Category Archives: Coronavirus outbreak

Joe Biden decries Trump’s ‘almost criminal’ Covid response

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  • Democrat tells CNN president ‘waved the white flag’ on virus
  • Trump attacks ABC’s Jon Karl as ‘a disgrace to your employer’

Joe Biden has branded Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic “almost criminal” after book revelations that the US president admitted in early February the disease was “deadly stuff” but deliberately played it down.

As the death toll from Covid-19 nears 200,000 in America, the world’s highest, Biden excoriated his opponent in November’s election over the way he did not address the defining crisis of his presidency early and comprehensively.

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Teacher, 28, dies of Covid-19 as US schools prepare for return to classrooms

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  • Demetria Bannister taught elementary school in South Carolina
  • New York City to resume in-person classes in 11 days

A 28-year-old elementary school teacher in Columbia, South Carolina, died this week from complications due to Covid-19, authorities have said.

Demetria “Demi” Bannister, who taught third grade at Windsor elementary school, died on Monday.

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Moonshot: five key points from No 10’s leaked coronavirus testing plan

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From the £100bn cost to the plan for getting football crowds back: what the official documents reveal

Operation Moonshot – the government’s bid to accelerate testing from around 200,000 a day to 10m a day by early 2021 – was met with derision by Labour MPs in the House of Commons on Thursday when the health and care secretary Matt Hancock set out the scale of the ambition. They were “naysayers”, Hancock responded. “They would do far better to support their constituents and get with the programme.”

Here are five key parts of that programme as revealed in the leaked official documents obtained by the British Medical Journal and the Guardian.

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Pelosi: Woodward interview shows Trump’s contempt for supporters – video

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Nancy Pelosi has said that Donald Trump’s interview with Bob Woodward, where the president said he intentionally downplayed the coronavirus pandemic to avoid panic, was evidence of ‘contempt’ for Americans’ health.

During her weekly press conference, the House speaker said Trump’s comments were not a sign of real leadership

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UK looks to Belgium for Covid inspiration despite infections rise

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Matt Hancock hails Belgian model amid rollout of new curbs in England – but data shows jump in new cases

Belgium has been cited by the UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, as a model for getting coronavirus under control – just as its public health body recorded a 15% rise in the number of daily infections compared with the previous week.

Despite a dip in the number of new infections in August, after a tightening of rules by the Belgian prime minister, Sophie Wilmès, the most recent data suggests the country’s success may be short-lived as people return to work and school.

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Coronavirus Australia live update: Daniel Andrews holds press conference as Victoria reports 51 new cases and NSW records seven

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Greg Hunt says Melbourne curfew should be lifted if ‘there is no medical basis’ for it as two more Sydney healthcare workers test positive. Follow live

The woman who was at the centre of Scott Morrison’s plea today will be allowed to attend a private viewing of her father to say goodbye after her family has held their funeral.

She will be escorted to the funeral home, and then escorted back, a spokeswoman has confirmed.

John Barilaro, who is rumoured to have his eye set on Canberra and the federal Nationals leadership, has effectively removed the Nationals from the NSW coalition, plunged the Berejiklian government into minority after vowing to abstain from government votes (unless its to do with regional NSW), and removed itself from joint party room and leadership meetings – unless the koala protection legislation is scrapped.

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Trump ‘wanted to play down’ Covid despite knowing deadliness, Bob Woodward book says – as it happened

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From me and Joan E Greve:

Iowa’s governor, Kim Reynolds, is refusing to enforce a White House coronavirus taskforce recommendation to close bars and require people to wear masks after Covid-19 infections in some of the state’s cities surged.

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases have risen sharply across the whole midwest in recent weeks, putting the region at the forefront of America’s pandemic. The region accounted for six of the eight states with the highest number of new Covid-19 cases by early September even as infections fell in other parts of the US previously among the worst hit.

Related: Iowa refuses to close bars and require masks as Covid-19 cases surge in cities

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New Zealand must cast off its worries about government debt in its Covid recovery | Max Harris

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The economic response to the pandemic risks being blinkered by old orthodoxies at a time when investment is sorely needed

New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been rightly praised. Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said New Zealand was “working … to build the kind of economy that should mark the post-pandemic world”.

The finance minister, Grant Robertson, acknowledged the opportunity to showcase a new approach in a bold speech in May in which he said: “There are few times in life when the clock is reset. Now is the time we should address … long-term issues. It’s not one we should squander.”

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Trump official preventing Fauci from discussing Covid children risk – report

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Dr Paul Alexander reportedly told Fauci’s spokesperson he should not use TV interview to advocate mask-wearing by children

A health official hired by a Donald Trump appointee has been working to prevent Dr Anthony Fauci from talking about dangers that Covid-19 poses to children, Politico reported on Wednesday.

The attempts by Dr Paul Alexander – who serves as a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) assistant public affairs secretary – were described in emails obtained by Politico.

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‘I don’t want to create panic’: Trump defends coronavirus remarks he made to Bob Woodward – video

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Donald Trump said he was 'trying to avoid panic' by not revealing the severity of Covid-19, despite CNN audio published on Wednesday from an interview in February in which he acknowledged the virus was 'deadly'.

The president, who defended his comments to the journalist Bob Woodward for Woodward's book Rage, insisted his strategy was focused on encouraging Americans to remain calm, as the virus spread across the country

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What is No 10’s ‘moonshot’ Covid testing plan and is it feasible?

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Plan to provide rapid tests for 10 million people a day would be hugely costly – and the technology does not yet exist

They call it the “moonshot” – and it is as ambitious as any space adventure.

This is the name given to the government project that aims to ramp up testing to such a scale that it will return the country to some kind of normality. But is it feasible? And what about the cost?

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Boris Johnson pinning hopes on £100bn ‘moonshot’ to avoid second lockdown

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PM believes huge rapid testing programme is ‘only hope’ before a vaccine, leaked document says

Boris Johnson believes a mass testing programme is “our only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine”, according to leaked official documents setting out plans for “Operation Moonshot”.

The prime minister is said to be pinning his hopes on a project that would deliver up to 10m tests a day – even though the current testing regime is struggling to deliver a fraction of that number and is beset by problems.

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New Zealand mental health crisis as Covid stretches a struggling system

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Health workers and older people among those bearing brunt of added pressure brought by coronavirus

New Zealanders are experiencing more depression and anxiety since the coronavirus lockdown, doctors say, despite the country leading the world in its battle against the pandemic.

New Zealand has been lauded for its effective management of the virus, with most Kiwis returning to their normal routines following a strict seven-week lockdown in April and May. A recent outbreak in Auckland has now largely been contained.

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Trump’s Covid-19 response a ‘life and death betrayal’ of Americans, says Biden – video

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Joe Biden took the offensive against Donald Trump during a campaign event in Warren, Michigan after CNN released audio of Trump telling the journalist Bob Woodward in February that he knew coronavirus was ‘deadly’ and airborne.

Biden said the president had ‘failed to do his job on purpose’ as he knew the danger of Covid-19 but downplayed the severity of the virus for months

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Trump knew Covid was deadly but wanted to ‘play it down’, Woodward book says

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US president gave Bob Woodward 18 interviews, forming basis of new book Rage, and said of virus: ‘This is deadly stuff’

Donald Trump knew the extent of the deadly coronavirus threat in February but intentionally misled the public by deciding to “play it down”, according to interviews recorded by one of America’s most venerated investigative journalists.

The US president gave Bob Woodward 18 interviews between December 2019 and July 2020. They form the basis of his revelatory new book, Rage, obtained on Wednesday by the Washington Post and CNN, in which Trump is condemned by his own words.

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Elliot Dallen, who inspired many with articles about his cancer, dies aged 31

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Dallen died hours after the Guardian published piece that reflected on facing terminal illness

The family of a young man who wrote movingly of coping with terminal cancer against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic have told of taking comfort from the huge response to his articles, after he died on Monday.

Elliot Dallen, 31, died hours after the Guardian published the second of two articles by him in which he reflected on his life and shared the lessons which he had learned.

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Thousands need aid after fire destroys Europe’s largest refugee camp

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Greek minister calls situation on Lesbos an ‘unprecedented humanitarian crisis’

Thousands of people urgently require emergency shelter and aid after a fire destroyed Europe’s largest refugee camp, on the Greek island of Lesbos.

As the Athens government declared a state of emergency and a delegation of officials rushed to the north-eastern Aegean island, the sheer scale of devastation wrought by the overnight blaze became increasingly evident.

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‘Catastrophe’ warning as thousands left homeless by Lesbos refugee camp fire

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NGOs accuse police of blocking access to hospital for families and vulnerable migrants injured in Moria blaze

NGOs in Lesbos have warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding on the roads around the still burning Moria camp, where thousands of migrants are allegedly being held by police without shelter or adequate medical help.

Annie Petros, head coordinator of of the charity Becky’s Bathhouse, said she was blocked by police from taking injured people to hospital as she drove them away from the fire.

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France to open 20 new Covid-19 testing centres in Paris region

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Demand for tests soars as people return to work and school after the holidays

French health officials are to open 20 new Covid-19 testing centres in the Paris region after demand for tests soared at la rentrée, last week’s grand return to work and classes following the long school holidays.

The authorities said testing capacity in and around the French capital had risen more than fourfold from 45,000 to 200,000 a week and 1 million people were being tested nationally every week – about 140,000 a day – but there were still queues and delays.

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