2,300 members were exposed to or affected by the virus in the last month, the union said.
“Our country’s frontline workers are still getting sick and dying,” said Marc Perrone, the union’s president.
The Times’ Friday front page.
THE TIMES: sun seekers Risk new virus spike as beaches crammed #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/aOiIN2bJN8
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) June 25, 2020
Friday’s UK edition of The Guardian.
THE GUARDIAN: @Keir_Starmer opens rift with Labour left after sacking @RLong_Bailey #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/UQUKNy135q
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) June 25, 2020
On Friday, Australia’s prime minister and the premiers will discuss strategies for containing localised outbreaks, a timetable for reopening arts and entertainment venues, and the return of international students when the national cabinet meets.
It comes as Victoria is battling an outbreak of Covid-19 infections. After the ninth consecutive day of double digit cases in the state, the Andrews government initially requested more than 1,000 Australian defence force personnel to door-knock the two Victorian suburbs at the heart of the latest outbreak, but the state government late on Thursday revised that request down to 200 to assist with testing.
Updated
A selection of the front pages of Friday’s UK newspapers now, starting with the Telegraph.
TELEGRAPH: Pressure on PM to build air bridges with all EU #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/FFahMYP4m0
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) June 25, 2020
More from the Guardian’s Mario Koran in California:
Despite the grim report on the rise in new coronavirus cases, governor Gavin Newsom maintained his characteristically stoic delivery, encouraging Californians to continue to do their part by wearing masks and keeping safe distances.
It’s only because of the steps taken, he said, that the state has been able to avoid the worst case scenario he floated in March, when he said more than half the state, roughly 25 million residents, could contract the virus over the next eight weeks.
“We are not victims of fate,” said Newsom. “We can manifest the future.”
He praised the decision by Disney to push back its reopening date, originally set for 17 July, after cases spiked in and around Los Angeles.
The governor also unveiled the creation of an open-source portal for members of the public to scour coronavirus data, a platform he said was partly created in an effort “to back up the health professionals”.
Updated
The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports from California as the state grapples with a surge in new coronavirus cases:
California governor Gavin Newsom didn’t waste time in today’s press briefing delivering a blunt message: the state has not yet entered the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. It is not yet out of the first.
In recent days the picture in California has worsened on nearly every measure. Tuesday set a new record for coronavirus infections, counting more than 7,000 new positive test results.
The positivity rate of those testing has ticked up to 5.6% in the past seven days. The state is currently using 34% of its ICU capacity, a percentage that’s also on the rise.
More than 4,200 patients are currently hospitalized due to Covid-19, absorbing 8% of the state’s surge capacity.
Between Sunday and Tuesday, California witnessed a 69% rise in coronavirus cases in just two days, as communities reopen from lockdown restrictions. Los Angeles county now leads the nation with more than 88,500 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Two private sector companies in the United Arab Emirates have joined forces with Israeli firms to combat coronavirus, according to state media.
“Two private companies in the UAE signed an agreement with two companies in Israel to develop research and technology to fight Covid-19,” reported the official WAM news agency.
“This scientific and medical agreement forms part of constructive cooperation aimed at addressing the Covid-19 pandemic to safeguard the health of the region’s peoples,” it added.
Hend al-Otaiba, director of strategic communications at the UAE’s foreign ministry, said on Twitter that the agreement was “in light of strengthening international cooperation in the fields of research, development & technology in service of humanity”.
The announcement came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would be cooperating with the UAE to fight the coronavirus pandemic, despite a lack of diplomatic ties.
He said in a statement that “collaboration will be in the areas of research and development and technology, in areas that will improve health security throughout the region”.
Netanyahu said the planned cooperation will be formally announced by health ministers for Israel and the UAE.
Updated
Florida reports more than 5,000 new cases
For the second consecutive day, Florida has reported more than 5,000 new confirmed cases of Covid-19.
Thursday’s rise in reported cases was lower than Wednesday’s record-setting mark, but it is only the second time the state has crossed the 5,000-case mark in a day.
In total, the state has reported more than 114,000 confirmed cases and at least 3,327 coronavirus-related deaths.
“We are where we are”, said governor Ron DeSantis.
He added that many of the new cases are in younger, healthier people.
People can avoid spreading the virus by wearing masks, he said, along with avoiding big crowds and not being within close quarters with lots of other people indoors.
Almost all remaining businesses will be able to reopen on Monday as Ireland took a major step out of lockdown.
Face masks will be made mandatory on public transport, ministers said, as commuter numbers return to normal.
Air bridges will be established between countries with similarly low infection rates from 9 July, enabling people to travel without undergoing quarantine.
Prime minister Leo Varadkar hailed progress in suppressing the virus and said: “We have been able to accelerate the road map.”
The number congregating indoors will be restricted to 50, the government said.
Up to 200 will be able to gather outdoors using physical distancing while families will have greater ability to meet up.
Health minister Simon Harris added: “It is going to be a week of intense emotions, intense support and intense joy.”
Updated
In his speech on healthcare, Joe Biden also criticised President Trump for calling coronavirus testing a “double-edged sword” during his Saturday rally in Tulsa.
“Testing unequivocally saves lives, and widespread testing is the key to opening up our economy again — so that’s one edge of the sword,” Biden said in Pennsylvania.
“The other edge: that he thinks finding out that more Americans are sick will make him look bad. And that’s what he’s worried about. He’s worried about looking bad.”
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also urged Americans to socially distance and wear masks to limit the spread of coronavirus.
“We’re going to have to wear masks. And I know as Americans it’s not something we’re used to. But it matters,” Biden said.
“We’re going to have to socially distance. It’s not easy. It seems so strange to us. ... But for now, we have to socially distance. It matters.”
Updated
Colombia’s first confirmed death from Covid-19 occurred in late February, more than a week before the country originally reported its first case of the virus, the government’s statistics agency said.
The country had reported its first case on 6 March and what was thought to be its first death, a 58-year-old taxi driver in the Caribbean city of Cartagena, on 21 March.
But death figures published by the statistics agency show the first suspected death from the virus occurred on 15 February, while the first confirmed death took place on 26 February.
The country registered 30 confirmed deaths from Covid-19 and 94 suspected ones in the first quarter, the DANE agency added.
Some 40 per cent of deaths in the quarter occurred in capital city Bogota, while provinces Valle del Cauca and Bolivar accounted for 23% and 10% respectively.
Antioquia province, home to second city Medellin, accounted for 59% of suspected deaths, DANE said.
Updated
Joe Biden delivered remarks on healthcare in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as more than half of US states report increases in the number of new coronavirus cases.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee accused President Trump of mishandling the US response to the pandemic.
“He’s like a child who can’t believe this has happened to him,” Biden said.
“All his whining and self-pity. Well, this pandemic didn’t happen to him; it happened to all of us. And his job isn’t to whine about it. His job is to do something about it.”
A summary of today's developments
- Cases worldwide passed 9.5 million on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections to pass 10 million by the end of the week. At least 484,000 people have died so far.
- Mexico’s finance minister, Arturo Herrera Gutiérrez, has announced he has tested positive for coronavirus but is experiencing only “minor” symptoms.
- Cases continue to surge in the Americas, with Texas announcing it is halting its reopening after an alarming rise in infections and hospitalisations. US government experts have said they believe more than 20 million Americans could have contracted the coronavirus, 10 times more than official counts. Mexico confirmed its second-highest daily coronavirus death toll so far, with 947 fatalities on Wednesday.
- Europe has seen a surge of Covid-19 cases since countries began easing restrictions, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has told reporters. “Last week, Europe saw an increase in weekly cases for the first time in months,” he said, adding that more than two dozen countries in Europe had recorded resurgences of the deadly virus.
- In Portugal, several parts of Greater Lisbon will have to go back into lockdown from next week as Portuguese authorities deal with a worrying wave of coronavirus on the city’s outskirts.
- Israel is also experiencing an alarming surge in new coronavirus cases, which has prompted the government to approve the reimposing of a controversial tracking system administered by the country’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet.
- The decline in the number of people in England estimated to have Covid-19 has levelled off, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest. The body said the percentage testing positive has “clearly decreased over time” since the first measurement on 26 April and that “this downward trend has now flattened”.
- The World Health Organization has warned that hospitals are facing a shortage in oxygen concentrators, which are needed to support the breathing of Covid-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress, as 1m new cases of coronavirus are confirmed worldwide per week.
- Volunteers in the UK, Brazil and South Africa received their first doses of an experimental vaccine as part of a human trial run by Oxford University.
- China reported 19 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus amid mass testing in Beijing, where a recent outbreak appears to have been brought under control. Of the new cases it reported on Thursday, 13 were in Beijing and one in the neighbouring province of Hebei. Officials say the other five were brought by Chinese travellers from outside the country. No new deaths were reported.
Updated
Three people shot dead by police in Kenya during protest
Kenyan police killed three people when they fired on a crowd of motorcycle taxi drivers protesting the arrest of a colleague for flouting coronavirus restrictions.
Police shot at the crowd in the western city of Lessos after clashes, a police statement said.
“I have ordered the arrest of the officers involved in the shooting and we regret the loss of these lives,” police inspector general Hillary Mutyambai said.
The first shots fired killed a 40-year-old man after motorcycle taxi drivers “attacked” one of the officers, according to a police statement.
Two more people were shot dead after the crowd followed the officers back to their police station, it said.
“A thorough investigation will be carried out and action will be taken. They must face the law,” said Mutyambai.
The case, which has been referred to the country’s Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), comes as Kenyan police face increasing scrutiny over alleged excessive force and unlawful killings, especially in poor neighbourhoods.
Coronavirus cases worldwide surpass 9.5 million mark
The number of coronavirus cases globally has passed 9.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The figure stands at 9,504,233 with the US accounting for around 2.4 million cases, the highest of any country.
Brazil has around 1.18 million cases followed by Russia with an estimated 613,000, according to the US-based university’s tracker.
Updated
Guinea-Bissau’s president, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, said the West African state would drop a night-time curfew imposed to curb coronavirus infections.
The government will however extend other emergency measures by 30 days, according to a decree published on Thursday.
Authorities in the former Portuguese colony have recorded 1,556 coronavirus cases to date, with 19 fatalities.
Embalo urged people to keep respecting social distancing.
First imposed in March, the night-time curfew ran from 8pm to 6am. The government also closed borders and schools in a bid to curb infections.
Updated
Governments around the world should remove all obstacles to swift and equitable distribution of any successful Covid-19 vaccine, including by making all intellectual property and technologies immediately available, African countries said.
The African Union’s new communique specifically mentions the Doha Declaration on public health by World Trade Organization members in 2001, which refers to the right to grant compulsory licenses.
Compulsory licensing enables a competent government authority to license the use of a patented invention to a third party or government agency without the consent of the patent-holder, according to the World Health Organization.
The African communique, read out after a continental conference on the quest for Covid-19 vaccines, states that there is an urgent need for countries to make full use of legal measures to ensure monopolies do not stand in the way of access. It points out the barriers intellectual property posed in the past to affordable vaccines in developing countries.
The statement comes as the coronavirus spreads rapidly in Africa, with more than 337,000 confirmed cases.
Drug companies have argued that they need to protect their intellectual property to fund their expensive research. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization supports a Covid-19 technology access pool where IP and data can be shared voluntarily.
Updated
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell encouraged Americans to wear masks to limit the spread of coronavirus, as more than half of US states report increases in new cases.
“I think that’s what people ought to do,” the Kentucky Republican told an ABC News reporter. “That’s what we’re doing in the Senate, and that’s what I’m counseling other people to do.”
Some Republican lawmakers, including senators Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio, have similarly encouraged their constituents to cover their faces.
However, other congressional Republicans have taken a much more laissez-faire approach to encouraging mask usage.
Mexico’s finance minister, Arturo Herrera Gutiérrez, has announced he has tested positive for coronavirus, but is experiencing only “minor” symptoms.
“From this moment I will be in quarantine, and continue working from my house,” Herrera said on Twitter.
Updated
Scores of migrants arriving in Somalia have told United Nations workers every day that they are unaware of Covid-19, according to the UN.
Monitors for the International Organization for Migration, the UN migration agency, interview people at the border in Somalia, a crossroads on one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes: across the Red Sea with traffickers, through war-ravaged Yemen and into rich Gulf countries.
In the week ending 20 June, just over half of the 3,471 people tracked said they had never heard of coronavirus.
“The first time I saw this I was also very shocked,” Celeste Sanchez Bean, a programme manager with the UN agency based in Mogadishu, told The Associated Press.
“The migrants are often young men from rural parts of neighbouring Ethiopia. Most have no education, and some are from communities where internet access is low,” Bean said.
Updated
The number of deaths in France from coronavirus has risen by 21 from the previous day to reach 29,752, the country’s health department said.
France has the fifth-highest Covid-19 death toll in the world, although the number of casualties has steadily decreased from peaks reached in March and April, which has allowed the government to gradually reopen businesses and some schools.
Updated
The Trump administration has moved forward with a policy ordering public schools across the US to share coronavirus relief funding with private schools at a higher rate than federal law typically requires.
Under a new rule issued by the US education secretary, Betsy DeVos, school districts are ordered to set aside a portion of their aid for private schools using a formula based on the total number of private school students in the district.
The policy has been contested by public school officials who say the funding should be shared based on the number of low-income students at local private schools rather than their total enrollments. That’s how funding is shared with private schools under other federal rules that Congress referenced in the legislation creating the relief aid.
But DeVos said the funding is separate from other federal aid and was meant to support all students.
“There is nothing in the law Congress passed that would allow districts to discriminate against children and teachers based on private school attendance and employment,” DeVos said.
She said urgent action was needed after dozens of private schools permanently closed as a result of the pandemic. She called it a looming crisis for the nation.
Updated
Pregnant women have an increased risk of severe Covid-19 compared to women who are not pregnant, the head of the US Centers for Disease Prevention, Robert Redfield, told reporters, warning that states with rising coronavirus cases need to take action.
The CDC found that pregnant women are more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit and to be put on mechanical ventilators than non-pregnant women, he added.
The agency said that pregnant women did not have a higher risk of death. The CDC added it does not have data yet on how Covid-19 affects the outcomes of those pregnancies.
Redfield said that more infections among young people could partly be attributed to an increase in diagnosing illness among that group, whose members are less likely to be hospitalised than older people.
The agency may use social media platform TikTok to try to reach young people with warnings to keep a distance of six feet, wear a face covering and avoid large gatherings.
“These hotspots that we see ... They are significant. And we need to respond to them,” Redfield said, pointing to rising hospital admissions in Arizona and Texas.
Updated
The Portuguese government has clarified that lockdown measures will be in place in parts of Greater Lisbon from 1 July 1 until 14 July.
Those living in the affected areas of the capital – a total of 19 civil parishes that do not include downtown Lisbon – will be allowed to leave home only to buy essential goods such as food or medication, and to travel to and from work.
“The only effective way to control the pandemic is to stay home whenever possible, keep physical distance at all times and always maintain protection and hygiene standards,” the prime minister, António Costa, told a news conference.
Updated
The coronavirus pandemic has made more people vulnerable to human trafficking, US secretary ofstate Mike Pompeo said as an annual report added Afghanistan and Nicaragua to a list of worst offenders while Saudi Arabia was upgraded.
“Instability and lack of access to critical services caused by the pandemic mean that the number of people vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers is rapidly growing,” Pompeo said in an introduction to the annual US State Department Trafficking in Persons report.
The report kept China on the lowest rung and again highlighted the widespread use of forced labour, including through what the US and human rights groups say is the mass detention in camps of more than 1 million minority Muslims.
It said Beijing had expanded this campaign into other provinces and begun implementing it among other religious minorities. China denies mistreatment and says the camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.
Hong Kong, alongside Pakistan, was downgraded to the report’s “Tier 2 watchlist,” a category denoting those meriting special scrutiny, on the grounds that it had failed to enact legislation to fully criminalise trafficking.
Saudi Arabia, a major US ally and arms buyer that was placed last year on the list of countries that failed to meet minimum US anti-trafficking standards, was put in Tier 2 Watch List.
Afghanistan and Nicaragua were both demoted in this year’s report to Tier 3, falling into the lowest category, which can bring restrictions on US non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance.
Updated
US House minority leader Kevin McCarthy dodged a question about President Trump using a racist term to describe coronavirus.
“When we have seen a spike in coronavirus, you’re concerned about somebody and the way they name it,” McCarthy said on Capitol Hill. “That’s appalling to me.”
Trump received widespread criticism for referring to coronavirus as “Kung Flu” during his Saturday rally in Tulsa, as a number of states report increases in new cases of the virus.
Of course, McCarthy’s response to the question ignores the fact that Trump is simultaneously downplaying the surge in new cases, while incorrectly insisting that the increase is due to expanded testing.
In reality, many public health experts have said the surge in new cases is more attributable to states reopening and Americans relaxing social distancing practices.
Updated
Wendy Schiller, a professor of political science, has criticised President’s Trump handling of the pandemic.
"Now we're in a crisis and he's not stepping up."
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) June 25, 2020
Professor Wendy Schiller says many of Trump's followers are "concerned that he isn't equipped or fit to be president" because of his handling of #coronavirus and the economy recently.
More 👉 https://t.co/VQpVM9OfBn pic.twitter.com/gfCmRdsltG
California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a budget emergency in the state, blaming expenses and the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Summary
- Cases worldwide passed 9.4m on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections to pass 10m by the end of the week. At least 480,000 people have died so far.
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Cases continue to surge in the Americas, with Texas announcing it is halting its reopening after an alarming rise in infections and hospitalisations. US government experts have said they believe more than 20 million Americans could have contracted the coronavirus, 10 times more than official counts. Mexico confirmed its second-highest daily coronavirus death toll so far, with 947 fatalities on Wednesday.
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Europe has seen a surge of Covid-19 cases since countries began easing restrictions, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has told reporters. “Last week, Europe saw an increase in weekly cases for the first time in months,” he said, adding that more than two dozen countries in Europe had recorded resurgences of the deadly virus.
- In Portugal, several parts of Greater Lisbon will have to go back into lockdown from next week as Portuguese authorities deal with a worrying wave of coronavirus on the city’s outskirts.
- Israel is also experiencing an alarming surge in new coronavirus cases, which has prompted the government to approve the reimposing of a controversial tracking system administered by the country’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet.
- The decline in the number of people in England estimated to have Covid-19 has levelled off, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest. The body said the percentage testing positive has “clearly decreased over time” since the first measurement on 26 April and that “this downward trend has now flattened”.
-
The World Health Organization has warned that hospitals are facing a shortage in oxygen concentrators, which are needed to support the breathing of Covid-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress, as 1m new cases of coronavirus are confirmed worldwide per week.
- Volunteers in the UK, Brazil and South Africa received their first doses of an experimental vaccine as part of a human trial run by Oxford University.
- China reported 19 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus amid mass testing in Beijing, where a recent outbreak appears to have been brought under control. Of the new cases it reported on Thursday, 13 were in Beijing and one in the neighbouring province of Hebei. Officials say the other five were brought by Chinese travellers from outside the country. No new deaths were reported.
Read our latest global coronavirus report from the Guardian’s Europe editor, Jon Henley, here:
Updated
Almost half of the population of an Austrian alpine resort hit by a coronavirus outbreak have antibodies, indicating they had been infected in the pandemic, researchers have said
According to AFP, thousands became infected after holidaying in Ischgl and other ski resorts in the western province of Tyrol around early March, transmitting the virus not just in Austria but also abroad in Germany, the US, Singapore, Hong Kong and elsewhere.
A study by the Medical University of Innsbruck now shows 42.4% of those living in Ischgl are thought to carry new coronavirus antibodies.
“In Ischgl, we have the highest seroprevalence ever shown in a study. Even if we can’t conclude this means those in Ischgl have herd immunity, a good part of the population should have protection” from contracting the virus for now, research leader Dorothee von Laer said.
She said only 15% of respondents had previously tested positive for the virus so “85 percent did not notice they were infected” with about half of them having had such mild symptoms that they dismissed them as a cold.
Parts of Lisbon to go back into lockdown
Reuters is reporting that people in several parts of Greater Lisbon will have to go back to staying at home from next week as Portuguese authorities deal with a worrying wave of coronavirus on the city’s outskirts.
The government has announced that those living in the affected areas of the capital – a total of 19 civil parishes that do not include downtown Lisbon – will be allowed to leave home only to buy essential goods such as food or medication, and to travel to and from work.
“The only effective way to control the pandemic is to stay home whenever possible, keep physical distance at all times and always maintain protection and hygiene standards,” Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa, told a news conference.
The measure will be in place from 29 June until 12 July and it will then be reviewed.
Portugal has reported a total of 40,415 cases and 1,549 deaths from the coronavirus, far fewer than neighbouring Spain. It has been hailed as a success story in the fight against against the disease and began lifting its lockdown on 4 May.
Updated
CDC: more than 20 million Americans may have contracted coronavirus
In addition to that Texas news, US government experts have said they believe more than 20 million Americans could have contracted the coronavirus, 10 times more than official counts. New data indicates that many people without symptoms have or have had the disease, senior administration officials said.
The estimate, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is based on serology testing used to determine the presence of antibodies that show whether an individual has had the disease.
The officials said the estimate was based on the number of known cases, between 2.3 million and 2.4 million, multiplied by the average rate of antibodies seen from the serology tests, about an average of 10 to 1.
“If you multiply the cases by that ratio, that’s where you get that 20 million figure,” said one official.
If true, the estimate would suggest the percentage of US deaths from the disease is lower than thought. More than 120,000 Americans have died from the disease since the pandemic erupted earlier this year.
The estimate comes as government officials note that many new cases are showing up in young people who do not exhibit symptoms and may not know they have it.
Officials said young people with no symptoms, but who are in regular contact with vulnerable populations, should proactively get tested to make sure they do not spread it.
“We have heard from Florida and Texas that roughly half of the new cases that are reported are people under the age of 35, and many of them are asymptomatic,” one official said.
The CDC has sent 40 response teams to help deal with the outbreaks, they said. More than 36,000 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded nationwide on Wednesday, just shy of the record 36,426 on 24 April, concentrated on states that were spared the brunt of the initial outbreak or moved early to lift restrictions aimed at curbing the virus’ spread.
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Texas to halt reopening as cases soar
Texas is halting its reopening as cases of coronavirus soar. Businesses allowed to open under the previous phases of reopening can continue to operate.
BREAK: Texas halts re-opening as #coronavirus cases soar - @GovAbbott
— Darren McCaffrey (@DarrenEuronews) June 25, 2020
A press release from the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, quoted by CBS News, reads:
The State of Texas will pause any further phases to open Texas as the state responds to the recent increase in positive Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations
As we experience an increase in both positive Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, we are focused on strategies that slow the spread of this virus while also allowing Texans to continue earning a paycheck to support their families.
Texas, the second largest US state by population, has had one of the biggest surges in new coronavirus infections in the country. The state has reported more than 5,000 new cases for three days in a row and hit successive records for Covid-19 hospitalisations for 13 consecutive days.
The proportion of Texans testing positive for the virus has risen to 10%, one of the few states in the country with a double-digit positivity rate. This is the data released by the state’s department of health yesterday.
#COVID19TX update: https://t.co/ofycOLqWQZ#Texas continues to see a major increase in new #COVID19 cases and hospitalizations. All large cities and many rural areas report rising community spread.
— Texas DSHS (@TexasDSHS) June 24, 2020
All Texans must take precautions to reverse these trends. pic.twitter.com/XWk5A6Be0u
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Canada’s emergency spending to help the country bridge the downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is needed to lay the groundwork for a recovery, the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has said in response to Fitch’s downgrade of its rating.
Fitch cut Canada’s rating from “AAA” to “AA+” on Wednesday, making it the first time since August 2004 that the ratings agency did not give Canada top marks.
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Iraq has registered nearly 2,500 new coronavirus cases and more than 100 deaths today, setting new records in a country whose health sector had been bracing itself for such a spike.
AFP reports that hospitals across the country have been overwhelmed over the last week by a rise in cases and deaths, after months of the virus spreading relatively slowly.
On Thursday, the health ministry said it had confirmed 2,437 new cases over the last day, bringing the total in the country to more than 39,000 – of whom about half have recovered. Another 107 people died of coronavirus-related causes, pushing the total death toll to 1,437.
Iraq had so far considered itself spared as the virus spread in other regional countries, including in neighbouring Iran where more than 10,000 have died.
But the Iraqi health sector has been worn down by years of war and poor investment and appears to be collapsing under the strain of the virus.
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The Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) is in talks to test a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by Italian researchers, the dean of the Brazilian university told Reuters.
With the world’s worst outbreak outside the US, Brazil has become a key front in the global race for a vaccine, as clinical trials are likely to yield results faster in places where the virus is widespread.
“We are already in advanced discussions with Italy’s Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute,” the Unifesp president, Soraya Smaili, said in an interview on Wednesday. “We expect to bring it here, the accord is already moving forward and we’ll be able to do a lot of studies with this vaccine.”
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Decline in cases in England has 'levelled off'
The decline in the number of people in England estimated to have Covid-19 has levelled off, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest.
The ONS said its estimates suggested the percentage testing positive has “clearly decreased over time” since the first measurement on 26 April and that “this downward trend has now flattened”.
An average of 51,000 people in private households had coronavirus at any given time between 8 June and 21 June, according to new ONS estimates. This was the equivalent of 0.09% of the population, or about one in 1,100 individuals.
The ONS, which publishes data on how many people at any one time are infected with Covid-19 based on swab results from households across the country, said:
Modelling of the trend over time suggests that the decline in the number of people in England testing positive has levelled off in recent weeks.
New modelling of the incidence rate trend over time suggests that incidence appears to have decreased between mid-May and early June, but has also since levelled off.
The figures look at community infections and do not include people staying in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings.
The ONS figures also suggest that between 8 June and 21 June there were an estimated four new Covid-19 infections for every 10,000 individuals per week in private households in England – the equivalent of an estimated 22,000 new cases per week.
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World should build 'new normal' post-pandemic – WHO chief
The Covid-19 pandemic is subsiding in Europe, but getting worse globally with the number of infections expected to reach 10m next week and the number of deaths 500,000, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said.
Speaking via video conference with members of the European parliament’s health committee, Tedros said that once the pandemic was over, the world should not return to its previous state, but build a “new normal” that would be fairer, greener and help prevent climate change.
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Spain’s government has reached an agreement with unions and the country’s main employers’ association to extend national furlough schemes, known as ERTEs, by three months until 30 September, sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Originally due to expire on 30 June, the current system of public aid had been linked to Spain’s state of emergency over the coronavirus, which ended on 22 June.
The Peruvian government on Thursday said it had struck an agreement with the country’s private health clinics on the cost of Covid-19 care after President Martín Vizcarra warned on Wednesday they would be expropriated within 48 hours if negotiations did not progress.
For three weeks the clinics had wrangled with Vizcarra’s government over a fair rate for care. The haggling began amid reports of overcharging for the sickest patients, who require mechanical ventilators and intensive care.
Reuters reports that health minister, Víctor Zamora, said the agreement was finalised on Wednesday evening after a meeting with representatives of the Association of Private Clinics of Peru. He told RPP local radio:
The important thing here is people’s health. We cannot delay treatment.
Peru’s coronavirus outbreak is second only to Brazil’s in Latin America, with 264,689 confirmed cases and 8,586 deaths.
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Tourism chiefs in Cambodia say they hope officials will drop a $3,000 (£2,400) coronavirus deposit scheme under which travellers have to make a downpayment for potential medical costs – including their funeral – arguing it is likely to deter potential visitors.
The government announced earlier this month that all foreigners entering the country must have an insurance package worth $50,000 and make a deposit of $3,000 in cash or by credit card. The deposit covers possible expenses in the event a person catches Covid-19, including healthcare, laundry services, meals and a funeral.
Chhay Sivlin, the president of the Cambodia Association of Travel Agents, said the deposit was introduced because insurance companies had previously refused to cover the cost of coronavirus treatment. “Our government has exhausted our resources and can no longer provide for any tourists tested positive for the disease,” she said.
Over 1,000 Qatar world cup workers test positive for Covid-19
Over 1,000 workers employed on projects for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar have tested positive for the coronavirus, and an engineer has died after contracting Covid-19, as preparations for the tournament have continued relentlessly despite the global pandemic.
The 51-year-old engineer, who died on 11 June, is the first reported coronavirus death among World Cup workers. He had worked on World Cup projects since October 2019 and had no underlying health issues, the “supreme committee”, the body organising the World Cup, said in a statement.
Statement from the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy. For further information about our response to COVID-19: https://t.co/FCdWZpSGt9 pic.twitter.com/wkviQYVJ87
— SC News (@roadto2022news) June 25, 2020
A source close to the organising committee also confirmed a report that around 1,100 World Cup workers have tested positive for coronavirus since the start of the outbreak.
Qatar has one of the highest rates of infection per capita in the world, with almost 92,000 cases, in a population of just 2.8 million. During May over a third of those tested were found to be positive. The number of deaths have remained low, with just 106 fatalities.
Despite the high infection rate, there has been almost no let up in the pace of construction at the new stadiums. Last week, the Education City stadium, the third of eight World Cup venues to be completed, was officially opened.
In mid-April the organising committee told the Guardian that eight workers employed on World Cup projects had tested positive, but until now the Qatari authorities, FIFA and FIFA’s human rights advisory board have refused to release any further figures.
Human rights groups have accused the Qatari authorities and FIFA of putting workers’ welfare at risk in the race to complete the stadiums.
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Summary
Here are the key developments today:
- Cases worldwide passed 9.4m on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections to pass 10m by the end of the week. At least 480,000 people have died so far.
- Cases continue to surge in the Americas, with the US confirming its second-highest one-day total in the pandemic so far, with 34,700 new infections, according to Oxford University data project Our World in Data. Mexico confirmed its second-highest daily coronavirus death toll so far, with 947 fatalities on Wednesday.
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Europe has seen a surge of Covid-19 cases since countries began easing restrictions, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has told reporters. “Last week, Europe saw an increase in weekly cases for the first time in months,” he said, adding that more than two dozen countries in Europe had recorded resurgences of the deadly virus.
- Israel is experiencing an alarming surge in new coronavirus cases, which has prompted the government to approve the reimposing of a controversial tracking system administered by the country’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet.
- The World Health Organization has warned that hospitals are facing a shortage in oxygen concentrators, which are needed to support the breathing of Covid-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress, as 1m new cases of coronavirus are confirmed worldwide per week.
- Brothels in the Netherlands can reopen on 1 July after being shut for more than three months, the government announced on Wednesday.
- Volunteers in the UK, Brazil and South Africa received their first doses of an experimental vaccine as part of a human trial run by Oxford University, as cases continue to rise and concerns grow over potential access to life-saving treatments.
- China reported 19 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus amid mass testing in Beijing, where a recent outbreak appears to have been brought under control. Of the new cases it reported on Thursday, 13 were in Beijing and one in the neighbouring province of Hebei. Officials say the other five were brought by Chinese travellers from outside the country. No new deaths were reported.
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Donald Trump told thousands of supporters at a rally in Oklahoma he wanted to slow down testing for Covid-19 – despite experts saying the opposite.
From masks to ‘miracle’ treatments, the Guardian’s Maanvi Singh looks back at how the US president has long been contradicting and defying science during the coronavirus outbreak and the impact that has had on the country’s handling of the pandemic.
Officials in states across the US have reacted with alarm to the Trump administration’s plan to end federal support for some Covid-19 testing sites, warning it could cause further spread of a disease that is already surging back and calling the move “irresponsible”.
The White House confirmed on Wednesday it will no longer fund 13 testing sites, including seven in Texas, despite that state reporting record highs in the number of coronavirus cases.
Funding and support for the sites will end this month, even as Covid-19 cases surge across the US. The sites are in Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Hospital admissions hit record highs in seven US states on Tuesday, including in Texas, which reported an all-time daily high of 5,489 new cases on Tuesday.
Four US congresspeople from Texas urged the government to reconsider defunding the testing sites in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
Guardian analysis of coronavirus data, in combination with the University of Oxford’s coronavirus government response tracker, has identified that 10 of the 45 most badly-affected countries are also among those rated as having a “relaxed response” to the pandemic, underlining the mitigating impact of effective government public health policies. You can read the Guardian investigation here.
The countries include the US - which is experiencing its largest increase in coronavirus cases since April; Iran, Germany and Switzerland - two European countries where the R rate has risen above one this week [...]
A country has been classed as being “relaxed” if its stringency index score is under 70 out of 100, according to the latest data from the University of Oxford’s tracker. The tracker assesses countries’ public information campaigns, containment measures and closures to give them a score out of 100 on their stringency index.
Germany’s reproduction rate of coronavirus jumped to almost three earlier this week, after an outbreak at an abattoir forced two states back into lockdown. This was after the county lowered its response to the pandemic, with its stringency score falling from 73 out of 100 at the start of May to 50.
More on the rise of cases in Israel.
With 532 new infections reported by the health ministry in the past 24 hours, Israel has seen the emergence of a number of hotspots including in the Sea of Galilee resort of Tiberias, as well as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – the highest daily total in more than two months.
As of Thursday morning, the number of coronavirus cases had hit 22,139 since the beginning of the outbreak, with 49 in serious condition and 29 on ventilators, and 500 new cases being reported every day.
Cases also appeared to be rising in the occupied territories where the Palestinian Authority has announced the cancellation of Friday prayers in all mosques across the West Bank.
On Wednesday night, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted to approve a bill authorising Shin Bet to track coronavirus cases and those in contact with them.
You can read the full story here:
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First covid treatment recommended for EU authorisation
The European healthcare regulator has recommended conditionally approving Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral treatment, remdesivir, for use in Covid-19 patients across the continent, just weeks after a speedy review.
The European Medicines Agency said its human medicines committee (CHMP) recommended the drug’s use in adults and adolescents from 12 years of age with pneumonia who require supplemental oxygen.
Reuters reports that this approval means physicians can prescribe the Gilead drug, to be branded Veklury, in Europe once approved by the European Commission, which usually follows such recommendations.
Remdesivir has already been approved for emergency use in severely-ill patients in the US, India and South Korea, and has received full approval in Japan.
In April, the Guardian’s Sarah Bosely wrote that data from an early trial on more than 1,000 severely ill patients in 75 hospitals around the world show that patients put on the drug recovered 31% faster than similar patients who were given a placebo drug instead. Remdesivir cut recovery time from a median of 15 days to 11.
Scientists also suggested the drug could have an effect on survival. In the group on the drug, 8% died, compared with 11% among those given a placebo.
Remdesivir is not a cure for Covid-19 and these results must be confirmed by more data, but experts think it could potentially help those who are acutely ill, probably in combination with other drugs.
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The coronavirus pandemic could see a rise in the use and trafficking of narcotics as well as increased risks for users, the UN drugs and crime agency (UNODC) has said.
The virus could lead to an overall increase in drug use with a shift towards cheaper products and injecting, both of which could mean greater danger for users, the agency said in its 2020 World Drug Report.
The Vienna-based agency said there were lessons to be learnt from what happened in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.
The UNODC warned that drug consumption has already been rising at an “alarming” rate over the last decade.
It also warned that countries were more likely to further reduce drug-related budgets and to give less priority to anti-trafficking operations and international cooperation in the wake of the pandemic.
Rising unemployment and a lack of opportunities would increase the chances that poor and disadvantaged people “turn to illicit activities linked to drugs – either production or transport”, the report said.
UNODC executive director Ghada Waly said:
The Covid-19 crisis and economic downturn threaten to compound drug dangers further still, when our health and social systems have been brought to the brink and our societies are struggling to cope.
We need all governments to show greater solidarity and provide support, to developing countries most of all, to tackle illicit drug trafficking and offer evidence-based services for drug use disorders and related disease.
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A cluster of new coronavirus cases has emerged at a warehouse in Bologna, Italy, used by express courier Bartolini, a local newspaper reported on Thursday.
The company uncovered 44 asymptomatic cases – including two drivers – after testing all workers at the warehouse following the diagnosis of two coronavirus cases among staff members, the Resto del Carlino daily said.
Bartolini has closed the warehouse although deliveries continue. It was expected to test all staff who have come into contact with those with the virus, the daily added.
On Wednesday 10 scientists in Italy had released a joint statement declaring the coronavirus emergency to be “over”.
That sparked a heated reaction from colleagues who warned a second wave was likely if people let down their guard.
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The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has ended and leaders tackling Covid-19 should heed its example, writes Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, in the Guardian.
As Covid-19 poses a threat to every region of the world, the DRC holds lessons for countries of all incomes.
For example, its contact tracers should serve as a worldwide inspiration. They have used technology to overcome insecurity, swapping folders of forms for mobile phones to collect data on Ebola, to both help share information faster and ward off unwanted attention in areas where suspicions run high.
The Congolese people ended a devastating outbreak through an unshakeable commitment to science, data and community, and with international solidarity.
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News on another epidemic: eastern Congo has marked an official end to the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. The disease killed 2,280 people over nearly two years as armed groups and community mistrust undermined the promise of new vaccines.
Thursday’s milestone was overshadowed by the enormous health challenges still facing the vast country: the world’s largest measles epidemic, the rising threat of Covid-19 and another new Ebola outbreak in the north.
The World Health Organization’s announcement initially was set for April but another case emerged just three days before the Ebola-free declaration was expected. That restarted the 42-day period required before such a proclamation can be made.
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Surge of cases in Europe since lockdown easing, says WHO
More from the World Health Organization. The body’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has told reporters that Europe has seen a surge of Covid-19 cases since countries began easing restrictions.
“Last week, Europe saw an increase in weekly cases for the first time in months,” he said, adding that more than two dozen countries in Europe had recorded resurgences of the deadly virus.
Thirty countries have seen increases in new cumulative cases over the past two weeks. In 11 of these countries, accelerated transmission has led to very significant resurgence that if left unchecked will push health systems to the brink once again in Europe.
In comments reported by AFP, Kluge did not identify the countries by name, nor provide detailed numbers.
Germany, which began easing measures about seven weeks ago, is however one such country that has suffered a major setback. On Tuesday, it reimposed lockdowns on more than 600,000 people in two districts in the western part of the country after an outbreak at a slaughterhouse infected more than 1,500 workers.
Portugal also imposed new restrictions in and around its capital on Tuesday.
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WHO getting all the money it needs, says chief
France and Germany expressed their backing for the World Health Organization in fighting the coronavirus on Thursday, with Germany saying it will contribute half a billion euros in funding for the UN agency this year.
The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a news conference in Geneva, said the agency, which has been criticised by the US, was getting all the financial and political support it needed.
The US president, Donald Trump, announced last month that the US would sever all ties with the WHO. “We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engage with them directly, but they have refused to act because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms,” he said.
“We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.”
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Six months into the most momentous pandemic in decades, it is hard to imagine that anyone, anywhere, has not heard of the coronavirus. But the Associated Press reports that scores of migrants arriving in Somalia tell United Nations workers every day that they are unaware of Covid-19.
Monitors for the International Organization for Migration, the UN migration agency, interview people at the border in Somalia, a crossroads on one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes: across the Red Sea with traffickers, through war-ravaged Yemen and into rich Gulf countries.
The questions for migrants are simple. Origin? Destination? Why are you going? But after the first infections were confirmed in Somalia, a new one was added: How many people in your group are aware of the coronavirus?
In the week ending 20 June, just over half (51%) of the 3,471 people tracked said they had never heard of Covid-19.
The first time I saw this I was also very shocked, Celeste Sanchez Bean, a programme manager with the UN agency based in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, told Associated Press.
The findings, little more than a line in the agency’s reports, are a reminder of the huge challenges in reaching everyone in the world with information about the pandemic, much less getting them to wear face masks.
The migrants are often young men from rural parts of neighbouring Ethiopia. Most have no education, and some are from communities where internet access is low, Bean said.
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Israel experiences surge in cases
Israel is experiencing an alarming surge in new coronavirus cases, which has prompted the government to approve the reimposing of a controversial tracking system administered by the country’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet.
Cases in the country have risen again after Israel eased restrictions at the end of May, a move that coincided with the Shavuot holiday and resulted in crowded beaches on both the Mediterranean and around the Sea of Galilee.
Amid mounting concern over the resurgence of the virus – and criticism of the government’s ‘muddled’ response – one senior health official warned: “We may have opened too quickly. The public is not disciplined or wearing masks,” Sigal Sadetzky, the head of public health services at Israel’s health ministry, told the Times of Israel.
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Latin America has become the new centre of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic but two small countries, Uruguay and Paraguay, have bucked the regional trend and can claim a near total victory against the virus.
Though they are strangely dissimilar – Uruguay is a progressive enclave with the lowest poverty index in Latin America, while Paraguay has poverty estimates of 30-50% and is rife with corruption – both nations have kept their coronavirus death rates surprisingly low.
There have been just 13 deaths in Paraguay and only 25 in Uruguay so far, despite the porous land borders both countries share with Brazil, where the pandemic has claimed more than 50,000 lives.
Journalists Uki Goñi, in Buenos Aires, and William Costa, in Asunción, report on why that is:
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Hello, it’s Frances Perraudin here. I’ll be bringing you the latest developments in the global coronavirus crisis for the rest of the day. Let me know if there are stories you think we should be covering – my email address is frances.perraudin@theguardian.com and you can contact me on twitter at @fperraudin.
More from our Paris correspondent, Kim Willsher, on the reopening of the Eiffel Tower.
The Iron Lady is back. No, not Margaret Thatcher but the Eiffel Tower that opens today after a three-month lockdown closure.
Paris’s most iconic monument welcomed its first post coronavirus visitors on Thursday morning, but they had to take the stairs.
Health regulations mean the lifts are out of service meaning a 674-step climb up – and back down again – to the second floor an exercise that will take between 30 and 45 minutes.
“Avoid trying to ascend with very young children or babies, or if you are in bad physical shape,” the tower’s online guide suggested.
The reopening of the iconic Dame de Fer is another sign that life is returning to near normal in the French capital that has seen a progressive lifting of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. France’s strict confinement ended on 11 May, but with the virus still circulating in the capital, certain restrictions remained until earlier this month.
The monument’s operators said masks were obligatory for all visitors over the age of 11 and markings had been placed on the structure to ensure people kept the 1-metre distance rule. The public areas of the tower will be “cleaned and disinfected” daily, they added.
Visitors wanting to get to the top, involving a sporting 1,665-step climb for the energetic, will have to wait. The third floor is not expected to open before 1 July, by which time the lifts should be open.
The tower closed on 13 March and has been shut for the longest period since the second world war. It normally has about 7 million visitors every year, 75% of them from abroad.
France opened its Schengen borders on 15 June, but will not open borders to international visitors before the beginning of July and even then it is not expected to allowtourists from certain countries still struggling with the coronavirus.
Victoria Klahr, a spokesperson for the company that runs the Eiffel Tower, said the reopening was being carried out “progressively”.
“Normally we can have 2,000 people on the first floor, but at the moment it’s limited to 750 and just 700 on the second floor compared with 1,200 normally,” she said.
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Indian authorities are launching a coronavirus survey taking down health details from New Delhi’s entire population of 29 million, with hopes of testing everyone with symptoms by 6 July.
The new plan was announced on Wednesday after the sprawling capital became the worst-hit city in India with 70,390 cases, exceeding Mumbai.
In the past 24 hours, 3,788 new cases were confirmed in Delhi, compared with 1,118 in Mumbai. On Thursday India registered another record high of 16,922 cases, taking the total to 473,105.
Nearly half of the cases in Delhi were part of viral clusters, and the search for them through vigorous contact tracing of Covid-positive patients will be undertaken to analyse the reasons for clustering, the city government said.
Police will also be deployed to enforce physical distancing and prevent the mixing of the population in containment zones. Drones would be used to ensure strict perimeter control and absolute restriction of outward and inward movement of the population, the government said.
Separately, authorities are also planning to randomly test people from across age groups, including children, to look for antibodies for the coronavirus in their blood in order to better understand how the virus is spreading. They are hoping to collate the results for this survey by 10 July, with officials saying they were hoping to collect 20,000 samples.
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The number of coronavirus infections in Indonesia has surpassed 50,000 as the government allows businesses to reopen amid increasing economic pressure.
A government taskforce says the rising case numbers align with the country’s increasing testing capacity. However, testing is still lower than recommended for a country that has 270 million people.
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Air cooling systems used at abattoirs could be an overlooked risk factor accounting for Covid-19 outbreaks, according to a hygiene expert who has studied conditions at an abattoir at the heart of a cluster of infections in Germany.
Martin Exner, a hygiene and public health expert at the University of Bonn, spent two days analysing the Tönnies meat-processing plant in Gütersloh, where an entire district has been sent back into lockdown after about 1,500 employees were infected with coronavirus.
Slaughterhouses have also been at the heart of Covid-19 outbreaks in the US, France, and other German regions.
At a press conference, Exner said the air filtration system in the slaughter area had contributed to the spread of aerosol droplets laden with the virus, describing it as a “newly recognised risk factor”.
In the area of the plant where animals are slaughtered, gutted and cut to pieces, the air is being kept at a cool 6-10 degrees but merely circulates the same unfiltered air and keeps aerosols in motion, Exner said. A filter fitted to the cooling system was not able to keep out the virus, his analysis found.
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The Eiffel Tower welcomed back visitors today after the coronavirus outbreak forced the Paris landmark into its longest period of shutdown since the second world war.
Strict hygiene and safety measures have been put in place for the reopening.
Visitors can access the 324-metre high (1,062ft) tower only via staircases until early July, with elevators off-limits for the time being because of safety considerations.
Visitors are not allowed to go any higher than the second floor and anyone over the age of 11 is required to wear a face covering.
Managers say they hope to get operations fully back to normal later in the summer.
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The number of confirmed Covid-19 infections has topped 30,000 in Afghanistan after eastern Nangarhar province recorded its worst day of the crisis amid a surge in the number of polio cases.
The Afghan health ministry has detected 460 new Covid-19 infections from 1,175 tests, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 30,175. The number of deaths has risen by 36 to 675.
The war-torn country, which has said it has a lack of testing capacity, has tested 68,626 suspected patients since the outbreak began. The number of recoveries has exceeded 10,000.
The capital, Kabul, which has been the country’s worst-affected area in both number of deaths and transmissions, still has the highest rate of new daily infections as most new cases (166) have been reported in the capital. Five patients also died overnight. Kabul has so far recorded 12,475 cases and 156 deaths.
The country’s acting health minister gave conflicting accounts of the crisis in Afghanistan in recent days. Ahmad Jawad Osmani warned on Saturday that according to the ministry’s knowledge, Afghanistan is “near the peak of the crisis and it will continue for the coming one or two months and from then the daily infections will drop”.
But he revised that the next day by saying “the number of daily infections is dropping and if people cooperate, we can control the spread of the virus”.
Nangarhar province, the hotspot of the crisis in the east, recorded its worst day of the crisis after 11 patients died overnight.
The country’s health ministry also raised concerns about new polio cases after vaccination campaigns were paused due to the pandemic for the last three months. Nineteen new polio cases have been detected in the first six months of this year. There were 13 cases in the same period of 2019.
Meanwhile, violence has continued across the country after at least six civilians including two children were killed on Wednesday in a roadside mine blast in northern Jawzjan province, local officials said.
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Russia has confirmed 7,113 new cases of coronavirus, pushing its tally to 613,994.
Officials said 92 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 8,605.
Hawaii will implement a pre-travel Covid-19 testing option for travellers to the US state as an alternative to a two-week travel quarantine, its governor said.
The announcement came hours after the US Department of Justice backed a lawsuit challenging the quarantine.
Tourists to Hawaii will now be exempt from the quarantine rule upon arrival from different states if they carry a valid coronavirus test result prior to the visit, the state governor, David Ige, said late on Wednesday.
“Beginning 1 August we will be implementing pre-travel testing program for travellers to Hawaii as an alternative for 14-day mandatory quarantine,” Ige said.
The current 14-day mandatory quarantine for everyone traveling into the state began in March, with the governor later extending it until the end of June.
Earlier on Wednesday, the DoJ gave its support to a lawsuit challenging the state’s coronavirus measures, saying visitors are being denied rights granted to most island residents. The lawsuit was filed by Nevada and California residents who own property in Hawaii.
Tourism is a big part of Hawaii’s economy – more than 10.4 million visitors came to the islands last year, supporting 216,000 jobs in a population of about 1.4 million, according to the state tourism authority.
The state at one point considered sweeping use of GPS-enabled ankle bracelets or smartphone tracking apps to enforce stay-at-home orders given to arriving air passengers.
However, that plan was put on the back burner after the Hawaii attorney general’s office raised concerns.
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Japan is to disband a panel of medical experts advising Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet on the response to the novel coronavirus after criticism of its transparency and lack of independence.
Japan has been spared the kind of explosive outbreak seen elsewhere, with about 18,000 cases and 969 deaths, but it is far from over and questions about the government’s response linger.
The number of daily new cases in the capital, Tokyo, climbed to 55 on Wednesday, after a cluster of infections was found at an office.
The panel’s independence from government influence has come into question and the economy minister, Yasutoshi Nishimura, said on Wednesday it would be disbanded and a new one created with a broader range of specialists.
“About a month has passed since the lifting of the state of emergency, and maintaining a balance between infection prevention and social and economic activities has become the thrust of our responses,” the chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, told a news conference on Thursday.
“At this time, we’ve decided to review the panel that gives us expert advice.”
The way the panel, led by Takaji Wakita, chief of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, has been run has come under criticism after it was revealed last month that it kept no minutes of its discussions.
There have also been reports the panel refrained from saying in a March statement that the virus could be transmitted from asymptomatic people, as the government asked it not to do so to avoid causing panic.
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The Senegalese president, Macky Sall, is quarantining for two weeks after coming into contact with someone who has since tested positive for the coronavirus, state television said on Thursday.
The measure is precautionary after an initial Covid-19 test of Sall came back negative, it said.
Updated
Morning, I will be updating the Global liveblog. As ever, if you have any tips, stories or things which you feel we should be covering please do get in touch via email on nazia.parveen@theguardian.com or follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NParveenG to send me a DM
Despite successfully containing its coronavirus outbreak, Vietnam has no plans to open up to international tourists yet, the country’s prime minister said on Wednesday.
Thanks to an aggressive, targeted testing programme and a centralised quarantine system, Vietnam has contained infections numbers to a relatively low 352 cases, most of whom have recovered. There have been no reported deaths.
“There is no story of rushing to open the doors,” Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said in a statement posted to the government website.
“Vietnam is not yet ready to welcome back international tourists. Foreign experts, high level workers and investors into Vietnam are welcomed but will be closely monitored.”
Highly skilled foreign experts such as engineers have been allowed to enter Vietnam on special flights and quarantine at hotels in a bid to keep the economy afloat throughout the global pandemic. Phuc said the frequency of such flights should be increased.
For over two months, Vietnam has reported no community transmission of the coronavirus. In early June, Vietnam said it was planning to resume flights to some virus-free countries that had registered no cases of coronavirus for 30 days or more.
Other Southeast Asian countries with slowing infections are considering travel bubble arrangements in the months ahead, such as Malaysia and Thailand, to include countries such as China, South Korea and Japan.
Thailand has been 31 days without a domestic transmission and will allow entry of some short-term business travellers and medical tourists from next month.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along – my esteemed colleague Nazia Parveen will be with you for the next few hours.
Texas Covid-19 cases soar weeks after state lifts lockdown restrictions – video
Texas reported an all-time daily high of 5,489 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, weeks after the state became one of the earliest in the US to ease its coronavirus lockdown measures. The significant increase in cases has left hospitals in Houston near capacity, with some adult ICU patients treated at Texas Children’s hospital:
‘Like kicking a puppy’: outcry as New Zealand minister picks on health chief in Covid-19 blame game
Charlotte Graham-McLay reports from Wellington:
New Zealand’s minister of health might just have chosen the wrong fall guy after repeatedly blaming Ashley Bloomfield, the mild-mannered civil servant and wildly popular director general of health, for failures in the coronavirus quarantine system.
David Clark faced growing calls on Thursday to share some of the responsibility after an excruciating video went viral in which he volunteered that Bloomfield had taken the blame for the problems.
In response to questions from reporters about why dozens of people had been allowed to leave isolation early without tests, Clark said: “The director general has accepted that the protocol wasn’t being followed.
“He has accepted responsibility for that, and has set about putting it right,” Clark added. The camera panned to Bloomfield – standing just behind Clark – who usually has a good poker face, but on this occasion appeared utterly crestfallen.
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Cases worldwide passed 9.4 million on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections to pass 10 million by the end of the week. At least 480,000 people have died so far.
- Cases continue to surge in the Americas, with the United States confirming its second-highest one-day total in the pandemic so far, according to Oxford University data project Our World in Data, with 34,700 new infections. It is the highest since 26 April, when a record 48,529 cases were confirmed in 24 hours. Researchers from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicted that US deaths would reach 180,000 by 1 October, up from the current toll of 121,969.
- Mexico confirmed its second-highest daily coronavirus death toll so far, with 947 fatalities on Wednesday. The highest daily toll came on 3 June with 1,092 deaths. Mexico has 196,847 known cases.Judge orders Bolsonaro to resume publishing Brazil Covid-19 dataRead more6The death toll from the coronavirus in Latin America is expected to skyrocket to 390,000 by October, with Brazil and Mexico accounting for two-thirds of fatalities as other nations in the region contain their outbreaks, the University of Washington said on Wednesday. This week, deaths in the region passed 100,000 and cases have tripled from 690,000 one month ago to 2 million.
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The World Health Organization has warned that hospitals are facing a shortage in oxygen concentrators, which are needed to support the breathing of Covid-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress, as 1 million new cases of coronavirus are confirmed worldwide per week. “Many countries are now experiencing difficulties obtaining oxygen concentrators,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “Demand is currently outstripping supply.”
- New Zealand citizens returning home from coronavirus hotspots are facing a backlash from some as people worry that the arrivals will bring a resurgence in cases.
- Australia’s Qantas airlines announced 6,000 job losses and 15,000 employees to be stood down as it predicted that most international flights were unlikely to resume until mid-2021. The airline also cancelled a $200m dividend payment it was due to make to shareholders in September.
- In Victoria, Australia, more than 1,000 Australian defence force personnel will door-knock two suburbs at the heart of the latest outbreak of Covid-19, with residents offered free testing, as 33 more cases of the virus were identified in the state overnight.
- Brothels in the Netherlands can reopen on 1 July after being shut for more than three months, the government announced on Wednesday
- Volunteers in the UK, Brazil and South Africa received their first doses of an experimental vaccine as part of a human trial run by Oxford University, as cases continue to rise and concerns grow over potential access to life-saving treatments
- The pilots of a plane that crashed last month in Pakistan, killing 98 people, were preoccupied by the coronavirus crisis and tried to land with the aircraft’s wheels still up, according to initial official reports.
- In the US, democrats will hold an almost entirely virtual presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee using live broadcasts and online streaming. Joe Biden plans to accept the presidential nomination in person during the 17-20 August convention, but it remains to be seen whether there will be a significant in-person audience there to see it.
- German airline Lufthansa’s top shareholder said on Wednesday he would back a €9bn government rescue package, removing the threat of a last-minute veto that could have plunged the airline into bankruptcy, AFP reports.
- China reported 19 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus amid mass testing in Beijing, where a recent outbreak appears to have been brought under control. Of the new cases it reported Thursday, 13 were in Beijing and one in the neighbouring province of Hebei. Officials say the other five were brought by Chinese travellers from outside the country. No new deaths were reported.
Eiffel tower reopens
Anyone visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris when it reopens on Thursday after three months will have to take the stairs – all 674 of them – because France’s iconic monument is keeping the lifts shut.
Coronavirus-era rules for visitors listed on the tower’s website include:
- all visitors (from 11 year’s old) shall wear a face mask ;
- at first, only visits by the stairs will be available (second floor tickets by stairs including visit of the first floor). To ensure that ascending and descending visitors do not meet in the stairs, ascent will take place from the East pillar and descent by the West pillar;
- a limited number of visitors on the esplanade and on each floor will be secured;
- significant signage and ground markings are installed to implement physical distancing ;
- daily cleaning and disinfection of public spaces at the Tower.
Hi, Helen Sullivan here. A reminder you can get in touch directly – tips, news, good tweets, comments and questions welcome – on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
Global report: WHO warns of global shortage of oxygen equipment
As 1 million new cases of coronavirus are confirmed worldwide per week, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that hospitals are facing a shortage in oxygen concentrators needed to support the breathing of Covid-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress.
“Many countries are now experiencing difficulties obtaining oxygen concentrators,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “Demand is currently outstripping supply.”
The health agency has bought 14,000 oxygen concentrators from manufacturers and plans to send them to 120 countries in coming weeks, Tedros said. A further 170,000 concentrators – worth about US$100m – will be potentially available over the next six months.
Cases worldwide passed 9.4 million on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections to pass 10 million by the end of the week. At least 480,000 people have died so far.
Walt Disney Co said the reopening of theme parks and resort hotels in California will be delayed until Disneyland receives approval from state officials, as the state is hit by a huge spike in new coronavirus cases.
Disney had originally planned to reopen the Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park on 17 July.
“California has now indicated that it will not issue theme park reopening guidelines until sometime after July 4,” Disney said in a statement on Wednesday.
An alarming surge in coronavirus infection rates around the country have prompted calls for a delay in reopening of theme parks and other facilities where big crowds gather.
California witnessed its largest ever spike in confirmed new cases on Tuesday, with an additional 7,149 infections taking the state total to 190,222.
Disney had received pushback from unions representing 17,000 workers at its Disneyland Resort in Southern California, who said they were not convinced the theme park would be safe enough to reopen by the company’s target date.
It has also come under pressure to delay the 11 July reopening of its Orlando, Florida-based Walt Disney World.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 630 to 192,079, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Thursday.
The reported death toll rose by 13 to 8,927, the tally showed.
Residents in Beijing are celebrating a quiet Dragon Boat Festival as the city continues to keep areas locked down following a new outbreak of the coronavirus of more than 250 cases.
Health authorities have asked residents to celebrate a “cloud” Dragon Boat Festival, usually marked by eating zongzi, rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves, and dragon boat racing. Citizens are invited to take part in virtual races and zongzi wrapping events. During the three day break, officials issued a notice to citizens to: “Relax over the holiday but don’t relax personal protection.”
Residents should not gather or eat together, and those living in areas deemed medium or high risk should not go out to public spaces. Residents in the city are also restricted from leaving the capital unless they have taken a nucleic acid test for the virus in the last seven days. Tourist sites have been ordered to limit capacity to 30% while tour groups can only arrange events within the capital.
Cases pass 9.4 million
Cases worldwide passed 9.4 million on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections would pass 10 million by the end of the week. At least 480,000 people have died so far.
Known infections currently stand at 9,407,078, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data.
The death toll from the coronavirus in Latin America is expected to skyrocket to nearly 390,000 by October, with Brazil and Mexico seen accounting for two-thirds of fatalities as other nations in the region contain their outbreaks, the University of Washington said on Wednesday.
Hi, Helen Sullivan here. A reminder you can get in touch directly – tips, news, good tweets, comments and questions welcome – on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
Army to door-knock Melbourne, Australia hotspot suburbs to offer free Covid-19 testing
More than 1,000 Australian defence force personnel will door-knock the two Victorian suburbs at the heart of the latest outbreak of Covid-19, with residents offered free testing, as 33 more cases of the virus were identified in the state overnight.
On Thursday morning the premier, Daniel Andrews, said residents could expect to see “hundreds and hundreds” of door-knockers “inviting them to come and get a free test, whether they be symptomatic or asymptomatic”. Half of the residents of Broadmeadows and Keilor Downs – suburbs with the highest number of community transmission cases – will be tested over the next three days.
That testing will be done in numerous ways, including with ambulances and other vans that will park at the end of people’s streets. “So, they will be invited to come and get a test, and they’ll only have to travel 50m or 100m in order to complete that test,” Andrews said.
While the two suburbs would be the initial targets for testing, eight other suburbs were named as hotspot locations: Maidstone, Albanvale, Sunshine West, Hallam, Brunswick West, Fawkner, Reservoir and Pakenham. Ten additional drive-through testing sites will be established in coming days to address increased demand for tests in those suburbs.
Of the new virus cases announced overnight, seven are returned travellers in hotel quarantine, nine are linked to known outbreaks, six were uncovered through routine testing and the origin of 11 cases are still under investigation. Two people are in intensive care.
US records highest one-day total in coronavirus cases since April
Amanda Holpuch reports for the Guardian from New York, with Maanvi Singh in Oakland:
The US has recorded a one-day total of 34,700 new Covid-19 cases, the highest level since late April, when the number peaked at 36,400, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
A coronavirus resurgence is wiping out two months of progress in the US and sending infections to dire new levels in southern and western states. Administrators and health experts warned on Wednesday that politicians and a public that, in many cases, is tired of being cooped up are letting a disaster unfold.
While newly-confirmed infections have been declining steadily in early hot spots such as New York and New Jersey, several other states set single-day records this week, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas and Oklahoma.
North Carolina and South Carolina joined some other states in breaking hospitalisation records.
China reports 19 new cases, 13 of which are in Beijing
China has reported 19 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus amid mass testing in Beijing, where a recent outbreak appears to have been brought under control.
Of the new cases reported Thursday, 13 were in Beijing and one in the neighbouring province of Hebei.
Officials say the other five were brought by Chinese travellers from outside the country. No new deaths were reported.
China has reported 4,634 deaths among 83,4449 cases since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
This month’s outbreak in Beijing saw 249 people infected, most of them with links to the city’s biggest wholesale market. Since then, 3 million test samples have been taken from 2.43 million people in the city.
Updated
Mexico confirms second-highest coronavirus deaths so far
Mexico confirmed 947 more Covid-19 deaths Wednesday, the countrys second-highest daily toll since the coronavirus pandemic began. The highest daily toll came June 3 with 1,092 deaths.
The Health Department said the country has seen a total of 24,324 deaths so far.
The number of confirmed cases rose by 5,437. The case load has increased by about 5,000 each day in the last two weeks, and the total now stands at 186,847.
The numbers are clearly an undercount, given Mexicos very low rate of testing.
Mexican officials have repeatedly predicted the peak of the pandemic had been reached, or would do so soon, only to be proved wrong.
The Health Department’s epidemiology director, José Luis Alomía, used almost comically couched language Wednesday, saying the country is on a slight tendency that may insinuate a descent in infections.
Because the case load continues so high, authorities have had to delay planned re-openings of theaters and concert halls.
One of Mexico City’s biggest venues, the Arena Mexico, announced Wednesday that it will start drive-in movie screenings starting 4 July.
Mexico City once had drive-ins, but most closed years ago. One company resumed outdoor screenings in 2011.
Updated
Australian Muslim community leaders say they are terrified that unconfirmed news reports claiming one on Melbourne’s coronavirus clusters originated at a family Eid celebration could create a new wave of anti-Islamic sentiment.
“I’m really concerned, I’m thinking ‘here we go again’, scapegoating, marginalising, unfairly stigmatising the Muslim community,” said Adel Salman, the vice president of the Islamic Council of Victoria.
“It just plays into the same narrative that Muslims are untrustworthy, that they aren’t like us, that they flout our rules, that they don’t have Australia’s interests at heart … Either they are a threat because they want to kill us and attack us or they are a threat because they are propagating the virus. It’s the same narrative.
“The Muslim community, we have been through this so often for many many years.”
The report in the Australian newspaper stated that the Coburg extended family cluster originated from a large family Eid celebration, an important Islamic holiday held at the end of Ramadan.
Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian from Wellington:
There are three new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand; all returning travellers who were diagnosed during routine testing of travelers.
These are the latest in a slow trickle of cases arriving into the previously Covid-free country as New Zealanders return from other coronavirus hotspots abroad.
There are 13 active cases in the country, all returning travellers. Two women arriving from Britain who were mistakenly allowed out of quarantine for returning travellers without being tested have now recovered from the virus.
“There is no community transmission,” said Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s top health official, who is speaking to reporters in Wellington.
Officials are attempting to prove this through testing: 10,436 Covid-19 tests were taken in the country of 5m people on Wednesday alone, Bloomfield said. That was the most tests taken in one day in New Zealand since the start of the pandemic.
Only New Zealanders, their families, and essential workers may enter the country; they must spend two weeks in government-run quarantine and are tested twice.
New Zealand has recorded confirmed 1,169 cases of Covid-19 and 22 deaths, widely attributed to a swift, early lockdown of the country, which has now lifted except for border control measures.
California sees 69% Covid-19 rise in two days as LA county has most cases in US
California has seen a 69% rise in coronavirus cases in just two days, governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday, as the state continues to battle a surge of new infections and hospitalizations.
The state has witnessed an alarming jump in cases as communities reopen from lockdown restrictions. Los Angeles county now leads the nation with more than 88,500 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Numbers have shot upward in recent days, rising from 4,230 on Sunday to 7,149 by Tuesday, according to public health data. The weekend also saw a record number of hospitalizations due to the virus. The state is currently at 30% of its ICU capacity.
The news comes amid a surge in cases across the country, with the US recording a one-day total of 34,700 new Covid-19 cases, the highest level since late April.
In more airlines news, the full story on Australia’s Qantas now:
Australia’s flag carrier, Qantas, will sack 6,000 people and continue to stand down half its 30,000-strong workforce as it struggles to cope with the continuing shutdown of the airline sector due to the coronavirus crisis.
Joyce, who has previously claimed the airline was in a much stronger financial position than its stricken rival, Virgin Australia, said the company would also be raising $1.9bn in fresh capital to help see it through until flying resumes in earnest.
He said the stand-down was likely to extend for a long time, with international flights not to resume in earnest before next July at the soonest. Joyce said he wanted the federal government to extend jobkeeper subsidies, which are due to expire in September, for the airline sector.
“We’re having good discussions with the government about possibly extending jobkeeper, or some other form of support, for those in the aviation industry who will be stood down for an extended period,” he said.
Relief for Lufthansa after top shareholder backs rescue deal
Lufthansa’s top shareholder on Wednesday said he would back a €9bn government rescue package, removing the threat of a last-minute veto that could have plunged the German airline into bankruptcy, AFP reports.
“I will vote for the agreement,” German billionaire Heinz Hermann Thiele told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper on the eve of an extraordinary general meeting where investors will decide on the fate of the coronavirus-hit giant.
Chief executive Carsten Spohr has warned that “the future of the company” is at stake after the pandemic throttled Lufthansa’s usual flood of passengers to a trickle for several months this year.
Spohr will address the online meeting set to begin at 10.00 GMT, urging investors to back the plan he hammered out over weeks of talks with ministers and the European Commission. The €9bn ($10bn) plan includes the state claiming a 20% stake.
Even with the government aid, Lufthansa has said it may have to slash thousands of jobs as travel demand is expected to stay below pre-pandemic levels for years.
But in another boost for the airline, it struck a deal with German flight attendants’ union UFO late Wednesday to cut €500m in costs by 2023 while avoiding cabin crew layoffs. The deal still needs to be approved by union members.
Lufthansa shares jumped more than 16% at 23.00 GMT in after-hours trading as investors digested the latest developments.
Updated
A 27-year-old soldier in Port Moresby has become Papua New Guinea’s 10th confirmed case of Covid-19.
The soldier, who is stationed at the defence force’s Murray Barracks but lives off-site in shared accommodation in the capital, was tested as part of a mass testing of barracks staff after an Australian defence force officer tested positive earlier this month.
The Australian officer has been flown to Australia for treatment in quarantine.
PNG’s police commissioner David Manning said the new infection case was “evidence of local transmission in Port Moresby and the risk is very high that more cases may be identified in the coming days”.
“The identification of this case provides Papua New Guineans need to take responsibility and remain vigilant to stop the chain of transmission,” Manning said.
“The country needs to work together to apply the ‘Niupela Pasin’ or the ‘new normal’. This will involve changing our old ways of doing things and replacing them with behaviours and actions to reduce the risk of getting infection.”
Joe Biden to accept nomination at mostly virtual Milwaukee convention
Democrats will hold an almost entirely virtual presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee using live broadcasts and online streaming, party officials said Wednesday.
Joe Biden plans to accept the presidential nomination in person during the 17-20 August convention, but it remains to be seen whether there will be a significant in-person audience there to see it. The Democratic National Committee said in a statement that official business, including the votes to nominate Biden and his yet-to-be-named running mate, will take place virtually, with delegates being asked not to travel to Milwaukee.
It’s the latest sign of how much the Covid-19 pandemic has upended American life and the 2020 presidential election, leading Biden and the party to abandon the usual trappings of an event that draws tens of thousands of people to the host city to mark the start of the general election campaign. Not even during the civil war or second world war did the two major parties abandon in-person conventions with crowded arenas.
Pakistan plane crashed after pilots distracted by coronavirus fears
The pilots of a plane that crashed last month in Pakistan, killing 98 people, were pre-occupied by the coronavirus crisis and tried to land with the aircraft’s wheels still up, according to initial official reports.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane crashed into a crowded residential area on 22 May after both engines failed as it approached Karachi airport for a second landing attempt, killing all but two people on board, and a child on the ground.
The preliminary report outlines the flight’s chaotic final minutes and a bizarre series of errors compounded by communication failures with air traffic control.
Investigators found the plane was at more than twice the correct altitude when it first approached the runway, and the tower advised the pilots to circle for a more gradual descent, the report states. But, instead of going around, the pilots attempted to land anyway – even though they had raised the landing gear.
Air traffic control saw the Airbus A320’s engines scrape the runway with a shower of sparks, but did not tell the cockpit. The badly damaged engines failed as the plane turned to attempt a second landing.
Pakistan’s aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan told parliament the pilots had been discussing the coronavirus as they attempted to land and had disengaged the craft’s autopilot.
Volunteers in the UK, Brazil and South Africa receive first doses of experimental vaccine
Oxford University rolled out Africa’s first human trials for a potential vaccine against the new coronavirus in South Africa on Wednesday, as cases continue to rise and concerns grow over potential access to life-saving treatments.
Researchers in Brazil began administering the same experimental coronavirus vaccine to volunteers there, the Federal University of Sao Paulo said Wednesday. Brazil was selected because it is one of the countries where the virus is spreading fastest. It has the second-highest caseload and death toll worldwide after the United States, with more than 1.1 million people infected and 52,000 killed so far.
The vaccine, developed together with pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca, is one of the most promising of the dozens that researchers worldwide are racing to test and bring to market.
The South African trial, conducted with local partner University of the Witwatersrand, will consist of 2,000 volunteers from 18 to 65 years of age, including some HIV positive patients, who will be monitored for 12 months after vaccination to asses how well the vaccine guards against Covid-19.
Hopes are that South Africa’s involvement in vaccine trials will ensure the continent will have access to an affordable vaccine and not be left at the back of the queue.
South Africa is the second country outside of the United Kingdom to take part in the Oxford trial after Brazil launched its study on Wednesday.
The ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine, also known as AZD1222, was originally developed by Oxford University scientists, who are now working with AstraZeneca on development and production.
There are over 4,000 participants enrolled in the UK, with enrolment of an additional 10,000 participants planned, the university said in a statement on Wednesday.
A larger study of the same vaccine in up to 30,000 participants is planned in the United States.
Updated
Dutch brothels can reopen on 1 July
Dutch brothels can reopen on 1 July after being shut for more than three months because of the coronavirus pandemic, the government announced on Wednesday.
The authorisation applies to “all work involving (physical) contact”, Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a news conference. The government had initially targeted 1 September for the reopening of brothels.
As with hairdressers and masseurs, which have already been allowed to resume operations, sex workers are encouraged to verify that their clients do not have Covid-19 symptoms.
“Everyone is very happy with the news that we can finally reopen,” said Felicia Anna, president of the union of sex workers in Amsterdam’s red light district. “We have no more money,” she told the Dutch news agency ANP.
The government also announced that football stadiums can once again open their doors to fans but only under conditions including a mandatory 1.5 metre (five feet) distance between occupied seats. ANP said the rule would leave stadiums operating at about one-third capacity.
The Netherlands has had some 50,000 reported Covid-19 infections with more than 6,000 deaths.
‘Stay away from us’: hostile response for New Zealanders returning home to Covid ‘lifeboat’
Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian from Wellington:
When Ellen, 30, a New Zealander returning home from London, arrived at Auckland airport after a long-haul flight, she understood that she would be transported to a local hotel a short bus ride away for a fortnight’s government-mandated quarantine. Instead – with no warning, or chance to buy water or use the toilet – she found herself on a four-hour bus trip to Rotorua, a city 225km away, to spend her quarantine there.
When she tweeted about her experience – New Zealand’s government had started to use hotels in Rotorua and the South Island city of Christchurch to quarantine returning travellers as Auckland reached capacity – it didn’t take long for responders to chide Ellen for what they saw as complaining. “Stay away from us until you’re declared safe,” one wrote. “So sorry if we don’t care about your food needs.”
It was just one example of the backlash from some quarters against New Zealanders returning to the country in search of safety from the pandemic raging on other shores. In a nation in the rare position of returning to normal life free from Covid-19, New Zealanders are roiling with anxiety as coronavirus cases ratchet up in other countries, fearing the virus could be imported here. And some would rather pull up the drawbridge.
Australia’s Qantas airlines will sack 6,000 workers as part of a plan to recover from the coronavirus pandemic that will also see it go to the market for an additional AU$1.9bn (US$1.3bn) in funding.
An additional 15,000 workers will remain stood down “for some time”, until domestic and international flights resume, said the airline’s chief executive, Alan Joyce. Qantas has about 30,000 workers.
It’s a bitter blow for workers, and the entire airline sector, which is already dealing with the collapse into administration of the Qantas rival Virgin Australia.
Qantas has talked up its prospects during the crisis, raising money by mortgaging its planes to keep going. But today’s announcement is a recognition that it is anything but immune to the effects of a crippling shutdown that has already pushed Virgin to the brink.
WHO warns pandemic has not yet reached its peak in the Americas
As Tedros warned of a shortage in oxygen supply in the face of cases increasing by about 1 million per week, the head of the WHO emergencies programme, Dr Mike Ryan, said the pandemic in many Latin American countries was still intense as deaths in the region surpassed 100,000 this week.
Many countries had experienced 25-50% increases in cases in the past week, he said.
“I would characterise the situation in the Americas in general as still evolving, not having reached its peak yet, and likely to result in sustained numbers of cases and continued deaths,” he said.
The United States has criticised WHO’s handling of the pandemic, calling the agency “China-centric”. President Donald Trump demanded an immediate review and reforms and has pledged to quit the Geneva-based body.
European governments are also working with the United States on an overhaul plan.
While Tedros has pledged accountability and a post-pandemic review, Ryan said on Wednesday the agency was holding internal talks over its actions including what it has learned about controlling the virus.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
I’ll be bringing you the latest from around the world for the next few hours. I’d love to hear from you – tips, news, good tweets, comments and questions welcome:
Twitter: @helenrsullivan
Email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com
The world faces a shortage of oxygen concentrators as coronavirus infections climb by about 1 million per week – and look set to reach 10 million by the end of this week, the World Health Organization head said on Wednesday.
“Many countries are now experiencing difficulties obtaining oxygen concentrators,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.
“Demand is currently outstripping supply.”
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- Known coronavirus cases are nearing 9.4m, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with 9,391,433 currently confirmed. There have been 479,818 deaths in the pandemic so far. Both cases and deaths are likely to be higher due to differing testing rates and definitions, delays and suspected underreporting.
- Texas Covid-19 cases hit all-time daily high as Houston hospitals near capacity. Texas recorded an all-time daily high of 5,489 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday as hospitals neared capacity in Houston. The dramatic increase in cases prompted the governor, Greg Abbott, to tighten public health restrictions after resisting calls to slow the state’s reopening process. Cases have steadily increased in Texas since March, but a surge in the past two weeks has activated concerns about the state’s ability to respond.
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Pandemic rule enforcement in Europe disproportionately impacted racialised individuals and groups, who were targeted with violence, discriminatory identity checks, forced quarantines and fines, according to a report by Amnesty International on 12 European countries.
- Volunteers in Brazil and South Africa began to receive injections of an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford University. The vaccine, developed together with AstraZeneca, is one of dozens that researchers worldwide are racing to test and bring to market. It is already being tested on volunteers in Britain.
- The award-winning poet and children’s author Michael Rosen returned home after 47 days in intensive care with Covid-19. He went into intensive care in March, with his family at the time warning that he was “very poorly”. On 6 June he took his first steps, and by 12 June he was back on Twitter, sharing his progress as he began walking again.
- The International Monetary Fund said the global economy will take a $12tn (£9.6tn) hit from the Covid-19 pandemic after slashing its already gloomy growth projections for the UK and other developed countries in 2020. The IMF said it would take two years for world output to return to levels at the end of 2019.
- Americans and Russians could be kept out when the EU reopens its borders to outsiders, according to documents seen by Reuters. Draft recommendations from the EU’s current presidency, Croatia, suggest allowing non-EU nationals in from countries with stable or decreasing infections, and those with a “comparable or better epidemiological situation”.
- Iran’s deputy health minister has called for mask wearing to be made compulsory, as the country reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll in more than two-and-a-half months on Wednesday. The health ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday that 133 fatalities in the past 24 hours brought the country’s overall virus death toll to 9,996.
- Portugal has tightened restrictions in and around Lisbon after recording thousands of new cases in recent weeks. From 21 May to 21 June, the country has documented more than 9,200 new cases – a rate per 100,000 inhabitants that ranks among the highest in Europe, behind only Sweden, according to data compiled by news agency AFP.
- India has recorded its highest one-day rise in new coronavirus cases, with 15,968 infections detected in the past 24 hours. So far, 456,183 people in India have tested positive for the virus.
- Latin America’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to Reuters, while the number of infections, at 2.2m, doubled in less than a month. The region has seen a spike in cases and deaths even as the tide of infection recedes in Europe and parts of Asia.
- France’s coronavirus contact-tracing app has alerted just 14 people that they have been near someone with the virus in three weeks since its launch, with only 68 people signalling they have tested positive on the app. Digital minister Cédric O said the app was installed 1.8m times since 2 June, but had been subsequently uninstalled by 460,000.
- Austria has issued a warning against travel to the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia after a coronavirus outbreak at a meatpacking plant there, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday.
- Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far. Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas – which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.
- UK medical leaders warned of “real risk” of a coronavirus second wave just a day after the biggest lifting yet of lockdown restrictions in England. “While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk,” said the experts.
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