Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
In the second of our series, Stefanie Glinski looks at how life in the normally bustling city of Kabul has been reshaped by lockdown, with roads and playgrounds empty as people try to keep their distance
Driving up one of Kabul’s many steep hills, dotted with colourfully painted houses and surrounded by the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains, the Afghan capital looks just like any other day.
Children fly kites in the mild spring breeze, families take to their roofs to watch the sunset, bakers light their ovens to make fresh bread.
Thailand has reported 33 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country’s total to 2,733 cases.
Eleven of the new cases were in Bangkok and had a history of going to public areas, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration.
Some have questioned if the low number of detected cases is down to a lack of testing in the country.
When a pandemic strikes, the world’s leading experts convene – physically or virtually – in a hi-tech chamber in the basement of the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization.
It is called the “strategic health operations centre”, or SHOC, an appropriately urgent acronym for a place where life and death decisions are taken, and it is where critical choices were made in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Nigerian president’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari, has died after contracting Covid-19, two presidency spokesmen said on Twitter, as Covid-19 deaths on the continent pass 1,000.
Kyari, who was in his 70s and had underlying health problems, including diabetes, was the top official aide to 77-year-old President Muhammadu Buhari and one of the most powerful men in the country.
A new study in California has found the number of people infected with coronavirus may be tens of times higher than previously thought.
The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday and has yet to be peer reviewed, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.
Governments in Europe and the US can learn from Hong Kong, which has kept infections and deaths from Covid-19 low without resorting to the socially and economically damaging lockdown that the UK and other countries have imposed, scientists say.
Hong Kong, with a population of nearly 7.5 million, has had just 715 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, including 94 asymptomatic infections, and four deaths.
WHO’s daily briefing on the coronavirus outbreak has just begun. WHO director Tarik Jasarevic said the coronavirus solidarity fund has generated $150 million from more than 245,000 individuals, corporations, and foundations.
Deaths from the coronavirus epidemic in Italy rose by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before, while the number of new cases declined slightly to 3,493 from a previous 3,786.
The daily death toll is down considerably from peaks reached around the end of March, Reuters reports.
Oliver Milman, an environment reporter for Guardian in New York, has some analysis on the progression of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.
A model relied upon by the White House, from the University of Washington, estimates that the virus will “peter out” in May and then essentially grind to a halt by the summer. This is based on the experiences of China and Italy, previous coronavirus hotspots.
Steve Rotheram is the latest mayor to urge people to wear masks in public after Sadiq Khan called on the government to make them compulsory on transport in London during the coronavirus outbreak.
The metro mayor of Liverpool city region said wearing any type of face covering meant Britons were likely to “go further in protecting [themselves] and other people”.
Despite the restraint, the plan neglects to mention a firm target date or give an explicit strategy for national testing
“Make America great again” was an election winning slogan with a bold and simple message. “Opening up America again” proved to be less clear cut and left questions in the air.
On Thursday Donald Trump unveiled federal staggered guidelines for getting America back to business after the shutdown forced by the coronavirus pandemic. He had previously billed it as the most important decision of his presidency, but what he called “a science-based reopening” was messier and more ill-defined.
Photographer Sam Edmonds was the team leader on the cruise ship that found itself stranded in South America in late March after travelling to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. He documented the journey from idyllic island to isolation in a Sydney hotel room
Black, Asian and ethnic minorities appear to be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 in the UK. The government is launching an inquiry into why this is the case. However, we don’t currently have enough public data to be able to understand how minorities are being impacted by the virus.
Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities appear to be disproportionately affected by Covid-19 in the UK. However, we don’t currently have enough public data to be able to understand how many of those who have died as a result of the virus come from minority ethnic backgrounds.
The Guardian's data editor, Caelainn Barr, takes a look at this this issue, as well as the other key information that is missing from the government's daily death toll
In India, politicians from the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party have been touting cow urine as a cure for Covid-19. In Tanzania the president has promised that taking communion in church would “burn” the virus away. In Brazil a congressman claimed a day of fasting would halt its spread.
And the leader of the most powerful country in the world, Donald Trump, has been touting as a miracle cure an unproven anti-malarial drug that has contributed to at least one death.
From 6pm to 6am, the security services enforce the curfew. Like most other countries in the world, Tunisia remains in lockdown.
At all other times, tight restrictions on public movement are in place to limit the spread of coronavirus. Across the country, many businesses are shuttered up, with employees preparing themselves for the long and potentially economically devastating wait until something like normal life returns to the country.
South Korea’s ruling party has won a landslide victory in national assembly elections, in what is being seen as an endorsement of President Moon Jae-in’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Moon’s left-leaning Democratic party and its smaller affiliate won 180 seats in the 300-seat assembly – the biggest majority in the national assembly by any party since South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987 – according to the Yonhap news agency. The conservative opposition United Future party and its smaller sister party won 103 seats.
Households across the UK are now taking to their gardens, doorsteps, balconies and windows to applaud for the frontline workers fighting the coronavirus.
It will be the fourth “clap for carers” event in the UK, becoming a staple for Thursday nights in lockdown.
Leaders of the G7 group of major industrialised nations have agreed the rapid development of a coronavirus vaccine is crucial in dealing with the outbreak.
First Secretary of State Dominic Raab deputised for the UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson at the virtual summit, which also discussed the particular risk coronavirus poses for developing countries.
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.
Tourism employs about 150,000 people in the Pacific nation, but travel restrictions mean the work and the money are drying up
On a typical evening Suva’s Holiday Inn is packed with guests from all over the world. But tonight, the dining room of the hotel, one of the most popular in Fiji’s capital, which normally buzzes with the dinner rush, stands empty,
Looking lost amid the empty tables is waiter Samuela Yavala.
Global health leaders have rounded on Donald Trump, warning that his decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization is recklessly endangering the chances of ending the pandemic as fast as possible.
Experts said they were dismayed and appalled at the US president’s announcement, which will not only deprive the WHO of the resources it needs to lead the fight, but potentially undermine international collaboration between scientists.