Coronavirus live: new cases double in Belgium, continue to rise in France and Poland
Several thousand demonstrators gathered outside the official residence of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, as weeks of protests against the Israeli leader showed no signs of slowing, the Associated Press reports.
Saturday’s demonstration in central Jerusalem, along with smaller gatherings in Tel Aviv and near Netanyahu’s beach house in central Israel, was one of the largest turnouts in weeks of protests.
Throughout the summer, thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets, calling for Netanyahu to resign, protesting his handling of the country’s coronavirus crisis and saying he should not remain in office while on trial for corruption charges.
The rallies against Netanyahu are the largest Israel has seen since 2011 protests over the country’s high cost of living.
Netanyahu has tried to play down the unrest, calling the demonstrators leftists and anarchists.
Late on Saturday, his Likud Party issued a statement that accused Israel’s two private TV stations of giving free and endless publicity to the protesters and exaggerating the importance of the gatherings.
While the demonstrations have largely been peaceful, they have grown increasingly violent in recent days.
Some protesters have clashed with police, accusing them of using excessive force, while small gangs of Netanyahu supporters affiliated with a far-right group have assaulted demonstrators.
Netanyahu has claimed demonstrators are inciting violence against him.
Israeli police have arrested some 20 far-right activists in recent days and police said they were on high alert for violence at the demonstrations.
The demonstrations are organized by a loose-knit network of activist groups.
After moving quickly to contain the virus last spring, many believe Israel reopened its economy too quickly, leading to a surge in cases.
The country is now coping with record levels of coronavirus, while unemployment has surged to over 20%.
Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos will allow churches and mosques to resume in-person services from 7 August, the state’s governor said in a press briefing on Saturday.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu also said restaurants, social clubs and recreational centres will be allowed to reopen with limited capacity from 14 August as the state, the centre of Nigeria’s coronavirus outbreak, eases restrictions despite a continued rise in infections.
Lagos state, home to the megacity of the same name with 20 million people, has more than 15,000 confirmed cases and 192 deaths, by far the largest share of Nigeria’s 43,151 cases, Reuters reports.
It ordered widespread closures and a lockdown in March to halt the spread of the highly infectious virus.
The lockdown was eased in early May, but Sanwo-Olu scuppered plans to reopen churches and mosques in June, citing a continued rise in cases.
Christianity and Islam are widely practised in Lagos and the rest of Nigeria, and houses of worship in normal times often host services with thousands of people.
Houses of worship will only be allowed to open for services once a week at no more than 50% capacity.
Sanwu-Olu also increased the limit on public gatherings from 20 to 50 people.
Nightclubs, cinemas and some arcades will remain closed.
The number of new confirmed coronavirus cases in Belgium has doubled in one week, as an average of 448.1 people per day tested positive for Covid-19 in the last week of July.
The number of new infections during the period between 22 and 28 July increased by 104% compared to the previous week.
This increase can be seen in almost all provinces but in the province of Antwerp in particular, according to the Belgian national public health institute, Sciensano.
New cases are emerging in all age groups, but most infections are occurring among people aged 20-59.
As far as hospitals are concerned, last week’s average is 22 hospitalisations per day, which represents an increase of 21%.
Last week, the number of deaths with Covid-19 in Belgium averaged 3 per day.
According to Johns Hopkins University figures, 9,841 people have died so far from Covid-19 in the country of about 11.5 million people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Saturday the coronavirus pandemic was likely to be “lengthy” after its emergency committee met to evaluate the crisis six months after sounding the international alarm.
The committee “highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this Covid-19 pandemic”, the WHO said in a statement, and warned of the risk of “response fatigue” given the socio-economic pressures on countries.
The panel gathered on Friday for the fourth time since the coronavirus crisis began, half a year on from its 30 January declaration of a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the WHO’s highest level of alarm.
“WHO continues to assess the global risk level of Covid-19 to be very high,” said its latest statement.
“The committee highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this Covid-19 pandemic, noting the importance of sustained community, national, regional, and global response efforts.”
The coronavirus has killed at least 680,000 people and infected at least 17.6 million since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.
Countries around the world have imposed strict lockdowns in a bid to control the spread of the respiratory disease, plunging economies into sharp contraction.
The committee urged the WHO to provide nuanced, pragmatic guidance on Covid-19 reactions “to reduce the risk of response fatigue in the context of socio-economic pressures”.
The panel urged the WHO to support countries in preparing for the rollout of proven therapeutics and vaccines.
The committee also urged the agency to accelerate research into the remaining “critical unknowns” of the virus, such as the animal source and potential animal reservoirs.
It called for improved understanding of the epidemiology and severity of Covid-19, including its long-term health effects.
The near six-hour gathering was hosted at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, with some participants joining via video link.
The committee will reconvene in three months’ time.
Going into the meeting, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic’s effects would be long-lasting.
“It’s sobering to think that six months ago, when you recommended I declare a PHEIC, there were less than 100 cases and no deaths outside China,” he said on Friday.
“The pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come.”
Marathon Petroleum, the largest US oil refiner by volume, plans to permanently close two refineries in Martinez, California, and Gallup, New Mexico, the company said, in response to lower demand for fuel.
The company had earlier idled the two refineries following weak demand due to Covid-19 outbreaks in the US.
US refiners on average suspended about 20% of total processing capacity when vehicle and air travel reduced.
Marathon said it plans to use the Martinez facility, California’s fourth-largest, as an oil storage facility, and is evaluating its future use to produce diesel fuel from industry waste and used cooking oil.
The company is scheduled to report its second-quarter results on Monday. Spokespeople did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether the closures would require a charge to earnings.
Up to 800 workers face job losses combined at the 161,000 barrels-per-day Martinez and 27,000 barrels-per-day Gallup refineries beginning in October, the company said.
“We do not anticipate supply disruptions in these regions, and we will continue to utilize our integrated system to meet customer commitments,” the company said in a statement on its website.
The British government said on Saturday that 46,193 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Friday, up by 74 from the day before.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been more than 56,400 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, PA reports.
The government also said that in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 771 lab-confirmed cases.
Overall, a total of 303,952 cases have been confirmed.
The Archdiocese of Manila will not hold any public religious activities in its churches and shrines between 3 and 14 August in response to the medical community’s call to revert to stricter quarantine measures, CNN Philippines reports.
Apostolic administrator Broderick Pabillo said on Saturday: “We share the compassion of our medical frontliners for the many sick people being brought to our hospitals. So we support their appeal for a ‘time out’.”
However, online activities will still continue, the administrator clarified.
The Archdiocese covers churches in Manila City and nearby provinces such as Rizal, Laguna, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Batangas, Cavite, Bataan, Zambales and Mindoro.
Earlier, health professionals urged the government to declare a two-week-long enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila and nearby regions, saying workers are burning out over the surges of Covid-19 cases.
Researchers also forecast that many hospitals in Metro Manila could become “overwhelmed” in the next two weeks as designated spaces for infected patients continue to get filled up.
Travellers entering France from 16 countries where coronavirus is spread widely must now undergo tests upon arrival at French airports and ports.
French prime minister Jean Castex announced last month that the tests would be required as of 1 August for passengers France is allowing in from a list of approved countries, unless they present proof of a negative test done within 72 hours of their departure.
Those who test positive in France as of Saturday must quarantine for 14 days.
France is not permitting general travel to and from the 16 countries, which include the US and Brazil.
The testing requirement therefore only applies to people entering under limited circumstances: those who are French citizens and who live in these countries, or citizens of these countries with an established residence in France.
Along with the United States and Brazil, which are reporting tens of thousands of new cases each day, the countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Israel, India, South Africa, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Panama, Peru, Serbia, Turkey and Madagascar.
France has had over 225,000 confirmed infections and over 30,200 Covid-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Spain’s labour minister, Yolanda Díaz Pérez, suggested on Saturday that the government would extend its coronavirus furlough scheme for an extra three months until the end of the year.
Speaking after talks in Majorca with the regional government and union bosses, Díaz said it would make no sense to drop the ERTE furlough scheme when it is scheduled to finish at the end of September, according to AFP.
“It would not make any sense to drop a protection system as important as the one designed by the government,” she said of the scheme that has supported millions of people.
“There is no point in designing a mechanism that involves huge amounts of public resources then at the decisive moment … we drop it,” she said.
“The key is in the last quarter of the year,” Díaz said, indicating she wanted to send a “message of calm”.
“We are not going to remove anything.”
Her remarks came a day after Spain formally went into recession after its GDP fell by 18.5% in the second quarter.
My colleague Stephen Burgen reports that in Barcelona, businesses are furious that, when infections started to rise again in late July, Catalan president Quim Torra announced a lockdown he was not empowered to enforce.
By the time he explained that the measure was merely advisory, “Barcelona in lockdown” had gone viral and hotels and restaurants were reporting cancellations.
A total of 3.7 million people benefited from the government’s furlough scheme between mid-March and the end of May, labour ministry figures show.
The government also banned layoffs in the six months after the end of the furlough scheme, although cutbacks are expected.
A commitment to fund such temporary unemployment schemes was one of the key measures put in place by prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s government to bolster an economy battered by months of lockdown.
The pandemic also destroyed more than 1m jobs in Spain between April and June, mostly in the services and tourism sector.
Spain’s unemployment rate, which jumped to 15.3% by the end of June, could rise as high as 19% by the end of the year, the government has warned, while the IMF sees it rising to 20.8%.
Hard-hit by the virus which has killed more than 28,400 people, Spain has been struggling with a spike in new infections that has sparked European travel warnings and a British quarantine move that has damaged the fledgling recovery of tourism.
At least 33 crew members confined on a Norwegian cruise ship have tested positive for the coronavirus, the company Hurtigruten said on Saturday.
Arriving at the northern Norwegian port of Tromso from the archipelago of Svalbard, the crew of the MS Roald Amundsen was quarantined onboard the ship on Friday after four staff members tested positive for the virus and were hospitalised, AFP reports.
Of the 158 crew members onboard, “33 tested positive for Covid-19, while 120 tested negative,” Hurtigruten said. Five people will be retested.
The company said that four crew members “were isolated several days ago because of other disease symptoms, with no symptoms of Covid-19”.
“There was no reason to suspect Covid-19 when the ship docked in Tromso based on the symptoms they were showing,” Hurtigruten said.
According to the hospital, the four crew members are foreign nationals.
The ship had nearly 180 passengers onboard since departing on 25 July. None of the passengers reported symptoms related to coronavirus during the voyage, Hurtigruten said.
All passengers disembarked the ship on Friday but about 60 people have since been quarantined in Tromso.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has not ruled out the possibility of more cases emerging but added more answers would be provided “once the tests have been carried out”. It recommended all passengers remained quarantined while awaiting their results.
On Friday, Norway had 9,208 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
One person died of the virus on Friday night, bringing the country’s total death toll to 256.
It was the first coronavirus-related death in the Nordic country in two weeks.
Hello, I’m taking over from my colleague Aamna for the next few hours. Please feel free to message me with relevant updates or tips, you can get me on Twitter @JedySays or via email.
Read the original article at The Guardian