Coronavirus live news: Japan extends state of emergency as global cases top 3.5m
The UK is co-hosting an international conference today to drive forward the global race for coronavirus vaccines, treatments and tests.
The virtual Coronavirus Global Response International Pledging Conference, is also co-hosted by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Saudi Arabia, and the European Commission.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, will confirm the government’s pledge of £388m in aid funding for research into vaccines, tests and treatments.
This includes £250m for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop vaccines against coronavirus – the biggest such donation to the fund by any country.
Speaking to the conference, Johnson will say:
The more we pull together and share our expertise, the faster our scientists will succeed.
The race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries, but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes.
It’s humanity against the virus – we are in this together, and together we will prevail.
On Thursday, the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca announced a partnership to support large-scale manufacture and potential distribution of a vaccine currently being trialled by the university.
Swiss parliamentarians, who broke off work in March over the coronavirus outbreak, gathered on Monday in a large exhibition hall for a special session to discuss the best way forward in the pandemic.
Opening the session in Bern – only the fourth in history to be held outside Switzerland’s stately parliament building – president Simonetta Sommaruga acknowledged that the country was living through “an unprecedented crisis” and urged MPs to get back to work.
“The government needs you,” she said, standing at a lonely podium, her microphone covered with a plastic bag, in a large hall with the country’s 246 parliamentarians and their aides seated at tables spaced out with at least two metres between them.
The opening of a decentralized extraordinary session of the Swiss National Council. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
Sommaruga acknowledged that the government had been forced during the crisis to infringe on personal and economic liberties but said it had not taken such decisions “lightly”.
Over the next four days, MPs will discuss the restrictions imposed to halt the spread of the virus, and the path forward as Switzerland, like a number of other European countries, begins easing the lockdown.
The wealthy Alpine country of some 8.5 million people has been relatively hard-hit by the pandemic, counting more than 1,450 deaths out of almost 30,000 people infected.
Last week, hairdressers, garden centres, hardware stores and doctors’ surgeries reopened again.
Next week, schools, shops and markets, along with restaurants, museums and libraries are set to open their doors as well.
Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, has outlined a list of what the public should be expecting of and demanding from their governments during the coronavirus pandemic.
In brief:
An aggressive “test, trace, isolate” policy involving mass community testing
The protection of health and social care workers who are most at risk from contracting the virus
Constant surveillance of the virus using tracking systems to quickly detect hotspots across the country
Clear and honest communication with the public to ensure trust
Recognition that any “exit” strategy will not mean a return to normal pre-coronavirus
Lockdowns are not a solution by themselves – they should be used as sparingly as possible
The world is still awaiting key scientific findings that will determine the ultimate “exit strategy”.
Iceland’s secondary schools and universities began reopening on Monday, as the country started easing measures put in place seven weeks ago to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The vast island in the North Atlantic has confirmed 1,799 cases of the illness and 10 deaths, but the number of new cases has ranged between zero and three since 23 April.
A study published in April in the New England Journal of Medicine attributed Iceland’s success at containing the pandemic to its widespread testing, having tested more people than any other country and starting a month before the first case was even confirmed.
As of Sunday, Iceland had carried out tests on 50,406 people, or 14% of its 364,000-strong population.
The aggressive testing programme appears to have helped slow the spread of the virus by allowing health authorities to detect people who were infected and contagious but had no symptoms or thought they just had a cold or the flu.
When people test positive, they have to self-isolate at home until 14 days after their fever subsides or until they test negative for the virus. Anybody who comes in contact with them has to self-quarantine for two weeks.
The University of Iceland in Reykjavik, which has 13,000 students, predicted a slow and gradual reopening on Monday, principal Jon Atli Benediktsson told AFP, and the same was expected at its six other campuses across the country.
Ukraine’s government on Monday extended a nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic until 22 May but agreed to partially lift some restrictions from 11 May, according to televised cabinet proceedings.
The partial lifting of the restrictions includes opening parks and recreation areas, and allowing some shops, such as those specialising in household goods or textiles, to open.
Cafes can reopen for takeaway services.
Major South African lender Absa said on Monday it had agreed hundreds of millions of dollars in temporary repayment relief for its borrowers, after the industry said 1.2 million people had applied for help.
The impact of the lockdown on South Africa, a country of over 58 million, mostly poor people, is expected to be devastating: the economy had already fallen into recession at the end of 2019, and official unemployment was close to 30%.
Absa said more than 376,000 of its account holders had applied for assistance and the bank would deliver 5.8bn rand of relief, such as repayment breaks or reductions in installments, over three months.
The Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) said the industry had already implemented more than 15bn rand ($798.03 million) in temporary repayment help – with roughly half going to individuals and half to businesses.
The death toll from the Covid-19 outbreak in Iran rose by 74 in the past 24 hours to 6,277, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on Monday.
The total number of diagnosed cases in Iran, one of the countries hardest hit by the outbreak in the Middle East, has reached 98,647, he said.
Indian police fired tear gas on Monday to scatter migrant workers during clashes in the western state of Gujarat, officials said, as authorities relaxed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
The nationwide lockdown, extended twice since it was implemented on 25 March, is being eased in some areas, but will run until 17 May, the government said last week.
The tally of infections stands at more than 42,500, with 1,300 dead.
About 1,000 stranded workers seeking help to return to homes in states across India gathered on the outskirts of the industrial and diamond-processing city of Surat, but threw stones at police who ordered them to break up, an official said.
“The police fired tear gas shells to disperse protesters,” a police official in Kadodara, near the site of the clash, told Reuters, seeking anonymity as he was not authorised to speak with media.
Television showed images of police entering buildings and homes in the area and detaining people.
Surat has suffered incidents of labour unrest since the lockdown began.
The shutdown endangers the economic survival of many of India’s estimated 140 million migrant labourers, though officials say it is key to beating the virus in a nation of 1.3 billion people, where health services are already stretched.
Migrant labourers stuck in Surat during the lockdown, gather to demand transportation back to their homes on 14 April. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images
It’s Jessica Murray here, I’m taking over from my colleague Aamna and will be running the global live blog for the next few hours, updating you on the latest coronavirus developments from around the world.
If you’re looking for UK-focused coronavirus news, Andrew Sparrow is heading up the UK live blog as ministers discuss plans for how Britain’s lockdown could be eased.
US officials believe China hid virus’s severity to hoard medical supplies. An intelligence report by US Department of Homeland Security, obtained by AP, claims China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and how contagious the disease is to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it. The report follows claims by US defence secretary Mark Esper that Russia and China are taking advantage of the coronavirus emergency to put their interests forward in Europe.
Police in Kuwait dispersed protests by stranded Egyptians unable to return home. The development was the first reported sign of unrest from the region’s vast population of foreign workers who have lost their jobs over the crisis.
Japan extends the country’s national state of emergency to May 31. Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he had decided to extend the country’s national state of emergency to 31 May, Reuters reports.
High schools and universities slowly reopen in Iceland. The country began easing measures put in place seven weeks ago to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
South Africa’s unemployment rate could reach 40%. In a radio interview, South Afica’s treasury director general, Dondo Mogajane, said the country could see about 200bn rand under-collection in tax revenue, painting the starkest picture yet of the economic impact of the coronavirus on the nation.
The number of coronavirus cases in Russia has risen by 10,581 over the past 24 hours. This brought Russia’s nationwide tally to 145,268, the country’s coronavirus crisis response centre said on Monday.
Swimming body FINA postpones 2021 World Aquatics Championships to 2022. The FINA World Championships in Fukuoka (JPN) was initially scheduled for the summer of 2021, but will now take place from 13-29 May 2022.
Dr Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, has been giving evidence to the European parliament’s committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.
Ammon told the committee that only Bulgaria among all European countries is still experiencing an increase in cases of infection.
She said: “The country where we now see still an increase is Bulgaria. There are four countries where we see no substantial changes in the last 14 days – Poland, Romania, Sweden, and the UK. All the others we really see this substantial decrease.”
Ammon said that lockdowns in Europe have reduced the overall transmission of coronavirus by 45% compared with 8 April. “As of Saturday it appears the initial wave of transmission has passed its peak,” she said.
Ammon sounded cautious about the rollout of masks to the public as a way of controlling the spread given the lack of evidence for their utility. “Wearing a face mask should always be seen as an additional tool to hand-washing and social distancing measures,” she said. Ammon added that there was a risk that masks would give citizens a “false sense of security”.
She said:
This is a marathon not a sprint. People’s expectations about the pandemic situation, duration, effect it’ll continue to have on their lives for the foreseeable future needs to be managed. This isn’t going to end any time soon and people need to prepare for it.
Ammon said her agency had ‘low confidence’ that the death figures collected by governments within the EU/EEA and the UK are complete.
An intelligence report by US Department of Homeland Security, obtained by AP, claims China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and how contagious the disease is to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it.
Chinese leaders intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page dated 1 May. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with secretary of state Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.
