Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Vice-president Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House said Friday, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week.
Katie Miller is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump advisor. She has been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Stephen Miller had been tested or if he was still working out of the White House.
Travellers into the UK will be quarantined for two weeks when they arrive as part of measures to prevent a second peak of the coronavirus pandemic, Boris Johnson is expected to say on Sunday.
In his address to the nation, when he will present his roadmap out of the lockdown, he will announce the introduction of quarantine measures for people who arrive at airports, ports and Eurostar train stations, including for Britons returning from abroad.
Government scientific advisers are furious at what they see as an attempt to censor their advice on government proposals during the Covid-19 lockdown by heavily redacting an official report before it was released to the public, the Guardian can reveal.
The report was one of a series of documents published by the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) this week to mollify growing criticism about the lack of transparency over the advice given to ministers responding to the coronavirus.
Trouble is brewing for the world’s tea producers as the coronavirus lockdown shut down the harvest in several important regions, including the picking of India’s “champagne of teas”.
Despite forecasts of increased demand from drinkers stuck at home across the world, producers have become frustrated by the enforced quarantining of their workforce, with India’s output expected to drop by 9% in 2020.
New Zealand’s cabinet will meet on Monday to decide the future of the country’s tough but effective lockdown – though Kiwis have been told not to visit their mums this Mother’s Day.
Next week, Ardern’s government will plot a path back to something close to normality, meeting to decide a timetable for the removal of social and business restrictions. The prime minister has already released what level two restrictions will look like, including the re-opening of restaurants, hairdressers, gyms, cinemas and public facilities like museums and libraries.
Social restrictions could end immediately, with provisions for schools, business and personal movement more likely to be phased in.
Any decision will come too late for Kiwi mums to enjoy visits from sons and daughters not already in their household bubbles. Ardern has banned socialising outside of existing households, with few exceptions, and told Kiwis this week to “stick to the plan” ahead of Monday’s review.
Two piglets for a pre-loved kayak, a taxi fare in exchange for fresh produce, hot cross buns for online tutoring, an old carpet for a professional photography session, vegetable seedlings for homemade pies, and offers to have backyards cleaned for prayers.
These are just a few examples of the hundreds of barter trades that are taking place across Fiji since a Facebook page “Barter for Better Fiji” was created a few weeks ago in response to sharp falls in employment due to coronavirus. The page now has more than 100,000 members, in a country of just under 900,000 people.
First people were meant to stay at home to save lives, and then government sources raised the prospect of picnics with pals and sunbathing in the park just before a sunny bank holiday weekend.
Boris Johnson told the nation that scientists thought face masks might help stop the spread of the disease, but no change was made to the government advice that they were not needed outside medical and care settings.
Iquitos, still reeling from a dengue fever outbreak and plagued by poverty, relies on air deliveries for medicine, equipment and oxygen
In the final hours before Covid-19 claimed her life, Cecilio Sangama watched helplessly as his eldest sister Edith gasped for breath.
Hospitals across Peru’s largest Amazon city had run out of oxygen, and the shortage had pushed the black market price of a cylinder well above $1,000 (£810).
PM Jacinda Ardern outlines easing curbs to allow domestic travel and eating out; White House says US-China relationship one of ‘disappointment’; eurozone’s future threatened. Follow the latest updates
A gas leak at a chemical factory in southern India has killed at least nine people and led to hundreds being taken to hospital, amid warnings that the death toll could climb higher.
Styrene leaked from the Korean-owned LG Polymers plant during the early hours of Thursday morning when families in the surrounding villages were asleep, a local official in Andra Pradesh state said.
Donald Trump has again suggested the US may need to accept the reality of more deaths in order to start reopening the economy, as governments around the world continued to ease out of lockdown restrictions.
The app will ask for your name (or pseudonym), age range, postcode and phone number. Scott Morrison says the Australian government’s covid safe tracking app won’t be mandatory to download and install, but its uptake numbers could play a part in easing Covid-19 restrictions
The Australian government has launched Covidsafe, an app that traces every person running the app who has been in contact with someone else using the app who has tested positive for coronavirus in the previous few weeks, in a bid to automate coronavirus contact tracing, and allow the easing of restrictions.
You can call them BYOC parties. That’s bring your own Covid-19.
Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington, are admonishing the sudden rise in so-called “Covid-19 parties” where non-infected guests mingle with those who have tested positive for the virus, ostensibly in hopes of speeding up the process of catching, and overcoming, the virus.
Antibody tests have been hailed as a key to understanding the spread of the coronavirus and even as a means of easing us out of lockdown. But what are they, and what can they tell us?
Health secretary says Professor Neil Ferguson was right to step down after breaking lockdown rules; Boris Johnson to face Keir Starmer for the first time at PMQs
Rory Stewart has abandoned his bid to become London mayor, saying that campaigning has become impossible after the election was delayed due to the coronavirus crisis. The former Tory cabinet minister said it had been an “agonising decision” but it was unfair on the unpaid volunteers working on his campaign.
I have decided that I will not be standing again for Mayor in the now delayed 2021 election. It has been a great privilege to work with so many amazing people with such passion and vision for London. Thank you very much again from the bottom of my heart. https://t.co/pDve6kTcjq
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has just started taking part in a Q&A on Sky News. And he started by escalating the criticism of Prof Neil Ferguson, suggesting there could be a case for the police getting involved.
Asked by the presenter Kay Burley if Ferguson should be prosecuted for breaking the lockdown rules, Hancock replied:
You can imagine what my views are.
It’s a matter for the police. As a government minister, I’m not allowed to get involved in the operational decisions of police matters. But I think that the social distancing rules are very important and people should be followed.
Absolutely I back the police. I back the Scottish police, I would back the police here. They will take their decisions independently from ministers, that’s quite right. It’s always been like that.
And that’s why, even though I’ve got a view as to what I think, as a minister the way we run the police is that they make their decisions like this. So I give them their space to make that decision. But I think he took the right decision to resign.
President says it’s time to reopen businesses as US deaths top 70,000; number of Russian cases rises by more than 10,000 for fourth consecutive day; Spain set to extend state of emergency for two more weeks
Pope Francis has urged employers to respect the dignity of workers, particularly migrants, in the face of economic difficulties brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the end of his general audience, held from the papal library instead of St Peter’s Square because of Italy’s lockdown, he said:
It’s true that the crisis is affecting everyone but the dignity of people must always be respected.”
Taiwan has been relatively successful at controlling the virus, with 439 cases to date and six deaths, and 100 active infections, thanks to early prevention and detection efforts. The island has never gone into total lockdown, though the government has promoted social distancing and face masks.
The head of a global partnership to end tuberculosis (TB) said she is “sickened” by research that revealed millions more people are expected to contract the disease as a result of Covid-19 restrictions.
Up to 6.3 million more people are predicted to develop TB between now and 2025 and 1.4 million more people are expected to die as cases go undiagnosed and untreated during lockdown. This will set back global efforts to end TB by five to eight years.
Vietnam didn’t just flatten its coronavirus curve, it crushed it. No deaths have been reported, official case numbers have plateaued at just 271, and no community transmissions of the virus have been reported in the last two weeks. On 23 April, the nation eased lockdowns in its major cities and life is gradually returning to normal. It is a stark contrast to many other nations including the US, where more Americans have died from Covid-19 than during the entire Vietnam war.
Kidong Park, the World Health Organisation’s representative to Vietnam, has praised the country’s response to the crisis.
New York City’s health department has reported 15 cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that may be linked to coronavirus infections.
More than 100 cases of the unusual illness have now emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland investigating the condition.
Britain has the worst coronavirus death toll in Europe, official figures showed on Tuesday, prompting calls for an inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.
The government’s tally of fatalities across the UK reached 29,427 for those who tested positive for coronavirus, exceeding the 29,029 recorded in Italy – until now Europe’s worst-hit country. Italy’s total does not include suspected cases.
Britain could exit the coronavirus lockdown by relaxing restrictions on more than half of the population and beefing up protection for those over 70 and vulnerable people, scientists have said.
The strategy from researchers at Edinburgh University, known as “segmenting and shielding”, is intended to create leeway for ministers to ease the lockdown on those least at risk from the virus while ensuring that vulnerable people only come into contact with carers and family members who are free from infection.
Some cruise companies have refused to agree to rules that would allow tens of thousands of stranded crew back to land, citing concerns about cost and potential legal consequences, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The largest trade association for the cruise industry has called the CDC’s requirements for disembarkation “impractical”.
The standoff comes amid a deteriorating situation on many ships around the world and a rising death toll of crew members.