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Summary
Here some of the latest developments at a glance:
- South Africa now has over 100,000 infections, the highest on the continent, while the number of deaths inched towards 2,000.
- Brazil has recorded 21,432 new confirmed cases as well as 654 new deaths. The country has registered 1.1 million cases since the pandemic began, while cumulative deaths reached 51,271 on Monday, the second-highest death toll in the world.
- Museums, galleries and cinemas in England will be allowed to reopen from 4 July, alongside pubs, restaurants and hairdressers, the British prime minister Boris Johnson will announce on Tuesday.
- US government data released on Monday showed Black Americans were around four times as likely as whites to be hospitalised for Covid-19, highlighting significant racial disparities in health outcomes during the pandemic.
- The government of the United States will suspend certain categories of non-immigrant work visas through the end of the year and extend an existing ban on certain green cards, as part of a move to protect US workers amid the economic devastation tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
- The coronavirus death toll in the United States has reached 120,225, according to the latest figures from John Hopkins University.Two more staff members of US president Donald Trump’s campaign who were in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his rally on Saturday have tested positive for the coronavirus.
- Saudi Arabia said Monday that this only “very limited” numbers of people will be allowed to participate in this year’s hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca many Muslims undertake.
- Data from the Serbian state’s Covid-19 information system shows that more than twice as many infected patients have died than the authorities announced, and hundreds more people tested positive for the virus in recent days than the Serbian government has made public.
- Three members of Pakistan’s tour of England have tested positive for coronavirus, the Pakistan Cricket Board has confirmed.
That’s all from me for today, this blog will now close. My colleague Helen Sullivan will be bringing you a rolling coverage of the next developments in a new blog that will launch shortly. Thanks for reading, goodnight.
South Africa now has over 100,000 infections
South Africa on Monday said it had over 100,000 coronavirus cases, the highest on the continent, while the number of deaths inched towards 2,000.
“As of today, the cumulative number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in South Africa has breached the 100 000 mark at 101,590,” the health ministry said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Sixty-one deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of Covid-19 deaths to 1,991.
Despite the grim death toll, data shows that the mortality rate in South Africa is at 2%, while 52.6% of virus patients have recovered.
The worst-hit area is Western Cape, the coastal province accounting for 1,458 of the country’s deaths and more than half of its infections.
According to the World Health Organization, more than half of the continents infections are in South Africa.
Nigeria and Ghana are next on the list, having recorded over 20,000 and 14,000 cases respectively.
South Africa has struggled to set a strategy for dealing with the pandemic.
Officials instituted a strict lockdown when the virus first hit in March but they backtracked as the rate of infections increased and opted to reopen most sectors of the economy.
Despite an unprecedented $26 billion virus relief package and food parcels, many South Africans have struggled to get by.
Under-fire president Cyril Ramaphosa has admitted difficulties in balancing public health with saving the nation’s economy, which was already in tatters before the virus.
“For a country such as ours, which was already facing an unemployment crisis and weak economic growth, difficult decisions and difficult days lie ahead,” he said in his weekly letter to the public on Monday.
“We would urge that the difficult decisions to be taken are taken with care and with due regard to balancing the sustainability of companies and the livelihoods of workers.”
The main opposition Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen has threatened legal action if the government refuses to completely end the nationwide lockdown.
Brazil has recorded 21,432 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours as well as 654 new deaths resulting from the disease, the country’s health ministry said on Monday.
Brazil has registered 1.1 million cases since the pandemic began, while cumulative deaths reached 51,271, according to the ministry, the second-highest death toll in the world.
Museums, galleries and cinemas to reopen in England from 4 July
Museums, galleries and cinemas in England will be allowed to reopen from 4 July, alongside pubs, restaurants and hairdressers, the British prime minister Boris Johnson will announce on Tuesday in a decisive but potentially risky easing of lockdown measures in England.
Two days later, millions of people with underlying health issues will be permitted to leave their homes and mix with others for the first time in three months, it was announced on Monday.
My colleagues Peter Walker, Kate Proctor and Sarah Boseley have more.
Laine Hardy, the 2019 winner of American Idol, says he has been diagnosed with Covid-19 but his symptoms are mild and he is recovering under home quarantine.
“This wasn’t what I expected on the first day of summer,” the 19-year-old singer from Livingston, Louisiana, wrote on his Facebook page and on Instagram, according to the Associated Press.
“My doctor confirmed I have Coronavirus, but my symptoms are mild,” he wrote.
Hardly had performed Friday, singing the national anthem at swearing-in ceremonies for Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ards third term, The Advocate reported.
The Belgian government is giving its citizens free rail journeys for the rest of the year, as a major incentive to take a ‘staycation’ in Belgium instead of travelling abroad this year.
Every Belgian resident aged 12 and over will be entitled to a “national tour” rail pass giving them 12 free journeys to anywhere in the country, in an attempt to boost the country’s tourism sector which suffered badly from the lockdown, Forbes reports.
The free journeys can be claimed at a rate of two per month, from August 2020 to January 2021. Bikes will also be able to travel on trains for free starting on 1 July, avoiding the normal charge of €4 per bike.
Belgium closed its borders in mid-March in response to the coronavirus outbreak and banned people from travelling within the country.
Black Americans four times as likely as whites to be hospitalised with Covid-19
US government data released on Monday showed Black Americans were around four times as likely as whites to be hospitalised for Covid-19, highlighting significant racial disparities in health outcomes during the pandemic.
“The disparities in the data reflect longstanding challenges facing minority communities and low income older adults,” said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to Reuters.
Updated
The health secretary of Rio, the Brazilian state with the second highest number of coronavirus cases, said on Monday he would resign after about month in office, as the local death toll climbs.
“I have only one thing to say: I tried,” state health secretary Fernando Ferry said in a video on Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo, announcing his departure, Reuters reports.
Ferry took the job after police began investigating the state health agency for suspicious state-level contracts and equipment purchases meant to address the pandemic.
That triggered the state legislature to open impeachment proceedings against Rio’s governor.
The turmoil among health officials in Rio mirrors that of the federal government, where two health ministers resigned in the span of a month.
An active-duty military general with no medical background is now interim health minister.
The WHO is looking into a surge of more than 54,000 new coronavirus cases in Brazil in 24 hours, that was reported by the health ministry on Friday and is by far the most reported in the country in a single day, according to top WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan.
Ryan told an online briefing on Monday that testing levels were still low in Brazil with a high percentage of positive results.
“That generally means there are probably more cases out there than reported,” Ryan said.
Sao Paulo’s Corinthians football club confirmed that 21 of its 27 players had been infected with coronavirus in recent months, although 13 had recovered, according to weekend press reports.
As the toll continues to rise, local governments across Brazil have been gradually lifting lockdown orders.
Two further Trump staffers test positive for coronavirus
Two more staff members of US president Donald Trump’s campaign who were in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his rally on Saturday have tested positive for the coronavirus, a Trump campaign spokesman said on Monday.
The campaign announced on Saturday hours before the rally, Trump’s first since March, that six members of the campaign’s advance staff had tested positive.
“After another round of testing for campaign staff in Tulsa, two additional members of the advance team tested positive for the coronavirus,” spokesman Tim Murtaugh said, Reuters reports.
“These staff members attended the rally but were wearing masks during the entire event.”
US Covid-19 death toll passes 120,000
Over on our US politics live blog, my colleague Julia Carrie Wong reports that the coronavirus death toll in the US has reached 120,225, according to the latest figures from John Hopkins University.
This latest grim milestone comes as health officials are raising alarms about “surging” cases in the southern and western US, according to the AP.
Confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Florida have passed 100,000, while Covid-19 admissions at a chain of eight hospitals in Houston have tripled over the past month to 1400. An alarming 20% of Covid-19 tests in Arizona are coming back positive.
The number of newly confirmed Covid-19 cases in the US has reached 26,000, up from 21,000 per day two weeks ago, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Marc Boom, the CEO of the Houston hospital chain, told the AP: “It is snowballing. We will most certainly see more people die as a result of this spike.”
Data from the Serbian state’s Covid-19 information system shows that more than twice as many infected patients have died than the authorities announced, and hundreds more people tested positive for the virus in recent days than the Serbian government has made public, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) reported on Monday.
In the period from 19 March to 1 June, a total of 632 people died in Serbia who had tested positive for the coronavirus, more than twice as many as the official number of 244 deaths that has been announced for that period.
Another data set from the same information system also indicates that the number of people who became infected in Serbia between 17 June and 20 June was at least 300 per day, BIRN reported.
This would be far more than the officially announced figures, which recorded a maximum of 97 new cases in a single day during that period.
The World Health Organization (WHO) called on Monday for a rapid increase in production of dexamethasone, a cheap steroid which has been shown to reduce deaths in critically ill coronavirus patients.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said demand had already surged after a British trial of the drug was publicised but he was confident production could be ramped up.
Some 2,000 patients were given the drug by researchers led by a team from Oxford University, and it reduced deaths by 35% among the most sickly, according to findings published last week.
“Although the data are still preliminary, the recent finding that the steroid dexamethasone has life-saving potential for critically ill Covid-19 patients gave us a much-needed reason to celebrate,” Tedros told a virtual news conference in Geneva, according to AFP.
Updated
US suspends certain work visas and green cards until end of year
The government of the United States will suspend certain categories of non-immigrant work visas through the end of the year and extend an existing ban on certain green cards, as part of a move to protect US workers amid the economic devastation tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
The suspension will cover H-1B visas for skilled workers, H-2B visas for seasonal guest workers and other visa types, with an exception for workers in the food service industry, a senior official from the Trump administration said on Monday.
President Donald Trump will also block L-1 visas for workers being transferred within a company through the end of the year, the official said, adding that the move would open up 525,000 jobs.
Trump had previously hinted that he might extend a 60-day hold on green cards for foreign workers that he ordered to protect American jobs during the coronavirus outbreak.
Analysts predict the number of green cards issued annually will drop from about 1 million to 300,000.
The US dollar weakened and higher-risk currencies including the Australian dollar jumped on Monday as investors focused on the prospect for an eventual economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.
Traders bought riskier currencies even after signs of setbacks in the battle to contain the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a record increase in global novel coronavirus cases on Sunday, with North America and South America showing the largest rises.
On Friday, Apple Inc said it was temporarily shutting some stores again in Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, and North Carolina due to fresh outbreaks in the US.
Updated
Pilgrimage to Mecca to be limited to people in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia said Monday that this year’s hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca many Muslims undertake, will not be cancelled, but that due to the coronavirus only very limited numbers of people will be allowed make the journey.
The kingdom said that only people of various nationalities already residing in the country would be allowed to perform the ritual.
The government did not specify how many people would be permitted to take part.
The pilgrimage, which is set to begin this year at the end of July, traditionally draws around two million Muslims from around the world for five intense days of worship and rituals in Mecca.
Saudi Arabia has never cancelled the hajj in the nearly 90 years since the nation’s establishment.
It halted the minor umrah pilgrimage, which can be performed year-round, in February, as the coronavirus began spreading across the region, the Associated Press reports.
The US president, Donald Trump, said on Monday that he supported the idea of giving Americans a second round of financial aid to mitigate the effect of shutdowns across the country.
Trump told Scripps Networks in an interview that he supported the idea of sending individual Americans a second check.
“We will be doing another stimulus package,” Trump said, adding that the bipartisan measure would come “over the next couple of weeks probably.”
Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed to provide direct payments of up to $1,200 each to millions of Americans, with additional payments of $500 per child, in legislation that Trump signed into law in March.
Another $3 trillion bill that passed the House of Representatives on 15 May contains a second round of economic stimulus payments of up to $6,000 per US household.
But the Republican-controlled Senate has not taken up the House package and lawmakers are not expected to move toward another coronavirus bill until sometime in July, Reuters reports.
In a sign that the American economy is beginning to recover from the quarantine enforcements due to the coronavirus, the Commerce Department announced last week that US retail sales rose 17.7% in May from the previous month, well above the 8% forecast.
Updated
Three members of Pakistan’s tour of England have tested positive for coronavirus, the Pakistan Cricket Board has confirmed.
Haider Ali, Haris Rauf and Shadab Khan have the virus, but are asymptomatic, while two other players tested negative.
My colleague Ali Martin has more:
Updated
The number of people who died from Covid-19 in France rose by 23 on Monday to 29,663, the first time in four days that the daily tally rose above 20, having fallen to a three-and-a-half-month low of seven on Sunday.
The country’s confirmed coronavirus cases have risen by 373 to 160,750 in the 24 hours to Monday, Reuters reports.
The number of patients in intensive care sank from 715 on Sunday to 701 on Monday.
Updated
This just in from my colleague Tom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent:
Speaking on @GloboNews Brazilian infectious disease specialist Roberto Madronho says he believes Brazil actually has about 10m coroanvirus cases, not 1m. "What we are seeing is the tip of an immense iceberg"
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) June 22, 2020
And says Brazilians should follow samba composer @PaulinhoDaViola's advice in dealing with Covid-19: "Faça como um velho marinheiro/ Que durante o nevoeiro/ Leva o barco devagar" https://t.co/W2uvqFaXb4
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) June 22, 2020
Half of Chinese-Canadians say they have been targets of racial slurs and other discriminatory behaviour since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a poll released Monday.
Attacks, threats and graffiti directed at people of Chinese descent since the pandemic was declared amount to a “shadow pandemic,” the Angus Reid Institute said in a statement, Agence France-Presse reports.
It has left many feeling dejected, believing that their compatriots do not view them as “fully Canadian,” the polling firm said.
61% of respondents said they changed their daily routines to avoid run-ins and harassment, while just over half fear their children will be bullied over the Covid-19 outbreak when they return to school.
The survey of 516 Chinese-Canadians, conducted in partnership with the University of Alberta in Edmonton, found that half have been called names or insulted in recent months.
43% further reported being threatened or intimidated.
Three in 10 also said they were frequently exposed to racist graffiti or messaging on social media, or were made to feel as though they posed a threat to others’ health and safety.
More than 1.7 million Canadians or 5% of the population are of Chinese descent.
More than 100,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported in Canada since mid-March, including nearly 8,500 deaths.
US president Donald Trump blames the crisis on China and for a long time insisted on calling the sickness the “Chinese virus,” a term which he repeated at a rally on Saturday, when he also called it “kung flu.”
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on Monday pushed back against pressure from airlines to reopen the nation’s borders, saying moving too quickly could spark a second wave of infections.
“I understand there are a lot of tourism firms and airlines who would like us to be able to once again to welcome tourists,” Trudeau told a daily briefing, according to Reuters.
“But these people all need to understand that if we take steps too quickly, if we are not sure of what we’re doing at each stage, we risk hitting a second wave [...] and having to close our economy again,” he said.
Last week, a group of 27 leading executives added to calls for looser air travel restrictions in a open letter published in the Globe and Mail newspaper.
A senior official with Air Canada, the country’s largest airline, urged the government on Monday to quickly reopen borders and dilute quarantine requirements, citing what other nations were doing.
“Otherwise our sector and the Canadian economy will suffer far longer than it needs to,” Ferio Pugliese, senior vice-president of government relations, told the House of Commons health committee.
Air Canada said in mid-May it had decided to reduce its workforce by up to 60%.
Canada and the United States last week extended a ban on non-essential travel to late July. Washington and Ottawa introduced month-long restrictions in March and renewed them in April and May.
“I understand how difficult this is and how frustrating this is for some people but ... we are going to be very, very careful about when and how we start reopening international borders,” Trudeau said.
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem told reporters later on Monday that “airlines are going to take longer to come back than some other parts of the economy”.
Updated
Hello everyone, I’m taking over from my colleague Damien Gayle. As always, please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have relevant updates to share, you can email me or message me on Twitter.
Summary
Key updates in our global coronavirus coverage so far on Monday include:
- The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world since the outbreak began has passed 9 million. Johns Hopkins University, which keeps a tally of official statistics, said that so far 9,003,042 cases had been reported. The United States is the world’s worst affected country by case numbers, with nearly 2.3 million cases alone.
- World Health Organization reported a record daily increase in coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 183,020 in a 24-hour period. The biggest increase was from North and South America with over 116,000 new cases, according to the body’s daily report. The previous record for new cases was 181,232 on 18 June.
- Confirmation that the Ryder Cup, due to be held in September at Whistling Straits, will be postponed until 2021 is expected next week. With health and safety concerns to the fore – playing the biennial competition without spectators has never been a serious option – postponement is now seen as the most responsible solution.
- More than half of all US states have reported a rise in new coronavirus cases, with some breaking daily records. Amid fears of a second wave of Covid-19 infections and deaths, public health officials have warned that the first is far from over.
- Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa, has said some coronavirus restrictions would be reimposed in Lisbon to help control outbreaks. Costa said measures to be introduced from Tuesday included a restriction on gatherings of more than 10 people and orders for cafes and shops to close at 8pm in the capital.
-
India has reported a record number of new coronavirus cases and a death toll of more than 400 people in the past 24 hours, Reuters reports. The 15,000 new cases brought India’s total to more than 425,000, behind only the United States, Brazil and Russia, according to data from the federal health ministry.
Ryder Cup to be postponed until 2021
Confirmation that the Ryder Cup, due to be held in September at Whistling Straits, will be postponed until 2021 is expected next week, writes Ewan Murray in an exclusive report for the Guardian’s sports desk.
The PGA of America has announced the first major of the year, the US PGA Championship, will be held in early August without spectators. Talks between the PGA of America and the European Tour, who preside jointly over the Ryder Cup, and local government officials in Wisconsin are now close to completion despite a public line of “no change” to existing arrangements. Work on the spectator build at Whistling Straits, ordinarily well under way by now, is not believed to have meaningfully started.
With health and safety concerns to the fore – playing the biennial competition without spectators has never been a serious option – postponement is now seen as the most responsible solution. As recently as last month, hopes had been raised that the Ryder Cup could take place. The relevant parties have considered the US and Europe facing off in front of reduced numbers, with around 25,000 per day mooted, but that isn’t now thought viable amid coronavirus concerns. Ongoing travel restrictions – such as quarantine – are also a factor.
More than half of all US states have reported a rise in new coronavirus cases, with some breaking daily records, Kenya Evelyn reports from Washington for Guardian US. Amid fears of a second wave of Covid-19 infections and deaths, public health officials have warned that the first is far from over.
“I think that wherever there’s wood to burn, this fire’s going to burn – and right now we have a lot of susceptible people,” Michael Osterholm, head of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told NBC on Sunday.
“I don’t think we’re going to see one, two and three waves. I think we’re going to just see one very, very difficult forest fire of cases.”
In Tulsa on Saturday, Donald Trump said he had asked officials to limit testing, in order to reduce numbers of new cases. On Sunday the White House dismissed the remark as a joke, but on Monday the president again said increased testing was a problem.
“It makes us look like we have more cases, especially proportionally, than other countries,” Trump tweeted.
According to tracking data from John Hopkins University, 29 states have reported an increase in their seven-day average of new cases.
The Netherlands reported zero new deaths from Covid-19 on Monday, the first day since the beginning of March that the country’s pandemic death toll has not risen.
Deaths reported by Dutch national institute for public health are not necessarily from the past 24 hours, so it cannot be confirmed that no one has died from coronavirus-related illness. But it is the first day since 12 March that no death has been reported. The country’s total death toll is 6,090.
Sixty-nine more people had tested positive for the virus, according to the latest update, pushing the total number of cases in the country so far to 49,658.
Global tally of coronavirus cases passes 9m
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world since the outbreak began has passed 9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The US-based research university, which keeps a tally of official statistics, said that so far 9,003,042 cases had been reported. The United States is the world’s worst affected country by case numbers, with nearly 2.3 million cases alone, followed by Brazil with nearly 1.1 million, then Russia, with nearly 600,000.
According to data collected by the World Health Organization, Sunday saw the biggest rise in cases so far, with 183,020 new infections reported by health authorities around the world in a single day.
The Americas is the world’s worst affected region, followed by Europe, then the Eastern Mediterranean, according to WHO data.
Updated
The vice-president of the European Central Bank, Luis de Guindos, has warned that the eurozone economy may be in for more pain if measures aimed at containing the coronavirus outbreak are eased too soon, Reuters reports.
“There are substantial downside risks, in particular if the easing of containment measures turns out to be premature or their impact on productive capacity is more persistent,” De Guindos told an event in Frankfurt on Monday, the first he has attended in person in several weeks.
But he added that the risk of the bloc’s economic crisis morphing into a financial crisis had “receded materially” since March.
Updated
French Guiana is battling a surge in Covid-19 cases, with the head of the French South American territory’s health authority suggesting that infections are spreading from across the border with Brazil, Associated Press reports.
The R number, which indicates how many people will be contaminated on average by an infected person, has climbed to 1.8, said Clara de Bort, head of the regional health authority. That suggests each infected person is passing the virus on to nearly two other people on average.
Speaking on France-Info radio, De Bort said French authorities were considering reimposing movement restrictions on the territory’s 300,000 people to bring the outbreak back under control.
The outbreak is expected to peak in July. “The peak still hasn’t been reached,” De Bort said. “We fear that we’re only at the beginning of the upswing of the epidemic.”
She suggested it was impossible to stop the illness crossing from Brazil: “The pressure from our immense neighbour and the 700 km (400 miles) of frontiers that we share is necessarily huge.”
Updated
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has come under fire for failing to pay tribute to the more than 50,000 citizens who have lost their lives to Covid-19, writes Tom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil’s official death toll – now the second highest in the world – officially rose above 50,000 on Sunday. On Friday the number of confirmed infections rose above one million, also the second highest total after the US.
But according to the Brazilian media, Bolsonaro – who has repeatedly trivialized the pandemic – was silent about the dead and their families between Friday and Monday.
“Despite the tragic milestones we have reached in the last few days, president Jair Bolsonaro has said nothing … about the victims or the fight against this illness,” the conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper complained on Monday. “He has also been silent on social media.”
The newspaper said that by ignoring the human toll of the pandemic, Bolsonaro’s government was trying to hide the fact that Covid-19 had now claimed more Brazilian lives than guns did in the whole of 2019.
In a column, Leonardo Sakamoto, a left-wing commentator, attacked Bolsonaro’s “militant denialism”. “But you can’t say he didn’t fight. Bolsonaro has fought, bravely, in the name of coronavirus – and has become known as one of its staunchest defenders in the world,” Sakamoto wrote.
In an editorial, the newspaper O Globo said there was no doubt Bolsonaro bore responsibility for what was still “an unfinished tragedy”. “What is most scary is that, according to WHO officials … Brazil still hasn’t reached the peak of the epidemic.”
Updated
Hi, this is Damien Gayle hopping into the hot seat for the next little while. If you have any comments, tips or suggestions about our coverage, please drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter to @damiengayle.
Updated
Mexico opted for disease modelling instead of Covid-19 testing and is now paying a steep price as it becomes the country with the seventh highest death toll in the world, according to this report for Canada’s Globe and Mail.
The handling of the pandemic is also taking a toll on the popularity of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The percentage of Mexicans who approve President AMLO’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak took a steep drop from 50% in mid-May to 33% in mid-June, a poll by @Reforma newspaper shows. The drop occurred as coronavirus deaths in Mexico rose from 5k to 20k https://t.co/jAPqoeNWSi
— Mexico Today (@mexicotoday) June 22, 2020
Updated
Britain came close to effective insolvency at the onset of the coronavirus crisis as financial markets plunged into turmoil, the governor of the Bank of England has said.
Laying bare the scale of the national emergency at the early stages of the pandemic, Andrew Bailey said the government would have struggled to finance the running of the country without support from the central bank.
Asked in an interview with Sky News what would have happened had the Bank not intervened, Bailey said: “I think the prospects would have been very bad. It would have been very serious.
“I think we would have [had] a situation where, in the worst element, the government would have struggled to fund itself in the short run.”
Updated
Restrictions reimposed in Lisbon
Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa, has said some coronavirus restrictions would be reimposed in Lisbon to help control outbreaks.
Costa said measures to be introduced from Tuesday included a restriction on gatherings of more than 10 people and orders for cafes and shops to close at 8pm in the capital.
“Certain measures will be applied to the capital region,” the premier said a press conference after meeting with mayors of several municipalities.
According to official data compiled by local media, between 21 May and 21 June, Portugal recorded 9,221 new cases of Covid-19 with most cases detected in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley regions.
Costa had been tweeting recently about the reopening of Lisbon’s Teatro Nacional.
Regresso ao Teatro Nacional D. Maria II para assistir à admirável peça de Tiago Rodrigues sobre o valor da memória e da cultura, “By Heart”. A nova realidade impõe-nos distanciamento. Mas no #teatro estamos juntos. pic.twitter.com/rOz2ytKdGA
— António Costa (@antoniocostapm) June 21, 2020
Updated
Many countries that have been successful in tackling the coronavirus are encountering increases in cases due to religious events and people meeting in other vulnerable settings such as expat gatherings, the World Health Organization’s Maria Van Kerkhove has told the briefing.
“Any opportunity that the virus has to take hold, it will. It is really important that countries are in a position to rapidly detect these cases,” she said.
Updated
WHO 'open' to hypothesis that Covid-19 was in Italy much earlier
Suggestions by Italian scientists that sewage water from two cities contained coronavirus traces in December, long before the country’s first confirmed cases, are interesting, and it is important to remain open to any scientific findings, a WHO briefing has been told.
There is always a chance that the virus was circulating in northern Italy before anyone realised that it did, said Dr Michael Ryan, executive director at the World Health Organization’s health emergencies programme.
What was not clear, he added, was to what extent the presence or the potential presence of the virus in the environment before its known importation contributed to the disease’s amplification at a community level.
Updated
South Korea is still “on track” with its disease control measures, a press briefing has been told by Dr Michael Ryan, executive director at the World Health Organization’s health emergencies programme.
Ryan had been asked about the situation in South Korea, where health officials believe the country is going through a second wave of infections.
South Korea demonstrated the importance of continuing to maintain robust health infrastructure and having a public that was engaged and “believe in science”, he added.
Updated
While the pandemic is now accelerating in Africa, aid organisations are warning that it poses a particularly severe threat in South Sudan, where nearly half of the population was hungry before the pandemic and where years of civil war and corruption have shattered infrastructure.
“It can be out of control at any time,” said David Gai Zakayo, a doctor with the aid group Action Against Hunger told the Associated Press news agency.
“The groups we are treating are malnourished. My big worry is if the virus begins spreading to those groups we are treating, it will be a disaster.”
At South Sudan’s only laboratory that tests for the virus, the supervisor Simon Deng Nyichar said the team of 16 works up to 16-hour days slogging through a backlog of more than 5,000 tests.
About 9,000 samples have been tested since early April, when the country became one of the last in Africa to confirm a coronavirus case.
With materials in short supply, testing is largely limited to people with symptoms of Covid-19. It can take weeks to receive results, creating mistrust in communities and resentment toward contact tracers, the health Ministry said last week.
Updated
Craig Spencer, a doctor who in 2014 became the first person in New York to be diagnosed with Ebola and who has been regularly commenting on Covid-19, tweets his hope that the rest of the US will learn from the city’s “missteps”.
On the NYC subway home after my overnight shift in the ER.
— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) June 22, 2020
Dozens of people on the train, and ALL are wearing masks.
We’ve been through this once. We don’t want to do it again.
I sincerely hope others around the country are learning from our earlier missteps.
Amanda Holpuch, reporting for the Guardian, has more on the reopening in New York, where she notes that the crisis has underlined inequalities, with black and brown communities experiencing higher death rates than the white population.
Economic effects have also hit these communities the hardest, leaving many to decide whether to risk access to health insurance and income, or their personal health, on Monday.
Infections are down in New York City, but between 200 and 400 people have still been testing positive for the virus each day over the past two weeks, according to city data.
At landmark department stores, safety measures will be in place such as giving workers temperature checks and putting plastic dividers at cash registers. Saks Fifth Avenue plans to reopen on Wednesday with 100 new hand-sanitizer stations and escalator handrails outfitted with ultraviolet-light disinfection, among other changes
Updated
After more than 100 days of lockdown, New York City residents have been celebrating their progress in curbing the coronavirus pandemic by getting their first haircuts in months, shopping at long-closed stores, and dining at outdoor cafes.
Once the centre of the global outbreak, New York City was the last region in the state to move into Phase 2 of reopening with restaurants and bars offering outdoor service and many shops reopening.
Barber shops and hair salons welcomed customers for the first time since mid-March on Monday, Reuters reports.
Playgrounds were also due to reopen in the most populous US city. The pandemic has killed nearly 120,000 Americans.
At the same time, a dozen states in the south and south-west reported record increases in new coronavirus cases, and often record increases in hospitalisations as well, a metric not affected by more testing.
The number of new cases rose by a record last week in Arizona, California, Florida and Texas, together home to about a third of the US population. Alabama, Georgia, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming also experienced record spikes in cases.
Updated
As Sweden debates the rights and wrongs of its much scrutinised “light touch” approach to the pandemic, locals are somewhat bewildered by the international attention, reports the FT’s Nordic correspondent, Richard Milne.
Speaking to locals on the streets of Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg, he reports that there is a widespread feeling that Sweden’s decision to keep schools open for children up to the age of 16 was still wise, but also that the country has failed to protect its most vulnerable in care homes.
But a “stubbornly high” death toll – 102 new deaths were announced on Wednesday – is an important factor in why all strands of the Swedish approach is up for discussion. A debate about whether the strategy has been right or wrong is just starting inside the country.
Updated
Walt Disney Co will reopen its Disneyland Paris theme park in phases from 15 July, days after it plans to open its parks in the US, the company said on Monday.
It expects to reopen Disneyland Park, Walt Disney Studios Park, Disney’s Newport Bay Club hotel and Disney Village, according to Natacha Rafalski, the president of Disneyland Paris.
We’re pleased to announce that we will begin a phased reopening of the resort starting with the Disneyland Park, Walt Disney Studios Park, Disney’s Newport Bay Club Hotel and Disney Village as of 15th July 2020. Learn more about our safety measures: https://t.co/lrSZ4umk8c pic.twitter.com/oQna42shD9
— Disneyland Paris EN (@DisneyParis_EN) June 22, 2020
Updated
A paper on Vietnam’s success in suppressing Covid-19 using strict quarantining and widespread testing has been penned by experts including Vietnamese officials and staff from Oxford University’s clinical research unit in Ho Chi Minh City.
They list lessons which are applicable to other states, including:
- Investment in public health infrastructure.
- Early action, including border closures.
- Thorough contact tracing.
- Quarantines based on possible exposure, rather than symptoms only.
- Clear communication with a consistent narrative.
- A strong whole-of-society approach engaging multi sectorial stakeholders.
Updated
French movie fans ventured back into cinemas today for the first time since the Covid-19 lockdown, helped by a new safety feature: Minions placed at intervals in the seats to ensure social distancing is observed.
Stuffed toy versions of the yellow, pill-shaped characters were deployed at the MK2 cinema in the south of Paris for a showing of the 2015 movie “Minions”, a spinoff from the Despicable Me franchise that made them famous.
The Minions, dressed in their trademark goggles and dungarees, were placed strategically around the auditorium to enforce a rule that viewers leave at least one place free between them and their neighbours.
The reopening of cinemas across France on Monday was part of a phased relaxation of the lockdown measures that were imposed in March to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Nathanael Karmitz, chairman of the MK2 cinema chain, said the numbers showing up for matinee screenings on Monday showed how much the French public had missed going to the movies.
They love cinema. It’s much less risky spending two hours in a cinema than travelling on public transport or taking a train.
Updated
Netflix is to resume filming in the UK with fantasy epic The Witcher set to restart shooting on 17 August.
Netflix, which plans to spend in excess of £400m this year making more than 50 TV shows and films in the UK, shut down all filming in March as the coronavirus pandemic struck.
I’m dusting off my lute and quill,
— The Witcher (@witchernetflix) June 22, 2020
I have some news, some mead to spill:
After all the months we’ve been apart
It’s time for production to restart.
The Witcher and his bard – who’s flawless,
Will reunite on set 17 August.
German minister vents anger at meat plant owners
The owners of Europe’s largest meat-processing plant must be held to account for a mass coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 1,500 of its workers, Germany’s labour minister has said.
Hubertus Heil said an entire region had been “taken hostage” by the factory’s failure to protect its workers, most of whom come from Romania and Bulgaria.
Germany’s coronavirus reproduction or R rate leapt to 2.88 over the weekend largely as a result of the outbreak at the plant at Gütersloh in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). About 7,000 people have been sent into quarantine as a result of the outbreak, and schools and kindergartens in the region that had been gradually reopened have been forced to close until at least after the summer holidays.
Health authorities have accused Tönnies, the family-run business that owns the plant, of breaking regulations around physical distancing that were introduced to dampen the spread of coronavirus. Authorities say Tönnies has also been reluctant to give them access to workers’ contact details, allegedly hampering the tracking and tracing of the workers and their contacts. Tönnies said delays in handing over personnel data had been due to Germany’s strict data protection laws.
Clemens Tönnies, the company’s billionaire CEO, held a press briefing at the weekend at which he apologised for his company’s management of the crisis, and said it would take “full responsibility” for what had to be done to combat it. Within his own family there have also reportedly been attempts to oust him from his role. He has ruled out resigning.
Updated
Record number of new cases in India
India has reported a record number of new coronavirus cases and a death toll of more than 400 people in the past 24 hours, Reuters reports.
The 15,000 new cases brought India’s total to more than 425,000, behind only the United States, Brazil and Russia, according to data from the federal health ministry.
Nearly 14,000 people have now died from the disease caused by the virus since the first case in India in January.
The death toll in India remains low when compared to countries with similar numbers of cases but public health experts fear its hospitals will be unable to cope with a rise in cases.
The German embassy has sent messages to its citizens living in New Delhi warning them that there was “little to no chance” of admission to hospital for treatment for coronavirus as well as other intensive care needs.
The message was not an order to evacuate the country but to consider whether India remained safe depending on individual circumstances, a diplomat said.
The German advisory follows Ireland in suggesting that its citizens leave India due to the availability of hospital beds.
A dashboard run by the Delhi state government showed more than 7,000 hospital beds available for coronavirus patients today, although most of those were in a handful of government hospitals. Patients looking for beds have questioned the accuracy of the data.
Despite the peak of infections projected to be weeks if not months away Prime Minister Narendra Modi relaxed most curbs of a near three-month lockdown on 8 June in order to ease economic pain.
Netherlands records zero coronavirus deaths
RIVM, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, has reported zero Covid-19 deaths for the first time since early March.
It reported 69 new infections and two hospital admissions.
The total number of deaths in the country remains at 6,090 and the total number of people who have tested positive has risen to 49,658.
Updated
The effects of the coronavirus pandemic will be felt for decades, the World Health Organization’s director general warned an online conference today, after the WHO reported a record increase in global cases on Sunday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual health forum organised by Dubai authorities that the greatest threat facing the world was “the lack of global solidarity and global leadership”. He said:
We cannot defeat this pandemic with a divided world. The politicisation of the pandemic has exacerbated it. None of us is safe until all of us are safe.
The total number of cases rose by 183,020 on Sunday. While Europe is easing lockdowns, Covid-19, which has killed more than 465,000 people and infected almost 9 million worldwide, is surging in the Americas and parts of Asia.
The WHO chief said:
The pandemic is still accelerating. We know that the pandemic is much more than a health crisis, it is an economic crisis, a social crisis, and in many countries a political crisis. Its effects will be felt for decades to come.
Updated
Concerns that Donald Trump’s inner circle might pressure the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to rush a coronavirus vaccine to market in time for the presidential election have risen after the White House attacked the agency for reversing itself on an experimental drug treatment.
Critics say the FDA’s decision in April to approve hydroxychloroquine for emergency use – an approval that the agency revoked last Monday – demonstrated that the regulator is vulnerable to political pressure from the White House.
But other outside experts said regulatory approval for any vaccine would require a degree of data transparency that would prevent the process from being unduly rushed.
Updated
Summary
-
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases passes 8.9 million. The figure currently stands at 8,969,827, while the global death toll is at 468,567, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
- World Health Organization reports a record daily increase in coronavirus cases. The WHO has reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 183,020 in a 24-hour period. The biggest increase was from North and South America with over 116,000 new cases, according to the body’s daily report. The previous record for new cases was 181,232 on 18 June.
- Beijing reports 9 new cases. Beijing’s municipal health authority has reported nine new cases of the coronavirus in the city for 21 June, down from 22 the day before. The city of more than 20 million people reported its first case in the latest outbreak on 11 June. The new wave of cases has been linked to a wholesale food centre in the southwest of Beijing. So far, 236 people in the city have been infected in the outbreak.
- China suspends imports of poultry from US-based Tyson plant. China’s customs authority said on Sunday it had suspended imports of poultry products from a plant owned by US-based meat processor Tyson. The company confirmed a cluster of coronavirus cases at facilities in Arkansas where a total of 481 people tested positive for the virus.
-
Boris Johnson to announce lockdown-easing plans on Tuesday. The UK prime minister will unveil the latest easing of England’s coronavirus lockdown on Tuesday when he will also announce the conclusion of a review into whether a 2-metre rule on social distancing should be relaxed, his office said.
- Mexico’s cases pass 180,000. Mexico has reported 5,343 new infections and 1,044 additional deaths from the coronavirus, bringing the totals for the country to 180,545 cases and 21,825 fatalities. The government has said the actual number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
-
Citizens returning to New Zealand could quarantine in campervans. Because hotels in Auckland are nearing capacity, the ministry of health has said citizens returning home to New Zealand could undergo two weeks of quarantine in campervans. The government was also “actively considering” placing returnees in defence force bases, according to the director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield. New Zealand currently has nine active cases of coronavirus.
- Clashes erupt over virus quarantine in Germany. Several police officers were hurt in clashes with residents of a high-rise apartment block in the German city of Göttingen who had been placed under quarantine over a coronavirus outbreak, authorities said on Sunday.
- Delhi to transform luxury hotels into Covid-19 care centres. Amid growing concerns that there are not enough hospital beds to cope with the rising number of cases, the Delhi government has become the first in the country to requisition its hotels. Starting this week, 25 establishments will be repurposed as emergency Covid-19 care centres for patients with mild to moderate symptoms.
- Under-16s return to school in France. Schools for pupils aged 15 and under reopen today and classes are obligatory even though there are only two weeks left until the end of the school year. Pupils must remain 1 metre apart each side (but not necessarily in front or behind) and wear masks, but the whole class should be present.
Updated
Experts have been underlining important nuances to do with the ‘R’ rate in relation to the current spike in cases in Germany, where authorities in the Göttingen and North Rhine Westphalia regions called on police at the weekend to enforce quarantine measures after struggling to get people to adhere to isolation rules.
While Germany has been widely regarded as a success story in Europe, the country’s reproduction rate of virus infections jumped to 2.88, based on a four-day average, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for public health said on Sunday.
Prof KK Cheng, the director of the Institute of Applied Health Research at the UK’s University of Birmingham, tweets:
The relatively few cases in Germany explain the surge of R to 2.8 with one outbreak. If one of the two UK residents caused an outbreak in NZ (where there haven't been new cases for weeks) last week and infected ten others, then technically the average R becomes 10. https://t.co/jOAx6u2nE7
— KK Cheng (@KKCheng4) June 22, 2020
Updated
The coronavirus outbreaks that have struck workers in meat plants around the world are due to poor working conditions and living quarters in a sector that is in a “disastrous race to the bottom” in the quest for cheap meat, trade union representatives have said.
Meat plants have persistently been centres for outbreaks, with some of the biggest clusters in the US and Canada focused on slaughterhouses. According to the Food and Environment Reporting Network (Fern), which has been tracking the outbreaks, nearly 30,000 meat plant workers across the US and Europe have been infected with the virus and more than 100 have died.
“The entire sector is in a disastrous race to the bottom, driven by the market and by consumer demand for cheap meat,” said Peter Schmidt, the head of international affairs at the German food workers union NGG. Schmidt claimed modern plants in Germany brought in contract workers from eastern Europe who were prepared to put up with low wages.
Updated
A two-day lockdown in which residents will be barred from leaving their homes, except for work or urgent necessities, is to be imposed in a northern city of Kazakhstan after a rise in Covid-19 cases.
The move continues a trend towards weekend restrictions in the oil-rich nation of 19 million, where the number of coronavirus cases has more than quintupled to about 28,000 since a nationwide lockdown was lifted in mid-May.
Residents of Kostanay and four towns, including the mining hubs Rudny and Lisakovsk, will be subject to the restrictions, the local newspaper Kostanayskiye Novosti reported.
This is Ben Quinn picking up the blog now in London. I’ll be bringing you all the latest updates on the global coronavirus crisis. If you think I’m missing something, email me on ben.quinn@theguardian.com or contact me on twitter on @BenQuinn75.
Updated
Three areas in the north-eastern Spanish region of Aragón have been ordered back into the penultimate phase of the lockdown de-escalation process after 33 new coronavirus cases were reported on Sunday.
“We tackled the outbreak very early and managed to identify cases because we were looking for them,” said the region’s director general of public health, Francisco Javier Falo.
Spain’s health minister, Salvador Illa, said the outbreak – concentrated in the Aragonese areas of La Litera, Cinca Medio and Bajo Cinca – was “being brought under control” on Monday morning.
Illa said 36 Covid-19 outbreaks had been detected in Spain in recent days, adding that all were under control.
Spain emerged from its three-month state of emergency on Sunday, meaning people can once again travel between different regions. The country also opened its borders to visitors from the EU and the Schengen area on Sunday.
Updated
Croatia’s Borna Ćorić, who played in Novak Djokovic’s Adria Tour exhibition tournament at the weekend, has tested positive for Covid-19.
Ćorić’s positive test follows that of Grigor Dimitrov, who said on Sunday he had contracted coronavirus. Dimitrov also played in Djokovic’s event and the final in the Croatian coastal resort of Zadar was cancelled as a result.
Organisers of other sports looking to resume after the coronavirus shutdown will be watching developments with some trepidation as they try to find the safest way of getting competition back under way.
Ćorić, ranked No 33 in the world, revealed on Twitter that he had tested positive:
— borna coric (@borna_coric) June 22, 2020
You can read the full story here -
Updated
Under-16s return to school in France
France is entering phase 3 of its progressive end of lockdown and life is returning to almost near normal.
All schools for pupils aged 15 and under reopen today and classes are obligatory even though there are only two weeks left until the end of the school year.
Since the end of the strict lockdown on 11 May, the return to school has been voluntary and subject to regulations, including a maximum of 15 pupils per class and a minimum distance of 1 metre between each student. These have now been relaxed: pupils must remain 1 metre apart each side (but not necessarily in front or behind) and wear masks, but the whole class should be present.
Some parents have questioned why pupils need to return so near to the start of the two-month summer holidays, but the education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, has said “two weeks of classes is important” after pupils have been distance learning since March, with mixed success.
Some measures that were initially due to come into effect on Monday were brought forward because the Covid-19 figures were better than expected, but cinemas are set to reopen today and public gatherings of up to 5,000 people will be allowed. All Paris metro stations should also reopen.
There was some concern after videos from the annual Fête de la Musique on Sunday evening showed thousands of people gathered on the streets of Paris dancing, having fun and showing no sign of any social distancing.
Yesterday’s figures showed seven people died of Covid-19 in France in the previous 24 hours, the lowest figure since the pandemic began in March. Although the figures are likely to have been skewed by slow weekend reporting, the number of patients in hospital and intensive care with the virus is also low.
However, the overseas territory of French Guiana may have to go back into lockdown after a “sudden acceleration” of the epidemic.
Updated
The United Nations has said it is gravely concerned about deliberate attacks on healthcare personnel and facilities in Afghanistan, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The UN mission in Afghanistan released a report on Sunday that documents the “harm to healthcare workers, damage to healthcare facilities and other ways in which parties to the conflict have interfered with necessary healthcare, both as a result of targeted attacks as well as from ongoing fighting”.
The report documents 15 incidents affecting healthcare provision, where 12 were deliberate attacks and the remaining incidents involved incidental harm. Most of these healthcare-related incidents – eight of the targeted attacks and two of the incidents with incidental harm – were attributed to the Taliban.
The Afghan national security forces were responsible for three targeted attacks against healthcare. One instance of incidental harm to healthcare occurred during clashes between Afghan national security forces and the Taliban. The most abhorrent attack, on a maternity ward in a Kabul hospital, remains unattributed, according to the report.
The report emphasises that deliberate acts of violence against healthcare facilities, including hospitals and related personnel, “are prohibited under international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes”.
Deborah Lyons, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, said:
At a time when an urgent humanitarian response was required to protect every life in Afghanistan, both the Taliban and Afghan national security forces carried out deliberate acts of violence that undermined healthcare operations. There is no excuse for such actions; the safety and wellbeing of the civilian population must be a priority.
The number of confirmed infections of Covid-19 in Afghanistan passed 29,000 on Monday after the country’s health ministry announced 310 new cases – the lowest daily rise since 9 May – taking the total number of infections to 29,143. The death toll has risen by 12 to 598.
Updated
Russia has reported 7,600 new cases of the coronavirus, pushing its nationwide total to 592,280, the world’s third largest tally.
The country’s coronavirus taskforce response said 95 people had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 8,206, reports Reuters.
Updated
African countries have pulled together to set up a one-stop shop to give the continent a fairer chance in the international scramble for Covid-19 test kits, protective equipment and any vaccines that emerge.
Carien du Plessis reports that the Africa Medical Supplies Platform will work like eBay or Amazon, unlocking access to supplies across the continent, and could save billions of pounds.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking in his capacity as African Union chair, said the platform “will address shortages and security of supply, ensure price competitiveness and transparency in procurement, reduce logistical delays, simplify payment processes and provide a common platform where governments can access services from quality and certified suppliers”.
Lockdowns are already being lifted to stimulate flagging economies even as coronavirus infections are on the rise.
Covid-19 infections were first recorded in sub-Saharan Africa in March, mostly imported from Europe and the US. On Friday, Africa had registered 275,327 cases and more than 7,400 deaths. South Africa alone accounted for more than a third of the recorded infections. The Zimbabwean mobile mogul and philanthropist Strive Masiyiwa, who has been tasked with finding solutions to the shortage of test kits, pointed out that, across Africa, the average number of tests per 1 million people was 1,669 because of a worldwide shortage of kits, compared with 173,029 in Iceland, 44,123 in the US and 31,592 in the UK.
You can read the full story here:
Updated
Mongolians will elect a new parliament on Wednesday under the cloud of the coronavirus, amid controversy over candidates flouting lockdown rules.
Mongolia, a landlocked country of 3 million people wedged between China and Russia, has taken some of the world’s toughest and most enduring measures to contain the virus.
In March it became one of the first countries to close its borders, and schools and universities – which were even more quickly shuttered – will remain closed until September.
But 2,000 polling stations have been set up for Wednesday’s vote, which will elect the parliament, though not the most powerful presidential post.
The country’s two main parties have broken bans on gatherings of above 30 people by holding big campaign rallies, fuelling anger over seemingly different rules for politics and other aspects of life.
They have also flouted bans on door-to-door campaigning and ignored other physical distancing rules.
“People are much more worried about Covid-19 than unemployment or poverty,” Bold Sambuu, a senior adviser at the Zorig Foundation, a democracy advocacy group, told AFP.
About 600 candidates are contesting the 76 seats in the single-chamber parliament. The ruling Mongolian People’s party (MPP) appears best placed to take advantage of the unprecedented circumstances, partly because the strict measures have kept a lid on infections.
Updated
Abu Dhabi has eased restrictions to allow movement between its cities for all residents starting on Tuesday, but its media office said it would extend restrictions on entry into the emirate by non-residents.
Abu Dhabi, the largest and wealthiest member of the United Arab Emirates federation, extended a ban on entering the emirate without a permit for another week, while allowing residents to exit the emirate freely.
Abu Dhabi Emergency, Crisis & Disaster Committee for the Covid-19 Pandemic, in collaboration with @ADPoliceHQ & @DoHSocial, have announced that all residents of Abu Dhabi emirate may now move between Abu Dhabi’s regions (Abu Dhabi, Al Ain & Al Dhafra) from 6am on Tuesday, 23 June pic.twitter.com/sdIAI6dLgx
— مكتب أبوظبي الإعلامي (@admediaoffice) June 22, 2020
The news follows the achievements of promising indicators in the number of cases of Covid-19 found through testing in Abu Dhabi. Restrictions on entering the emirate are being extended for another week, with exemptions for all types of goods and mail, and permit holders
— مكتب أبوظبي الإعلامي (@admediaoffice) June 22, 2020
Movement within the emirate is to follow National Sterilisation Programme timings. Movement of workers into Abu Dhabi emirate is still prohibited. To apply for a permit, visit https://t.co/RAkz5ZGbew
— مكتب أبوظبي الإعلامي (@admediaoffice) June 22, 2020
Concern over coronavirus in Egypt's prisons
Fears are mounting over the safety of prisoners in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison, as rights groups say parts of the complex have been cordoned off to quarantine those diagnosed with coronavirus.
Ruth Michaelson reports that families of those held inside the huge compound south of Cairo, which houses at least eight individual prisons, including two maximum security wings, say the authorities’ attempts to combat the spread of Covid-19 inside Tora are at best cosmetic.
“Things have been erratic since they banned visits in March,” said Mona Seif, whose brother, the activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, has been detained at the prison since September.
Seif said prison authorities had restricted supplies of hand sanitiser and soap provided by prisoners’ families, and were failing to protect them from infection. “All working personnel in Tora are allowed to go home and return every day, so they’re exposed to potential infection,” she said. “They’re dealing with prisoners with no access to sanitary tools, or information about how the virus spreads.”
You can read the full story here:
Updated
The coronavirus is spreading in Pakistan at one of the fastest rates in the world, and overwhelmed hospitals are turning away patients, the Associated Press reports. But the government is pushing ahead with opening up the country, trying to salvage a near-collapsed economy where millions have already slid into poverty from pandemic restrictions.
Further complicating the dilemma, as the government pins its main hope for stemming the virus rampage on social distancing and masks, many in the public ignore calls to use them.
Millions crowd markets and mosques. Hardline clerics tell followers to trust that faith will protect them. Many call the virus a hoax. Even some government officials dismiss warnings, saying traffic accidents kill more people.
“I am nervous when I go out because I see our people are still not taking it seriously,” said Diya Rahman, a broadcaster at Radio Pakistan in the capital, Islamabad. Two of her colleagues have died of the virus and more than 20 others have tested positive.
Updated
With venues locked down, entertainment-starved audiences are getting in gear for a season of opera, comedy shows and movies experienced from your own car seat – but is it an artistic cul de sac? Stuart Jeffries reports.
Honk if you like my arias: the summer of drive-in culture https://t.co/0eAywhXpZb
— The Guardian (@guardian) June 22, 2020
University, China. President Li Yuanyuan turns the tassel for a graduating student in front of faculty members wearing face masks. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters
Thailand has reported three new coronavirus cases, all imported, marking 28 days without local transmission, a senior official said.
In comments reported by Reuters, spokesman for the government’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, Taweesin Wisanuyothin, said the three new cases were Thai nationals returning from India and were detected in state quarantine.
Thailand has so far recorded 58 deaths related to Covid-19 among 3,151 infections, of which 3,022 patients have recovered.
Taweesin said the administration was coordinating with Myanmar authorities regarding 23 coronavirus cases found among migrants deported from Thailand.
Hello, it’s Frances Perraudin here in London. I’ll be bringing you all the latest updates on the global coronavirus crisis. If you think I’m missing something, email me on frances.perraudin@theguardian.com or contact me on twitter on @fperraudin.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today – but have no fear, the brilliant Frances Perraudin is here to take you through the next few hours of pandemic news.
Family celebrations send parts of Australia back into coronavirus restrictions
Australia is battling a coronavirus outbreak in its second largest city – fuelled by family gatherings and birthday parties – that has resulted in large parts of Melbourne being shut down in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus just weeks after authorities lifted restrictions.
On Monday, a national health committee recommended that more than one million people remain in their suburbs amid the growing health emergency in the southern state of Victoria. The state government is now considering making the stay-home advice legally enforceable.
After months of lockdown, the majority of states and territories in Australia have been able to reduce their number of active cases to nearly zero, relaxing state borders and, in the case of Queensland, reopening sports stadiums. In the New South Wales capital of Sydney, life is largely back to normal, with schools and beaches open and relatively loose restrictions on social distancing. In Western Australia, crowds of 30,000 people will be allowed to attend sporting matches from Saturday and live music venues will open their doors again.
Italy’s remote villages now make an ideal escape
James Imam writes for the Guardian:
When Italy shuttered for the lockdown, the obscure village of Campli, in the central region of Abruzzo, got to work. Its mission was simple: to put itself on tourists’ maps. It is not short of attractions, with churches frescoed by students of Giotto and Raphael, acres of lush woodland and Abruzzo’s oldest Sagra della Porchetta, a traditional festival in which locals feast on succulent, slow-cooked pork. And when Italy reopened regional borders on 3 June, Campli was ready to cash in. “BorGO!”, a new package of initiatives, runs on Saturday evenings through June: the pedestrianised historic centre will be given over to restaurateurs; the cathedral and Santa Scala shrine will stay open until 11pm, and there will be free guided tours of landmarks such as the Palazzo Farnese, also until 11pm.
A similar story is unfolding up and down the country. Last month, Monteverde, a hilltop village of 770 people in Campania, revealed plans to attract longer-term visitors with a package including lodging in a brand-new hostel and free co-working facilities. Montefalco, an Umbrian town known for dense, full-bodies sagrantino wines, kicked off the tourist season with a village-wide alfresco lunch on 2 June:
Dwayne Johnson will host and Shakira, Miley Cyrus and Jennifer Hudson will perform on a globally broadcast concert calling on world leaders to make coronavirus tests and treatment available and equitable for all, AP reports.
The advocacy organisation Global Citizen and the European Commission announced Monday that Global Goal: Unite for Our Future The Concert will air on 27 June.
Other artists performing in isolation include Usher, Justin Bieber and Coldplay. The concert will also feature appearances from Billy Porter, Charlize Theron, Chris Rock, Kerry Washington, Salma Hayek and David Beckham.
It will be broadcast on NBC in theUS and other television stations, radio stations, websites and streaming outlets around the world.
The event aims to lift up the global community that is tackling equitable access to healthcare, and other enormous injustices facing our world, Johnson said in a statement.
Organizers say the show is not a fundraiser, but is instead intended to draw awareness to the disproportionate impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on marginalized communities.
Sandra Laville reports for the Guardian:
More than 100 scientists will publish a signed statement on Monday to reassure the public that reusable containers are safe during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Amid fears that the environmental battle to reduce single-use plastic waste is losing ground over fears of virus contamination, the 119 scientists from 18 countries say reuseable containers do not increase the chance of virus transmission.
Some cafes have stopped accepting reusable cups during the pandemic, raising fears that the push for sustainable and reusable packaging is being set back. Campaigners have also recently accused the plastic industry of exploiting the crisis to lobby against bans on single-use plastics.
The statement by the scientists, who include epidemiologists, virologists, biologists, chemists and doctors, says that based on the best available science and guidance from public health professionals, reusable systems can be used safely by employing basic hygiene.
Summary
-
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases passed 8.9 million. The figure currently stands at 8,929,394, while the global death toll is at 467,676, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Both figures are likely to be higher in reality, due to differing testing rates and definitions, time lags and suspected underreporting.
- WHO reported a record daily increase in coronavirus cases. The World Health Organization reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 183,020 in a 24-hour period. The biggest increase was from North and South America with over 116,000 new cases, according to its daily report. Total global cases are over 8.7 million with more than 461,000 deaths, according to the WHO. The previous record for new cases was 181,232 on 18 June.
- Beijing reported 9 new cases. Beijing’s municipal health authority reported on Monday nine new cases of the coronavirus in the city for June 21, down from 22 a day earlier. The city of more than 20 million people reported its first case in the latest wave on 11 June. The resurgence has been linked to a wholesale food centre in the southwest of Beijing. So far, 236 people in the city have been infected in the outbreak.
- China suspended imports of poultry from US-based Tyson plant over Covid-19. China’s customs authority said on Sunday it had suspended imports of poultry products from a plant owned by US-based meat processor Tyson that has been hit by coronavirus. The General Administration of Customs said on its website it had decided on the suspension after the company confirmed a cluster of coronavirus cases at facilities in Arkansas where a total of 481 people tested positive for the virus.
- Boris Johnson to announce lockdown easing plans on Tuesday. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will unveil the latest easing of England’s coronavirus lockdown on Tuesday when he will also announce the conclusion of a review into whether a two-metre rule on social distancing should be relaxed, his office said. England’s economy has been hammered by the lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19 and although non-essential retailers were allowed to reopen last Monday, many businesses, particularly in the hospitality and leisure sectors, have remained closed.
- EU and China to seek to cool tensions at video summit. The European Union and China will seek to cool tensions on Monday at a video summit, their first formal talks since ties soured over European accusations that Beijing has spread disinformation about the novel coronavirus. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel - the EU’s chief executive and chairman - will hold video conferences with Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping.
- Mexico’s cases passed 180,000. Mexico on Sunday reported 5,343 new infections and 1,044 additional deaths from the coronavirus, the health ministry said, bringing the totals for the country to 180,545 cases and 21,825 deaths. The government has said the actual number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
- Citizens returning home to New Zealand could undergo two weeks of quarantine in campervans because hotels in Auckland were nearing capacity, the ministry of health has warned.The government was also “actively considering” placing returnees in defence force bases, according to director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. On Saturday, more than 200 travellers who had returned to New Zealand via Auckland Airport were put on buses and taken to hotels in Rotorua because Auckland was full. New Zealand currently has nine active cases of coronavirus.
- German police were injured as clashes erupt over virus quarantine. Several police officers were hurt in clashes with residents of a high-rise apartment block in the German city of Goettingen who had been placed under quarantine over a coronavirus outbreak, authorities said on Sunday.
- Dutch arrest dozens at virus protest clashes. Dutch police on Sunday charged on horseback and fired water cannon to disperse protesters frustrated with the government’s coronavirus policies, arresting dozens after skirmishes broke out.
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Delhi to transform 25 luxury hotels into Covid-19 care centres. Amid growing concerns that there are not enough hospital beds to cope with the rising number of cases, the Delhi government has become the first in the country to requisition its hotels. Starting this week, 25 establishments will be repurposed as emergency Covid-19 care centres for patients with mild to moderate symptoms.
Updated
Reuters has this report on father’s day in a time of coronavirus:
Dads nursing homes across the US marked Fathers Day at a forced distance from their families Sunday. Some families relied on video calls; others used social media to send their wishes.
The virus has made in-person visits with elderly and high-risk family members difficult and sometimes impossible in recent months, though parts of the country have begun loosening up. Maryland and Illinois were among states that allowed outdoor visits at nursing homes with masks and six feet of distance.
Frank Wolff, his wife and their son visited his 91-year-old father on a patio outside his Chicago assisted-living home on Father’s Day. The staff took everyones temperature and followed all other regulations.
“It was good to see him and get a feeling for how he’s really doing,” said Wolff, who hadn’t seen his father, Howard Wolff, since Illinois shut down in mid-March.
Sharp got to see his family through a plexiglass cubicle built by a staff member for Rockville Terrace, the home in Fairfield, California, where Sharp lives.
Four generations of the Sharp family gathered in a courtyard. The eldest among them, arriving with the help of his walker, took a seat inside the three-sided box with phone in hand, talking with family members on the outside on one of their phones.
“We hug each other through the glass,” said Sharp, who hasn’t had a real hug from them in a long while. This wasn’t the first time they visited that way.
“I don’t know who enjoys it more. My family and I or Dad, said son Dan Sharp,” who lives in Novato, California. He paused, then added, Probably Dad.
Rockville Terrace also had a car parade with families with signs for Fathers Day and a barbecue so the dads could have steaks and burgers.
US stock futures erased losses and Asian stocks held flat on Monday, trying to shake off worries that rising coronavirus cases in the United States could scupper a quick economic rebound from the massive downturn triggered by the pandemic, Reuters reports.
US S&P 500 futures rose 0.4%, having erased early losses of 1.05% while Japan’s Nikkei also eked out gains of 0.1%, similarly recovering from early losses.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was almost flat while mainland Chinese stocks ticked up 0.3% to 3-1/2-month highs.
After a brutal sell-off earlier this year, share prices had risen globally over the past three months, helped by massive stimulus around the world and hopes the worst of the pandemic was over.
“The market is surprisingly resilient. Perhaps many investors think the uptrend is in place. But we need to keep an eye on rising coronavirus infections in some countries,” said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities.
Highlighting economic challenges from the impact of social restrictions to contain the pandemic, Apple Inc said on Friday it would temporarily shut 11 US stores as coronavirus cases rise in some states, triggering selling in stocks.
Data from Johns Hopkins University shows new US cases on Saturday hit the highest since early May.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 537 to 190,359, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Monday.
The reported death toll rose by 3 to 8,885, the tally showed.
New Zealand: citizens returning home could be put in campervans for Covid-19 quarantine
Charles Anderson reports for the Guardian from Nelson:
Citizens returning home to New Zealand could undergo two weeks of quarantine in campervans because hotels in Auckland were nearing capacity, the ministry of health has warned.
The government was also “actively considering” placing returnees in defence force bases, according to director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
On Saturday, more than 200 travellers who had returned to New Zealand via Auckland Airport were put on buses and taken to hotels in Rotorua because Auckland was full.
Here’s the full story on China suspending imports of poultry products from a plant owned by an Aransas-based meat processor, Tyson Inc, that has been hit by coronavirus, as authorities struggle to bring an outbreak in Beijing under control.
China’s General Administration of Customs said on its website it had decided on the suspension after the company confirmed a cluster of Covid-19 cases at the plant, which is located in the town of Springdale.
Tyson’s spokesman Gary Mickelson said the company was looking into the issue, adding that the company works closely with US authorities to ensure its food complies with government safety requirements.
“It is important to note that the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, USDA and the US Food & Drug Administration agree that there is no evidence to support transmission of Covid-19 associated with food,” he said in an email:
Charles Anderson reports for the Guardian:
New Zealand now has nine active cases of Covid-19 as more people start arriving into the country from overseas. Over the last two days the Ministry of Health has recorded several new cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases recorded across the country to 1163.
Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told media this afternoon that the latest case was a teenage girl who had arrived from Islamabad with her family. Her only symptom was a runny nose. However, her family had so far tested negative for Covid-19.
The second case was a man in his 30s who had arrived from India with his wife. Neither of them had displayed any symptoms. Over the weekend a child under 2-years-old was also found to have Covid-19 along with their parents, after recently arriving home from India.
Bloomfield previously said the country was always expecting to get new cases at the border as Kiwis return home from overseas.
On Saturday, more than 200 people who had returned to New Zealand via Auckland Airport were put on buses and taken to hotels in Rotorua with media reporting that many where shocked at the sudden change.
In Australia, more than 1 million people in the state of Victoria have been advised not to leave their suburbs by a national health committee and the state government is considering making the advice a legally enforceable restriction.
On Sunday the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee advised against travel to and from the Hume, Brimbank, Moreland, Darebin, Cardinia and Casey local government areas surrounding Melbourne, after large outbreaks caused a spike in the state’s Covid-19 cases.
The advice followed the news that Victoria would delay the relaxation of its lockdown laws, tighten the number of guests allowed inside the home to five, and restrict public gatherings to a maximum of 10, for at least three weeks.
Delhi to transform 25 luxury hotels into Covid-19 care centres
Staff at luxury hotels in Delhi are to start welcoming guests not with traditional garlands but with a medical gown.
Amid growing concerns that there are not enough hospital beds to cope with the rising number of cases, the Delhi government has become the first in the country to requisition its hotels. Starting this week, 25 establishments will be repurposed as emergency Covid-19 care centres for patients with mild to moderate symptoms. In a sign of how overwhelmed medical staff are becoming, hotel employees are being trained in case they have to administer some of the care.
Some employees have suggested they feel unable to decline the new role, despite having major reservations. Hotel staff are anxious about the prospect of transforming their hospitality skills into hospital care:
Helen Sullivan here – if you have questions, comments, anything funny or news you think we should know about from your part of the world, get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
Niue’s Covid election: MP wins seat on coin toss as lawn bowls king becomes leader
Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson reports for the Guardian:
The two candidates for the seat of Mutalau, a village on Niue’s northern point, could not be separated. Both had the same number of votes, just as had happened in the last election; in 2017 it was 19-19, in 2020 it was 26-26.
The result was decided by the toss of a coin. It fell for Makaseau Ioane, and with it went the seat in parliament. Unadulterated by formal political parties, attack ads, or costly campaigns, elections on the tight-knit Pacific island of Niue are democracy in pure form. In this year’s poll, sitting MP Opili Talafasi was returned to his seat with 14 votes. Several other electorates were won uncontested.
A coral island in the South Pacific, one-sixth the size of greater London, Niue is a self-governing state in “free association” with New Zealand, which is 2,400km to the south-west and which holds responsibility for its defence and international relations.
Formally, Niue is a member of the Realm of New Zealand: the Queen is Niue’s head of state.
While 1,700 Niuens live on the island, more than 30,000 – more than 95% of the its people - live in New Zealand, where they enjoy citizenship rights.
This year’s general election at the end of May has brought the first change of leader in the country in a dozen years. Premier Sir Toke Talagi – the country’s only knight – was not re-elected after a dozen years in office: ill-health had kept him from much of the campaign.
Beijing reports 9 new cases
Beijing’s municipal health authority reported on Monday nine new cases of the coronavirus in the city for June 21, down from 22 a day earlier.
The city of more than 20 million people reported its first case in the latest wave on 11 June. The resurgence has been linked to a wholesale food centre in the southwest of Beijing. So far, 236 people in the city have been infected in the outbreak.
Cases worldwide pass 8.9 million
There are 8,918,101 known coronavirus cases globally, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, and 466,548 deaths.
Both figures are likely to be significantly higher in reality, due to differing testing rates and definitions, time lags and suspected underreporting.
The ten worst-affected countries in terms of number of cases are as follows:
- US: 2,278,373
- Brazil: 1,083,341
- Russia: 583,879
- India: 410,461
- United Kingdom: 305,803
- Peru: 251,338
- Spain: 246,272
- Chile: 242,355
- Italy: 238,499
- Iran: 204,952
EU and China to seek to cool tensions at video summit
The European Union and China will seek to cool tensions on Monday at a video summit, their first formal talks since ties soured over European accusations that Beijing has spread disinformation about the novel coronavirus, Reuters reports.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel - the EU’s chief executive and chairman - will hold video conferences with Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping.
“We are ready to work with China. But we also expect China to assume its responsibilities as one of the world’s largest economies,” said a senior official helping prepare the summit. “The pandemic has heightened some (EU) concerns.”
EU officials say China has sought to pressure EU countries that criticise its handling of the novel coronavirus, using social media to spread fake reports of European neglect of Covid-19 patients. Beijing has denied wrongdoing.
Germany has postponed an EU leaders’ summit with Xi in September, citing the coronavirus, though diplomats said it was in part because of the impasse in investment negotiations.
The outbreak in Goettingen, Germany, is one of several outbreak clusters that have emerged in Germany since lockdown restrictions were lifted in May, including a huge cluster at a slaughterhouse in the North-Rhine Westphalia district of Guetersloh.
More than 1,300 workers out of a total of nearly 7,000 have tested positive, and the region’s state premier Armin Laschet said Sunday that he “cannot rule out a blanket lockdown”.
Several outbreaks at slaughterhouses, not just in Germany but also in France, have put a spotlight on the working and housing conditions that the workers - many of whom come from Romania or Bulgaria - are put under.
The German government in May banned the use of subcontractors in the meat industry in a bid to curb the controversial practice of companies using middlemen to supply workers from abroad who are more vulnerable to abuses.
Although Germany has weathered the coronavirus storm better than many of its European neighbours, the slaughterhouse outbreaks have dealt a blow to its efforts to restart Europe’s top economy.
German police injured as clashes erupt over virus quarantine
Several police officers were hurt in clashes with residents of a high-rise apartment block in the German city of Goettingen who had been placed under quarantine over a coronavirus outbreak, authorities said on Sunday, AFP reports.
The violence erupted on Saturday as a group of residents sought to break through a metal barrier installed to keep the 700 people living in the residential complex in to prevent possible transmission of the virus.
Some flung stones, bottles and wooden slats at officers, the city’s police chief Uwe Luehrig told journalists on Sunday.
Residents in the complex were put under quarantine on Thursday after two of them were found to be infected with Covid-19.
By Friday, 120 people in the building tested positive.
Dutch arrest dozens at virus protest clashes
Dutch police on Sunday charged on horseback and fired water cannon to disperse protesters frustrated with the government’s coronavirus policies, arresting dozens after skirmishes broke out, AFP reports.
Hundreds of people gathered in the city centre, many carrying placards or holding hands, to demonstrate against measures including the 1.5 metre social distancing rule. Acting mayor Johan Remkes had initially barred the protest but later agreed to a time-limited demonstration. Police said the protest was peaceful until a group of football fans clashed with riot police at the nearby Central Station, throwing stones and bottles.
Officers later surrounded dozens of demonstrators who refused to leave.
“The remaining demonstrators refused to leave and have been detained under public demonstration legislation,” The Hague police said in a tweet. “Five people have also been detained at Central Station for throwing stones.”
De nog resterende demonstranten op het #Malieveld, die weigerden te vertrekken, zijn allen aangehouden op basis van de Wet Openbare Manifestaties. Ook zijn vijf personen aangehouden bij het #CentraalStation vanwege het gooien van stenen.
— Politie Den Haag eo (@POL_DenHaag) June 21, 2020
The Netherlands has been commended for its “intelligent lockdown” approach, which was less strict than some other European countries, with no full stay-at-home orders.
Restaurants, cinemas, cafes, museums and terraces were all authorised to open on 1 June, but with social distancing rules in place and establishments limited to a maximum of 30 customers. The Netherlands has confirmed 49,593 cases and 6,090 deaths, with one death reported overnight.
Mexico's cases pass 180,000
Mexico on Sunday reported 5,343 new infections and 1,044 additional deaths from the coronavirus, the health ministry said, bringing the totals for the country to 180,545 cases and 21,825 deaths. The government has said the actual number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Updated
Boris Johnson to announce lockdown easing plans on Tuesday
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will unveil the latest easing of England’s coronavirus lockdown on Tuesday when he will also announce the conclusion of a review into whether a two-metre rule on social distancing should be relaxed, his office said.
The country’s economy has been hammered by the lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19 and although non-essential retailers were allowed to reopen last Monday, many businesses, particularly in the hospitality and leisure sectors, have remained closed.
Some lawmakers in Johnson’s party have been vocal in calling for him to drop the two-metre rule saying it was having a devastating impact on the economy which shrank by a quarter over March and April. But the government has been cautious, saying it did not want to risk a second spike in novel coronavirus cases.
Johnson’s office said the prime minister would tell parliament on Tuesday which sectors would be allowed to reopen on 4 July under the government’s roadmap out of the lockdown. Detailed guidance would be provided to each sector so businesses were “Covid secure”.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that Johnson would also announce a change to the social distancing guidelines so people would only need to remain one metre apart providing they took additional measures such as wearing a mask.
Updated
China suspends imports of poultry from US-based Tyson plant over Covid-19
China’s customs authority said on Sunday it had suspended imports of poultry products from a plant owned by US-based meat processor Tyson that has been hit by the novel coronavirus, Reuters reports.
The General Administration of Customs said on its website it had decided on the suspension after the company confirmed a cluster of coronavirus cases at facilities in Arkansas where a total of 481 people tested positive for the virus.
Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the company was looking into the issue, adding Tyson works closely with US authorities to ensure its food is produced in full compliance with government safety requirements.
“It is important to note that the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, USDA and the US Food & Drug Administration agree that there is no evidence to support transmission of Covid-19 associated with food,” he told Reuters in an email.
China also suspended pork products from German pork processor Toennies last week following a coronavirus outbreak among hundreds of its workers.
China has stepped up its oversight of imported foods after a new cluster of coronavirus cases were linked to a sprawling wholesale food market in the capital just over a week ago.
Beijing began testing meat, seafood and fresh produce for the coronavirus last week and some ports were opening all containers of meat to carry out coronavirus tests. On Friday, customs asked food exporters to sign a declaration that their produce is not contaminated by the virus.
WHO reports record daily increase in coronavirus cases
The World Health Organization reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 183,020 in a 24-hour period.
The biggest increase was from North and South America with over 116,000 new cases, according to its daily report. Total global cases are over 8.7 million with more than 461,000 deaths, according to the WHO.
The previous record for new cases was 181,232 on 18 June.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
I’m Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news from around the world for the next few hours.
If you have questions, comments, anything funny or news you think we should know about from your part of the world, get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
The World Health Organization reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 183,020 in a 24-hour period.
The biggest increase was from North and South America with over 116,000 new cases, according to a daily report.
The previous record for new cases was 181,232 on 18 June.
China’s customs authority said on Sunday it had suspended imports of poultry products from a plant owned by US-based meat processor Tyson Inc that has been hit by the novel coronavirus.
The General Administration of Customs said on its website it had decided on the suspension after the company confirmed a cluster of coronavirus cases at facilities in Arkansas where a total of 481 people tested positive for the virus.
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The total number of confirmed cases stands at 8,896,153, while the global death toll is at 465,896, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Both figures are likely to be higher in reality, due to differing testing rates and definitions, time lags and suspected underreporting.
- The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported a further 32,411 coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 2,248,029. The number of deaths has risen by 560 to 119,615.
- The United Nations has accused the Taliban and Afghan security forces of “deliberate” attacks against healthcare workers and facilities at a time when Afghanistan is grappling with the coronavirus epidemic.
- Cases in Latin America and the Caribbean have passed two million, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Brazil is home to more than half of the infections.
- The coronavirus death toll in the UK has risen by 43 to 42,632 as of 5pm on Saturday, figures from the Department of Health and Social Care show. A total of 304,331 people have tested positive. The health secretary has said that the country is on track for the further easing of restrictions on 4 July.
- There have been no new deaths of coronavirus patients in Scotland for the fifth day this month, according to the latest Scottish government figures.
- Saudi Arabia has lifted its nationwide curfew, which was imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus in March.
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Dubai has said it will allow foreign visitors to enter from 7 July, while those with residency visas can enter the country from Monday.
- Iran has reported more than 100 new coronavirus deaths for the third day running, health authorities have said.
- Ukraine’s death toll has has reached 1,002, while Russia recorded a further 7,728 new cases and 109 new deaths.
- Morocco has opened a field hospital after a spike in Covid-19 cases.
Updated
