Covid-19 quarantine has not stopped police from storming favelas, with 13 killed in the latest operation
Maria Diva do Nascimento was worried as she set off for her job at one of Rio de Janeiro’s biggest hospitals wearing a face mask she hoped would keep her alive.
It had been two days since she had heard from her son Allyson, a 20-year-old drug trafficker whose job made social isolation impossible.
Continue reading...Services increased to 70% but capacity kept to 10% of normal levels to prevent crowding
Train companies will increase the number of services on Monday to reflect the easing of coronavirus travel restrictions in England.
Industry body the Rail Delivery Group said services would be increased from about 50% of the standard timetable to 70%.
Continue reading...As Germany’s Bundesliga becomes the world’s first major football league to resume during the coronavirus pandemic, Mika Volkmann’s drone photographs suggest the amateur game in Cologne still has some way to go
Continue reading...After more than 50 years fighting for civil rights, the activist is now watching coronavirus ravage African American communities. But he has a warning for the rich and powerful
The Rev Jesse Jackson was born in the racially segregated south when Franklin Roosevelt occupied the White House and war raged in Europe. He was an eyewitness to the assassination of Martin Luther King, campaigned against the Vietnam war and twice ran for US president.
But, now an elder statesman of 78, he has never seen anything like the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 1 million Americans and killed more in April alone than died in Vietnam over 15 years. The world’s most powerful and wealthy country also bears by far its biggest death toll: almost 90,000. It is enough to shake faith in American exceptionalism.
Continue reading...India extends Covid-19 lockdown but eases many restrictions; South Africa reports highest daily new cases; World Health Assembly to begin
Unemployment in the United States could peak at 25% as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the chair of the Federal Reserve, amid warnings the June quarter economic figures will be “very, very bad”. The bleak prediction came as Japan slid into its first recession in five years, with forecasts that worse was to come.
In a sober assessment of the economic impact of coronavirus in the US, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, estimated GDP contraction in the June quarter could be “easily be in the twenties or thirties”, as fallout from the global outbreak worsened.
Continue reading...Nation of 11 million people has reported 27 cases but has only carried out about 520 tests
Millions of voters in Burundi will go to the polls on Wednesday to elect a new president in the first competitive election since a decade-long civil war began in 1993.
Amid concern that authorities are deliberately playing down the threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic, seven candidates are seeking to replace the incumbent Pierre Nkurunziza, who is being forced to step down by opponents within the country’s ruling CNDD-FDD party.
Continue reading...This year’s meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body will be held virtually, and the stakes couldn’t be higher
The World Health Assembly is the key decision-making body of the World Health Organization, attended by representatives of the United Nation’s 194 member states.
Continue reading...Former president rebuked Trump administration’s response to pandemic, which has killed almost 90,000 Americans so far
Donald Trump has hit back at Barack Obama’s criticism of his administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, accusing the former US president of being “grossly incompetent” during his time in office.
Related: Barack Obama attacks Trump administration's response to coronavirus pandemic
Continue reading...Donald Trump has given his first public response to Barack Obama’s criticism of the current administration’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. 'Look, he was an incompetent president, that’s all I can say. Grossly incompetent,' said Trump when asked about Obama's comments on Sunday
Continue reading...The New York governor has received a Covid-19 test live on TV to show how quick and easy the process is. Cuomo welcomed a doctor dressed in PPE to conduct the test. 'I’m not in pain, I’m not in discomfort,' he said afterwards. 'Closing my eyes was a moment of relaxation. There is no reason why you should not get the test'
Continue reading...Aviation is struggling and seeking support, but there are demands for it to give something in return
“The political moment is now” to address the climate risks posed by the aviation industry, analysts, insiders and campaigners say, as governments across the world weigh up bailouts for airlines grounded by the coronavirus pandemic.
Rescue packages need to come with green strings, such as reduced carbon footprints and frequent flyer levies, they warn, or the sector will return to the path that has made it the fastest rising source of climate-wrecking carbon emissions over the past decade.
Continue reading...Cooking and clearing up has been relentless – and that’s without adding a special birthday cake to my range of signature dishes
I’m sitting down to write this having just cleaned fox poo out of the tiny grooves in the soles of my four-year-old’s sandals. She also, somehow, smeared it all over her legs, her dress, my legs, my shorts. The only plus I can take from it is that, for once in our crowded corner of south London, social distancing was not an issue.
Of course, even in non-coronavirus times, 98% of anecdotes about young children end in someone being covered in something or other. But for many parents – at which point I insert an enormous caveat to make it clear that I’m talking about those who haven’t been infected, or made redundant, and aren’t frontline workers, and are extremely lucky enough to still be operating in a strange bubble of “normal” – I’d suspect that the greatest challenges of the past few weeks, and moments of profoundest despair, have come in the kitchen.
Continue reading...Mexico and Peru struggle to contain outbreaks while deaths in Spain fall to two-month low
Confirmed Covid-19 cases in Brazil have surpassed the total in Italy and are surging in Mexico and Peru as Latin America struggles to contain its fast-growing coronavirus outbreak.
Spain announced that 87 people had died there in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, the first time the figure has been below 100 in more than two months and a sign the virus is being contained in western Europe as it continues to spread aggressively in Russia, India and parts of Africa.
Continue reading...Efforts to dilute world health assembly resolution on open licensing decried as ‘appalling’
Ministers and officials from every nation will meet via video link on Monday for the annual world health assembly, which is expected to be dominated by efforts to stop rich countries monopolising drugs and future vaccines against Covid-19.
As some countries buy up drugs thought to be useful against the coronavirus, causing global shortages, and the Trump administration does deals with vaccine companies to supply America first, there is dismay among public health experts and campaigners who believe it is vital to pull together to end the pandemic.
Continue reading...The Cabinet Office minister has said he is confident children and teachers will be safe if they return to the classroom, but admitted the risk remained of contracting Covid-19. Appearing on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, Michael Gove said: ‘The only way ever to ensure that you never catch coronavirus is to stay at home completely. There’s always, always, always in any loosening of these restrictions a risk of people catching the coronavirus’
Norfolk’s picture postcard destinations were set for a bumper year – now they are fighting for survival
On a cloudless May morning, the seaside resort of Great Yarmouth on England’s east coast looks postcard perfect, but it’s deserted – the shops are shuttered and the beachside carparks closed. A scattering of lone joggers and cyclists make their way along the promenade, known as the “golden mile”, while one beach hut serves takeaway coffees and ice-creams.
While the UK has begun its first tentative steps towards easing lockdown restrictions, foreign leisure travel is still expected to be off the table for some time. Could a gradual reopening of the economy throw a lifeline to Britain’s struggling tourism industry, provided the virus is brought under control when the peak school summer holiday season begins?
Continue reading...Owners say plexiglass panels and social distancing mean they will struggle to survive in a post-lockdown age
Armando al Pantheon, a lively, family-run trattoria in the heart of Rome, counts the architect Renzo Piano among its illustrious customers. And there is no way that owner and chef Claudio Gargioli, is going to offend his sensibilities – and those of other regulars – with plexiglass.
His father, who opened the restaurant a stone’s throw away from the majestic Pantheon in 1961, would turn in his grave at such a notion, he said. “It could work as a barrier at the till, but on the table it’s not only ugly, but an insult,” Gargioli told the Observer.
Continue reading...The world’s strongmen may well end up paying a political price for their cynicism and incompetence
If Boris Johnson is mishandling the pandemic, he is not alone. Falsely claiming everything is under control, dodging responsibility, hiding from public view, exploiting the crisis for political gain, mounting artificial distractions and blaming the media: these are common behaviour patterns exhibited by some of the world’s most powerful – and shifty – leaders.
Will they pay a price for their lethal incompetence and cynicism? It’s possible some will, though it may take a while. The pandemic is changing political calculations around the globe. Leaders who looked invulnerable suddenly appear less so. That in turn could shift the strategic calculus and alter the balance of power between countries in ways both unexpected and permanent.
Continue reading...Why leaders who want to be seen as strongmen are afraid to take Covid-19 safety precautions
With the news this week that Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, is in hospital with Covid-19, the virus has now penetrated the Kremlin, 10 Downing Street, the Palácio do Planalto and the White House.
Putin, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump are all very different politicians. But all have had one thing in common in their responses to coronavirus: a belief or suggestion, at least in the early stages, that taking personal protective measures against the virus is somehow unseemly and at odds with their macho political brands.
Continue reading...Authorities have struggled to enforce social distancing at the trading centres. At one Lima market, 79% of vendors had coronavirus
Four out of five merchants at a major fruit market in Peru have tested positive for coronavirus, revealing shocking levels of infection – and prompting fears that Latin America’s traditional trading centres may have helped spread Covid-19 across the region.
Seventy-nine per cent of stall-holders in Lima’s wholesale fruit market tested positive for Covid-19, while spot tests at five other large fresh food markets in the city revealed at least half were carrying the virus.
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