Category Archives: Coronavirus outbreak

Australia’s landlords and tenants: what support is available in the coronavirus crisis?

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With a six-month eviction moratorium agreed nationally, we look at what else is on offer from states and territories

Although the national cabinet has agreed to a six-month moratorium on evictions, it has abandoned attempts to achieve a nationally consistent approach to financial support for residential landlords and tenants through the Covid-19 crisis.

Since Scott Morrison announced residential tenancies would be a matter for the states and territories on 7 April, many have offered land tax cuts in a bid to incentivise rent reductions.

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The Ocean Atlantic voyage from Antartica to a world changed by coronavirus – in pictures

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Photographer Sam Edmonds was the team leader on the cruise ship that found itself stranded in South America in late March after travelling to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. He documented the journey from idyllic island to isolation in a Sydney hotel room

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Coronavirus: people across the UK play music and clap for carers – video

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At 8pm on Thursday, people across the UK stood at their front doors and open windows, in gardens and on balconies, to raise a thunder of gratitude for those working on the frontline against coronavirus for the fourth consecutive week.

Some people played instruments and sang to show their appreciation

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Q&A – Why don’t we know how many BAME people are dying?

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Data on ethnicity is not recorded on death certificates in England and Wales

Black, Asian and ethnic minorities appear to be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 in the UK. The government is launching an inquiry into why this is the case. However, we don’t currently have enough public data to be able to understand how minorities are being impacted by the virus.

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Covid-19 appeal to benefit NHS staff through array of charities

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Fundraisers for NHS Charities Together aim for £100m goal

The fundraising effort of Tom Moore, the 99-year-old who inspired many with his sponsored garden walk, drawing in £15m on behalf of the NHS, has focused attention on the health service charities which stand to benefit.

Captain Moore’s 100 laps of his garden began on 8 April with a target of £1,000 which snowballed rapidly as his efforts received national TV and social media exposure. The £15m he has raised dwarfs the £10m donated to the fund by the Duke of Westminster, and the £5m given by the Rausing family, and puts the Covid-19 Appeal, launched Monday,well on the way to its £100m target.

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Coronavirus US live: New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC extend stay-at-home orders

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House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokesperson corrected Trump’s claim that she had deleted a tweet containing her comments from late February encouraging people to visit Chinatown.

Pelosi’s spokesperson said the clip the president tweeted was from local news coverage and had never been posted on the speaker’s account.

Fact check: We never posted this video. It’s obviously local TV coverage of the Speaker visiting Chinatown in San Francisco three weeks prior to the shelter-in-place order. https://t.co/sVCqbkD0DF

Trump lashed out against Nancy Pelosi after the House speaker accused the president of causing unnecessary deaths through his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Trump criticized Pelosi for saying in late February, before there were any confirmed cases of coronavirus in San Francisco, that people should continue to visit the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.

It was a pleasure to try my hand at making fortune cookies at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory (with a little guidance from owner Kevin Chan, of course).

The message inside?

“United We Stand.” pic.twitter.com/3piGq4yKXq

Related: 'Please visit Chinatown': coronavirus fears empty San Francisco district

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What the UK’s coronavirus death toll is not telling us – video explainer

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Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities appear to be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 in the UK. However, we don’t currently have enough public data to be able to understand how many of those who have died as a result of the virus come from minority ethnic backgrounds.

The Guardian's data editor, Caelainn Barr, takes a look at this this issue, as well as the other key information that is missing from the government's daily death toll 

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Coronavirus: EU offers Italy ‘heartfelt apology’ over response – video

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Ursula von der Leyen has offered 'a heartfelt apology' to Italy on behalf of the EU for the delays and lack of responses from other member states at the start of the coronavirus outbreak in the union.

As the World Health Organization warned that the continent remained firmly 'in the eye of the storm', the president of the European commission said that 'too many were not there on time when Italy needed a helping hand at the very beginning'

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EU offers ‘heartfelt apology’ to Italy over coronavirus response

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Ursula von der Leyen voices regret as expert warns herd immunity still a way off in Europe

The EU has offered “a heartfelt apology” to Italy for letting it down at the start of the coronavirus crisis as fresh evidence emerged that few European countries are likely to have achieved herd immunity as they begin cautiously lifting their lockdowns.

As the World Health Organization warned that the continent remained firmly “in the eye of the storm”, the president of the European commission said on Thursday that truth was needed to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic – including political honesty.

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Chilean author, campaigner and escapee Luis Sepúlveda dies aged 70 of Covid-19

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Dramatic career took in escapes from Pinochet’s regime in the 70s, sailing with Greenpeace and writing books including The Old Man Who Read Love Stories

The celebrated Chilean author Luis Sepúlveda, who was exiled by the dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1980s, has died from Covid-19.

Best known for his 1992 novel The Old Man Who Read Love Stories and 1996’s The Story of a Seagull and The Cat Who Taught Her To Fly, Sepúlveda died in hospital on Thursday. He first began showing symptoms from coronavirus on 25 February, after returning to his home in Spain from a festival in Portugal. On 1 March, it was confirmed that Sepúlveda was the first case of Covid-19 in the Asturias region, where he had lived for 20 years.

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Ivanka Trump defies social distancing to celebrate Passover at golf club

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Defying social-distancing guidelines to fight the coronavirus pandemic issued by her own father’s administration, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner traveled with their children to New Jersey earlier this month to celebrate Passover.

Related: With #TogetherApart, Ivanka Trump capitalises on the coronavirus moment

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Merkel sets out clear explanation of how coronavirus transmission works – video

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The German chancellor, Angela Merkel. has been praised for her explanation of how the coronavirus spreads and why deciding when to lift a lockdown is such a complex issue. 

Merkel, who has a doctorate in quantum chemistry, said that physical distancing measures had brought a 'fragile intermediate success' and helped 'flatten the curve', but added that these rules would remain in place until at least 3 May but some shops could reopen next week

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As coronavirus spreads around the world, so too do the quack cures

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Politicians, faith leaders and other authority figures have been touting dubious remedies

In India, politicians from the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party have been touting cow urine as a cure for Covid-19. In Tanzania the president has promised that taking communion in church would “burn” the virus away. In Brazil a congressman claimed a day of fasting would halt its spread.

And the leader of the most powerful country in the world, Donald Trump, has been touting as a miracle cure an unproven anti-malarial drug that has contributed to at least one death.

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Are western Europe’s food supplies worth more than east European workers’ health? | Costi Rogozanu and Daniela Gabor

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The coronavirus threat facing fruit and vegetable pickers flown in from quarantined Romania underlines Europe’s inequalities

White asparagus is late April’s delicacy across much of north-west Europe. In Germany the pale spears of the Spargel are cherished as “white gold”, their arrival each year marked by festivals and celebrations. But Germany alone needs 300,000 seasonal workers to harvest its crops. Over the past 10 years most of these workers have come from Romanian villages where seasonal migration is one of the few sources of income.

Related: Romanian fruit pickers flown to UK amid crisis in farming sector

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‘Race against time’ to prevent famines during coronavirus crisis

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UN calls for international solidarity to ease effects of Covid-19 on food security

Vulnerable parts of the developing world, particularly in Africa, are at risk of sliding into famine as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, while humanitarian relief efforts are being hindered by lockdowns and travel restrictions, according to the UN.

Experts raised the spectre of unrest similar to that seen in 2007-08 when food price rises sparked riots around the world, destabilising fragile states and fuelling conflict in ways that are still being felt. They told the Guardian that the world could still avoid such a crisis, but time was running out.

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Returning Venezuelans in squalid quarantine face uncertain future

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Migrants who lost their jobs in Colombia’s pandemic lockdown have been shocked by their confinement in a border town

When Jhoel Brito headed back to Venezuela last week he sought safe haven from an epoch-making global health emergency that has paralyzed scores of countries and claimed more than 120,000 lives.

After losing his job as a butcher in Colombia, the 25-year-old Venezuelan migrant believed he would be safer waiting out the coronavirus storm back home.

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Pandemic raises fears over welfare of domestic workers in Lebanon

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Covid-19 lockdown could leave migrant workers across Middle East confined to employers’ households without pay, NGOs warn

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    • Calls by NGOs for increased protection of domestic workers in Lebanon during the coronavirus crisis have cast a spotlight on the predicament of migrant workers across the Middle East, many of whom are highly vulnerable to the pandemic and without support.

    In parts of the Levant, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, workers from south and south-east Asia account for a large proportion of labour forces. Closed airports, bonded labour, or other forms of unbreakable employment contracts, and little access to funds, have made it close to impossible for those who want to leave to do so.

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