Category Archives: Coronavirus outbreak

Coronavirus live news: Europe fatalities pass 100,000, but death rate slows in Spain and Netherlands

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Saudia Arabia religious body urges all Muslims to pray at home during Ramadan; Spanish PM seeks lockdown extension

Lockdowns across Europe have had a dramatic impact on air traffic, with 90% fewer flights taking off from the continent’s largest airports compared to a year ago

Wearing face masks, waving black flags and keeping two yards apart, thousands of Israelis demonstrated against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu under strict coronavirus restrictions on Sunday.

Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, is under criminal indictment in three corruption cases.

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Briefing or rally? Trump shifts to campaign mode as he rails against the media

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At his latest coronavirus press conference, the president attacked Joe Biden and suggested he might have saved the planet

He bashed “Sleepy Joe” Biden. He railed against the Russia investigation and “fake people” in the media. He predicted that had he not been elected, the world might have ended.

And somewhere along the way, he talked about the coronavirus.

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Protesters decry stay-at-home orders in Maryland, Texas and Ohio capitals

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Rightwing media and Donald Trump have supported demonstrators but they appear to represent a minority opinion

A day after Donald Trump encouraged Americans to protest against strict public health measures aimed at limiting the spread of coronavirus, rallies were held in state capitals in Maryland, Texas and Ohio, with more planned for next week in other states.

Hundreds of people stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the Texas Capitol on Saturday, chanting “Fire Fauci!” as part of a protest organized by the conspiracy theory site InfoWars. Anthony Fauci is the top public health expert on the White House coronavirus taskforce.

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The exit strategy: how countries around the world are preparing for life after Covid-19

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As Australia makes plans to gradually lift its coronavirus lockdown, we look at what the rest of the world is doing

Australia has a road out of its coronavirus lockdown, long and winding though it may be.

Having warned repeatedly that this pandemic response was taking Australia into “uncharted territory”, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has leaned again on a navigational metaphor for our subsequent recovery.

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Watch live! Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Rolling Stones to appear in global event to support frontline health workers

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One World: Together At Home is a global event featuring dozens of artists and comedians to support frontline healthcare workers and the WHO during the Covid-19 pandemic

This event is produced by Global Citizen and the World Health Organization and curated in collaboration with Lady Gaga. Read more about the show here. The Guardian will be streaming the first six hours today starting at 2pm ET. Stars appearing in the earlier part of the show include John Legend, Megan Rapinoe, the Killers, Samuel L Jackson, Jameela Jamil, Jennifer Hudson and many more.

This week the Guardian and Kaiser Health news launched Lost on the Frontline, a project that aims to honor the life of every healthcare worker in America who dies from Covid-19 during the pandemic. Read more about the project here.

The performers for the first six hours:

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More than 15,000 people have died from Covid-19 in UK

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Death toll rose by 888 to 15,464, according to health department figures on Saturday

More than 15,000 people have died from coronavirus in UK hospitals, figures from the Department of Health and Social Care show.

The death toll rose by 888 from 14,576 on Friday, taking the total to 15,464 as of 9am on Saturday.

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe waiting to hear if she must return to prison

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Spokesperson said on TV her release would be extended but British-Iranian yet to be told

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is waiting to be told whether her temporary release from an Iranian prison is to be extended beyond this weekend, or if she will have to return to complete her five-year sentence on Sunday.

The Prosecutors Office in Tehran told the British-Iranian woman’s lawyer on Saturday to come back on Sunday for an update on the situation, according to the Free Nazanin Twitter account.

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Virtual bingo and Notre Dame tolls again: the week’s most uplifting clips – video

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As the world battles the coronavirus pandemic, communities are coming together to support each other through difficult times. Capt Tom Moore, a 99-year-old war veteran, has raised more than £23m for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden. Notre Dame Cathedral's bell tolled again in tribute to health workers, and Matthew McConaughey hosted virtual bingo for older self-isolators

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Failure to record ethnicity of Covid-19 victims a ‘scandal’, says BMA chief

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Dr Chaand Nagpaul says data must be gathered now to save lives of UK BAME citizens

The government’s failure to record and publish real-time data on the ethnicity of Covid-19 patients is a scandal that is endangering lives, according to the chair of the British Medical Association.

Speaking to the Observer, Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “This is not an issue that should require further campaigning. It would be a scandal if it requires further lobbying as data recording needs to start now, not tomorrow. When you have stark statistics like this, it is an instruction for government to act.”

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Police in Hong Kong arrest 15 activists amid autonomy warnings

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China office says that city’s right to self-rule is ‘authorised by the central government’

Hong Kong police have arrested 15 high-profile democracy activists on charges of illegal assembly.

The arrests took place just hours after China’s top representative office in the semi-autonomous city declared it is not bound by Hong Kong’s constitutional restrictions that bar Chinese government from interfering in local affairs.

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‘They seem very responsible to me’: Trump defends anti-lockdown protesters – video

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The US president urged supporters to 'liberate' three states led by Democratic governors on Friday, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions. 'These are people expressing their views,' Trump said during his daily White House coronavirus briefing.

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Judge overturns ban on abortions in Tennessee during Covid-19 crisis

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US state’s move was part of a temporary ban on non-essential medical procedures


A federal judge has barred the state of Tennessee from preventing abortions during a temporary ban on non-essential medical procedures to slow the spread of Covid-19.

US district judge, Bernard Friedman, said the defendants didn’t show that any appreciable amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) would be saved if the ban was applied to abortions.

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Archbishop of Uganda urges women to use contraception during lockdown

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Family planning group hails Stephen Kazimba Mugalu’s break with Anglican tradition, but Catholic officials brand advice immoral

The new archbishop of Uganda has become the first primate of the country’s Anglican church to embrace the use of modern contraceptives after urging women to be “very careful” to avoid getting pregnant during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The ninth archbishop of the church of Uganda, Stephen Kazimba Mugalu, said in a televised Sunday sermon he is “really concerned” that many women will get pregnant during the nationwide shutdown. On Tuesday, President Yoweri Museveni extended the initial 14-day lockdown for a further three weeks.

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Photographing poverty’s pandemic: ‘Afghans have learned to live with fear’

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In the second of our series, Stefanie Glinski looks at how life in the normally bustling city of Kabul has been reshaped by lockdown, with roads and playgrounds empty as people try to keep their distance

Driving up one of Kabul’s many steep hills, dotted with colourfully painted houses and surrounded by the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains, the Afghan capital looks just like any other day.

Children fly kites in the mild spring breeze, families take to their roofs to watch the sunset, bakers light their ovens to make fresh bread.

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Coronavirus live news: Trump backs anti-lockdown protests as global deaths pass 150,000

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China pushes ‘comprehensive’ economic reopening; first virus case in Syria’s northeast; Germany says pandemic ‘under control’. Follow latest updates

For the latest global coronavirus developments, here is our at-a-glance guide:

Related: Coronavirus latest: at a glance

Thailand has reported 33 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country’s total to 2,733 cases.

Eleven of the new cases were in Bangkok and had a history of going to public areas, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration.

Some have questioned if the low number of detected cases is down to a lack of testing in the country.

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Boom time for New Zealand’s rats as lockdown gives them free rein in cities

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With pest controllers in lockdown and a population surge last year, the vermin are free to wreak havoc in populated areas, and on native wildlife

Surrounded by ancient rimu trees and the sound of chirping pīwakawaka, Tame Malcolm brings in his second rat of the day from the dense undergrowth of his Auckland backyard. That’s four pests for his tally today – with only a few hundred thousand or so to go.

“It’s the first time my whānau [family] have got to see me doing pest control. I’ve been teaching the whānau that we do this to protect the birds,” says Malcolm, director of Māori-oriented biosecurity business Puna Consultants.

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Caught in a superpower struggle: the inside story of the WHO’s response to coronavirus

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Caught between the US and China, the world health body has been unable to enforce compliance or information sharing

When a pandemic strikes, the world’s leading experts convene – physically or virtually – in a hi-tech chamber in the basement of the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization.

It is called the “strategic health operations centre”, or SHOC, an appropriately urgent acronym for a place where life and death decisions are taken, and it is where critical choices were made in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Nigerian president’s chief of staff dies from coronavirus

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Abba Kyari was the top aide to President Buhari and one of the most powerful men in the country; deaths on African continent have passed 1,000

The Nigerian president’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari, has died after contracting Covid-19, two presidency spokesmen said on Twitter, as Covid-19 deaths on the continent pass 1,000.

Kyari, who was in his 70s and had underlying health problems, including diabetes, was the top official aide to 77-year-old President Muhammadu Buhari and one of the most powerful men in the country.

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Antibody study suggests coronavirus is far more widespread than previously thought

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Non-peer reviewed study from Stanford found rate of virus may be 50 to 85 times higher than official figures

A new study in California has found the number of people infected with coronavirus may be tens of times higher than previously thought.

The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday and has yet to be peer reviewed, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.

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Test and trace: lessons from Hong Kong on avoiding a coronavirus lockdown

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Semi-autonomous city followed WHO advice and moved swiftly to stem contagion without rigid curbs on movement

Governments in Europe and the US can learn from Hong Kong, which has kept infections and deaths from Covid-19 low without resorting to the socially and economically damaging lockdown that the UK and other countries have imposed, scientists say.

Hong Kong, with a population of nearly 7.5 million, has had just 715 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, including 94 asymptomatic infections, and four deaths.

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