Category Archives: Science

Coronavirus live news: Trump casts doubt on China death toll as cases worldwide top 2 million

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US reports 25,000 new infections; WHO chief hopes US will remain a ‘friend’; almost 700 test positive on French aircraft carrier. Follow the latest updates

The New York Times is reporting that a pork factory in Smithfield, South Dakota is the new centre of the coronavirus pandemic in the US. This week, the paper reports:

The Smithfield plant became the nation’s largest single-source coronavirus hot spot. Its employees now make up about 44 percent of the diagnoses in South Dakota, and a team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has traveled there to assess how the outbreak spiraled out of control. Smithfield is the latest meat processing facility to close in the face of the coronavirus.

A Japanese MP has been expelled from his party after it was revealed he had visited a club in a Tokyo red light district, two days after the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, declared a state of emergency in an attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

Takashi Takai, a 50-year-old lower house member for the Constitutional Democratic party of Japan, admitted he had visited Sexy Cabaret Club in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district on 9 April, media reports said, despite government requests that people refrain from visiting bars, restaurants and clubs as part of efforts to reduce personal contact by 70-80%.

Takai submitted a letter of resignation after media reported his visit to the club, but the party rejected it and expelled him instead, Kyodo news agency said.

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Coronavirus live news: Trump suspends WHO funding as Denmark begins to reopen schools

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US to investigate World Health Organization’s response to crisis; global cases pass 1.98m with 126,000 deaths; France summons Chinese envoy

Kandahar province went into full lockdown on Wednesday morning as Afghanistan reported its second biggest daily rise of new coronavirus cases in a week, triggered by a surge of infections in Kabul.

Afghanistan’s health ministry has reported 70 new positive cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to 784.

Most of the new cases were in Kabul, which has so far recorded 201 cases, 31 today.

Kabul went into full lockdown last week, as all roads to the city of six million were blocked and 1,600 police officers were appointed to monitor movement inside the city.

Of the new Covid-19 cases, 22 were confirmed in the western province of Herat, the worst affected area in Afghanistan so far with 313 cases.

The southern province of Kandahar went into full lockdown on Wednesday morning in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus in one of Afghanistan’s most populated areas.

Germany’s government will extend restrictions on movement introduced last month to slow the spread of the coronavirus until at least 3 May, Handelsblatt business daily reported on Wednesday, citing the dpa news agency.

The chancellor, Angela Merkel, is holding a video conference on Wednesday, first with cabinet ministers and later with the leaders of Germany’s 16 states, who will try to agree on whether to ease the measures given some improvement in the situation.

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‘Crime against humanity’: Trump condemned for WHO funding freeze

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Timing of move during Covid-19 crisis is deplored by UN chief and experts who say it will cost lives

Leading health experts have labelled Donald Trump’s decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “crime against humanity” and a “damnable” act that will cost lives.

The move also drew a rebuke from the head of the United Nations, who said the WHO was “absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against Covid-19”.

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

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UK daily deaths likely to rise this week; France to ease lockdown starting 11 May

The Slovak government will release a plan next Monday on when and how shops will reopen after forced closures due to the spread of the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Igor Matovic said on Tuesday.

Reuters reports him as saying that Slovakia aims to protect the 70% of the economy that is running from being affected by the spread of the virus and the reopening of retail will be cautious.

The European commission is urging EU states to coordinate as they begin to ease lockdown measures, warning that failure to do so could result in new spikes of the coronavirus epidemic.

Several EU states have announced plans or have already begun to relax restrictions imposed to contain the outbreak, as pressure grows to revive their battered economies.

It is time to develop a well-coordinated EU exit strategy. The exit strategy should be coordinated between the Member States, to avoid negative spillover effects.

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Can you get coronavirus twice? – video explainer

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A serious concern since the emergence of Covid-19 has been whether those who have had it can get it a second time – and what that means for exiting this crisis.

The Guardian's science correspondent Hannah Devlin looks at how our bodies fight coronavirus when infected, how we develop immunity and if we can get reinfected with Covid-19

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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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Prince Harry may quit hunting over Meghan’s dislike of sport, says conservationist friend

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Dame Jane Goodall also reveals Duke of Sussex is finding departure from UK ‘a bit challenging’

The British primatologist Dame Jane Goodall believes the Duke of Sussex will give up hunting because of his wife’s dislike for the sport, and thinks he has been finding life “a bit challenging” since the couple moved to North America.

Goodall, 86, a friend of the pair who has been a guest at their Frogmore Cottage home in Windsor, said in an interview with the Radio Times that Harry and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, were champions of the natural world – “except they hunt and shoot”.

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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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Interstellar object ‘Oumuamua believed to be ‘active asteroid’

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Scientists believe cigar-shaped visitor to our solar system is fragment of a larger body

The cigar-shaped interstellar visitor to our solar system known as ‘Oumuamua could be the remnants of a larger body that was torn apart by its host star, according to researchers.

The dark, reddish object that hurtled into our solar system in 2017 and was named after the Hawaiian word for messenger or scout has long puzzled scientists.

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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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UK could have Europe’s worst coronavirus death rate, says adviser

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Daily death toll shows situation is comparable with other badly hit countries, says Jeremy Farrar

The UK could end up with the worst coronavirus death rate in Europe, one of the government’s leading scientific advisers has said.

Prof Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and a pandemics expert on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the figures of almost 1,000 daily hospital deaths showed the UK was in a similar situation to other European countries that had been badly affected.

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US’s global reputation hits rock-bottom over Trump’s coronavirus response

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International relations expert warns policy failure could do lasting damage as president insults allies and undermines alliances

Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he once dismissed as a hoax, has been fiercely criticised at home as woefully inadequate to the point of irresponsibility.

Yet also thanks largely to Trump, a parallel disaster is unfolding across the world: the ruination of America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner.

Call it the Trump double-whammy. Diplomatically speaking, the US is on life support.

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Coronavirus statistics: what can we trust and what should we ignore?

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The flurry of figures, graphs and projections surrounding the pandemic is confusing. Two experts guide us through the maze

The past few weeks has seen an unstoppable epidemic … of statistics. The flood threatens to overwhelm us all, but what do all these numbers mean? Here are eight statistics you may see, with some warnings about how much we might trust them.

1 The number of new cases each day This can be a very poor reflection of the number of people who have actually been infected, as it depends crucially on the testing regime – up to 9 April, 1.3 million tests had been carried out in Germany, versus 317,000 in the UK.

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Call for schools to open in the summer after lockdown

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Children’s commissioner says schools will play an important role, but teachers and parents may oppose loss of six-week break

Schools should consider opening in some form over the six-week summer holidays to help children catch up with the curriculum – and to provide childcare for families who need to get back to work, the children’s commissioner has said.

Anne Longfield said that when schools are allowed to reopen, they could be vital during the long summer holidays. “Whether they are open to all or not, schools do have a really important role, especially for vulnerable children over the coming months.”

She added: “It would be really valuable, if the scientific advice says they can, to have schools consider opening in some form over the summer holidays to help children learn and catch up but also to offer them a safe place to play and socialise with friends. It would also provide vital childcare for families who need to get their incomes back up as they, hopefully, return to work.”

Longfield said schools could bring in play, sports and youth workers to help supervise pupils.

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Wuhan celebrates its ‘liberation’ as Covid-19 lockdown ends

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The people of the city where the first virus was first detected are taking their first cautious steps outside after being confined for three months

Last week the city of Wuhan celebrated the end of its nearly three-month lockdown. Flower beds and trees were planted in parks across from hospitals previously overwhelmed with panicked and sick patients. The streets have been scrubbed clean.

Before midnight last Wednesday, when restrictions barring people from leaving the city were officially lifted, state news outlets sent drones into the sky to film lit-up buildings and bridges. Cars lined up at motorway tollbooths, waiting to leave. Drivers described feeling finally “liberated”. Several housing developments had flags declaring them “virus free”. One said: “Decisive battle, decisive win.”

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WHO warns of ‘deadly resurgence’ if coronavirus controls lifted too soon

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As global deaths pass 100,000, White House adviser also cautions against lifting restrictions

The World Health Organization has warned that a premature lifting of restrictions on peoples’ movements by countries fighting the coronavirus pandemic could spark a “deadly resurgence”, as global deaths from the virus passed the grim milestone of 100,000.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, said it was working with countries on ways in which lockdowns could be gradually eased, but said doing so too quickly could be dangerous.

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Coronavirus live news: global deaths pass 95,000 as Easter begins under lockdown

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Boris Johnson leaves intensive care; cases worldwide top 1.6m; UN chief says virus threatens global security

Oman’s capital, Muscat, went under full lockdown this morning as number of confirmed coronavirus cases reach 484 in the sultanate with 27 recorded in last 24 hours, writes Akhtar Mohammad Makoii.

The government announced that the isolation procedure will be implemented until April 22. The plan started 10 am this morning by “activating control and checkpoints”.

The Decision to Lockdown Muscat Governorate
comes into effect.#عمان_تواجه_كورونا pic.twitter.com/F6evI3u2Zv

Singapore has suspended the use of video-conferencing tool Zoom by teachers, its education ministry said on Friday, after “very serious incidents” occurred in the first week of a coronavirus lockdown that has seen schools move to home-based learning, Reuters reports.

One of the incidents involved obscene images appearing on screens and strange men making lewd comments during the streaming of a geography lesson with teenage girls, according to local media reports.

These are very serious incidents. MOE (Ministry of Education) is currently investigating both breaches and will lodge a police report if warranted. As a precautionary measure, our teachers will suspend their use of Zoom until these security issues are ironed out.

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Coronavirus live news: confirmed worldwide Covid-19 death toll passes 100,000

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Italy extends lockdown; death rate in Spain begins falling again; cases worldwide top 1.6m

Here’s a summary of the most recent news:

The US has approved 661,000 loans to small businesses totalling $168bn (£134bn) under a programme to address the pandemic’s fallout, the White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says.

A $2.3tn economic stimulus enacted last month allocated $349bn to loans to small businesses hurt by the crisis that can be turned into grants if they meet certain conditions.

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Elimination: what New Zealand’s coronavirus response can teach the world | Michael Baker and Nick Wilson

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New Zealand’s drive against Covid-19 is showing promise and it is not too late for other countries to follow

Epidemiologists love to evoke the memory of John Snow, who famously advocated removing the handle from the Broad Street pump in London, an action that helped to end a severe outbreak of cholera. In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic we need to take the same kind of decisive action, yet western countries have appeared remarkably slow to do so, despite the advantages of immense scientific knowledge and modern tools of pandemic control.

New Zealand now appears to be the only “western” nation following an articulated elimination strategy with the goal of completely ending transmission of Covid-19 within its borders. The strategy appears to be working, with new case numbers falling. Most cases are now returning travellers, who are safely quarantined at the borders, and the few remaining case clusters in the community are being traced and further spread stamped out. But it is far too soon to claim victory, and the country is remaining under an intense lockdown to support the elimination effort.

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Care homes across globe in spotlight over Covid-19 death rates

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Residential homes have emerged as key breeding ground for infections from Madrid to New York

Care homes for older people across much of Europe and North America are struggling to cope with the global coronavirus pandemic, prompting allegations of inhumane treatment and calls for high-level inquiries.

Appalling stories have emerged from residential homes, which have emerged as a key location for infections. People aged 70 and older are at higher risk of getting very sick or dying from the coronavirus. And people 85 and over are even more vulnerable, global figures show.

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