Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Life during the coronavirus lockdown has reinforced gender inequality across Europe with research emphasising that the economic and social consequences of the crisis are far greater for women and threaten to push them back into traditional roles in the home which they will struggle to shake off once it is over.
Throughout the continent, campaign groups are warning that the burdens of the home office and home schooling together with additional household duties and extra cooking, has been unequally carried by women and that improvements made in their lives by the growth in equality over the past decades are in danger of being rolled back by the health crisis.
South Koreahas postponed the planned reopening of more than 800 schools as it battles a renewed outbreak of the coronavirus, with cases now at their highest level for almost two months.
The country’s easing of lockdown measures has gone into reverse, with museums, parks and art galleries closed again on Friday for two weeks. Kindergarten pupils, and some primary and secondary school students were due back from Wednesday, in the last phase of school reopenings.
In Mumbai’s Sion hospital emergency ward there are two people to a bed. Patients, many with coronavirus symptoms and strapped two to a single oxygen tank, were captured lying almost on top of each other, top-to-toe on shared stretchers or just lying on the floor, in footage shared on social media in India this week.
Mumbai, a city of more than 20 million people, is weeks into the pandemic, but with new cases showing no sign of slowing down the city’s already weak healthcare system appears to be on the brink of collapse. State hospitals such as Sion, overcrowded in normal times, are overrun. With frontline doctors and nurses falling sick with the virus in their droves, it is also leading to a shortage of medical staff.
The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, said he would sign an executive order allowing businesses to deny entry to customers who are not wearing masks. The Democrat has repeatedly said mask usage can limit the spread of coronavirus, noting that rates of infection among frontline healthcare workers are lower than that of the general population in the region. 'You don’t want to wear a mask, fine,' Cuomo said. 'But you don’t have a right to then go into that store if that store owner doesn’t want you to.'
France announced further easing of lockdown restrictions on Thursday, with life slowly returning to normal for much of the country, writes Kim Willsher, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent. However, certain restrictions will remain in the Paris area and the overseas territories Mayotte and Guyane for at least the next three weeks.
In a 90 minute press conference, the prime minister, Édouard Philippe, said the Covid-19 figures in the country were better than expected, but urged the French to continue respecting the rules and remain careful and vigilant.
French PM Édouard Philippe has arrived for the press conference on Phase 2 of the easing of the lockdown. (I will be trying to translate and type as he speaks, so please forgive lapses in translation and grammar!).
The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo,has said he would sign an executive order allowing businesses to deny entry to customers who are not wearing masks, the Guardian US coronavirus blog reports.
“That store owner has a right to protect himself,” Cuomo said of the order. “That store owner has a right to protect the other patrons in that store.”
Today I am signing an Executive Order authorizing businesses to deny entry to those who do not wear masks or face-coverings. No mask - No entry.
Completely surreal. Watching the Third Precinct burn surround by thousands of people in complete anarchy. pic.twitter.com/qNVNAJIlA7
Reports that Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey will hold a press conference shortly.
Mayor Frey will hold a news briefing, set to start in a few minutes, about tonight's protests/burning of the 3rd Precinct. @ChaoStrib will have the livestream.
The European Commission has put down a marker for the world with its green recovery package. It sets a high standard for other nations, using the rebuilding of coronavirus-ravaged economies to tackle the even greater threat of the climate emergency, in principle at least.
With the world fast approaching the point when climate chaos becomes inevitable, how the trillions of recovery dollars – or euros – are spent is a use-it-or-lose-it moment, so what the EU does really matters. Climate change is a global crisis, meaning all nations must act and some must lead the way.
As the toll of Americans killed by the coronavirus passed 100,000, the president was lashing out at Twitter for factchecking his posts
Four hours after Johns Hopkins University recorded that 100,000 American lives were lost to the coronavirus, Joe Biden released a solemn speech.
“My fellow Americans, there are moments in our history so grim, so heart-rending, that they are forever fixed in each of our hearts as shared grief. Today is one of those moments,” said Biden, speaking directly to the camera from an office adorned with American flags.
David McWilliams is a consultant physiotherapist helping ICU patients recover from Covid-19 – from when they first open their eyes since arriving to their first steps. His team support patients at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital, which has one of the largest critical care units in Europe and recently was treating more than 200 Covid-19 patients at one time
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, has addressed the US as the country’s coronavirus death toll passes 100,000. The US has recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country, and almost three times as many as the second-ranking country, Britain, which has recorded more than 37,000 Covid-19 deaths. The grim milestone comes even as many states relax measures intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus
Senior officials have pledged that the European Union’s recovery plan will “do no harm” to the bloc’s landmark goals to tackle the climate crisis and threats to the natural world.
Following the unveiling of a €750bn (£671bn) recovery plan to pull EU economies out of the deep economic downturn caused by coronavirus, the European commission announced further details of green spending on Thursday.
In one of the rare expressions of empathy that Donald Trump has displayed during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, he talked earlier this month about the disease claiming so many lives it was “filling up Yankee Stadium with death”.
Now the death toll from Covid-19 stands at almost twice the capacity of the Yankees’ home stadium, and has reached another booming landmark: 100,000 deaths.
After Denisa’s son was born premature at 26 weeks she was unable to hold him, but spent as much time as possible near his incubator so he could get used to her voice. By the time he was well enough to be held by his mother, a state of emergency had been declared in Slovakia and Denisa was told to vacate her bed and leave the hospital to make way for Covid-19 patients.
The rush of patients never came, but strict rules meant she was unable to see her baby until he was discharged six weeks later. “Instead of a hug, I went home empty-handed only with my head full of questions,” she says. “Each day without my baby was taking away my strength and harming my mental health.”
In her small home in Gulu, northern Uganda, Alanyo Joyce dabs at her bare breasts. In some areas, pink and oozing, the skin has been burnt off. It hurts, deeply, from the bone, she says. She is also grappling with her new appearance – the burns extend across her face, arms and legs, as well as her chest.
On Wednesday, 8 April, the softly-spoken 31-year-old was cooking chips and chicken at her usual spot in the city when she realised it was approaching 7pm. A nationwide curfew had been in place for just a week, as part of Uganda’s coronavirus lockdown.
The United States has recorded more than 100,000 deaths from Covid-19, moving past a grim milestone even as many states relax mitigation measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The US has recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country in the pandemic, and almost three times as many as the second-ranking country, Britain, which has recorded more than 37,000 Covid-19 deaths.
The ex-TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding is facing one of the biggest moments in her eventful career, as she leads the government’s new track-and-trace programme upon which the country’s path out of lockdown depends.
Baroness Harding, 52, the chair of NHS Improvement, was brought in to shoulder the responsibility of this significant new strategy, personally risking the fallout if it does not go to plan.
France, Italy and Belgium have all taken steps against the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients with Covid-19 as safety concerns over the drug, touted by Donald Trump and Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, continue to grow.
Paris on Wednesday revoked a decree allowing doctors to use the drug with severely ill coronavirus patients, while the Italian and Belgian medicine agencies either suspended or warned against its use except in clinical trials.