Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The UK’s biggest cancer charity is cutting research funding by £44m because of a sharp fall in income and has acknowledged that the move could set back the fight against the disease for many years.
Cancer Research UK (CRUK), which funds nearly half of the cancer research in the country, said it was the most difficult decision it had ever taken but explained that it believed limiting spending now would enable it to continue to support life-saving research in the long-run.
The dramatic quietening of towns and cities in lockdown Britain has changed the way the Earth moves beneath our feet, scientists say.
Seismologists at the British Geological Survey have found that their sensors are twitching less now that human activity has been curtailed, leading to a drop in the anthropogenic din that vibrates through the planet.
Just back to Donald Trump’s marathon press conference and he is fielding questions on the US naval commander who was fired over his coronavirus memo, suggesting he doesn’t think his life should be “destroyed” as a result, Sam Levin writes:
He made a mistake. He shouldn’t be sending letter. He’s the captain … you don’t send letters and then it leaks into a newspaper. I may get involved ...If I can help two good people, I’m going to help him
With 400 public health offices forging ahead with testing, the country is a model for others to emulate
As the coronavirus crisis tests the resilience of democracies around the globe, Germany has gone from cursing its lead-footed, decentralised political system to wondering if federalism’s tortoise versus hare logic puts it in a better position to brave the pandemic than most.
Under German federalism – which has roots going back to the Holy Roman Empire but was entrenched after the Nazi era to weaken centralised rule – key policy areas, such as health, education and cultural affairs, fall under the jurisdiction of the country’s 16 states, or Länder.
Covid-19 has exposed the deficiencies of national disease detection and prevention systems in many countries of Europe, and in the United States. In the UK, contact tracing was abandoned early due to lack of capacity. Just three weeks ago the government was prepared to let thousands of Scots travel through England to Wales and back for a rugby match, and it has taken a month to develop a strategy for scaled-up testing. After a decade of austerity and decentralisation, we are trying to recover the lost muscle memory of the public health response.
It will not be 100 years until the next pandemic. Population growth, human invasion of animal habitats and the resumption of fast travel between continents will take care of that. More urgently, we need a system in place after the lockdown to prevent a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic being worse than the first.
Brazil is bracing for a surge in coronavirus cases as doctors and researchers warn that underreporting and a lack of testing mean nobody knows the real scale of Covid-19’s spread.
“What’s happening is enormous underreporting,” said Isabella Rêllo, a doctor working in emergency and intensive care in Rio de Janeiro hospitals, in a widely shared Facebook post challenging official numbers. “There are MANY more,” she wrote.
The US has been accused of “modern piracy” after reportedly diverting a shipment of masks intended for the German police, and outbidding other countries in the increasingly fraught global market for coronavirus protective equipment.
About 200,000 N95 masks were diverted to the US as they were being transferred between planes in Thailand, according to the Berlin authorities who said they had ordered the masks for the police force.
We are about to wrap up our coverage on this blog for the day, but you can follow all developments on our new global live blog here. In the interim, you can catch up on all the day’s latest news here, on our latest At a Glance:
The European Commission has proposed a short-time work scheme to avoid mass lay-offs across the bloc during the coronavirus pandemic.
The scheme, which is modelled on Germany’s Kurzabeit programme, was announced by Commission head Ursula von der Leyen in a video message.
Companies are paying salaries to their employees, even if, right now, they are not making money. Europe is now coming to their support, with a new initiative.
“It is intended to help Italy, Spain and all other countries that have been hard hit. And it will do so thanks to the solidarity of other member states,” she said.
Italy has extended lockdown restrictions until 13 April as signs emerge indicating the coronavirus contagion might be reaching a “plateau”.
“Italians have shown great maturity,” Roberto Speranza, the health minister, told parliament on Wednesday. “Experts say we are on the right track, and that the drastic measures taken are starting to give results.”
However, Speranza warned “we must not drop our guard” as the recovery will be “prudent and gradual”.
“It would be unforgiveable to mistake this first result for a definitive defeat of Covid, it’s a long battle.”
The number of new confirmed infections rose by 2,107 on Tuesday, taking the total number of current cases to 77,635, according to figures from Italy’s civil protection authority.
The rise in infections was higher than the daily increase registered on Monday (1,648), but lower than Sunday’s increase of 3,815.
On Tuesday, there was a 2.8% increase in new (i.e current) infections, compared with an average daily rise of 15% during one of the most critical weeks.
The death toll rose by 837 on Tuesday to 12,428, higher than the 812 deaths registered on Monday. The number of people who have recovered from the virus rose by 1,109 to 15,729 on Tuesday, following a record leap of 1,590 on Monday.
The daily death toll and infection rate have also started to slow in Lombardy, the region worst-affected by the virus.
“The curve tells us that we’re at a plateau,” said Silvio Brusaferro, the president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS).
Do you ever run out of questions, you people? Trump asks a room full of reporters.
Trump is talking about the impeachment. “They probably illegally impeached me... you don’t hear much about that nowadays because everyone’s talking about the virus,” which he is happy about, the US president says.
“The democrats their whole live their whole being their whole existence was to try and get me out of office any way they can even if it was a phony deal.”
"I think I'm getting A pluses now for how I handled myself during a phony impeachment," Trump says.
System uses machine learning to offer new way to screen for hard-to-detect cancers
A new blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer has been revealed by researchers in the latest study to offer hope for early detection.
The test is based on DNA that is shed by tumours and found circulating in the blood. More specifically, it focuses on chemical changes to this DNA, known as methylation patterns.
Researchers in US tracked the neural data from people while they were speaking
Reading minds has just come a step closer to reality: scientists have developed artificial intelligence that can turn brain activity into text.
While the system currently works on neural patterns detected while someone is speaking aloud, experts say it could eventually aid communication for patients who are unable to speak or type, such as those with locked in syndrome.
Covid-19 infections worldwide have risen to 732,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The US had the most cases, with over 142,000; Italy was second with nearly 98,000; and Spain has passed China’s 82,000 cases with 85,000. Italy still had the highest death toll, with nearly 10,800. Spain was second with 7,340. More than 2,500 people have died in the US.
Two of Brazil’s most iconic football stadiums - Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã and the Pacaembu in São Paulo - are being converted into Covid-19 field hospitals as the country braces for an explosion of coronavirus cases.
The Pacaembu - whose turf has been graced by giants of Brazilian football including Pelé, Socrates and Ronaldo - is expected to open on Wednesday as a 200-bed clinic for coronavirus patients who do not require intensive care treatment.
“From what we have seen in Asia and Europe, the hospital system will fast become overloaded if we don’t have parallel infrastructure,” told Brazilian television network Globo on Sunday night.
The Maracanã - which has hosted two World Cup finals, in 1950 and 2014 - will also reportedly be turned into a hospital in early April.
Other Brazilian cities turning football stadiums into temporary hospitals include Boa Vista in the Amazon state of Roraima and Fortaleza in northeast Brazil.
As of Sunday Brazil had officially confirmed 4,256 cases and 136 Covid-19 deaths - the majority in Rio (17) and São Paulo (98). Those numbers are expected to rise significantly in the coming days as testing increases and the virus spreads. Brazil’s health ministry has warned the hospital system could collapse by the end of April.
Government responses to climate breakdown and to the challenges of poverty and inequality must be changed permanently after the coronavirus has been dealt with, leading scientists have urged, as the actions taken to suppress the spread of the virus have revealed what measures are possible in an emergency.
The Covid-19 crisis has revealed what governments are capable of doing and shone a new light on the motivation for past policies and their outcomes, said Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London, and chair of the commission of the social determinants of health at the World Health Organisation.
As coronavirus arrives in Kenya, retreat behind closed doors is only an alternative for those who can afford it
All photographs by Duncan Moore
Benson Kinyale is a security guard who works the door at a luxury apartment complex in the Parklands neighbourhood of Nairobi. While residents of the building have started to hoard supplies and stay at home because of Covid-19, he continues to make the 80km commute by bus from his home outside the city, six days a week.
He knows standing outside and opening doors all day is now a high-risk activity, as is travelling on a crowded matatu minibus almost every day. But he has little choice.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael say they’ve “agreed the need form a strong, stable government” in Ireland as the number of confirmed cases in the country rises by 235 to 1,564. Ireland’s health department has also confirmed two more deaths, bringing the total number to nine.
The Irish general election earlier this year resulted in an almost tied result with Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dominating. None won enough seats to form a government by itself and numerous rounds of talks between parties have failed to result in an agreement to form a coalition government. The statement reads:
Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael met this afternoon and had a productive meeting. They both agree the need to form a strong stable government that will help Ireland recover post Covid-19.
They are working to develop a programme for government that provides stability and majority support in the Dáil. They will meet again over the coming days and will both continue to reach out and engage with other parties.
Andy Burnham, a former UK health secretary and now the mayor of Greater Manchester in the north of England, says he is taking legal advice on whether firms forcing employees to work without adequate protection and not observing guidance to keep them two metres apart are breaking the law.
After a conference call with Greater Manchester MPs, he tweeted:
... I am taking legal advice about whether @gmpolice or other GM agencies can take enforcement action against companies which are exposing their employees in this way. If you would like to make a confidential report, please do so using: the.mayor@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk 2/2
Following government instructions to stay at home, the move to accommodate hundreds of homeless people in hotel rooms is a recognition of the vulnerability of many rough sleepers and homeless people in shared accommodation spaces, and their need for support and a safe place to stay at this difficult time.
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has claimed he “wouldn’t feel anything” if infected with coronavirus and rubbished efforts to contain the illness with large-scale quarantines as his country’s two biggest cities went into shutdown in a desperate bid to save lives.
In a televised address to the nation on Tuesday night, Bolsonaro slammed what he branded the economically damaging “scorched earth” tactics being used to slow the advance of an illness that has now claimed about 15,000 lives around the world.