Coronavirus latest: US death toll approaches 62,000


US stock futures lower in early Asian trading

Futures for US stocks were down shortly after trading began early on Monday in Asia.

Wall Street’s S&P 500 was expected to open 1.1 per cent lower on Monday, according to futures for the benchmark. That follows a 2.8 per cent drop on Friday that was its steepest fall since April 21.

Futures for the Nasdaq 100 were down 1 per cent.

Brazil’s coronavirus case tally tops 100,000

Andres Schipani in São Paulo

Brazil’s total number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose above 100,000 on Sunday as President Jair Bolsonaro drew supporters defying social isolation measures.

The president continued playing down the outbreak, which has killed thousands in Latin America’s largest country.

The official tally hit 101,147 confirmed cases. A further 275 deaths in the past day took the overall death toll to 7,025, which is higher than Germany’s.

Shrugging off health guidelines in the midst of the most serious political crisis since taking office, Mr Bolsonaro addressed hundreds of fans today, criticising his foes in government, parliament and courts. Some of his supporters reportedly attacked journalists a day after they slammed health workers protesting in front of the presidential palace.

“In Brazil, unfortunately, we are fighting against the coronavirus and against the extremism virus, whose worst effect is to ignore science and deny reality,” said Rodrigo Maia, the powerful speaker of the lower house of Congress, who is increasingly at loggerheads with Mr Bolsonaro and his cohort or senior advisers and followers.

US daily death rate posts smallest increase in a week

The number of coronavirus deaths in the US over the past day rose by the least in a week and took the total number of fatalities since the pandemic began to near 62,000.

A further 1,158 people died over the past 24 hours, according to data compiled by Covid Tracking Project on Sunday, the smallest daily increase since April 26.

New York had a further 280 deaths, the smallest daily increase since March 30. Since the outbreak began, 19,189 people have died in the US’s hardest-hit state.

New Jersey, the second-hardest hit state, had 129 deaths over the past 24 hours, the smallest daily increase since April 27. A cumulative total of 7,871 people have died.

Nationally, 61,868 people have died in the US over the duration of the outbreak.

Greek finance ministry projects sharp output fall this year

Kerin Hope in Athens

Greece’s economy will shrink this year by between 4.7 per cent and 8.9 per cent depending on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new projection from the finance ministry.

The country’s main goal in 2020 and 2021 will be “bridging the growth gap caused by the public health crisis and incentivising social and environmentally friendly investment,” according to the annual stability programme submitted to the European commission.

The government is offering support for 800,000 companies with 1.7m employees and for another 700,000 self-employed workers by providing cash handouts and suspending payment of taxes, VAT obligations and social security contributions. The measures, which cover more than three-quarters of the country’s workforce, are equal to about 10 per cent of GDP, including loan guarantees.

However, the jobless rate is expected to rise this year to 19.9 per cent from 16.4 per cent as small companies shed employees in order to survive.

The programme’s baseline projection takes into account the government’s support measures and assumes that the pandemic fades in the second half of 2020. The adverse scenario forecasts a steep fall in exports of goods and services — especially tourism — and a broader negative spillover effect on economic activity across the country.

Greece will miss by a wide margin its current annual target of a 3.5 per cent of GDP primary budget surplus, excluding debt repayments. The stability programme forecasts a primary budget deficit of between 1.9 per cent and 2.8 per cent of GDP in 2020.

French quarantine rules will not apply to visitors from EU or UK

Victor Mallet in Paris

French rules that will require arrivals from abroad to be quarantined for 14 days after arrival because of the coronavirus pandemic will not apply to travellers from the EU, the Schengen zone (which includes Switzerland) or the UK, the Elysée palace said on Sunday night.

The statement clarified a declaration on Saturday about the new rules that would accompany a two-month extension of the country’s state of “health emergency” until July 24.

“All those entering French territory from the EU/Schengen zone and the UK will not be affected by the quarantine measure, whose details will be announced shortly,” the Elysée said.

France is planning to ease on May 11 a lockdown that will have lasted two months, although tight restrictions may remain in parts of the country if the virus continues to circulate actively and hospitals are still overloaded with intensive care patients.

On Sunday, the official daily death toll fell to 135, the lowest level for six weeks.

Greece prepares to lift lockdown from Monday

Kerin Hope in Athens

Greece announced that wearing face-masks will be obligatory from Monday on public transport and at all medical facilities as the country begins to emerge from a five-week lockdown that appears to have curbed the spread of coronavirus.

“We’re entering uncharted waters this week: we will move one step at a time and continue to follow closely the advice of experts,” a government spokesman said.

Some retail outlets will re-open, among them bookshops, florists, stationers, electronics stores and opticians, while hairdressers and beauty salons will operate only through appointments and will have to record customers’ details, the civil protection agency said.

Opening hours for shops and services will be staggered so that social distancing can be enforced on public transport, it said.

Restrictions on movement will be lifted from 6am on Monday, but parks, organised beaches and sports facilities will stay closed for at least another week. While high schools are expected to resume classes by May 13, there are no plans at present for primary schools to re-open.

Six new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Sunday, bringing the total to 2,626. One death was recorded, raising the number of fatalities to 144. Thirty-seven patients are being treated in intensive care units, compared with more than 70 two weeks ago, the public health authority said.

France’s daily death toll declines further

Victor Mallet in Paris

France’s daily coronavirus death toll continued to decline today to 135 in the past 24 hours, with hospital mortality from Covid-19 reaching its lowest level for more than six weeks, the government said.

According to the health ministry, 96 deaths were reported in hospitals and a further 39 in care homes, mainly for old people, bringing the number in France to 24,895 since March 1.

Patients are still being hospitalised and admitted to intensive care each day as the virus circulates, especially in the north and east of the country and the Paris area. But officials and residents are hoping the epidemic will be sufficiently under control to allow a nationwide relaxation of the lockdown on the planned date of May 11.

Ireland takes a step forward to forming new government

Arthur Beesley in Dublin

The formation of a new Irish government advanced a step on Sunday as the opposition Greens decided to enter formal coalition talks with prime minister Leo Varadkar and the opposition Fianna Fáil party.

Mr Varadkar has led a caretaker government since talks following an inconclusive February 8 election were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Although the taoiseach’s centre-right Fine Gael has already settled on a joint plan with Fianna Fáil to guide the next government, they still need an agreement with Greens or other smaller parties for a majority of parliament.

The Greens today said party MPs had decided to enter talks to “develop a deal” with the two larger parties, but stressed the “approval of any programme for government will require support of two-thirds of the [party’s] voting membership”.

The statement followed days of internal debate amid divisions between Green MPs over the merits of coalition with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, traditional governing parties who together have dominated politics for close to a century without ever ruling together.

With Ireland still in lockdown because of Covid-19 and the economy in the grip of severe recession, politicians believe it could still take weeks to form a new government. Its prime task will be to chart a path out of the coronavirus emergency and the unemployment crisis it triggered.

Mr Varadkar welcomed Greens’ decision, saying “Ireland needs a stable government to manage the remainder of the Covid emergency and to rebuild and renew our society and economy over the next five years”.

Fianna Fáil won the most seats in February but Sinn Féin nationalists won the popular vote and second-highest tally of seats, pushing Mr Varadkar’s party into third place. Mr Varadkar and Mícheál Martin, Fianna Fáil’s leader, refused talks with Sinn Féin because of its leftist policies and links with IRA paramiliarities during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

New York and neighbouring states form consortium to buy medical equipment

New York and its six neighboring states in the northeast of the US are forming a buying consortium to secure billions of dollars worth of coronavirus medical and testing equipment as they prepare to reopen their economies.

The agreement deepens co-operation between Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, which weeks ago agreed to co-ordinate the lifting of lockdown restrictions and share tracing data on Covid-19 patients.

“This will make us more competitive in the international marketplace and save us money,” Andrew Cuomo, New York governor, said at a Sunday press conference.

New York is the US state hit hardest by the coronavirus, and Mr Cuomo has been vocal about the hurdles it has faced to secure protective equipment such as masks and gowns, as well as ventilators and testing kits. As companies and governments worldwide compete for stocks, he said doing deals with foreign suppliers, particularly in China, required a level of international experience most individual states lacked.

The states expect to spend a combined $5bn on medical equipment and gear this year, Mr Cuomo said.

The consortium will aim to buy from American suppliers, and more ideally those within the seven states, that can scale up to meet demand over the next three months. The states will coordinate with the federal government.

“None of this is in lieu of the help of the federal government,” Phil Murphy, New Jersey governor, said during a teleconference with his peers on Sunday. “We’re going to work with the federal government every step of the way.”

“We’re planning for a next round of this, so we can control our own destiny,” Ned Lamont, governor of Connecticut, said during the call.

NHS England’s Powis defends near-empty Nightingale hospitals

Jim Pickard in London

Stephen Powis, medical director for NHS England, has defended the creation of near-empty Nightingale hospitals, saying journalists would have been “1,000 times” more critical if the government had not built them.

“The Nightingales were not built in error and we may still need them. We are not through this yet,” he said.

The comments came during the UK government’s daily briefing and after Michael Gove, Cabinet Office secretary, said 76,496 tests had been carried out, down from 122,347 tests on Thursday, and 315 people had died in the UK from the virus as of 5pm on Saturday.

Mexico’s consumer ombudsman tests positive for Covid-19

Jude Webber in Mexico City

Mexico’s consumer ombudsman, who attends President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily news conference every Monday, said he had tested positive for coronavirus.

Ricardo Sheffield, head of the office of the federal prosecutor for the consumer (Profeco), wrote on Twitter that he received the results on Saturday after taking the test last Tuesday. Last Monday, he joined the president at his news conference.

Mr Sheffield is the second senior government official to announce he has Covid-19. Mr López Obrador said he was in good health and his spokesman said the president was not planning to take a test.

Mexico confirmed 22,088 cases – including 6,580 infections in the past fortnight which constitute “active” cases – and 2,061 deaths as of Saturday night but health authorities acknowledge the figures are underestimating the true picture. Nevertheless, the government says hospitals nationwide are not overwhelmed and just 29 per cent of beds equipped for acute respiratory disease are occupied and 76 per cent of beds with ventilators are available.

However, in Mexico City, Sinaloa and Baja California – the three worst-affected states – ventilator availability is sharply lower, at 36 per cent, 42 per cent and 48 per cent respectively. The government says the country will hit a peak of infections this week.

UK government falls short of testing target

Jim Pickard in London

Daily coronavirus tests by the UK government dropped below the daily target of 100,000 at the weekend, Michael Gove admitted on Sunday.

Mr Gove, the Cabinet Office secretary, said 76,496 tests had been carried out, down from 122,347 tests on Thursday.

The number of people who died in the UK from the virus as of 5pm on Saturday was 315, the minister said.

Boris Johnson, prime minister, will set out a plan on Thursday on “how we will get the economy moving” again, Mr Gove said at the Downing St daily news conference.

The prime minister will set out how children can return to schools safely, how people will be able to travel to work without spreading coronavirus and how workplaces will be made safe.

But Mr Gove emphasised that none of these things would happen until the government has met its five tests, including a sustained and consistent fall in Covid-19 deaths and adequate National Health Service capacity to deal with a fresh surge in cases.

Coronavirus webcams: view capital cities and beaches in lockdown

Explore the planet, devoid of people, and take a tour of the world. Worldwide webcams have captured places normally teeming with workers and tourists, such as Dublin, Cape Town, St Petersburg, Tokyo, Sydney, New York and Venice, that have become quiet and emptied of people and traffic.

“That’s what really struck me,” said Brian Cury, the founder of EarthCam. “The speed at which the world became vacant.”

The cameras hone in on wildlife, coastlines and empty beaches, attracting many more viewers than normal as people stay at home and take part in a virtual reality.

“Since lockdown came in to force on 23 March, we have had about 20 times as many visitors to our webcams page than we would expect at this time of year,” said Leanne Manchester from the UK’s Wildlife Trust, as people tune into watch birds and other wildlife in what is similar to “the most addictable of soap operas”.

“We are all in it together,” said Martin Harper, the conservation director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. “We have changed our lives and also there are changes in our lives that may be for the better.”

Norwegian Air secures deal with bondholders

Richard Milne in Oslo

Low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle has reached a last-minute deal with bondholders for a debt-for-equity swap, bringing it one step closer to securing a government rescue package needed to avert financial collapse.

Norwegian today said a sweetened offer in writing to bondholders had won over hold-outs after it announced on Friday that it had fallen short of a deal after only convincing the owners of three out of four bonds to back the proposal.

Jacob Schram, chief executive, said the airline was now “one step closer” to getting NKr3bn in loan guarantees from the Norwegian government. The next hurdle will be convincing leasing groups to back the airline’s plans ahead of an extraordinary shareholder meeting on Monday.

Norwegian Air has warned it is weeks away from running out of cash but has been pushed by tough conditions from the government in Oslo to boost its equity ratio substantially, both by converting about 15 per cent of its total debt into equity and by a planned rights issue, its fourth in the past two years.

US rescue plan for businesses awards half of total funding in days

Laura Noonan in New York

A second round of rescue funding to small US businesses has awarded more than half of its total funding in days as the government seeks to assist the “smallest of small businesses”.

The tranche awarded $175bn, or more than 55 per cent of its total funding, in its first six days, the Small Business Administration, which is overseeing the funds’ dispersal by banks, said on Sunday.

The average loan awarded in this round was $79,000, versus the more than $200,000 average loan size for the first, data from the SBA showed.

The reduced loan size across the 2.2m companies helped in the second round was “another indicator that the programme is broadly based and assisting the smallest of small businesses”, SBA boss Jovita Carranza and Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a joint statement.

The first round awarded millions to big companies such as Shake Shack and Ruths’ Chris Steak House, which were not the intended beneficiaries of a scheme to help the smallest companies keep staff on their books even if the pandemic forced them to stay shut.

Since then the Treasury has promised to review all loans for more than $2m. The SBA has prioritised access for smaller community lenders whose clients fit the profile of companies the SBA was designed to help.

British bosses call for gradual easing of lockdown

Daniel Thomas in London

Senior figures in the City of London have urged the government to proceed with caution in easing the lockdown, saying there should be a gradual reopening of the economy.

Executives highlighted tough decisions ahead for Boris Johnson, with some flagging the difficult balancing act for the UK prime minister as he seeks to curb the Covid-19 outbreak while kick-starting the economy.

The consensus among the FT City Network, a forum of more than 50 senior figures, is that the government must prioritise the health needs of the nation as it eases the lockdown.

Several highlighted the importance of having an effective virus testing regime given a vaccine may not be available until next year.

“The economy needs to reopen in a way that is sensitive to the continued goal of controlling the virus,” said Ann Cairns, executive vice-chairman at Mastercard.

Read Dan’s full story

UK transport secretary plays down rapid return to ‘business as usual’

Jim Pickard in London

The transport secretary has played down the idea that the UK is poised to return to “business as usual” any time soon, saying an announcement this week would only be a “route map” for how the lockdown could be ended.

“Of course there’s a huge desire to get everything back to normal but we have to make sure we satisfy those five key tests,” Grant Shapps told Sky News today.

Boris Johnson, prime minister, will on Thursday lay out the details of how the government might oversee a partial easing of the lockdown without an excessive risk of a “second wave” of Covid-19.

Mr Johnson is expected to say staff who can work from home — in particular white-collar office workers — should carry on doing so for a considerable period. But the prime minister wants factories, construction and warehouses to return to full production if and when social distancing can be maintained.

Mr Shapps said the government was drawing up a timetable with rail companies that would involve a gradual increase in train services in the coming months although they would remain well below their normal level.

More details from Jim are here

Spain’s death rate falls to lowest level since lockdown

Daniel Dombey in Madrid

Spain’s coronavirus death rate has fallen to 164 in the past 24-hour period, the lowest daily toll since the earliest time of the country’s seven-week-old lockdown.

Figures released by the ministry of health on Sunday showed a decline of more than 100 on the previous day’s death toll of 276, itself one of the smallest totals since the lockdown was imposed in mid-March.

Weekend coronavirus counts tend to be lower because of a lag in reporting time, but Spain’s death toll has moved steadily down in recent weeks and is now far below its peak of 950 on April 2.

The latest numbers — the lowest total since 107 people died on March 18, three days into the lockdown — were compiled in the 24 hours until 9pm on Saturday.

The Spanish government is gradually easing the lockdown and will allow non-essential shops to open by appointment from Monday. On Saturday adults were allowed for the first time since mid-March to exercise and go for walks outdoors. Many streets were crowded, however, with people not observing social distancing or wearing masks.

From Monday it will be obligatory to wear masks on public transport, said Pedro Sánchez, prime minister, on Saturday, as the government seeks to block a fresh surge in infections.

According to official figures, 25,264 people have died after contracting coronavirus, a total that includes proven but not probable deaths.

Polymerase chain reaction tests give an instantaneous snapshot of whether someone is infected. PCR testing indicates that 217,466 Spanish people have been infected with Covid-19, the health ministry said.

This represents a 0.39 per cent increase on the previous day’s figure, indicating the lowest spread of the virus to date, but does not include results from quicker but less reliable antibody tests.

The government says 118,002 people — more than half those testing positive — have now recovered.

German business groups push for firm timetable to end lockdown

Martin Arnold in Frankfurt

German business groups are intensifying their calls for the government to lay out a firm timetable for lifting the lockdown and restarting the economy, warning tens of billions of euros are being lost every week.

Some German children are going back to school this week and most shops reopened last month. But foreign travel is restricted, while strict social distancing rules have been kept in place. Restaurants, hotels, bars, public and sporting events remain closed.

“Our companies want and need to know in which stages social and economic life should start again,” Dieter Kempf, head of the BDI business association, told the Funke media group. “Every week of a shutdown costs the German economy a mid double-digit billion amount.”

Angela Merkel, chancellor, on Wednesday will discuss with the heads of the German states whether to loosen the lockdown. But her ministers continue to urge caution. Foreign minister Heiko Maas said the ban on foreign travel would be lifted only if people can be sure of returning home safely without bringing back coronavirus.

Horst Seehofer, German interior minister, told Bild newspaper: “As long as the virus does not go on vacation, we also have to limit our travel plans, as understandable as the desire for people and the tourism industry is. Infection protection sets the schedule.”

If the lockdown has not been lifted by the time summer holidays start at many German schools in mid-June, the travel industry association warned it would lose €10.8bn in that time. Norbert Fiebig, president of the travel association, said the sector needed a “reliable perspective of how we can gradually get tourism going again”.

“Release the lockdown before it is too late,” said the federal association of small and medium-sized businesses in an open letter to Ms Merkel.

US deaths surpass 60,000 to account still for a third of daily total

Steve Bernard in London

The worldwide daily coronavirus death toll breached 5,000, the fourth day in a row that the number has fallen, while in the US the total shot past 60,000.

The US, which its tracking project showed suffering 1,651 deaths on Saturday to push the total to 60,699, has accounted for about a third of all daily fatalities since the beginning of April.

Globally, deaths rose by 5,215 on Saturday, totalling 224,167. The number of newly confirmed Covid-19 cases climbed by 83,225 yesterday, though the figure is 8 per cent lower than last Saturday. It brings the total number of infections to 3.4m.

The UK continues to record a high number of daily cases, with a further 4,806 infections reported yesterday. The daily increase has remained above 4,000 since April 8. The death toll rose by 621 to 28,131, a figure that now includes an additional 4,430 deaths in England, of which 70 per cent are outside hospitals, since the start of the outbreak. The numbers include care homes and in the wider community.

Russia registered a record 9,623 infections on Saturday. This represents an 8 per cent increase on the previous day, as the country struggles to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

Kremlin points to mid-May coronavirus peak in Russia

Henry Foy in Moscow

A sharp jump in infections in Russia highlights warnings from the Kremlin that the coronavirus outbreak will peak in mid-May as the country struggles to contain and suppress the Covid-19 pandemic.

Moscow’s mayor said on Saturday that testing suggests 2 per cent of the capital’s inhabitants have the virus, which is equivalent to more than 250,000 people and roughly four times the official statistics.

Russia reported two new record daily increases in cases this weekend, adding more than 20,000 infections across two days to become the world’s seventh most affected country.

The country recorded 9,623 new cases on Saturday and another 10,633 on Sunday, roughly twice the number seen mid-week. That brings the total to 134,687, with 1,280 deaths.

Iran must be more self-reliant in post-Covid-19 world, Rouhani says

Monavar Khalaj in Tehran

Iran should prepare itself for a post-coronavirus world and make changes to its economy as the pandemic has had an impact beyond its effects on people’s lives, healthcare and sanitation, the president said.

The Islamic republic should become more steadfast in cutting its dependency on other countries, Hassan Rouhani said, and adopt new exports and imports policies, strengthening itself against the US sanctions.

The pandemic “has changed the whole world”, President Rouhani told senior officials in a live television broadcast on Sunday.

“Nationalism has been strengthened again and [international] alliances weakened,” Mr Rouhani said on state TV.

Iran’s daily death rate hit less than 50 for the first time in 55 days on Sunday. Iran’s health ministry said that 47 lives were lost to the respiratory virus. The death toll climbed to 6,203, of 97,424 individuals testing positive.

US gives Swiss group Roche go-ahead for its antibody test

Swiss pharmaceuticals group Roche receives the green light from the US for its coronavirus antibody test, which will potentially allow health professionals to check whether millions have had the virus and whether patients have developed antibodies against the infection.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued an Emergency Use Authorisation for Roche’s Elecsys serology test, the Swiss drugs group said in a statement on Sunday.

Roche has started shipping the test to laboratories globally and said it would increase production capacity to reach the high double-digit millions of tests a month. The test is also available in countries accepting the global CE mark standard.

Countries such as Germany, the US and Finland have launched mass antibody testing to check Covid-19’s impact, programmes that are more easily adopted than polymerase chain reaction testing for coronavirus RNA.

Antibody tests can indicate whether someone has had the virus in the past. PCR tests give an instantaneous snapshot of whether someone is currently infected.

Read here for more details as reported last month in the Financial Times.

More cases emerge among Singapore’s worker dormitories

Singapore’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday it has “preliminarily confirmed” 657 new coronavirus cases.

The “vast majority” were foreign workers living in dormitories, according to a ministry statement.

There were also 10 cases of Singapore citizens or permanent residents testing positive, “many of whom were linked to previous cases”, the ministry said.

Singapore has recorded 18,205 coronavirus cases, with 17 deaths.

The ministry said the number of cases among migrant workers was fluctuating in recent days due to the clearance of backlogged cases by one laboratory.

Japan allows parks, museums and libraries to reopen

Robin Harding in Tokyo

Japan will allow parks, museums and libraries to reopen under strict conditions even as it prepares to extend a state of emergency for another month.

“The expert recommendation is that with thorough disinfection, maintenance of distance between people and limits on entry then it’s possible to allow some activity in parks, galleries, museums and libraries,” economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said on Sunday.

A formal decision to continue the state of emergency is expected on Monday.

The public have been asked to remain at home, and a range of businesses have been asked to close, with the goal of an 80 per cent reduction in person-to-person contacts.

Growth in the number of coronavirus infections – which now stands at 14,677 – has slowed but not stopped, prompting Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, to extend the state of emergency, but the slight easing in the rules will make it more tolerable for the public.

Schools, leisure facilities and the vast majority of offices will remain closed.

India sees coronavirus surge despite tight lockdown

Amy Kazmin in New Delhi

India recorded another surge in new coronavirus cases, with 2,644 in the past 24 hours, highlighting how the country is still struggling to contain the spread of the disease despite one of the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns.

The record spike in cases is up from a previous all-time high of 2,364 new cases confirmed the previous day.

Indian authorities say that the country’s lockdown has helped to slow the spread of the virus dramatically, with the doubling rate of confirmed cases slowing to around 11 days, up from a pace of three days before the lockdown.

Among the new cases confirmed in New Delhi on Saturday were 41 people living in a two-storey building in which 200 people were crammed together in close quarters in 65 rooms.

In many parts of India’s cities, migrant workers are packed together in dormitory structures with tiny rooms — with shared bathroom, kitchen and other facilities — that have emerged as hothouses for the spread of the virus.

Authorities also confirmed that 71 personnel from the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force at a base in New Delhi are infected, bringing the total infected at that camp to 135.

India has now confirmed 39,980 coronavirus cases, of whom 1,301 have died and 10,633 have recovered.

Germany sees lowest daily number of new cases in 2 months

Guy Chazan in Berlin

Germany reported 793 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the lowest increase since early March, in a clear indication of its success in containing the spread of the pandemic.

According to official data from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, the number of people who died of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours rose by 74 to 6,649.

The total number of detected infections increased to 162,496, although about 130,600 of them have already made a full recovery.

Survey shows many UK doctors buy own protective equipment

A survey of 16,000 doctors in the UK found that nearly half have bought or begged for their own personal protective equipment to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

“In what is the biggest survey of frontline NHS staff during this crisis, thousands of doctors [said] they have had to personally buy PPE for themselves or their department or rely on donations,” said Chaand Nagpaul, council chair of the British Medical Association, which commissioned the survey.

As many as 85 per cent of general practitioners and 38 per cent of hospital doctors acquired PPE by these methods, the survey results showed.

“On the one hand it shows how resourceful they have been and how much support there has been from the general public in providing kit; but far more importantly, it is a damning indictment of the government’s abject failure to make sure healthcare workers across the country are being supplied with the life-saving kit they should be,” Dr Nagpaul said.

Timpson boss looks for key to restart 150-year-old company

Judith Evans in London

It was March 13 when James Timpson, chief executive of the UK’s Timpson family shoe repair and key-cutting chain, realised what the full impact of the coronavirus on his business was likely to be.

He had planned to take one of his children skiing in France, but was forced to cancel as the French lockdown approached. Instead he looked over company cash flow forecasts and saw a crunch ahead as he realised the group might have to suspend trading for the first time in 150 years.

He now sits in a room in his home near Chester, north-west England, trying to work out how 5,400 employees and more than 2,100 stores will reactivate after the pandemic.

Read more here

Australian medical official calls for schools to reopen

One of Australia’s top medical officials has called for children to return to school.

The deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth, wrote on Sunday that the government’s position is that “face-to-face teaching is safe, particularly given the current very low rates of community transmission” of the coronavirus.

“As an infectious diseases specialist, I have examined all of the available evidence from within Australia and around the world and, as it stands, it does not support avoiding classroom learning as a means to control Covid-19,” Prof Coatsworth wrote in an opinion published on the federal health department’s website.

“By contrast, there is plenty of public health evidence that stopping face-to-face teaching can damage society,” he added.

Australia’s states and territories, which are responsible for education in the country, are moving at different paces on the resumption of schools. “This has led to a sense of confusion,” Prof Coatsworth wrote.

But Brett Sutton, chief medical officer of Victoria, Australia’s second most populous state, does not believe the time is right to reopen schools.

Prof Sutton told the state-run ABC network last week that while he did not see schools as dangerous, keeping children at home could “contribute to suppressing transmission at a community level”.

New Zealand reports just 2 new coronavirus cases

New Zealand reported only two new confirmed coronavirus cases on Sunday, taking the country’s total to 1,136.

Both cases were contacts of an employee at an aged care home in Auckland, the health ministry said in a statement.

The Covid-19 death toll in New Zealand remains at 20.

Chinese flock to tourist sites in first post-lockdown break

Thomas Hale and Nicolle Liu in Hong Kong

Chinese travellers flocked to the country’s major tourist sites over the May Day holiday, in one of the clearest signs yet of a return to normality in the country where the coronavirus first originated.

There were 23m travellers within the country on Friday, the first of five days of public holiday, according to official figures reported by Xinhua, with revenues from domestic tourism reaching almost Rmb10bn ($1.4bn).

That compares to a total of 43.3m trips over the whole of the three-day Qing Ming festival at the start of April, which brought in just Rmb8.3bn as tourists reined in their spending.

On Friday, China Railway carried 7.37m passengers, the highest daily capacity since the lunar new year in February. CR estimated that it carried 4.7m passengers on Saturday, according to a statement.

Major attractions, such as the Forbidden City in Beijing, were partially re-opened for the holiday after a long period of closure due to the coronavirus.

In Shanghai, the 130 main tourist attractions received more than 1m visitors on Friday and Saturday combined, Xinhua said.

China reported just two cases of coronavirus to the end of Saturday, of which one was imported from abroad. A day earlier, the country’s health authorities had reported zero new domestic cases.

Hong Kong braces for worst economic performance since 1960s

Nicolle Liu in Hong Kong

Hong Kong could be facing its worst economic year since records began in the 1960s, the territory’s finance chief said on Sunday.

The city’s government revised its 2020 gross domestic product forecast to a contraction of 7 per cent, instead of 4 per cent as previously expected, Paul Chan, the financial secretary, wrote in a blog post.

In February, the government forecast a decline of just 1.5 per cent.

“If the epidemic develops and the external pressure brings the economic contraction rate close to the lower limit of the forecast, this will be the worst year for the Hong Kong economy since its record in the 1960s,” Mr Chan said.

Under a double whammy of protests and pandemic, first-quarter GDP this year is expected to be worse than that recorded in 1997, during the Asian financial crisis and 2009, in the midst of the global financial crisis.

Hong Kong recorded no new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, the 13th consecutive day without local infections, keeping the tally at 1,039.

Zimbabwe pleads for aid to avert coronavirus ‘collapse’

Joseph Cotterill in Johannesburg and David Pilling in London

Zimbabwe has pleaded with international institutions to help it clear billions of dollars in debt arrears so the country can avoid economic collapse and unlock funds to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Without urgent aid to clear arrears owed to official lenders, the southern African nation faced “domestic collapse”, Mthuli Ncube, finance minister, told the IMF, African Development Bank and other institutions in a letter seen by the Financial Times.

The country is about $2bn behind on payments to official lenders including the World Bank and AfDB, although it has paid off the IMF.

Read more here

A third of Afghans face food shortages under lockdown

A third of Afghanistan’s 37m people – including 7.3m children – will face food shortages in May due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to state media.

A large portion of the Afghan workforce relies on the informal sector and the financial ability of daily wage labourers to buy food is decreasing, as restrictions on movement and outdoor activities have caused work to dry up, the state-run Bakhtar news agency reported on Saturday.

“We are deeply concerned that this pandemic will lead to a perfect storm of hunger, disease and death in Afghanistan,” the agency quoted Timothy Bishop, Afghanistan director of Save the Children, as saying.

Since a lockdown was imposed on March 28, prices for staples such as wheat flour and cooking oil have risen as much as 23 per cent, while the cost of rice, sugar and pulses have increased 7 to 12 per cent, according to the UN’s World Food Programme.

Nearly 2,000 Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Afghanistan, including 61 known fatalities.

Philippines suspends all commercial flights until May 15

All commercial flights to and from the Philippines are suspended until May 15 at the earliest to help prevent the spread of coronavirus, the country’s airlines announced on Sunday.

“All Philippine Airlines international and domestic flights are cancelled until May 15, 2020 due to the extension of the Luzon-wide Enhanced Community Quarantine Period by the Philippine government,” the flag carrier said in a notice on its website.

Cargo flights would continue, Philippine Airlines said. “We continue to carry cargo shipments to keep intact critical supply chains across the Philippines and within the Asia/Pacific region.”

Cebu Pacific said it would also continue to run cargo routes.

Philippines reports new coronavirus cases and deaths

Authorities in the Philippines reported 156 new cases of coronavirus infections on Saturday evening, bringing the total to 8,928, according to state media.

The health department told the official Philippine News Agency that 24 new Covid-19 deaths were also reported, bringing the total to 603.

The agency said that the department repeated its appeal for doctors, nurses, medical technologists, and other support health personnel to join the department on minimum three-month contracts.

China blasts May Day return of Hong Kong protests

Thomas Hale and Nicolle Liu in Hong Kong

China’s representatives in Hong Kong have lashed out at anti-government protesters after a wave of new demonstrations hit the city over the May Day holiday.

In a statement this weekend, China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong said “radical activists” were launching illegal gatherings at a time when “the whole world is putting aside its differences to fight the virus”.

The response from Beijing is the latest sign of higher tensions in Hong Kong after months of relative calm, when the outbreak of the coronavirus halted protests that had dominated the city last year.

Over the past week, crowds have gathered in malls across the city to display posters and sing protest songs.

The protesters called on people to spend money in restaurants and shops that explicitly showed support for the protests with banners or donations.

Police dispersed the protesters and issued fines for violations of social distancing rules.

Late on Friday night, police arrested a teenage boy on suspicion of arson, after a group of people were seen throwing petrol bombs, the government-funded RTHK news channel reported.

Bangalore allows use of homemade face masks

People in Bangalore, India’s technology capital, can use homemade cloth masks, scarves or bandanas when outdoors, the metropolitan authority announced, backtracking on an unpopular restriction.

BH Anil Kumar, a commissioner of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, which administers the metropolitan area, said a face mask “could be any mask used to cover nose and mouth and would also include any face cover including a piece of cloth”.

https://twitter.com/BBMPCOMM/status/1256567880855900161

Earlier, Mr Kumar had authorised health and sanitation officers to fine people not wearing approved face coverings in public from April 30. The city had raised Rs51,000 ($670) in fines on the first day, penalising many wearing homemade masks.

Angry members of the public took to social media, noting that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, wears a homemade mask.

Indonesia coronavirus death toll reaches 831

Indonesia’s coronavirus death toll rose by 31 on Saturday, reaching a total of 831 known fatalities, according to state media on Sunday.

“The data show that the number of positive cases has increased by 292 people,” the official Antara news agency quoted government spokesman Achmad Yurianto as saying.

Mr Achmad said that the main hotspots for new cases were the capital, Jakarta, with 80 new cases, followed by West Java with 31 cases, and 30 cases in both South Sulawesi and the rebellious province of Papua on the island of New Guinea.

Indonesia has 10,843 people who have been confirmed as Covid-19-positive, according to Ministry of Health data.

South Korea reports 13 more coronavirus cases

South Korea reported 13 more cases of the new coronavirus on Sunday, bringing the nation’s total infections to 10,793, state media reported.

The country had reported fewer than 10 cases of new infections on each of the previous four days, according to the Yonhap news agency, which cited Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Of 13 cases announced on Sunday, 10 were imported, Yonhap said.

Singapore authorities detect 447 new positive cases

Singapore on Saturday confirmed an additional 447 Covid-19 cases, fewer than half recorded on the previous day.

The Ministry of Health said the “vast majority” of the cases were foreign workers living in dormitories.

The republic’s tally of cases stands at 17,548.

There have been 17 deaths, including two on Friday: a 76-year-old Singaporean man suffering from cancer and a 47-year-old Bangladeshi man.

“Investigations are ongoing to establish the cause of death” of the Bangladeshi worker, the ministry said.

Buffett’s airline shares gamble fails to take off

Eric Platt in New York

US billionaire Warren Buffett conceded on Sunday that he had got it wrong on airlines during the coronavirus pandemic and had sold Berkshire Hathaway’s entire stakes in four US carriers.

Mr Buffett told his company’s virtual annual meeting that he sold out of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest and United Airlines in April.

“It turns out I was wrong,” he said. “The airline business — and I may be wrong and I hope I’m wrong — I think it has changed in a very major way.”

Read more here

https://twitter.com/cityoftoronto/status/1256691910745493504

With parks closed, Toronto launches virtual cherry blossoms

High Park in Toronto is usually packed at this time of year with thousands of visitors coming to see a grove of Japanese cherry trees in full blossom.

However, parks in Canada’s largest city have been closed since April 30 due to the coronavirus pandemic, so city authorities have put the flowering season online with a 24-hour BloomCam.

On Saturday, the office of Toronto mayor John Tory said more than 100 people had received police warnings over using outdoor amenities or not practising physical distancing in parks since lockdown measures were introduced on April 3.

UK pledges extra funds for businesses that share office space

George Hammond in London

The British government has pledged a further £617m in grants to small businesses, seeking to plug gaps in a scheme that has left thousands of companies unable to access much-needed finance.

The additional funds will go to “businesses in shared spaces, regular market traders, small charity properties that would meet the criteria for Small Business Rates Relief, and bed and breakfasts that pay council tax rather than business rates,” the government said.

The funds add to a £12.33bn pot that has already been made available through the small business grants fund and the retail, hospitality and leisure grants fund.

Read more here

UK poll finds declining government support in crisis

Public approval of the UK government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has dropped to its lowest level in seven weeks, a survey has found.

In the week that saw prime minister Boris Johnson return to work, a poll shows a substantial fall in the UK public’s approval of the government and its handling of the virus fell for a third week in a row.

Approval for the government’s handling of the crisis has dropped from a positive net score (approvals minus disapprovals) of +21 per cent down to +13 per cent, the lowest level since March 12, before lockdown measures were imposed.

The Scottish government has a net score of +39 per cent, Northern Ireland’s is +18 per cent and London +15 per cent. In Wales, the devolved government has a -9 per cent result.

Nearly four in five respondents said they were following lockdown restrictions.

The Opinium online poll questioned 2,000 adults across the UK from April 28 to May 1.

Dubai waives some port fees as trade slumps

The volume of non-oil goods cleared through Dubai Customs in the first quarter of 2020 fell to 24.3m tonnes, down from 28m tonnes in the same period last year, official media reported.

To help support trade volumes, which have fallen during the coronavirus pandemic, Dubai Customs is refunding 20 per cent of customs fees imposed on imported products sold locally until June 30, the official WAM news agency reported.

Dubai ports, including Jebel Ali, pictured, are also waiving the Dh50,000 ($13,600) bank guarantee or cash usually required to undertake customs clearance, WAM added.

The port authorities in Dubai, one of the seven gulf sheikhdoms that form the United Arab Emirates, said all ships registered locally — including the traditional coastal vessels known as dhows — would be exempted from all berthing fees.

Cayman Islands to ease curfew measures

The Cayman Islands, a British territory in the Caribbean Sea, plans to ease its curfew and other lockdown measures this month.

Police commissioner Derek Byrne announced that, from Monday, Cayman’s nightly curfew would run from 8pm until 5am, ending an hour earlier. The curfew would be reviewed after May 15.

The reopening of beaches was likely in two weeks if there continues to be a low number of new positive cases.

The tax haven is home to about 60,000 people and more than 100,000 companies.

News you might have missed

The US daily death toll fell for a third straight day, but still took the total number of fatalities since the coronavirus pandemic above 60,000 for the first time. A further 1,651 people died over the past 24 hours, according to data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project on Saturday. New York state reported a further 299 deaths over the past day, following the 289 deaths on Friday that marked a one-month low. A total of 18,909 have died in the hardest-hit state.

The death toll in Italy rose to 28,710 deaths from Covid-19 as the country prepares to ease its months-long lockdown Official figures reported 474 additional deaths, according to Reuters. The number of new cases remained roughly stable at 1,900, taking the total to 209,328.

France’s health emergency will be extended for a further two months until July 24, even as the daily coronavirus death toll and the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care continued to decline. A new law, including provisions for the obligatory wearing of masks on public transport and a 14-day quarantine requirement for those arriving in France, would be presented to parliament.

The International Monetary Fund said it would lend a further $643m to Ecuador as it grapples with a particularly virulent outbreak of coronavirus and a sharp drop in oil prices. “The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact in Ecuador,” said IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva.

Eurostar will require passengers to wear a face mask or covering starting from Monday. The train operator, which runs services between continental Europe and the UK, warned passengers could face fines if caught without a mask. Spain will make mask-wearing obligatory on public transport as of Monday, prime minister Pedro Sánchez said, outlining plans to relax the strict, seven-week lockdown.

Turkey has relaxed restrictions on the export of medical equipment such as ventilators, oxygenation devices and intubation tubes used in the fight against coronavirus, lifting an obstacle that had caused headaches for some nations and presenting an opportunity for Turkish manufacturers.





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