Category Archives: Brazil

Brazil poised to overtake Italy as country with third-highest death toll – as it happened

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Sweden death rate now higher than France; Pakistan records largest single day rise in new infections; global deaths pass 380,000. This blog is now closed

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Related: Coronavirus live news: Germany reveals major stimulus plan as global cases grow by 100,000 a day

At least three people were reported dead as coronavirus-hit Mumbai appeared to escape the worst of Cyclone Nisarga Wednesday, the first severe storm to threaten India’s financial capital in more than 70 years, AFP reports.

The city and its surrounds are usually sheltered from cyclones - the last deadly storm to hit the city was in 1948. Authorities had evacuated at least 100,000 people, including coronavirus patients, from flood-prone areas in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat ahead of Nisarga’s arrival.

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Coronavirus news live: no new Covid-19 deaths in Spain for first time since March

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Pakistanis urged to ‘live with the virus’; employee in Israeli prime minister’s office tests positive for Covid-19; Czech Republic will welcome foreign travellers from 15 June

UK ministers have been accused of not taking seriously the threat posed to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) Britons by Covid-19, after it was reported that the release of an official review of the issue had been delayed over fears of potential civil unrest.

According to Sky News, officials are concerned about the effect the publication could have amid global anger over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who pleaded for air as a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck.

Related: Ministers accused of not taking Covid-19 threat to BAME Britons seriously

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

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Global report: Wuhan reports no asymptomatic cases for first time

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Chinese city marks recovery milestone; English health officials voice concern over loosened lockdown; Brazil pass 500,000 cases

The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 pandemic began, reported no new asymptomatic cases for the first time on Sunday, according to Chinese health officials.

Mainland China reported 16 new cases overall on Sunday, the highest daily number in three weeks. All were reported as imported cases – 11 in Sichuan province, three in Inner Mongolia, and two in Guangdong.

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Brazil’s left and right unite to launch pro-democracy manifesto

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Call for unity comes as criticism of Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of coronavirus grows

Prominent figures from across Brazil’s political spectrum have a published a high-profile manifesto calling for a united front to protect Brazilian democracy and lives amid growing alarm over president Jair Bolsonaro’s authoritarian outbursts and shambolic response to coronavirus.

The Movimento Estamos Juntos (We’re In This Together Movement) was launched on Saturday as Brazil overtook France to become the country with the fourth highest official death toll. About a thousand coronavirus deaths are being confirmed each day as Latin America’s biggest economy cements itself as a major focus of the pandemic.

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Global report: fears of coronavirus surge from US protests as world cases hit 6m

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The pope warns that people are more important than economies as countries ease lockdowns

Global coronavirus infections have passed the 6 million mark as Latin America hit the grim milestone of 50,000 deaths with Brazil alone accounting for half of those fatalities.

With at least 369,000 deaths confirmed worldwide since the pandemic began in China in January – and that number believed to be an underestimate – Brazil’s virus death toll of 28,834 has now surpassed that of France with the country reporting 33,274 new infections in the past 24 hours.

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Coronavirus live news: Spain’s prime minister seeks final two-week extension of state of emergency

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Brazil becomes fourth worst country for deaths; pressure builds on South African president over his handling of outbreak

Bosnia’s state court has ordered the release of a regional prime minister and two other men suspected of corruption in connection with the import of defective ventilators for coronavirus patients.

The court of Bosnia-Herzegovina said their detention was unnecessary, and turned down the prosecution’s requests to detain the three men for 30 days.

Senior public health officials have made a last-minute plea for ministers to scrap Monday’s easing of the coronavirus lockdown in England, warning the country is unprepared to deal with any surge in infection and that public resolve to take steps to limit transmission has been eroded.

The Association of Directors of Public Health said new rules, including allowing groups of up to six people to meet outdoors and in private gardens, were “not supported by the science” and that pictures of crowded beaches and beauty spots over the weekend showed “the public is not keeping to social distancing as it was”.

Related: Health officials make last-minute plea to stop lockdown easing in England

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Global report: coronavirus cases pass 6 million as Donald Trump postpones G7

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Trump hopes to expand G7 in delayed summit; Brazil’s death toll passes France; Mexican health care workers to march

The number of people infected by the coronavirus around the world has passed 6 million, as the pandemic forced Donald trump to postpone the G7 summit in Washington.

According to the latest data from the Johns Hopkins University tracking site, there have now been more than 6,059,000 cases of the disease around the world, with 369,126 deaths.

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Brazil police target key Bolsonaro supporters in fake news raids

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  • Carlos Bolsonaro, president’s son, reportedly a key member
  • Phones and computers seized from hardcore Bolsonaristas

Brazilian police have raided addresses linked to some of Jair Bolsonaro’s most ardent online cheerleaders as part of an investigation into a fake news network investigators reportedly suspect could be linked to the president’s son.

The operation’s targets were an eclectic and influential cast of hardcore Bolsonaristas including a former Femen activist-turned-anti-abortion-militant; a comic and musician whose repertoire includes a sexually explicit JK Rowling parody called “Harry Fucker”; a gun-toting, communist-bashing congressman; a hard-right blogger; and a multimillionaire retail magnate famed for placing giant replicas of the Statue of Liberty outside his stores.

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Coronavirus live news: WHO sounds alarm over surge of Covid-19 cases in Latin America

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Longest official mourning period in Spain’s democracy; unrest grows in UK PM’s party over Dominic Cummings lockdown breach; WHO says Americas are new Covid-19 epicentre. Follow the latest updates

There have now been 118,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across the 54 nations of Africa, according to the World Health Organization’s regional office for the continent.

So far, about 48,000 people in Africa who have tested positive for the virus have recovered, while 3,500 have died, according to the latest updated from WHO African region on Wednesday morning.

Over 118,000 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent - with more than 48,000 recoveries & 3,500 deaths. View country figures & more with the WHO African Region COVID-19 Dashboard: https://t.co/V0fkK8dYTg pic.twitter.com/W1hbvugno1

Hi, this is Damien Gayle taking the reins of the live blog now, bringing you the latest headlines and stories, and the best of the Guardian’s coverage, from the coronavirus pandemic around the world.

If you have any comments, tips or suggestions for coverage please drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@gmail.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.

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Coronavirus live news: US deaths from Covid-19 have passed 100,000

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Qatar Covid-19 app ‘exposed 1m people’s personal details’; WHO sounds alarm over surge of Covid-19 cases in Latin America

Tom McCarthy writes that one of the key problems facing American efforts to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis is the population’s aversion to vaccines.

Only about half of Americans say they would get a Covid-19 vaccine if available, according to a poll, as a top US government scientist tempered claims by Donald Trump that the United States would be able to invent, manufacture and administer hundreds of millions of vaccine doses by the end of the year.

Related: Just half of Americans plan on getting Covid-19 vaccine, poll shows

Further to our story at 20.29, data from Johns Hopkins University shows that 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.

Related: US passes 100,000 coronavirus deaths as states relax lockdown measures

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Coronavirus live news: Putin says Russia past peak of outbreak despite highest daily death toll

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WHO warns of second peak as global cases pass 5.5m; Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar denies picnic with friends was rule breach; world health leaders urge green recovery

I’m handing over to my esteemed colleague Kevin Rawlinson shortly, so I’ll leave you with a summary of today’s main global developments on the coronavirus pandemic:

A diplomatic rift has broken out between Tanzania and the US. The East African nation said it had summoned the top official at the US embassy to object to an advisory that warned of “exponential growth” of Covid-19 cases in the country.

Tanzania’s divisive leader John Magufuli has repeatedly played down the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic, appearing to model his response on the early approach taken by Donald Trump in the US.

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Boris Johnson’s senior adviser refuses to apologise for lockdown breach – as it happened

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Dominic Cummings will not resign; WHO drops hydroxychloroquine from global study into experimental coronavirus treatments. This blog is now closed

We’ve fired up a brand new blog at the link below – follow me there for the latest:

Related: Coronavirus live news: WHO drops hydroxychloroquine trial as Mexico death toll questioned

The White House on Monday issued a statement amending the timing of the start of new restrictions on travel from Brazil to the United States to 11.59pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, 26 May.

The White House announced on Sunday that it was restricting travel from Brazil to the United States, two days after the South American nation became the world’s No. 2 hotspot for coronavirus cases.

In its original announcement, it said the restrictions would come into force on 28 May.

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Global report: US suspends travel from Brazil as schools reopen in parts of Australia

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Chile’s president says hospitals are ‘very close to limit’, France records lowest number of daily Covid-19 cases since March, India restarts domestic flights

President Donald Trump has further limited travel to the US from the world’s coronavirus hotspots by denying entry to foreigners coming from Brazil, which is second to the US in the number of confirmed cases.

Trump had already banned certain travellers from China, Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland and, to a lesser extent, Iran. He has not moved to ban travel from Russia, which has the world’s third-highest caseload, approximately 20,000 fewer than Brazil’s.

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Jair Bolsonaro branded a ‘killer’ during hot dog trip as Covid-19 death toll soars

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Brazilian president subject to public anger after stepping out in Brasilia on fast food errand

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, was branded a “killer” by his opponents as he popped out for a Saturday night hot dog on the day a further 965 of his citizens were reported to have died from Covid-19.

Bolsonaro, a rightwing populist who basks in comparisons to Donald Trump, has repeatedly flouted health ministry physical distancing guidelines – and continued to do so this weekend, even as Brazil’s coronavirus death toll rose to over 22,000.

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‘Horror show’: critics hope Bolsonaro’s foul tirade could end rule

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Brazilians horrified by lack of focus on Covid-19, which has now killed more than 21,000

Jair Bolsonaro swore 34 times during a two-hour cabinet meeting some think could help bring his four-year term to a premature end.

“If [the left] had taken power in 1964 we’d be fucked,” Brazil’s pro-dictatorship president proclaimed at one point.

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Why has Brazil been so badly hit by coronavirus? – video explainer

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The spread of coronavirus has been catastrophic in Brazil, with the country now ranking third for infections behind only the US and Russia. The infection rate has been growing rapidly in Latin America, and as global infections passed 5 million, Brazil reported a record 19,951 cases on 20 May, according to the ministry of health, taking total infections to 291,579.

From a sceptical president to a healthcare system on the verge of collapse, the Guardian's Tom Phillips explains the factors that have put Brazil at risk of becoming the next hotspot for the virus

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Coronavirus live news: South America is now pandemic’s epicentre, says WHO

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Madrid and Barcelona to ease lockdown as Spain’s death toll stays under 100 again; 660,000 people forced to flee homes during crisis despite UN global ceasefire call

Peru has extended its state of emergency until the end of June with only a very partial lifting of its lockdown as infections continue to climb despite more than two months of confinement.

Peru is the second-worst affected Latin American country, with more than 111,000 cases and a death toll of 3,148, according to official figures.

It’s not just an extension ... there is a strategy to combat the virus. This disease will not beaten in a short time. It’s not a 100m sprint, it’s a marathon.

Over the course of the last 60 days we have made great efforts but we have to make another qualitative jump in the health sector.

France regrets a British decision to impose a quarantine on people arriving from mainland Europe and stands ready to impose reciprocal measures, the Agence France-Presse news agency has quoted the country’s interior ministry as saying.

The UK’s home secretary Priti Patel announced earlier on Friday that travellers arriving in the UK from 8 June will have to tell the authorities where they will be staying and face spot checks to ensure they quarantine themselves for 14 days.

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‘If I don’t have sex I’ll die of hunger’: Covid-19 crisis for Rio’s trans sex workers

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Brazil is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for transgender people. For trans sex workers, the pandemic has intensified the risk

  • All photographs by Ian Cheibub

Social distancing is keeping people off the streets of central Rio de Janeiro. And that has created serious challenges for its trans sex workers, who have seen their clientele, and their income, melt away.

“You can see what it’s like: empty streets, shops closed, the fallen economy ” says Elba Tavares, 44, from Paraíba state in north-east Brazil. “I am no longer in that rush of prostitution but yes, I sell my body.” But, she says: “There are very few customers.”

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Bolsonaro greets anti-lockdown protesters as coronavirus cases rise in Brazil – video

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The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, greeted coronavirus lockdown protesters after his country's total number of Covid-19 cases surpassed 230,000. Bolsonaro, a rightwing populist leader, has been critical of physical distancing and lockdown measures implemented by Brazil's state governments. 'Unemployment, hunger and misery will be the future of those who support the tyranny of total isolation,' Bolsonaro tweeted


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