Coronavirus live news: Spain puts part of Galicia back into lockdown; Melbourne outbreak has ‘explosive potential’

A top health official from US president Donald Trump’s administration said on Sunday it was not clear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, as Florida sees record numbers of coronavirus cases.

Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, also refused to confirm president Trump’s claim that 99% of coronavirus cases were harmless and called the situation a “serious problem.”

With record numbers of people testing positive for the virus in Jacksonville and across Florida, Hahn was asked if it would be safe to hold the typically large RNC gathering in just seven weeks.

“I think it’s too early to tell,” Hahn said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program, Reuters reports.

“We will have to see how this unfolds in Florida and elsewhere around the country.”

The Republican Party moved most of the convention activities to Jacksonville from Charlotte after a battle over coronavirus safety concerns with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat.

Jacksonville, led by Republican mayor Lenny Curry, began requiring masks in public last week after cases continued to rise.

Israel has ordered thousands of people into quarantine on Sunday after a contentious phone surveillance program resumed, while Palestinians in the West Bank returned to life under lockdown amid a surge in coronavirus cases in both areas.

Israels Health Ministry said Sunday many messages had been sent to Israelis following the renewed involvement of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, according to the Associated Press.

The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that more than 30,000 people were notified they must enter quarantine since Thursday.

Just weeks ago, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank appeared to have contained outbreaks after imposing strict measures early on during a first wave of infections.

But after reporting just a handful of new cases a day in early May, both areas have experienced a steady uptick in cases following an easing of restrictions.

“We are at the height of a new corona offensive. This is a very strong outbreak that is growing and spreading in the world and also here,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet.

“We are in a state of emergency,” he said, adding that Israel would need to further clamp down to rein in the virus.

Israel is now reporting around 1,000 new cases a day, higher than its peak during the previous wave.

Late Sunday, the parliament’s coronavirus committee voted to impose new restrictions limiting gatherings in bars, synagogues and function halls to 50 people.

Additional restrictions are expected in the coming days. It is requiring citizens wear masks and has urged more stringent social distancing.

With its contact tracing apparatus struggling to keep up with the mounting caseload, Israel last week redeployed the Shin Bet to use phone surveillance technology to track Israelis who have come in contact with infected people and then notify them that they must enter home quarantine.

In the UK, people have come together – at an appropriate distance – once again to clap for healthcare workers, this time on the 72nd anniversary of the NHS.

It seems that no sphere of life has been left untouched by the coronavirus, including the arts. In today’s Observer, there are interviews with seven novelists from around the world, talking about the impact of the pandemic.

They include Tayari Jones in the US, Maxim Leo in Germany, Emily Perkins in New Zealand, Natalia Borges Polesso in Brazil, Sjón in Iceland, Domenico Starnone in Italy and Kyung-sook Shin in South Korea.

You can read their thoughts here: Planet virus – seven novelists from around the world on living with the pandemic

Richard Luscombe has the latest Covid-19 data from Florida:

Worrying figures just in from Florida: the state recorded 10,059 new cases of Covid-19 overnight, bringing the overall total past 200,000. Florida’s death toll increased by 29 to 3,731, and the number of hospitalisations statewide rose by a further 160, to 15,595 since the pandemic began. The statistics show that in three of the five days of July so far, new coronavirus cases are above 10,000.

You can follow the latest developments from the US in our dedicated live blog:

Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell from Associated Press have been reporting on Iran today as the government instituted mandatory mask-wearing as fears mount over newly spiking reported deaths from the coronavirus.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicized an image of himself in a mask in recent days, urging both public officials and the Islamic Republic’s 80 million people to wear them to stop the virus’s spread.

While pictures emerge of compliance with the new directive on the streets, they found widespread apathy over a pandemic that saw Iran in February among the first countries struck after China. Whether rooted in fatigue, dismissal or fatalism, that indifference has scared Iranian public health officials into issuing increasingly dire warnings.

The new rules mark a turning point for Iran, which has struggled in trying to balance provincial lockdowns to stop the virus’s spread with the fears of stalling out an economy already struggling under US sanctions.

To fight the virus’s spread, the Iranian government issued the mask mandate. The new rules require those in Tehran’s subway, riding buses or indoors to wear them. Rouhani said those seeking public services also will be required to wear a mask.

Up until this point, wearing a mask in Iran had been encouraged but remained a personal choice. It follows the changing views and mixed messages of the scientific community over the usefulness of masks since the pandemic began.

At two busy petrol stations, an Associated Press journalist counted only 15 of 95 drivers wearing masks, while two of the stations’ 11 employees wore them.

“It is useless to wear mask”, argued Mohammad Ghasemi, a 27-year-old employee of one of the stations. “I use the metro twice a day when it’s packed with people without (social) distancing.”

The cost and quality of masks also remains a concern. Masks range from the equivalent of 10 US cents to $3, which can be a lot, as the Iranian rial has fallen to historic lows against the dollar.

And in a nation where over half its people are under the age of 35, the virus hasn’t been an overwhelming concern for its youth. That was the feeling 23-year-old Hamid Sharifi had as he smoked a cigarette on a Tehran street.

“I think it’s not as dangerous as they said in the beginning”, said Sharifi, unmasked, before walking away into the crowds of the capital.

Samad Rostami, a 35-year-old shopkeeper, disagreed.
“If we continue like this, our hospitals will be full and patients should lie on streets,” he said. “We are getting closer to the brink of catastrophe.

• The north-western Spanish region of Galicia imposed restrictions on about 70,000 people on Sunday following a Covid-19 outbreak. People living in A Marina along Spain’s northern coast in the region of Lugo will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday
• Iran has introduced compulsory face masks in public spaces after the government admitted its efforts to introduce effective voluntary social distancing have failed. The latest figures published by the Iranian health ministry on Sunday showed a record 163 had died in the past 24 hours, higher than any daily figure in the initial March outbreak
• In Australia, a strict lockdown has begun across nine tower blocks in Melbourne, as officials warn a local outbreak has “explosive potential”. Hundreds of police swarmed the area blocking driveways and doorways and barring people from going out
• A group of scientists are planning to write to the World Health Organization to suggest that they are underplaying the risk of airborne spread of Covid-19. Our science correspondent Hannah Devlin has a report that explains what they mean
• It is a holiday weekend in the US, and the number of new coronavirus cases reported has dipped below 50,000 for the first time in four days. The data, though, may be under-counted due to the Independence Day weekend
• The Philippines has reported its biggest single-day jump in new coronavirus case on Sunday, adding 2,434 confirmed infections and taking the total count to 44,254, the health ministry said. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates passed unwanted milestones as infections hit 200,000 and 50,000 cases respectively. Mexico and India also saw large rises in cases
• Churches opened for worship in England for the first time in three months. It followed pubs being allowed to re-open on Saturday

It isn’t just Croatia with elections today. The Dominican Republic is going to the polls today for general election that had originally been planned for 17 May but which was postponed due to the coronavirus. It might be on the other side of the world, but the scenes look much the same in Santo Domingo as in Zagreb.

Not everybody seems to have got the memo about social distancing though. Here presidential candidate for the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) Luis Abinader leaves after casting his ballot in Santo Domingo, absolutely surrounded by the media.

As has been frequently observed, the US has 4% of the world’s population, and has had around 25% of the world’s confirmed coronavirus cases. President Donald Trump will tell you that is because the country does more testing. Which makes this an interesting piece published today by Politico: Why the US still hasn’t solved its testing crisis

The nation has conducted more than 4 million tests in the past week, more than ever before. But big jumps in testing capacity have been effectively erased by record-breaking increases in new infections as states reopen their economies. The supply chain problems that hampered testing early on never entirely went away and still threaten the ability of labs to conduct testing for everyone asking.

David Lim and Alice Miranda Ollstein have identified five key reasons, including those supply chain problems, racial disparities, and increased demand due to re-opening economies.

You can read it in full here: Politico – Why the US still hasn’t solved its testing crisis

Incidentally, if you are interested in more US news about coronavirus, my colleague Tom Lutz in New York is running a live blog specifically for that.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking at a local political rally in Bilbao, has spoken about the decision to put an area of Galicia into new local coronavirus restrictions.

He urged people not to lower their guard, but called for calm as “the early detection of these outbreaks shows the health system is much better prepared” than in March.

Spain has registered 205,545 coronavirus cases and 28,385 deaths according to health ministry data, making it one of Europe’s worst-affected countries.

Residents of A Marina, along Spain’s northern coast in the province of Lugo, will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday.

I mentioned earlier that a group of scientists are planning to write to the World Health Organization (WHO) to suggest that they are underplaying the risk of airborne spread of Covid-19.

Hannah Devlin, our science correspondent, understands what they are saying rather better than I do, and has written a report for us about the conflicting views. As she puts it:

WHO guidance states that the virus is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and contact. Aerosol transmission involves much smaller particles that can remain in the air for long periods of time and can be transmitted to others over distances greater than one metre.

Members of the WHO’s infection prevention committee have said that while aerosol transmission may play some role, there is overwhelming evidence that the primary routes of transmission are through direct contact and respiratory droplets expelled during coughing, sneezing or speech. They said introducing new measures to guard against aerosol transmission was unfeasible and unlikely to make much difference to the spread of infection.

However, what this group of scientists are saying is that:

Emerging evidence, including from settings such as meat processing plants where there have been outbreaks, suggests that airborne transmission could be more important than the WHO has acknowledged.

It is well worth reading the whole of Hannah Devlin’s piece to get a better understanding of why they are disagreeing with the current assessment from WHO.

Read it here: WHO underplaying risk of airborne spread of Covid-19, say scientists

The north-western Spanish region of Galicia imposed restrictions on about 70,000 people on Sunday following a Covid-19 outbreak, a day after Catalonia also introduced a local lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Reuters reports that people living in A Marina along Spain’s northern coast in the region of Lugo will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday, two days before regional elections in Galicia on 12 July.

The regional government said people will be allowed to move around A Marina but only those who need to travel for work will be allowed to leave or enter the area.

Regional health minister Jesus Vazquez Almuina told a news conference on Sunday that the biggest outbreaks were linked to bars in the area. Regional health authorities said there were 258 cases in Galicia, of which 117 were in Lugo.

Capacity in bars and restaurants will be reduced to 50% and people will have to wear a face mask, even if outdoors on beaches or at swimming pools, the authorities said.

Spain’s health minister Salvador Illa said on Sunday the ministry was following the situations in Galicia and Catalonia very closely.

“Social distancing and lockdown measures were the key to flattening the curve. Now they are needed again to stop the outbreaks,” he said in tweet.

Spain has registered 205,545 coronavirus cases and 28,385 deaths according to health ministry data, making it one of Europe’s worst-affected countries.

Speaking of prayers, there have been mass prayers in Bali as the Indonesian resort island prepares to reopen to tourists shut out due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sultan Anshori reports for Reuters that more than a thousand people attended a prayer at Besakih Hindu temple in the town of Karangasem, expressing gratitude for the handling of the new coronavirus on the island and seeking blessings for the start of a “new normal”.

Bali has reported 1,849 coronavirus infections and 20 deaths so far, while Indonesia as a whole has recorded 63,749 cases and 3,171 deaths since early March.

The idyllic Southeast Asian island will gradually reopen this month for domestic tourists, while maintaining a “strict health protocol” to prevent the spread of the virus that causes Covid-19, Bali provincial secretary Dewa Made Indra told reporters.

The local government expects to reopen Bali to foreign arrivals in September. Tourism is Bali’s main source of income. Travel restrictions due to the pandemic have hammered the local economy. The occupancy rate at Bali’s starred hotels plunged to 2.07% in May, according to Bali statistics bureau data, from 62.55% in December before the pandemic hit and down from 51.56% in May 2019.

“What I hope is the best for Bali and … all the tourists will come to Bali and everybody will be happy and healthy again,” Robin Tesselar, a Dutch citizen staying in Bali, told Reuters after attending the Besakih prayers.

Tourism-related businesses are preparing to for the reopening by implementing the health protocols, aiming to improve them until Bali reopens for international tourists, said hospitality executive Yoga Iswara.