Coronavirus news: Global deaths surpass 400,000 as UK records lowest daily toll since lockdown began
No new coronavirus deaths have been reported in Scotland for the first time since lockdown began, new figures released on Sunday show.
A total of 2,415 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, no change on Saturday’s figure – the first time the death total has remained the same since 20 March. No new deaths with coronavirus were reported in Northern Ireland either, leaving the total recorded by the Department of Health – a tally primarily including hospital deaths – at 537.
This comes as the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said 40,542 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Saturday, up by 77 from 40,465 the day before.
Good morning and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are the latest developments:
- Close to 400,000 people have now died from Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. A total of 6,891,213 cases have been confirmed worldwide.
- Nearly half the UK population disapproves of the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, according to a new poll. In a survey of 2,000 UK adults between 4 and 5 June, some 47 per cent disapproved of the way the government has handled the crisis, while 44 per cent disapproved of how Boris Johnson is handling his job as prime minister.
- Brazil's government has stopped publishing a running total of coronavirus deaths and infections in an extraordinary move that critics call an attempt to hide the true toll of the disease in Latin America's largest nation. The move came after months of criticism from experts saying Brazil's statistics are woefully deficient, and in some cases manipulated.
- Churches and other places of worship are set to open for private prayer in England from 15 June, the government has announced. Individuals are expected to be able to "reflect and pray" while adhering to social-distancing rules - but worship groups, weddings and other services will still not be permitted.
- Australians who defied public health rules and rallied in support of the US "Black Lives Matter" movement were reckless and self-indulgent, finance minister Mathias Cormann said on Sunday. More than 20,000 people protested in Sydney and other cities on Saturday. Mr Cormann said the protesters risked a second outbreak of Covid-19.
- South Korea has reported 57 additional cases of the coronavirus, marking a second day in a row that its daily jump is above 50 as authorities struggle to suppress a spike in fresh infections in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area.
- Senior Chinese officials have defended their government's actions and said that China provided information in a timely and transparent manner. National Health Commission chairman Ma Xiaowei said that a recent media report that the government didn't initially share the genome sequence for the virus "seriously goes against the facts."
Brazil's government has stopped publishing a running total of coronavirus deaths and infections in an extraordinary move that critics call an attempt to hide the true toll of the disease in Latin America's largest nation.
The move came after months of criticism from experts saying Brazil's statistics are woefully deficient, and in some cases manipulated, so it may never be possible to gain a real understanding of the depth of the pandemic in the country.
Brazil's last official numbers showed it had recorded over 34,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, the third-highest number in the world, just ahead of Italy.
It reported nearly 615,000 infections, putting it at the second-highest, behind the United States.
On Friday, the federal Health Ministry took down a website that had showed daily, weekly and monthly figures on infections and deaths in Brazilian states.
On Saturday, the site returned but the total numbers of infections for states and the nation were no longer there. The site now shows only the numbers for the previous 24 hours.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted on Saturday that disease totals are "not representative" of the country's current situation.
Places of worship set to reopen for private prayer from 15 June
Churches and other places of worship in England are set to open for private prayer from 15 June, the Government has announced.
Individuals are expected to be able to "reflect and pray" while adhering to social-distancing rules - but worship groups, weddings and other services will still not be permitted.
Downing Street said the changes would only be made if the government's five tests for easing lockdown are met.
Places of worship come under step three of the government's road map to lift restrictions, and are not due to fully reopen until at least 4 July.
Ministers had been warned that worshippers felt "disappointment and hurt" at not being able to visit places of worship, despite some shops being reopened.
A government taskforce with faith leaders was launched last month to develop a plan to enable the phased and safe reopening of religious buildings.
The Church of England closed all of its buildings on 24 March, meaning funerals could only take place at crematoriums or the graveside. Clergy were encouraged to live-stream worship from their own homes. (Father Richard Carter live streams a Eucharist service from St Martin-in-the-Fields on 20 May in London)
'The Chinese government did not delay or cover up anything'
Senior Chinese officials, releasing a lengthy report on the nation's response to the coronavirus pandemic, defended their government's actions and said that China provided information in a timely and transparent manner.
National Health Commission chairman Ma Xiaowei said Sunday that a recent news media report that the Chinese government didn't initially share the genome sequence for the virus "seriously goes against the facts."
An Associated Press investigation found that government labs sat on releasing the genetic map of the virus for more than a week in January, delaying its identification in a third country and the sharing of information needed to develop tests, drugs and a vaccine.
Mr Xiaowei said there were many unknowns in the early stage of the outbreak and that it took time to gather evidence and figure out the characteristics of the new virus.
"The Chinese government did not delay or cover up anything," he said. "Instead, we have immediately reported virus data and relevant information about the epidemic to the international community and made an important contribution to the prevention and control of the epidemic around the world."
Australian minister calls anti-racism protests 'self-indulgent'
Australians who defied public health rules and rallied in support of the US "Black Lives Matter" movement were reckless and self-indulgent, finance minister Mathias Cormann said on Sunday.
More than 20,000 people protested in Sydney and other cities on Saturday, in solidarity with US anger over the death of George Floyd in police custody and calling for an end to similar deaths of indigenous Australians.
Mr Cormann said the protesters risked a second outbreak of Covid-19. "I think it is incredibly selfish," he told Sky News. "It's incredibly self-indulgent."
Australia has had 7,255 cases of coronavirus and 102 deaths, avoiding the higher tolls seen elsewhere because of border closures and strict social distancing since March. Small outbreaks, however, still emerge.
The protests came despite calls by authorities for people to stay at home and obey social-distancing rules that allow only for small groups to gather.
The deputy leader of the opposition Labor opposition, Richard Marles, said he while he was "uncomfortable" with the protests, he was not casting judgement.
Mr Marles said: “I don't feel like I'm in a position to say to indigenous Australians who are protesting against that, that this is a selfish and indulgent act."
Nearly half of population disapprove of government handling of crisis
Nearly half the UK population disapprove of the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, according to a new poll.
The survey of 2,000 UK adults between 4 and 5 June by Opinium Research also found that the Conservatives’s lead over Labour has narrowed during the pandemic.
Some 47 per cent disapproved of the way the government has handled the crisis, while 44 per cent disapproved of how Boris Johnson is handling his job as prime minister. It put the Conservatives’s vote share at 43 per cent while Labour edged up to 40 per cent - its highest rating since January.
Seven out of 10 people (71 per cent) thought Mr Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, should be sacked following his lockdown breach.
Adam Drummond, head of political polling at Opinium, said: “The public are starting to lose confidence in the government’s ability to handle the crisis – approval of how they are handling things has dropped from 65 per cent at the beginning of lockdown to just 34 per cent today.”
Taiwan will further ease its restrictions related to control of the coronavirus, the government said on Sunday, as the island has kept the pandemic well in hand with only 6 active cases and no local transmission for 56 days.
Taiwan has never gone into total lockdown and life has continued largely as normal due to its early and effective prevention work and a first rate public health system, but has promoted social distancing and ensured broad public access to face masks.
Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Centre said that it would lift restrictions limiting the number of people who could participate in "daily life and leisure events", though people should continue to wear face masks if they were unable to socially distance.
However, border entry restrictions remain, with authorities wary of a second wave of infections coming in from countries where the pandemic is still raging, such as the US and Britain.
Taiwan has reported 443 cases, the majority of which were in people who get infected overseas, and just seven deaths.
Government warns high school exams may be further delayed - report
Further disruption lies ahead for high school pupils with the government reportedly warning parents that exams may again be delayed next summer.
Exam regulator Ofqual has begun making contingency plans for next summer's exams as pupils attempt to regain months of lost learning, according to The Sunday Times.
The regulator is considering pushing exams from May to as late as July and continuing this summer's emergency marking system.
An Ofqual spokeswoman said that the regulator recognised pupils, parents and teachers were concerned about disruptions caused by the pandemic.
She said: "Our overriding aim is to ensure exams and assessments are as fair as possible and we are working closely with the Department for Education, exam boards and groups representing teachers, schools and colleges, to carefully consider a range of possible measures.
"We will provide further information in the coming weeks."
China looks to strengthen global cooperation in Covid-19 vaccine trials
China will strengthen international cooperation in future Covid-19 clinical vaccine trials, building on earlier collaboration in vaccine development, the science and technology minister said on Sunday.
China is expending great efforts in the global scramble to develop a vaccine for the new coronaries epidemic that began in its central city of Wuhan, with Chinese researchers conducting five separate clinical trials on humans, or half of all such trials globally, according to the data compiled by the World Health Organisation.
President Xi Jinping vowed last month at the World Heath Assembly, the WHO's governing body, that vaccines China's develops will become a "global public good" once they are ready for use, and it will be China's contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.
Developing "a vaccine is still the fundamental strategy in our effort to overcome the new coronavirus," Science and Technology Minister Wang Zhigang told a news conference in Beijing. But vaccine development is very difficult and takes time, he said, when asked how China would initially prioritise shots by country when a vaccine is found.
"The rigour of vaccine development has been compared by some scientists to a dance involving precise steps and rehearsals," Mr Zhigang said.
Black Lives Matter protests risk an increase in Covid-19 protests, says health secretary
Health secretary Matt Hancock has said it is "undoubtedly a risk" that there will be an increase in coronavirus cases following the Black Lives Matter protests seen across the UK this weekend.
He told Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday he supported the protesters' arguments, but urged: "Please don't gather in groups of more than six people because there is also a pandemic that we must address and control.
"And so we've got to make the argument, we've got to make further progress, on top of the significant progress that has been made in recent years, but we've got to do it in a way that's safe and controls the virus."
Mr Hancock also said: "I think we're one of the most tolerant and open societies in the world, but there's always more that can and must be done - especially to empower people so that they can achieve their potential."
When asked how many black people serve in the current Cabinet, Mr Hancock replied: "Well there's a whole series of people from a black and ethnic minority background."
The answer is in fact zero.
Ms Ridge added: “I’m talking about black people specifically as I do think it’s important not to lump everyone from non-white backgrounds together, because obviously Asian people, for example, face prejudice too but it might be a different prejudice to that faced by black people."
The health secretary responded: "The two Cabinets I've sat in with Boris Johnson as prime minister are the two most diverse Cabinets I've ever sat in."
BA begins legal proceedings over ‘unlawful’ quarantine measures
British Airways has begun legal proceedings over what it calls the government's "unlawful" quarantine measures, which include 14-days of self-isolation for international arrivals.
BA's parent company IAG sent a pre-action letter, which is the first stage in a judicial review, to ministers on Friday ahead of the measures coming into effect on Monday.
The letter argues the restrictions are disproportionate. It states: "In our view, the Government has failed to identify a valid justification for the blanket nature of the regulations, especially given the extremely severe nature of the self-isolation provisions that apply."
The letter sent to the procurator general Sir Jonathan Jones was also signed by BA's budget rivals easyJet and Ryanair.
Meanwhile, IAG chief executive Willie Walsh described the government's quarantine policy as "terrible" and warned it has "torpedoed our opportunity to get flying in July".
Special investigation: The Independent’s health correspondent Shaun Lintern takes a closer look at how the relationship between the NHS and the private sector is likely to change in the coming months
- More than one in six people in England could be waiting for NHS treatment by the autumn, the result of Covid-19 forcing hospitals to run at 60 per cent capacity as the threat reshapes healthcare services.
- NHS England will extend its nationwide contract with private hospitals beyond June and into the summer, The Independent understands.
- Health chiefs are in talks to come up with a longer-term deal that will see private healthcare companies integrated into the NHS like never before and providing up to 2 million NHS procedures a year.
- Health secretary Matt Hancock has made clear he expects private hospitals will have a “critical role”.
- Experts and hospital leaders warned the impact of coronavirus will mean longer waits for treatment, higher costs for the taxpayer and a need to ration care to an extent normally seen only in poorer countries.
- “The outer circle of what we provide is going to shrink,” says one hospital chief.
Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon questioned why the government is waiting until 15 June to make face masks compulsory on public transport in England.
Asked whether it should be compulsory for MPs to wear face masks, he told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday: "I'll be coming down on Monday from the North West - where the R (transmission) rate is a huge concern for people here - down to London.
"I think the question is, well why wait? Face coverings are now required to keep people safe on public transport, why wait a week? Am I more or less of a risk this Monday than I'll be the following Monday?"
Turning to the end of remote sittings in the Commons, he added: "I do think we need to review the way that Parliament works.
"The frustration with Parliament of course is if it's at all avoidable, then it should be avoided and we can vote electronically, we can vote in 15 seconds, we don't have to be queuing up for 40 minutes.
"Aside from it being unsafe in my view, it's often a massively inefficient way of working."
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the UK was "winning the battle" against coronavirus, enabling the easing of some lockdown restrictions in England.
He told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday: "Sadly there are still people dying but the number of people dying each day is also falling, the number of people admitted to hospital is falling, the number of people in hospital is falling.
"We are winning the battle against this disease and that allows us to release more of the restrictions - including putting in place this local action supported by the test and trace system.
"But we've got to be cautious in our approach to it because the last thing anybody wants is for the virus to get going again and us to have to go right back to square one."
Mr Hancock sought to plan down reports of a conflict between the economy and health in easing restrictions.
"The worst thing for the economy would be a second spike and so there isn't this trade-off that much is made of in the media between the health and the economy.
"I care deeply about getting the economy going, and the best way to get the economy going is to ensure that we get the number of new infections right down."
It has dominated the news and public debate for nearly half a decade. Now, it seems, not even a global pandemic and 40,000 people dying can unite Britons over Brexit, reports north of England correspondent Colin Drury.
Attitudes towards the lifting of the coronavirus lockdown now appear to be diverging along long-standing Remain and Leave fault lines, research suggests.
Those who wanted out of the EU are more likely to trust the government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis and the current easing of restrictions.
But those who voted to stay in the block appear less inclined to believe Boris Johnson has got a grip of the situation and fear a second spike will come as a result.
The data – part of research by King’s College London – also suggests a third smaller group exists: those who are least concerned about health crisis and just want an end to ongoing restrictions.
'We have evidence that communist China is trying to sabotage us'
The US has evidence China is trying to slow down or sabotage the development of a Covid-19 vaccine by Western countries, Republican senator Rick Scott said on Sunday.
"We have got to get this vaccine done. Unfortunately we have evidence that communist China is trying to sabotage us or slow it down," he told the BBC.
"China does not want us ... to do it first, they have decided to be an adversary to Americans and I think to democracy around the world."
Asked what evidence the US had, Scott declined to give details but said it had come through the intelligence community.
"This vaccine is really important to all of us getting our economy going again. What I really believe is whether England does it first or we do it first, we are going to share. Communist China, they are not going to share."
Portugal's tourism-dependent economy is expected to shrink by nearly 7 per cent this year due to the effects of the coronavirus outbreak, the government said in its economic and financial stability programme published late on Saturday.
"A strong contraction of the Portuguese economy is expected as a result of the economic shock caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the containment measures implemented," it said, describing the 6.9 per cent predicted fall as the "biggest contraction registered in recent decades".
The UK should have gone into lockdown earlier, an infectious diseases expert has said.
Professor John Edmunds, who attends meetings of the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said lives would have been saved had ministers acted sooner.
He told BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show: "We should have gone into lockdown earlier. I think it would have been hard to do it, I think the data that we were dealing with in the early part of March and our kind of situational awareness was really quite poor.
"And so I think it would have been very hard to pull the trigger at that point but I wish we had - I wish we had gone into lockdown earlier. I think that has cost a lot of lives unfortunately."
Prof Edmunds said the epidemic "is definitely not all over" - warning there is an "awful long way to go".
"If we do relax our guard this epidemic will come back very fast."
BREAKING: The number of worldwide deaths from coronavirus has passed 400,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Close to 7 million infections have been confirmed.
The true figures are likely to be higher due to discrepancies in the counting and reporting of infections and deaths throughout the globe.
