Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Shares have soared on the world’s stock markets after investors shrugged off a deep slump in the US economy and pinned their hopes on a possible breakthrough in treatment for Covid-19.
Inquests into coronavirus deaths among NHS workers should avoid examining systemic failures in provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), coroners have been told, in a move described by Labour as “very worrying”.
The chief coroner for England and Wales, Mark Lucraft QC, has issued guidance that “an inquest would not be a satisfactory means of deciding whether adequate general policies and arrangements were in place for provision of PPE to healthcare workers”.
It’s easy to let standards slip during the lockdown but unlike Will Reeve not all of us see our pantless selves broadcast to the nation
Almost two months into the US shutdown, things are starting to get a little wild in quarantine. Perhaps you’ve stopped brushing your hair or started working in pyjamas. But a Good Morning America reporter took it a step further yesterday – he “went” to work without pants on for a nationally televised broadcast.
Spain has ruled out any early reopening of its tourism sector and Germany is set to extend a travel warning for all leisure trips outside the country until mid-June, casting further doubt on when would-be holidaymakers will be able to venture abroad again.
With airline fleets mostly grounded, cross-border train traffic slashed and many EU countries, including France, requiring all arrivals bar their own citizens to formally justify their journey, leisure travel within Europe is at a near standstill.
Boris Johnson is back at work in Downing Street and is not expected to take paternity leave at the moment, after the birth of his son in the early hours of Wednesday.
The prime minister’s press secretary said he would take paternity leave later in the year, after he and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, welcomed their child at an NHS hospital in London.
More than 5,000 Brazilians have lost their lives to the coronavirus – even more people than in China, if its official statistics are to be believed.
But on Tuesday night Brazil’s president shrugged off the news. “So what?” Jair Bolsonaro told reporters when asked about the record 474 deaths that day. “I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”
When councils were instructed to provide accommodation for their homeless population to protect them from coronavirus, Mike Matthews, owner of the Prince Rupert hotel in Shrewsbury, was one of the first to step in. The decision was part business decision to save his hotel, part philanthropy to help homeless people he admits he usually ignored. The new residents, including a former employee, feel it has given them some dignity back and offered them a rare feeling of family and safety. They also know this cannot be a permanent change to their lives, so what happens next?
Another 31 people have died in Ireland and 376 more cases have been diagnosed, the country’s chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan has said.
One of the deaths reported on Wednesday involved a person in the 15-24 age group, the second in this category. Dr Holohan warned the number in intensive care units was too high as the prospect of a rapid easing of movement restrictions dwindles.
That is simply too high and we need to get that down further not only because it is about protecting occupancy but the lower the figure is it is a reflection of better protection of the public and lower levels of spread of the infection.
Bolivia will extend its lockdown against the pandemic until 10 May, the government has announced, though it is planning to relax rules in less affected parts of the country from the following day.
The president Jeanine Áñez has said Bolivia will move to a “dynamic” or “less rigid” quarantine on 11 May, allowing some people to return to work.
Opening the quarantine a little or closing it completely will depend on how the pandemic is being controlled in each region. The Ministry of Health will evaluate every seven days how the pandemic evolves in each region. On that basis, decisions will be taken to relax or harden the quarantine.
Political activists wait to find out if they will be included in government pardon scheme to stop the spread of Covid-19
It has been two months since Andi Rizky last saw her uncle Jimmy, a drug offender in Cilegon Prison, Banten province, in person. Since the middle of March, the prison has banned visitors because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.
In 10-minute video calls to replace the visits, the pair have discussed the Indonesian government’s plan to release thousands of prisoners.
Exclusion from government Covid-19 relief has left many reliant on private food donations, as fears raised over protection from transmission after lockdown
Rasheeda Bibi has five rupees to her name. A worker in India’s sex industry, she lives in the narrow lanes of Kolkata’s Kalighat red light area with her three children in a room she rents for 620 rupees (£6) a month.
As a thunderstorm rages through the city, Bibi worries about the leaky roof of her small room.
Scott Morrison has tightened physical distancing restrictions, but how they are applied will be determined by each state. Find out what’s illegal, and what happens if you break the law
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has defied China and defended the “entirely reasonable and sensible” call for an investigation into the origins of coronavirus, as the international political fallout over the pandemic deepened.
China has been pushing back against criticism from other governments about how it handled the outbreak of Covid-19, which is believed to have started in Wuhan and which has now infected 3 million people worldwide and killed 200,000.
Vaccinations for up to 12 million children to prevent the spread of polio in Africa will be delayed, in a major redeployment of polio eradication resources to fight the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Polio prevention campaigns, which are vital to avert outbreaks, will be suspended until at least the second half of 2020, said Dr Pascal Mkanda, the head of polio for World Health Organization Africa. The decision will inevitably lead to a rise in polio cases.
Kim Jong-un is not ill and could be sheltering from the coronavirus pandemic, according to South Korean and US officials, in the latest possible explanation for the North Korean leader’s recent absence from public life.
North Korea insists it has yet to identify a single case of Covid-19, despite sharing a border with China, where the outbreak is believed to have started.
As medics and carers report widespread shortages of protective equipment, the government is facing pressure to explain why it appears the UK went into a pandemic under-resourced. Daniel Boffey and Rob Davies unpick the strategy and its failures
With reports of medics using bin bags in place of personal protective equipment (PPE), the government is under growing pressure to explain its preparedness for a pandemic and its efforts since the crisis struck to protect frontline workers.
The Guardian’s Brussels bureau chief, Daniel Boffey,describes how the government declined to take part in a joint EU procurement scheme at the same time it was failing to secure enough equipment from other sources. Meanwhile Rob Davies has been investigating how British firms such as Burberry have switched from fashion to the production of PPE. And the government’s attempts to dramatically increase the stockpile of ventilators as manufacturers take up the challenge to produce established and new designs.
Donald Trump has predicted a “great” economic rebound in the fall and claimed the country would soon be performing 5m coronavirus diagnostic tests a day, as the number of confirmed cases in the US surpassed a million.
Some health experts have suggested that the US would have to carry out 5m tests a day by June to reopen its economy safely. Others have suggested as many as 20m tests a day would ultimately be needed. The US daily rate is currently 200,000.
Alphabet first-quarter earnings offer a glimpse of how the digital ad market has fared amid stay-at-home orders
Google reported its weakest revenue growth in nearly five years in the first quarter as the pandemic-driven recession began to shrivel its advertising sales.
“It was the tale of two quarters,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, told investors on a conference call on Tuesday. Typically – strong revenue growth in January and February was undercut by a “significant and sudden slowdown in advertising” in March, he said. “When I last spoke with you, no one could have imagined how much the world would change – and how quickly.”
Mike Pence triggered a storm of controversy on Tuesday by failing to wear a face mask on a visit to the Mayo Clinic’s facilities in Minnesota. Pence leads the US government’s coronavirus taskforce, but his staff have claimed he does not need to wear the protective covering because he is regularly tested for the coronavirus.
Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order on Tuesday meant to soften the blow of a chicken and pork shortage among other meat on American supermarket shelves.
The order will use the Defense Production Act to classify meat processing as critical infrastructure, forcing meat production plants to stay open as the president and agricultural leaders say the coronavirus outbreak is threatening the country’s food supply.