Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
While ministers insist that it is too early to fully consider what lessons might be learned from the coronavirus outbreak, the UK’s death toll – the highest in Europe – is expected to prompt an inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.
In recent weeks, the government has been accused of seeking to pre-emptively shift the narrative on responsibility for the country’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak and blame others for what went wrong.
Bolsonaro’s diagnosis comes just three days after he had lunch at the home of the US ambassador to Brazil, Todd Chapman, in the capital, Brasília.
Also present at that Independence Day celebrationwere several top cabinet members, including foreign minister Ernesto Araújo, defence minister Fernando Azevedo, and the president’s son, Eduardo, a politician who is Steve Bannon’s representative in South America. The men were photographed without face masks.
Reports of Bolsonaro’s possible infection first emerged on Monday evening, with local news outlets reporting that he had been tested after developing coronavirus symptoms, including a 38C temperature and a persistent cough.
An MRI of Bolsonaro’s lungs was also taken, with the president telling supporters it had shown them to be “clear”.
The world is treating the health and economic symptoms of the coronavirus pandemic but not the environmental cause, according to the authors of a UN report. As a result, a steady stream of diseases can be expected to jump from animals to humans in coming years, they say.
The number of such “zoonotic” epidemics is rising, from Ebola to Sars to West Nile virus and Rift Valley fever, with the root cause being the destruction of nature by humans and the growing demand for meat, the report says.
Air travellers arriving in Scotland from Tuesday will be subject to quarantine spot checks for the first time, after the country reported four days without deaths from Covid-19.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said her officials and advisers were still deciding which countries would not be subject to quarantine checks, four days after the Home Office released its list of 74 “air bridge” countries and territories.
The US has suffered 235 more deaths and registered 44,361 new cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has said. That takes the respective totals to 129,811 and 2,886,267.
Cases reach almost 700,000 to pass Russia in third place; Iran suffers record death toll; alarm in South Africa as cases jump amid easing of lockdown
India has passed Russia as the country with the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after recording a record number of cases for one day.
The health ministry added 23,000 new cases on Monday, taking India’s total to 697,000 and almost 20,000 deaths. On Sunday India racked up nearly 25,000, its highest total for one day.
Exclusive: ex-chief prosecutor’s lawyers say behaviour of Boris Johnson’s aide warrants ‘thorough investigation’
The Metropolitan police have been urged to launch an immediate investigation into Dominic Cummings’ trip from London to Durham at the height of the coronavirus outbreak by the former chief prosecutor for north-west England.
Lawyers for Nazir Afzal have written to the Met commissioner, Cressida Dick, arguing that the behaviour of Boris Johnson’s chief adviser during the lockdown warrants a “thorough investigation” by the force.
We’re finally over the first peak of the epidemic, but the numbers relating to the virus keep on spreading. Sometimes, however, things get lost in translation from the spreadsheet to the article, broadcast or tweet.
As coronavirus galloped through Latin America in late April, the mayor of Manaus was in despair. “The outlook is dismal,” Arthur Virgílio admitted as gravediggers in the Amazon’s largest city piled coffins into muddy trenches, Brazil’s death toll hit 5,500, and its president, Jair Bolsonaro, responded with a shrug. “It’s obvious this won’t end well.”
Two months later, Virgílio’s nightmare has come true. Brazil’s death toll has risen to more than 60,000 – the second highest in the world after the United States – with some now predicting it could overtake the US, where 130,000 have died, by the end of July.
Fourth of July weekend in US sees cases surging; WHO changes timeline of how it was alerted to virus; housing estates in Melbourne locked down. Follow developments live
As some countries and regions are reintroducing restrictions and imposing local lockdowns, Thailand’s nightlife venues were allowed to reopen on 1 July after having been shut for three months.
My colleague Rebecca Ratcliffe reports from Bangkok.
Israel is one of several countries so far that are seemingly paying the price for lifting lockdown restrictions early, as the government tries to grapple with rising infections.
Over the last 24 hours 1,008 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19, raising the number of active cases in Israel to 10,060, according to data released by the Health Ministry.
Authorities in northern Nigeria’s biggest city Kano have lifted a three-month lockdown imposed to contain a coronavirus outbreak linked to hundreds of deaths.
State governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje announced the lifting of the curfew in a broadcast, insisting the key trading hub had seen a sharp drop in infections.
We can beat our chest and say we are winning the case and there is no longer any need for the lockdown.
There will be free movement for all.
Despite imposing an early lockdown, containment may be unravelling in Bolivia amid poverty, an underprepared health system and a bitter political standoff, report Laurence Blair and Cindy Jiménez Bercerra in La Paz.
When Pedro Flores and a group of fellow doctors arrived in the Beni, Bolivia’s tropical northern province, at the end of May, they knew the crisis caused by coronavirus would be severe. But what they found still left them shaken.
There were no medical supplies, there were no ventilators, no oxygen.
Here in Trinidad most people have a relative, a friend, a neighbour who has died. We’re in a health disaster.
Team is using new approach that could be cheap and scalable and become the norm within five years
Prof Robin Shattock would have liked slightly longer to develop the revolutionary approach to vaccines that he is pretty sure will not only save lives in the Covid-19 pandemic but become the norm for vaccine development within five years.
His team at Imperial College were working on Ebola and Lassa fever vaccines using new technology but had not got as far as human trials when a novel coronavirus started to kill thousands of people in Wuhan, China.
US president Donald Trump celebrated a government report showing the country gained 4.8m jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% last month, when states began allowing businesses to reopen from strict shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic.
“Today’s announcement proves that our economy is roaring back,” Trump said, rattling off different sectors that saw job gains according to the monthly report.
Oman’s health minister said the sultanate has witnessed a “scary” surge in Covid-19 cases that required boosting hospital capacity, especially for intensive care units.
The country reported another 1,361 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday and three deaths in the last 24 hours, to take its total count to 42,555 cases with 188 deaths.
In the last six weeks there has been a radical change which is very disturbing and scary.
Readers respond to the reimposition of lockdown in the city after a surge in Covid-19 cases
Living and working in Leicester city centre we find ourselves in a new social experiment (Leicester forced into local lockdown to combat surge in Covid-19 cases, 30 June). We were all surprised to learn from Matt Hancock of an increased infection rate in a daily briefing on 19 June. Since then we’ve been the focus of speculation, and now of action. Our store opened two weeks ago, a Monday morning that saw two-hour queues snaking around the city-centre streets. Shops including ours are now closed again, and bars and barbers have put their reopening plans on ice. The community overall has patiently respected a sensible and cautious return of safe behaviours.
But there is a problem: Leicester has huge poverty and inequalities. Living and working conditions are extremely challenging for many families trying to do their best and follow guidance. Government financial support has not reached many as they fall through the gaps. National health messages just have not reached many BAME communities. All of this was only made worse by our own elected mayor breaking lockdown rules, and admitting he didn’t understand them, which only enhanced the Cummings effect. Did Leicester ever stand a chance? I think not. James Hempsall Director, Hempsall’s, Leicester
Air pollution is likely to be increasing the number and severity of Covid-19 infections, according to the UK government’s expert advisers.
In a report published on Wednesday, the experts said further investigation of the link between dirty air and the coronavirus pandemic was “urgently required” and may be relevant to how the pandemic is managed.
The US has suffered 560 more deaths and registered another 43,644 cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said, taking the respective totals to 127,299 and 2,624,873.
It is nomination day in Singapore ahead of the general election on 10 July. Here, the prime minister Lee Hsien Loong of the ruling People’s Action Party arrives at a nomination centre to formally join the contest.
Across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, scientists are developing alternative sustainable solutions to the golden tide of Sargassum
The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, first detected by Nasa observation satellites in 2011 and now known to be the world’s largest bloom of seaweed, stretches for 5,500 miles (8,850km) from the Gulf of Mexico to the western coast of Africa.
Millions of tonnes of floating Sargassum seaweed in coastal waters smother fragile seagrass habitats, suffocate coral reefs and harm fisheries. And once washed ashore on Mexican and Caribbean beaches, this foul-smelling, rotting seaweed goes on to devastate the tourist industry, prevent turtles from nesting and damage coastal ecosystems, while releasing hydrogen sulphide and other toxic gases as it decomposes.
G4 strain has already infected 10% of industry’s workers in China but no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human
Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study in the US science journal PNAS.
Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will announce massive spending plans Monday to boost Britain’s coronavirus-hit economy, as pressure grows on the government over its handling of the crisis.
Johnson’s new package of measures is intended to meet the unprecedented challenge the pandemic has posed to the economy, and restore the government’s standing.
Beijing’s city government reported seven new Covid-19 cases for 28 June, down from 14 a day earlier as the Chinese capital seeks to contain an outbreak.
The city also reported one new asymptomatic case, a patient who has the coronavirus but is not exhibiting symptoms, compared with three such cases a day earlier.