More than 100 Mexicans have died from drinking adulterated alcohol over the past month in a string of mass poisonings which followed a ban on the sale of liquor during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Deaths from unsafe alcohol have been reported in at least four states. On Thursday, health officials in the central state of Puebla said the death toll there had reached 51 after a batch of moonshine was tainted with methanol – a wood alcohol which can cause blindness and kidney damage.
The deaths in Puebla occurred in several municipalities across the rugged Sierra Madre Oriental mountains, a region where “moonshining is kind of a sport”, said Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, a sociologist who has worked in the region.
At least 17 people died in the corn-farming village of Chiconcuautla after consuming cheap home-brewed liquor on Mother’s Day, according to the municipal government and a local official.
The drink – known as “refino”, made from sugarcane – is thought to have originated in the neighbouring community of Zacatlán, which is famed for its cider. No arrests have been made.
Impressions conveyed abroad that Sweden has adopted a “business as usual” approach to the coronavirus are wrong, its prime minister said on Friday, Reuters reports.
Sweden has not declared a full lockdown, in sharp contrast to many of its European neighbouring countries, instead adopting a mix of legislation and recommendations in response to the virus. Some foreign newspapers and broadcasters have widely labelled a relatively soft policy.
Stefan Lofven said he rejected that narrative, “the image that Sweden is doing so totally different than other countries. That’s not the case.”
The Swedish model for managing society was built on trust between citizens – who had “a responsibility to do the right thing” – and lawmakers and other authorities, he told a briefing with foreign media.
“Life is not carrying on as normal in Sweden. It is not business as usual.”
Current guidelines have banned large gatherings, while high schools and universities are closed. The government has recommend social distancing, protecting the elderly, working from home and staying at home if unwell.
Elementary schools however remain open, people have not been obliged to stay indoors and can meet in small groups, and stores have not been forced to close.
Sweden has registered more than 3,500 coronavirus-linked deaths – a toll far lower than many large EU countries but around five times higher than Denmark and more than ten times that of its other Nordic neighbours.
The Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s leading public health body monitoring and advising how to tackle the coronavirus, has said it is revising its “R” evaluation, or reproduction rate, which is the number of people an individual infected with coronavirus infects, after much confusion.
It will now release a weekly R value instead, which takes into account all the dips and rises in registered cases in a week and most importantly takes into account the regional differences. The new R value is being referred to as the geglätterte or “smoothed” R.
Germany’s current seven-day R value is 0.88 – every infected person is infecting less than one further person. Under the old system, Tuesday’s value would have been 0.75.
Slovenia opened its borders on Friday after declaring an end to its coronavirus epidemic, AFP reports, despite new infections.
The government opened borders for all EU citizens, while non-EU citizens will have to stay in quarantine.
People coming from Slovenia will still have to undergo a two-week home quarantine in Austria, however, according to the Austrian interior ministry.
“Today Slovenia has the best epidemic situation in Europe, which enables us to call off the general epidemic,” the prime minister, Janez Jansa, said.
He added “some general and special measures will remain in force” in Slovenia to prevent a resurgence in virus cases.
Georgia will cancel the state of emergency it declared over the coronavirus after 22 May, the prime minister, Giorgi Gakharia, said on Friday according to a report by Reuters citing the Tass news agency.
Restaurants in Berlin are allowed to reopen this evening for the first time in two months, and with the weather forecast looking good, it is predicted that they will be very full. Here is a breakdown of the rules governing the new normal here in the world of gastronomy.
People from two separate households will be allowed to share a table, but must keep a distance of 1.5 metres from each other. Whether there is a maximum number of people allowed for each household has not been specified. For those from a single household the distancing rules do not apply.
Waiting staff are required to wear face coverings. Cooks, and other kitchen staff who do not come into contact with diners, are not. Diners are not required to wear masks, although it is recommended they do so. It’s unclear how that is compatible with eating and drinking, as repeatedly taking off and putting on the masks is not recommended by hygiene experts.
While guests are not obliged to make reservations, Berlin’s senate has strongly advised restaurants to take down contact details of their guests, and to keep them for four weeks, in order to enable tracing in case of an infection.
The likelihood is that restaurateurs will soon be allowed to put chairs and tables in front of their establishments without having to gain the necessary permit – on condition that the pavement is wide enough.
In the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, officials have announced a plan to allow restaurants to effectively take over entire streets so that they can maximise the number of tables they can serve, and to ensure pavements do not become crowded. If restaurants submit applications specific to the streets they would like to occupy, officials will move to close the roads to traffic on Fridays and at weekends, between 11am and 10pm.
Some concerns have been expressed that that arrangement may put the safety of diners under threat – with some sceptics making reference to the Berlin Christmas market attack of 2016 when an Islamist terrorist drove a lorry into the crowd, killing 12.
Here’s a roundup of the key developments so far on Friday:
China marks one month with no new coronavirus deaths announced
China has gone a month without announcing any new deaths from the coronavirus. The National Health Commission reported four new cases of the virus on Friday, all local cross-infections in the north-eastern province of Jilin where a cluster of uncertain origin has been detected in recent days. The last time the commission reported a death was on 14 April.
Virus pushes Germany into recession
German output shrank by 2.2% in the first quarter of 2020, according to new official data. The quarter-on-quarter contraction is “the worst since the financial crisis” in 2009, the federal statistics office Destatis said. The agency also revised its gross domestic product (GDP) figure for the final quarter of 2019 from zero growth to a contraction of 0.1%, meaning Germany has now experienced two consecutive quarters of contraction – the technical definition of a recession.
Slovenia proclaims end to the outbreak
Slovenia has become the first European country to proclaim an end to the coronavirus epidemic at home. It said on Friday that the spread of Covid-19 was under control and there was no longer a need for extraordinary health measures.
Spain announces lowest daily death toll since Monday
Spain’s death toll from coronavirus registered its lowest increase since Monday with 138 new fatalities announced by the health ministry. The overall coronavirus death toll, in Europe’s fourth worst hit country, rose to 27,459 on Friday, while the number of diagnosed cases rose to 230,183 cases from 229,540.
Italy and Germany to ease more restrictions
Italy is set to allow free travel across the country from 3 June, according to a draft decree seen by Reuters. The draft, which could still be modified before it is approved, also said all travel within separate Italian regions would be allowed from 18 May. Germany will loosen quarantine rules for travellers arriving from the European Union and the UK, according to the interior ministry.
China responds diplomatically to Trump threat of cutting off ties
China’s foreign ministry has responded diplomatically to Donald Trump’s threat of cutting ties with Beijing over the virus. The US president said the pandemic had cast a pall over his January trade deal with Beijing and that he had no interest in speaking to President Xi Jinping at the moment. China’s foreign ministry said on Friday that steady Sino-US bilateral relations served the interests of both countries.
Baltic states restore free movement
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have opened their borders to each other to create a mini-Schengen area. Free movement of people will be restored to all 6 million permanent residents of the Baltic states, but arrivals from outside the three countries will have to undergo a two-week quarantine period.
Mexico sees record one-day increase in cases
Mexico’s health ministry on Thursday confirmed 257 additional coronavirus deaths and 2,409 new infections, the biggest one-day rise in cases since the pandemic began.The new infections brought confirmed coronavirus cases to 42,595 and 4,477 deaths in total, according to the official tally.
Brazil confirmed cases pass 200,000
The number of cases in Brazil passed 200,000 on Thursday. The country now has 202,918 confirmed cases, with 13,944 added in the last 24 hours, according to health ministry.The tally means it is the sixth-worst-affected country worldwide in terms of cases, according to Johns Hopkins data. 844 new deaths were reported in last 24 hours, bringing the total to 13,993.
South Korea, China and Japan’s health ministers to hold video conference
The health ministers of South Korea, China and Japan will get together by video conference on Friday to discuss ways to work together in the global campaign against the coronavirus, South Korean officials said. The meeting is the first between top health officials of the east Asian neighbours since the outbreak emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
Covid-19 reaches refugee camps in Bangladesh
Aid groups have warned of a looming humanitarian disaster after coronavirus was detected for the first time in the sprawling camps that host about 1 million Rohingya refugees. The UN confirmed that an ethnic Rohingya refugee and another person had tested positive for Covid-19. “Both patients are in isolation and contact tracing is under way,” the UN’s refugee agency said in a statement.
Germany will loosen coronavirus quarantine rules for travellers arriving from the European Union, the Schengen passport-free zone and Britain, Reuters reports, citing a spokesman for the interior ministry.
Authorities will only recommend travellers go into quarantine if they arrive from countries with elevated numbers of infections, he said at a regular news conference.
A mandatory two-week quarantine still applies for travellers from countries outside the EU, the spokesman said
Children in Finland have been returning to school after eight weeks of lockdown, AFP reports. They will return for just two weeks before the summer holidays begin.
The French health minister, Olivier Véran, has said he has been assured France will benefit from a coronavirus vaccine “if there is one”.
The comment came after Paul Hudson, the British CEO of the French-based pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, said it was working with the Americans to develop a Covid-19 vaccine and the US would be given priority.
Hudson’s remarks caused outrage in France, where Sanofi has received research tax credits. Véran said he had been reassured this would not be the case. “I believe it was a phrase, as far as I can understand, that was slightly clumsy and perhaps taken out of context. I was quite reassured by the conversation I had with Sanofi,” Véran told French television.
Two new studies have reportedly shown that hydroxychloroquine is not particularly effective against Covid-19 despite the claims of the charismatic Marseille epidemiologist Didier Raoult. New studies – one French and one Chinese – found the anti-malarial drug, whose use has been promoted by Donald Trump among others, did not significantly reduce the risk of the disease worsening or killing a patient, nor did it eliminate the virus any quicker than standard treatments.
France is to quarantine arrivals from neighbouring Spain. This is a “reciprocal” measure after Spain imposed 14 days’ quarantine for anyone arriving from the EU/Schengen area.
The French border is currently closed to any visitors other than essential travellers who have a “compelling” professional or personal reason to enter the country and are carrying a sworn declaration to that effect. June 15 has been set for a possible reopening of French borders to European visitors.
Deaths on French roads dropped by just under 56% during April compared with the same month last year. This is hardly surprising as everyone was locked down, but police records suggested those who were on the empty roads drove faster. The drop in road deaths explains why some departements saw fewer deaths even during the coronavirus crisis.
Italy is set to allow free travel across the country from 3 June, according to a draft decree seen by Reuters, as the government moves to unwind the coronavirus lockdown and revive the battered economy.
Rigid restrictions were imposed on Italy in March in an effort to halt the disease and, with the death rate now falling, the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, is rolling back the curbs.
The draft decree, which could still be modified before it is approved, also said all travel within separate Italian regions would be allowed from 18 May.
The phased reopening of America’s national parks has raised concerns about exacerbating the spread of Covid-19 and endangering the residents of rural towns located near parks.
“We don’t want the parks to become super-spreaders,” said Timothy Whitehouse, executive director of the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “These communities simply do not have the capacity or the medical infrastructure to deal with an outbreak.”
Read the original article at The Guardian