Coronavirus live news: European commission proposes €1.85tn Covid-19 recovery plan
Cyprus hopes to regain lost ground in its tourism sector from July and expects to be able to readmit British and Russian visitors by then after weeks of lockdown, Reuters reports.
The Mediterranean island moved swiftly to contain the outbreak, ordering a broad lockdown within days of its first registered case on 9 March. It started easing it on 4 May and hotels will reopen on 1 June.
Tourism accounts for about 13% of output. With five months of the season lost, Cyprus expects, at best, about 30% of last year’s total of 3.98 million visitors.
“The hit is massive, and we are trying to do our best now and do what we can for the remainder of the season. We have worked extremely hard to keep the virus in check here,” Savvas Perdios, the deputy tourism minister, said.
Cyprus has emerged relatively unscathed by the pandemic. It has reported fewer than 950 cases, and 17 deaths.
It will open on 9 June to travellers from countries including Germany, Greece and Israel. A group from mainly central Europe will be added on 20 June, though Perdios said the list was being reviewed continuously.
“For our important markets like the UK, Russia and Sweden I expect in early July the situation (there) will allow their travel to Cyprus. I am quite optimistic about that,” Perdios said. Britain and Russia alone represent 55% of arrivals.
Tourists in Japan could soon be tucking into ramen and sushi, and buying souvenirs in the knowledge that a good portion of the bill will be picked up by the Japanese government, writes Justin McCurry, the Guardian’s Tokyo correspondent.
Under an initiative that could come into effect within a couple of months, Japan is to provide subsidies to travellers in an attempt to breathe life into the country’s coronavirus-hit tourist industry.
The Go To Travel initiative will subsidise holidays by up to ¥20,000 [(£151 GDP] ) a day in the form of steep discounts and vouchers that can be used at local shops and restaurants, the Kyodo news agency said.
People eat at a restaurant in Tokyo while the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. Photograph: Aflo Co. Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo
The scheme, which could begin in late July after coronavirus travel restrictions have eased, applies to tourists who make bookings through Japanese travel agencies or directly with hotels and traditional ryokan inns.
The programme does not explicitly exclude foreign visitors, but the Japan Travel Agency said in a tweet on Wednesday that it was intended to “stimulate domestic travel demand within Japan after the Covid-19 pandemic and only cover a portion of domestic travel expenses.” The subsidies do not apply to travel expenses for visitors from overseas.
A walks in front of a mural in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, painted by the Wachata artists group to raise awareness about wearing masks to avoid coronavirus. Photograph: Ericky Boniphace/AFP/Getty Images
Here is some news from England, but that will no doubt resonate with families all around the world in which parents are remote working from lockdown.
Working mothers have been able to do only one hour of uninterrupted paid work for every three hours done by men during lockdown, according to a study that exposes the work imbalance between men and women, writes Guardian senior news reporter Alexandra Topping.
A report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the UCL institute of education also says mothers are more likely than fathers to have lost their jobs during lockdown, increasing fears that the coronavirus crisis has exacerbated inequality and could lead to the gender pay gap increasing.
The Office for National Statistics said separately that men were doing more than an hour less unpaid labour than women each day, despite increasing their responsibilities during lockdown.
The IFS-UCL study interviewed 3,500 families of two opposite-gender parents and found that mothers were doing more childcare and more housework than fathers.
The mothers interviewed were looking after children for an average of 10.3 hours a day – 2.3 hours more than fathers – and doing housework for 1.7 more hours than fathers.
In families where the father had stopped work while his partner continued, on average they did the same amount of household work – while the woman did an average of five hours of paid work a day.
The Netherlands has recorded 15 more deaths from Covid-19 since yesterday, and 190 new cases of coronavirus, according to its public health institute.
The latest update from the Dutch institute for public health and the environment (RIVM) showed the cumulative number of cases of coronavirus in the country had now reached 45,768, while the death toll was 5,871.
Polling data also released on Wednesday showed that the Dutch had become more concerned about their health and the health of their loved ones, RIVM said.
The need for information of people has also changed in recent months. Confidence in the information provided by the RIVM national institute for public health and the environment , and the measures taken by the cabinet is high (78-85%). This is evident from the interim results of survey questionnaires conducted by Nivel, the Netherlands institute for healthcare research and RIVM.
Ninety-five more people have died from Covid-19 in Sweden, according to the latest update from the public health authority, increasing the total death toll from the country’s coronavirus outbreak to 4,220.
The number of confirmed cases in the country, which has eschewed the kind of coronavirus lockdown measures imposed elsewhere in the world, has now passed 35,000, after 648 more people tested positive for the coronavirus.
The French government has stopped the country’s hospitals using the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug Donald Trump said he was taking as a precaution, to treat Covid-19 patients after serious concerns about its safety.
There have been 118,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across the 54 countries of Africa, according to the World Health Organization’s regional office for the continent. So far, about 48,000 people in Africa who have tested positive for the virus have recovered, while 3,500 have died.
Greece is ready to welcome back tourists and has lifted many of its curbs on the general population – but movement restrictions for refugees in all island camps and a number of mainland camps have been extended until 7 June.
South Korea may need to reimpose social distancing measures eased in April, its top infectious diseases expert has said, as coronavirus transmissions creep up in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Officials in Strasbourg have appealed for hundreds of spectators who attended an illegal football match at the weekend to be tested for Covid-19. An estimated 400 people played in or watched the game and authorities have called on them to attend a testing centre for anonymous screening.
Russia’s death toll neared 4,000, after authorities confirmed that 161 people with coronavirus died in the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide death toll to 3,968. Officials have also reported 8,338 new infections, pushing the country’s overall figure of confirmed cases to 370,680.
France’s economy could contract by around 20% in the second quarter as lockdown measures meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus slashed activity, the national statistics agency Insee says.
Bulgaria will allow restaurants, bars and cafes to reopen at full capacity on Monday, further easing restrictions imposed in mid-March to stop the spread of coronavirus.
People in Poland will be allowed to go outside without face masks from 30 May, the government said on Wednesday.
The announcement, reported by Reuters, is part of a steady lifting of restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus. It also included the reopening of cinemas, theatres and gyms on 6 June.
In the coming days, public gatherings of up to 150 people will be allowed, and limits in the number of people in churches will also by relaxed.
Poland’s health ministry reported one new death from Covid-19 on Wednesday, taking the country’s total death toll from the pandemic to 1,025. According to the latest update, 229 more people had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the country’s total number of cases to 22,303.
The health minister, Lukasz Szumowski, told a news conference:
At the moment the number of sick people is falling, also the number of deaths is falling, which is the best measure of control over the epidemic … 80% of hospital beds dedicated to Covid patients are vacant, 90% of respirators are not in use while awaiting patients with Covid.
As researchers around the world race to perfect a coronavirus vaccine, new polling suggests that only half of people in the US might actually take it.
The results of the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, released on Wednesday, found 31% weren’t sure if they’d get vaccinated, while one in five said they would refuse.
Among Americans who say they wouldn’t get vaccinated, seven in 10 worry about safety. Among those who want a vaccine, the AP-NORC poll found protecting themselves, their family and the community are the top reasons.
The coronavirus is most dangerous to older adults and people of any age who have chronic health problems such as diabetes or heart disease. The poll found 67% of people 60 and older say they’d get vaccinated, compared with 40% who are younger.
And death counts suggest black and Hispanic Americans are more vulnerable to Covid-19, because of unequal access to healthcare and other factors. Yet the poll found just 25% of African Americans and 37% of Hispanics would get a vaccine compared to 56% of whites.
Political divisions seen over how the country reopens the economy are reflected in desire for a vaccine, too. More than half of Democrats call a vaccine necessary for reopening, compared with about a third of Republicans. While 62% of Democrats would get the vaccine, only 43% of Republicans say the same.
As prospects of summer holidays abroad increase for some people in Europe, the race is already on to lure tourists for whom personal health and safety will be a high priority when choosing a destination this year, writes Kate Connolly, the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent.
Italy’s South Tyrol region is focusing its attention on German holidaymakers who are being warned to not take risks if they travel, particularly as the government has said it will not be making a repeat of its multimillion-euro airlift operation to bring its citizens back from all corners of the globe back in March and April.
The My Arbor wellness hotel in Bressanone, in Italy’s Germany-speaking South Tyrol region. Photograph: Matthias Schräder/AP
The leader of the Italian province, Arno Kompatscher, has offered German tourists the chance of a free coronavirus test as soon as they arrive at their destination.
“This is a voluntary service offer,” Kompatsscher told the radio broacaster Rai 1, saying tourists would be able to avail themselves of antibody blood tests (to show if they might have had the illness already) as well as the standard swab tests, to prove that someone has the virus.
Kompatscher said the plan was for hotels to automatically offer the service as part of holiday packages. But the move appears to be as much to reassure Italian hosts as to who they are letting in, as it is the holidaymakers that their hosts take the dangers of the virus seriously. If positive,the holidaymakers would face the humiliation and inconvenience of being sent back home.
Italy has said it plans to open its borders for EU citizens on 3 June. But Germans will have to wait until next week to find out their government’s decision on whether they can go abroad this summer, and if so, under what conditions (such as quarantines and medical certificates).
The European Union’s executive body has proposed a €1.85tn recovery package for member states whose economies have suffered as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The European commission said in a statement seen by the Reuters news agency:
The commission is today proposing a new recovery instrument, called Next Generation EU, within a revamped long-term EU budget. In total, this European recovery plan will put €1.85tn to help kick-start our economy and ensure Europe bounces forward.
Agence-France Presse, the French news agency, has tweeted that the main beneficiaries of the plan will be Italy and Spain, the EU member states that have been hit hardest by the outbreak.
I will bring you more on this as it comes in.
Twenty years ago Nelson Mandela made an impassioned plea for international cooperation on “one of the greatest threats humankind has faced”, writes Carien du Plessis in Johannesburg. Aids was ravaging lives and overwhelming health systems, at its peak killing up to 1,000 people a day in South Africa.
Mandela’s successor as president, Thabo Mbeki, was in obstinate denial. On the sidelines of the conference where Mandela made his appeal, Mbeki’s controversial health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, scolded scientists for daring to oppose the government’s stance.
One of those scientists, Salim Abdool Karim, now leads South Africa’s Covid-19 advisory team, earning this government plaudits from the World Health Organization for its response to the pandemic. Tshabalala-Msimang succumbed to liver problems in 2009 and left a legacy of 300,000 preventable deaths.
In early April, two weeks into South Africa’s coronavirus lockdown, Abdool Karim led a live two-hour briefing explaining the reasoning behind the strict measures, which confine people to their homes and prohibit public exercise and the sale of alcohol and tobacco.
It is in sharp contrast with the Aids response two decades ago.
Fifty-six more people in Iran have died from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours the health ministry has reported, taking the total death toll to 7,564.
In his latest update, the health ministry spokesman, Kianoush Jahanpour, said that 2,080 new infected cases had been detected since Tuesday.
The cumulative number of cases in Iran now stands at 141,591, of whom 111,176 have survived and recovered and 2,551 remain in a critical condition.
A cardboard hospital bed that doubles as a coffin may seem an idea as morbid as it is pragmatic, but as Latin America emerges as the latest coronavirus hotspot, doctors have suggested it may be an innovation whose time has come, writes Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá.
With Covid-19 cases surging across the region, a team of Colombian designers came up with the idea as a pragmatic solution for anticipated shortages of hospital beds and funerary caskets.
“We were shut down for a couple of months like everyone else, until we had this idea,” said Rodolfo Gómez, the founder of ABC Displays, which normally creates cardboard advertising props. “But when we saw what was happening in Ecuador, where bodies were piling up on the streets, we knew we had to prepare somehow.”
