Samantha Murozoki bartered her jeans and sneakers to stop the food running out, inspiring others to pitch in
It is 7am and hundreds of children have come out on this chilly morning to queue for a plate of porridge.
With makeshift masks covering their faces, the children wait for Samantha Murozoki to start dishing up the warm food into whatever plastic tub, plate, tin cup – or even ripped-off corner of a cardboard box – is presented to her.
Continue reading...Country plans to allow international flights from 1 July; Spain makes face coverings compulsory; global cases hit 4.9m
Here is more on US president Donald Trump calling for an in-person G7 meeting.
Donald Trump has said he may seek to revive a face-to-face meeting of Group of Seven leaders near Washington, after earlier canceling the gathering due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Related: Trump considers an in-person G7 meeting despite coronavirus pandemic
Continue reading...Measures tightened further in city of 700,000 close to Russian border that has been deemed a high-risk area
Chinese authorities have sealed off the north-eastern city of Shulan, home to about 700,000 people, after an outbreak of coronavirus, imposing measures similar to those used in Wuhan.
All villages and residential compounds in the city were closed off, and only one person from each household allowed out for two hours every second day for essentials.
Continue reading...Restrictions were due to end but Hong Kong extends social distancing measures for 14 days
Hong Kong has in effect banned an annual vigil for the Tiananmen Square massacre by extending its physical distancing measures for another 14 days.
After two consecutive days without local transmissions of Covid-19, the city state’s authorities announced some restrictions would ease, but those limiting gatherings to a maximum of eight would be extended for another 14 days.
Continue reading...Image captured the plight of the millions of migrant labourers left unable to return home in the pandemic
A photograph of a migrant labourer, his face contorted with anguish as he sits on the roadside in Delhi speaking to his wife about their sick baby boy, has come to symbolise the ordeal of India’s daily wage workers; penniless, and unable to get home to their families because of the lockdown.
Rampukar Pandit, a construction worker in the Indian capital, had heard that his 11-month-old son was seriously unwell. With no public transport to reach his home in Begusarai in Bihar, 1,200 km (745 miles) away, he started walking. He reached Nizamuddin Bridge where, exhausted and hungry, he could go no further.
Continue reading...Magufuli caused alarm by branding lab tests a ‘dirty game’ and hailing natural remedies. Now he is calling for country to open up
Tanzania’s divisive president John Magufuli has said the economy is “more important than the threat posed by coronavirus”, adding that he wants to reopen the country for tourism despite warnings that Africa could face the next wave of the disease.
The comments by Magufuli, who has modelled his populist response on that of Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro – in repeatedly denying the risk of the pandemic to his country – come amid mounting alarm among Tanzania’s neighbours over his approach.
Continue reading...WHO chief promises review of global response; Afghanistan sees biggest one-day rise in new infections; Italy records lowest deaths since March
Twenty one more people have died from Covid-19 in the Netherlands, the lowest number reported on a Tuesday since March, taking the total death toll in the country to 5,715.
According to the latest update from the Dutch national institute for public health and the environment (RIVM), a further 108 people tested positive for the virus, the lowest number of new daily infections recorded since 10 March. So far, 44,249 confirmed cases have been reported.
The number of people who have fallen ill due to the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands has been decreasing since the end of March. This is apparent from the decrease in the number of newly reported patients, hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths per day.
The number of people who visit their GP because of symptoms that are consistent with the coronavirus is still decreasing. This is evident from figures provided by the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (Nivel).
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus across Africa has passed 86,000, the regional office of the World Health Organization has said.
Unlike in Europe, a widespread outbreak seems yet to happen in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people. There had been fears that its comparatively limited healthcare infrastructure would be overrun by patients with Covid-19.
Over 86,000 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent - with more than 33,000 recoveries & 2,700 deaths. View country figures & more with the WHO African Region COVID-19 Dashboard: https://t.co/V0fkK8dYTg pic.twitter.com/t8kU48MI7R
Continue reading...Eight initial volunteers in US produced an antibody response from Moderna’s RNA vaccine
The first results from human trials of a vaccine against Covid-19 have given a glimmer of hope after a US firm’s study produced positive results in a group of eight volunteers.
These results – which come a day after the UK government revealed a deal to secure 30m doses of a rival Oxford University vaccine, should it be successful – showed that each of the participants produced an antibody response on a par with that seen in people who have had the disease. And they suggest that the vaccine is safe for use in humans.
Continue reading...Many of the people I support in Kinshasa have no money, no soap, no water – and when they are struggling to breathe, no ventilators
We’re used to emergencies and people dying in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whether it’s a result of the long-running conflict or Ebola, cholera and malaria. But coronavirus has knocked us for six, because it has affected people we are very close to.
I’ve been working in development for decades, but I have to admit I have shed tears these past few weeks.
Continue reading...Daily death tolls fall in UK, Spain and Italy; South Africa reports highest daily increase; global infections pass 4.7 million. Follow the latest updates
Despite strong efforts, Taiwan did not get invited to this week’s meeting of a key World Health Organization body due to Chinese pressure, its foreign minister has said, adding they had agreed to put the issue off until later this year.
Non-WHO member Taiwan had been lobbying to take part in the World Health Assembly, which opens later on Monday.
Despite all our efforts and an unprecedented level of international support, Taiwan has not received an invitation to take part.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses deep regret and strong dissatisfaction that the World Health Organization Secretariat has yielded to pressure from the Chinese government and continues to disregard the right to health of the 23 million people of Taiwan.
Understandably, countries want to use the limited time available to concentrate on ways of containing the pandemic.
For this reason, like-minded nations and diplomatic allies have suggested that the proposal be taken up later this year when meetings will be conducted normally, to make sure there will be full and open discussion.
Hungary’s government will submit a proposal to parliament on 26 May to end its special coronavirus emergency powers, hirtv.hu quoted prime minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff as saying late on Sunday.
Gergely Gulyas said parliament would take a few days to pass the bill, which will end the much-criticised emergency powers by early June.
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...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...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...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.
Continue reading...There are few images of the 86,000 deaths and many of the Covid-19 hotspots - prisons, nursing homes, meat packing plants - are off limits. What is the impact of this hidden toll?
John Delano was six years old when the contagion struck his neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. There was a morgue just down the road. Coffins began spilling on to the sidewalk. It made the perfect stage for an exciting new game.
“We thought, ‘Boy, this is great,’” he recalled. “‘It’s like climbing the pyramids.’ Then one day, I slipped and broke my nose on one of the coffins. My mother was very upset. She said, didn’t I realize there were people in those boxes who had died?”
Continue reading...Boris Johnson was hit by a growing revolt over his strategy for easing the Covid-19 lockdown last night as council leaders across the north of England joined unions in vowing to resist plans to reopen schools on 1 June.
Related: Are we all in this together? It doesn't look like it from the regions
Continue reading...Nine-year-old from Marseille had Covid-19 but no symptoms before dying in hospital
A nine-year-old boy from Marseille is reported to have died of Kawasaki disease, the mysterious inflammatory syndrome linked to coronavirus.
The boy is the first victim of the disease in France and only the second in Europe after a teenager died of the syndrome in London last week.
Continue reading...Russia records highest daily fatalities; German football gets back under way; French child dies of Kawasaki disease. Follow the latest updates
This live blog is now closed – the new one is here where you can join Rebecca Ratcliffe for continuing coverage.
Related: Coronavirus live news: Barack Obama attacks Trump virus response
Tens of thousands of impoverished migrant workers are on the move across India, walking on highways and railway tracks or riding in trucks, buses and crowded trains in blazing heat, Associated Press reports.
Some are accompanied by pregnant wives and young children, braving threats from the coronavirus pandemic. They say they have been forced to leave cities and towns where they had toiled for years building homes and roads after they were abandoned by their employers casualties of a nationwide lockdown to stop the virus from spreading.
On Saturday, at least 23 laborers died in northern India when a truck they were traveling in smashed into a stationary truck on a highway. Last week, a train crashed into a group of tired workers who fell asleep on the tracks while walking back home in western Maharashtra state, killing 16.
The government and charities have tried to set up shelters for them, but their numbers are simply overwhelming, leaving them little choice but to head on a perilous journey home.
£500,000 government funding for project that ‘could revolutionise’ screening
Dogs are to be trained to try to sniff out the coronavirus before symptoms appear in humans, under trials launched with £500,000 of government funding.
Dogs have already been successfully trained to detect the odour of certain cancers, malaria and Parkinson’s disease, and a new study will look at whether labradors and cocker spaniels can be trained to detect Covid-19 in people.
Continue reading...