Category Archives: Coronavirus outbreak

Donald Trump: ‘When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total’ – video

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US president Donald Trump has claimed he has ‘total authority’ to supersede decisions made by state governors to ease social restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic. ‘When someone is president of the United States the authority is total', Trump said during a White House press briefing. Reporters questioned the assertion, asking: ‘You said that when someone is the president of the United States their authority is total. That is not true. Who told you that?’ Trump replied ‘We are going to write up papers on this'. Although claiming he had the authority to ‘call the shots’ for each state's lock-down regulations, Trump insisted he was ‘getting on very well with the governors’ and is ‘certain there won’t be a problem’

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‘We’re abandoned to our own luck’: coronavirus menaces Brazil’s favelas

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Residents fearful how their families will cope as food runs out and Jair Bolsonaro undermines lockdown message

Renato Rosas knows what poverty feels like. The musician and biomedical salesman grew up in one of Brazil’s biggest favelas, in the Amazon city of Belém. Relatives still live in the wooden stilt houses that line the black, polluted rivers running into Guajará Bay.

“It is the most extreme poverty,” he said of the Baixadas da Estrada Nova Jurunas neighbourhood where floods, deadly sucuri snakes lurking in floating rubbish and armed drug gangs are among the challenges.

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Growth in surveillance may be hard to scale back after pandemic, experts say

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Coronavirus crisis has led to billions of people around the world facing enhanced monitoring

The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented global surge in digital surveillance, researchers and privacy advocates around the world have said, with billions of people facing enhanced monitoring that may prove difficult to roll back.

Governments in at least 25 countries are employing vast programmes for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, permission schemes to go outside and drones to enforce social isolation regimes.

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Wounded by media scrutiny, Trump turned a briefing into a presidential tantrum

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President lashed out at reporters, swiped at Biden and refused to accept that he had put a foot wrong in coronavirus response

A toddler threw a self-pitying tantrum on live television on Monday night. Unfortunately he was 73 years old, wearing a long red tie and running the world’s most powerful country.

Donald Trump, starved of campaign rallies, Mar-a-Lago weekends and golf, and goaded by a bombshell newspaper report, couldn’t take it any more. Years of accreted grievance and resentment towards the media came gushing out in a torrent. He ranted, he raved, he melted down and he blew up the internet with one of the most jaw-dropping performances of his presidency.

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Trump claims ‘total authority’ and attacks media in chaotic coronavirus briefing

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In a bizarre tirade, the president bristled at a suggestion by one of the media that his power was restricted

Donald Trump has declared in a White House briefing that his “authority is total” when it comes to lockdown rules during the coronavirus pandemic, and he denied that he was weighing firing Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s foremost infectious diseases expert who sits on the coronavirus task force.

After a weekend reprieve from presidential briefings that have been likened to Trump rallies for their uninterrupted flow of Trumpian id, the president returned to the lectern on Monday to deliver one of his most bizarre performances yet.

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France to remain in strict lockdown for another month

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Emmanuel Macron admits failings and tells nation that end to crisis not yet in sight

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced that the country will remain in coronavirus lockdown for another month.

In a national address on Monday evening, he said that only by respecting the confinement rules would the battle against Covid-19 be won.

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UK missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE

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Exclusive: Britain did not take part in €1.5bn order for kit to protect against Covid-19 despite shortages in NHS

Britain missed three opportunities to be part of an EU scheme to bulk-buy masks, gowns and gloves and has been absent from key talks about future purchases, the Guardian can reveal, as pressure grows on ministers to protect NHS medics and care workers on the coronavirus frontline.

European doctors and nurses are preparing to receive the first of €1.5bn (£1.3bn) worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) within days or a maximum of two weeks through a joint procurement scheme involving 25 countries and eight companies, according to internal EU documents.

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Italian death toll passes 20,000; more than 1.87m Covid-19 cases reported worldwide – as it happened

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Spain records another drop in daily death toll; Singapore sees biggest daily jump in infections; China reports highest daily cases in over five weeks. This blog is now closed

We’ve launched a new global coronavirus liveblog at the link below where I’ll be bringing you rolling coverage throughout the day:

Related: Coronavirus live news: cases worldwide near 2 million as Trump repeats WHO funding threat

Dr. Fauci opens by saying he does not claim to know anything about economics. “But the one thing we do know as health experts is... some people think it will be like a light switch on and off. But it won’t be.”

Each state is different, he says. There will be a “rolling re-entry,” says Dr. Fauci. “It’s not one size fits all.”

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Coronavirus US live: Andrew Cuomo details ‘horrific level of pain’ as deaths pass 10,000 in New York

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It’s been one month since Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, and many of his key promises remain unfulfilled.

An in-depth NPR investigation found many of the pledges that Trump made in his March 13 Rose Garden speech have only been parially realized, while others have gone completely ignored.

NPR’s Investigations Team dug into each of the claims made from the podium that day. And rather than a sweeping national campaign of screening, drive-through sample collection and lab testing, it found a smattering of small pilot projects and aborted efforts.

In some cases, no action was taken at all.

Independent congressman Justin Amash pushed back against Trump’s claim that he has the authority to reopen the economy at the federal level, an assertion that is also challenged by constitutional experts.

President Trump is flat-out wrong. The president has no authority to “close down” or “open up” the states. He’s the one creating conflict and confusion. Put down the authoritarianism and read the Constitution. https://t.co/3AFqRx7YTX

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Coronavirus UK live: government does not expect to ease lockdown this week; UK hospital deaths rise by 717

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Foreign secretary says there are signs ‘we are starting to win this struggle’; Boris Johnson not working on government business at Chequers

It has been three weeks since Boris Johnson told the country, we were going into lockdown.

The measures, the prime minister said, would be reviewed in three weeks time and are due to be discussed this Thursday.

We are doing a lot of work in government to be guided by the science and the medical advice that you get and I think that, until you have got that evidence, we will be getting ahead of ourselves.

There will come a time in the future where we can talk about relaxation or transition but we are not there now.

At the daily briefing, Dominic Raab said the government was trying to give front line staff reassurance over personal protective equipment (PPE).

It comes amid renewed concern over a shortage of some supplies in parts of the country.

We understand the importance of getting PPE to the front line whether it’s in care homes or the NHS.

I think the strongest practical reassurance they will want and that we can give them is that over the Bank Holiday weekend over 16 million items were delivered and we are straining every sinew to roll them out even further and even faster.

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Americans with lower incomes more worried about coronavirus, study finds

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People who made less than $50,000 per year were 10 percentage points more concerned about threat posed by infectious disease

Americans with lower incomes and less education were more like to say the spread of infectious disease was a major threat to the US, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Monday.

Nearly all US adults said the spread of infectious disease is a threat to the country, but people who made less than $50,000 per year were 10 percentage points more concerned about the threat posed by infectious disease than those with higher incomes in a survey conducted in March.

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Chile: Pinochet-era military agents could be freed from jail to slow Covid-19 spread

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Inmates at Punta Peuco prison convicted of human rights violations could be included in bill to release low-risk offenders

Former Chilean military agents convicted of serious human rights violations under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet could be freed by a controversial new ruling that seeks to halt the spread of the coronavirus among the country’s prison population.

Related: Chile doctors fear complacency over Covid-19 after initial successes

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Brazil: Bolsonaro’s defiance of distancing criticized by health minister

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Luiz Henrique Mandetta suggests Brazilians are confused by mixed messages from government and urges ‘single, united line’

Brazil’s health minister has publicly defied President Jair Bolsonaro over coronavirus, accusing him of sowing doubt in Brazilian minds over the need for physical distancing.

In a Sunday night interview with Brazil’s most-watched television network, Luiz Henrique Mandetta signalled that Bolsonaro’s insistence on snubbing health ministry distancing recommendations was confusing the country’s 210 million citizens.

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Coalition expects coronavirus to send Australia’s unemployment soaring to 10%

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Josh Frydenberg says jobkeeper payment to help businesses keep staff on during lockdown has kept jobless rate from hitting 15%

The federal government is bracing for 10% unemployment when jobless figures for the June quarter are released, almost twice the level of 5.1% recorded in February before the fight against the coronavirus closed businesses and pushed workers out of jobs.

But the government is already is arguing the jobs disaster for the three months to June could have been more like 15%. The only thing stopping this was the $130bn jobkeeper scheme passed by parliament last week to subsidise the wages of staff kept in employment.

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Spain relaxes lockdown as daily coronavirus death toll falls to 517

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Some businesses reopen but shops, bars and public spaces to remain closed

People in Spain were being handed masks at transport hubs on Monday as the government relaxed some tough lockdown measures and a few businesses including from the construction and manufacturing sectors tentatively reopened.

With the country entering its second month of lockdown, firms unable to operate remotely were allowed to resume work, sparking criticism from some regional leaders who fear a resurgence of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Christ the Redeemer statue lit up as doctor in coronavirus tribute – video

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The Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro was lit up for Easter on Sunday night, paying tribute to health workers in Brazil and across the world tackling the coronavirus crisis. Images of health workers asking people to remain at home and flags from different countries with the word 'Hope' were also projected during the event

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Half of coronavirus deaths happen in care homes, data from EU suggests

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Figures from Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium suggest UK may be underestimating care sector deaths

About half of all Covid-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries, according to early figures gathered by UK-based academics who are warning that the same effort must be put into fighting the virus in care homes as in the NHS.

Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE).

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Kenya is mobilising against coronavirus – but like the rest of Africa we need help | Kennedy Odede

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Homegrown efforts are boosting preparedness, but they need to be strengthened before the pandemic gathers force

When Covid-19 hits Africa, will we be ready? This was a distant thought just one month ago. Now, as cases climb, we are braced for impact.

As the crisis deepens in the world’s largest economies, taking up most of the media bandwidth, Africa hardly makes the headlines. In international news outlets, the idea of crisis in Africa is met with resignation, not outrage. It is almost as if the media perceives crisis as the status quo in Africa, something expected. Unavoidable.

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Photographing poverty’s pandemic: ‘It’s a different beast in South Africa’

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In the first of a series focusing on the work of photographers during the coronavirus crisis, Jerome Delay trains his lens on South Africa

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    • We’ve become used to the images of western cities around quarantine. In the empty streets of industrial and post-industrial societies tightly connected by globalisation, absence has become one of the most powerful metaphors of the coronavirus.

    It’s a very different story in countries where inequality and poverty are much more acute; where access to a safe and distanced space in which to isolate is limited by poverty, social status and economics, and intimate social connections have a different importance.

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    Fauci confirms reports Trump rebuffed social distancing advice – video

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    US public health adviser Dr Anthony Fauci appeared on CNN's State of the Union program  to confirm a bombshell New York Times report which said he and other Trump administration officials recommended the implementation of physical distancing to combat the coronavirus in February, but were rebuffed for almost a month.

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