Coronavirus live news: Malaysia rounds up migrants as UN warns of crackdown on vulnerable
Birds’ seven-week reign in Madrid is coming to an end.
By 9.30am on Saturday, the musings of blackbirds, the cooings of pigeons and the hooligan shrieks of parakeets had begun to mix with the rhythmic fall of foot on pavement and the whizzing of bikes.
Spain’s coronavirus lockdown, one of the toughest in Europe, is slowly being eased, and people are twitchy for the newly-restored privilege of exercise.
As of first thing Saturday, adults are allowed to exercise between 6am and 10am and then from 8pm to 11pm. The children’s slot is midday to 7pm, while the streets belong to older people and those who need assistance from 10am to midday and then 7pm until 8pm.
Juan Badiola, a 28-year-old teacher, was relishing his freedom as he walked along the streets of Hortaleza in north-east Madrid.
“It’s been pretty tough and I’ve been working really hard for weeks,” he said. “My family is all healthy and OK, but I’ve really missed being able to go out and make plans.”
His sister, Ana, was also thrilled to be out even if she can’t yet resume her hobby of climbing – or see her friends.
“Being able to get out again is a big deal,” said the 21-year-old student. “But people need to be responsible.”
China’s most populous cities saw an increase in outbound travellers, tourists and day-trippers on the long holiday weekend, according Reuters.
The increase in the number of people travelling was led by residents of Wuhan, the centre of the coronavirus epidemic that first struck the country late last year.
Reuters reports the number of people travelling outside their home cities jumped 40% on 1 May, the start of the Labour Day weekend, compared with the first day of the tomb sweeping holiday on 4 April, according to Reuters calculations on data from China’s internet giant Baidu Inc.
The increase in tourism was led by increases in travellers from Wuhan, Beijing, Dalian, Tianjin and Jinan, with China having eased curbs on travel and relaxed rules on quarantine amid dwindling cases of the coronavirus.
The lockdown in Lagos, which accounts for more than half of Nigeria’s 2,000 confirmed infections, is due to gradually ease from Monday. Yet the impact on millions, particularly those living on the edge of the city and working in daily informal, labour has been acute.
Amid limited government support, an outpouring of hundreds of initiatives has emerged across Lagos, providing food and essential goods. A range of food and aid distribution has been set up by NGOs, private businesses, community groups and local people.
Undocumented African migrants, who even before the coronavirus outbreak plunged Italy into crisis, barely scraped, but the lockdown for past two months has made their existence even more precarious.
Italy is preparing to reopen some businesses and industry on Monday in a preliminary easing of its virus shutdown. But there is no indication that migrants in Castel Volturno will get back to work anytime soon, and no evidence that the government’s social nets will ease their misery.
Rohingya refugees whose relatives, including children, have been stranded for weeks on cramped boats have urged international governments to act before they perish at sea.
Two boats carrying about 500 people were last spotted off Bangladesh about a week ago, but are believed to have returned to the high seas. The refugees on board, who were fleeing desperate conditions in camps in Bangladesh, had attempted to reach Malaysia but appear to have been turned away. Bangladesh has also said it will not allow the boats to dock.
Mohammed, a father who has lived in the camps in Bangladesh since 2017, when more than 700,000 Rohingya fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar, believes his 13-year-old son is among those stranded. His son went missing 51 days ago, but later phoned to say that he would be taking a boat with friends to Malaysia.
Mohammed has since seen a video, shared on Facebook, in which he recognised his son onboard a packed boat. “He looked hungry and he had become very thin,” Mohammed said. “There is no way to get information about the boat. Whether he is alive or not is totally unknown.”
After two and a half years living in the sprawling camps in Cox’s Bazar, where about 1 million Rohingya refugees are sheltering, Mohammed said he believes his son had become desperate. “He cannot access education here in the camp. There are no jobs, there’s no available income here for our boys,” he said.
He had not known that his son planned to make the journey, he added.
About two million Afghans have lost their jobs due to lockdown as the war-torn country confirmed 179 new coronavirus cases, triggered by continued surges of transmission in Kandahar and the biggest one-day rise of infections in Kabul.
According to the National Union of Workers and Employees, the political crisis has compounded unemployment in the country.
“The political crisis, security threats, the lockdown of cities and the reduction in international aid strongly concerns us. We want all to pay attention to the situation and the problems,” said Marouf Qadiri, the head of the National Workers Union.
The country’s health ministry has confirmed 179 new coronavirus cases and four deaths over the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to 2,514 and total deaths to 72.
Kabul has recorded its biggest one-day rise of new infections as 75 new patients tested positive for Covid-19. The total number of infections in Afghanistan’s worst affected area is 692.
Akhtar Mohammad Makoii
(@akhtar_makoii)#Afghanistan has recorded 179 new #COVID19 cases and 4 deaths over past 24 hours.
Total infections: 2514
New infections: 179
May1: 164
Apr30: 232
Apr29:110
Apr28: 125
Apr27: 172
Apr26: 68
Apr25: 133
Apr24: 95
Apr23: 83
Apr22: 51
Apr21:66
Apr20:30Death toll: 72
Recovered: 331
The city of six million is under lockdown in a bid to contain spread of coronavirus.
The western province of Herat, which borders Iran and had the first coronavirus case confirmed there, has recorded 23 new infections. Thousands of Afghan migrants poured back in February and March from Iran.
At least 41 suspected patients were tested in Kandahar in past 24 hours, of which 15 were positive.
Meanwhile, war continued to rage on Saturday as three civilians were killed in an explosion in Laghman province. United Nations Mission in Afghanistan has said that more than 533 civilians including 152 children were killed in first quarter of 2020.
Health ministry spokesman, Wahidullah Mayar has said that the ministry is concerned about spread of coronavirus in war zones. He said the country was fighting with both terror and coronavirus. ”You won’t find any country like us, war is our biggest challenge in order to fight with coronavirus.”
Coronavirus has upended life for Morocco’s medical workers. They enjoy better medical facilities than in much of Africa but are often short of the equipment available in European hospitals, which also found themselves overwhelmed, according to a report by AP.
A north-eastern Chinese city of 10 million people struggling with currently the country’s biggest coronavirus cluster shut dine-in services on Saturday, reports Reuters, as the rest of China eases restrictions designed to hamper the spread of the disease.
Harbin, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang and its biggest city, said it temporarily suspended dine-in services for all eateries, reported the official CCTV, citing an emergency epidemic prevention notice.
Catering services operating in the city, such as barbecue eateries and those selling skewers, shabu shabu, and stew, must suspend dine-in meals until further notice and in accordance with changes in the epidemic situation, the notice said.
While mainland China reported only one case on Saturday and crowds returned to some of its most famous tourist attractions for the five-day May holiday, the northern province of Heilongjiang is hunkering down to prevent further clusters from forming.
Of the 140 local transmissions in mainland China, over half have been reported as from Heilongjiang, according to a Reuters tally.
Heilongjiang province borders Russia and has become the frontline in the fight against a resurgence of the coronavirus epidemic, with many new infections from citizens entering from Russia.
The province has already banned entry to residential zones by non-locals and vehicles registered elsewhere. It had also ordered isolation for those arriving from outside China or key epidemic areas.
On the back of the outbreak, deputy secretary of the provincial party committee, Wang Wentao, said at meeting on Friday that “we deeply blame ourselves”, according to local media.
“We had an inadequate understanding of epidemic prevention and control,” said Wang, adding that the failure to carry out testing in a timely manner contributed to the clusters.
New polling shows pretty extraordinarily high support for the Scottish National party government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the YouGov survey for the Times Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has the confidence of 71% of Scots when it comes to her ability to make the correct decisions in dealing with the virus, with only 23% saying they do not have faith in her judgments. That gives the Scottish first minister a +48 rating overall.
There was a high level of cross-party consensus in support of the government’s performance – three quarters of Scots, including the vast majority of Tory and Labour voters, believe the SNP government is handling the crisis well.
As well as 85% of SNP voters, 84% of Liberal Democrats and 70% of both Conservative and Labour supporters are happy with the approach taken by the Scottish government. Just 19% said the virus was being handled badly.
This consensus falls apart when assessing the UK government’s performance. Scots are split, with 47% of those surveyed agreeing Conservative ministers have handled the outbreak well and 48% disagreeing. Boris Johnson himself has a net rating of -15.
Read the original article at The Guardian