Coronavirus live news: Spain set to open borders to most countries in EU’s Schengen area

Thousands demonstrated in Berlin against racism and for broader fairness, including sharing the coronavirus burden, as they formed a socially-distant human chain through the German capital on Sunday, AFP reports.

Hundreds also turned out in other cities like Leipzig and Hamburg, although some faced rainstorms during a weekend of harsh weather across Germany.

A spokesman for progressive movement Unteilbar (Indivisible) told AFP “more than 20,000 people” had participated in the event in Berlin, while police estimated around 8,000.

“The coronavirus is worsening existing inequalities. Many people are threatened with being left behind. We will not allow that,” said Unteilbar spokesman Georg Wissmeier in a statement. “Human rights, social justice and climate justice belong together indivisibly.”

Over 10,000 people gathered in Berlin in support of Black Lives Matter last weekend following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the movement’s slogan was also present on Sunday. But the organisers of the latest demonstration posted a broader set of demands online.

They are calling for better working conditions and pay for all including migrants, affordable housing, upholding asylum rights, relaunching the economy along green lines and allowing workers more say in how companies are run.

Participants’ infection control precautions had been “exemplary”, a police spokesman told AFP, adding that people had kept their distance and worn face masks.

Thirty-six migrants travelling from Turkey were spotted off Lesbos and transferred to a temporary settlement in the north of the island, Greece’s coastguard has said.

Among the group, “one person had to be hospitalised”, a coastguard press office official told AFP, without giving further details. The rest of the group were moved to a migrant facility on Lesbos and quarantined for seven days under measures to combat coronavirus, the source said.

The group is made up of 10 women, 10 children and 16 men, all from Iran and Afghanistan, the Greek state news agency ANA reports.

Their boat was spotted on Saturday morning but the Greek coastguard’s rescue and transfer operation did not take place until midnight, according to the coastguard.

Migrant advocacy NGOs, Aegean Boat Report and Watch the Med, denounced the Greek and Turkish coastguards on social media for leaving the boat in distress offshore “for 14 hours” while they both attempted to deflect responsibility.

There have been numerous reports from NGOs and the media published in recent months accusing Greece of driving migrants backs towards Turkey.

On Friday the UN’s refugee agency, the International Organization for Migration and the EU called on Athens to “urgently open an investigation” into the matter and “take the necessary measures”.

It is the third boat to arrive in Lesbos since the beginning of June. A total of 108 migrants have been rescued off the island in the last two weeks, according to ANA, an increase in numbers after a significant drop in previous months due to restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

AFP is reporting that Pakistan’s planning minister has warned the number of coronavirus cases in the country could double by the end of June and peak at more than a million infections a month later.

The warning from Asad Umar comes amid concerns that many in the country continue to ignore guidance on social distancing, hygiene and other measures to tackle the disease.

Pakistan currently has confirmed nearly 140,000 cases of COVID-19, with the death toll approaching 2,700. Authorities have ramped up testing, but it remains limited, so real numbers are thought to be higher.

Umar, who is helping coordinate the government’s coronavirus response, told reporters in Islamabad:

Expert estimates say the number of confirmed cases could go up to 300,000 by the end of June if we keep on flouting SOPs (standard operating procedures) and taking the problem lightly. We fear the number of confirmed cases could go up further to 1.2 million by end of next month.

The UK’s coronavirus death toll rose by 36 to 41,698, according to government data released on Sunday.

Sri Lanka has staged a mock election to test measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus during a parliamentary vote in August.

The poll was due to be held on 25 April but was cancelled and postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic, which official figures show has infected nearly 2,000 people and killed 11 in the country.

The election commission said Wednesday the vote would be held on 5 August. New health measures – to be implemented at polling booths and counting centres – were trialled on Sunday in four of the 22 electoral districts, commission chairman Mahinda Deshapriya told reporters.

We were very pleased to see that all those who volunteered to take part in this exercise today wore face masks. Officials and polling agents will be behind clear plastic screens or wear face shields. We have also ensured that voters will stand a metre apart when they queue up.

The island nation of 21 million people has steadily lifted its lockdown restrictions, although a night curfew remains.

President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is emerging from the coronavirus crisis with minimal losses, having handled it better than the United States where party political interests got in the way.

With 528,964 confirmed cases, Russia has the third-highest number of infections after Brazil and the United States.
However, its official death toll stands at 6,948, much lower than in many other countries, including the United States which has had over 115,000 deaths. The veracity of Russian statistics has been called into question.

Speaking on state TV, Putin said:

We are working rather smoothly and emerging from this situation with the coronavirus confidently and, with minimal losses… But in the (United) States that is not happening.

Russia’s political system had handled the crisis better than its US counterpart, said Putin, because authorities at federal and regional level had worked as one team without disagreements unlike those in the United States.

I can’t imagine someone in the (Russian) government or regions saying we are not going to do what the government or president say. It seems to me that the problem (in the United States) is that group, in this case party interests, are put above those of society’s as a whole, above the interests of the people.

Afghanistan has detected polio in areas previously declared free of the disease after immunisation programmes were paused due to the coronavirus pandemic, officials have said.

The polio virus has spread to three provinces that had not reported cases for up to five years, said Jan Rasekh, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s polio eradication programme. Balkh, Herat and Badakhshan have each declared a single case.

Although the number of new cases nationwide is lower so far this year – with 14 compared to 26 in 2019 – the location has sparked concern.

“We had worked hard for years and cornered polio to a limited geography,” Rasekh said, in comments reported by AFP. “The coronavirus has helped polio spread beyond its endemic region of south and southeast, and now threatens people across the country.”

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said last month that polio eradication drives had been suspended in dozens of countries, while measles vaccination campaigns were also put on hold in 27 nations.

There are only two nations remaining where the wild version of the polio virus continues to spread – Pakistan and Afghanistan – but a strain that has mutated from the vaccine itself has caused outbreaks in Africa.

Afghanistan has so far declared more than 24,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 471 deaths. Experts say the actual number of cases is likely higher given limited testing capacity.

The Australian government will spend another A$1.5bn on infrastructure and fast-track approval for projects in a bid to stimulate the country’s economy post-lockdown, prime minister Scott Morrison will say on Monday.

Due to lockdown measures introduced in March to stem the spread of the coronavirus, Australia is on course for its first recession in 30 years.

The country’s government has already brought forward A$3.8bn in infrastructure spending, but Morrison will on Monday promise a further A$1.5bn in funds. According to extracts of a speech seen by Reuters, the Australia’s prime minister will say:

As we come out of the COVID crisis, infrastructure can give us the edge that many countries don’t have.

The money will be spent on “small priority” projects identified by Australia’s states and territories. As well as increased spending, Morrison will say that Australia will fast-track approvals for 15 projects, including BHP’s Olympic Dam.

Projects in Australia typically take 42 months to receive necessary approval. Morrison will say that he intends to reduce this period by half.

A century after the 1918 pandemic, South America’s largest country has passed Britain to claim the world’s second-highest death toll. The Guardian’s Tom Philips looks at Brazil’s deepening Covid-19 catastrophe.

As a child growing up in 1940s São Paulo, Drauzio Varella remembers his grandmother’s tales of how the Spanish flu ravaged the blue-collar immigrant community they called home.

“So many people died that families would leave people outside on the pavements, and early each morning the carts would come by to collect them and take them off to burial in mass graves,” remembered Varella, who would go on to become Brazil’s best-known doctor.

More than a century after the 1918 calamity, South America’s largest country is again being shaken by a devastating pandemic, and Varella is in disbelief.

“Nobody thought this could happen. Perhaps they imagined it theoretically – that some kind of virus might come along,” said the 77-year-old oncologist, author and broadcaster. “But even when this virus did show up, we didn’t think it would cause a tragedy of such proportions.”

Uzbekistan will reopen its borders to some air travellers from 15 June with quarantine procedures depending on their country of origin, Reuters reports.

The borders of the Central Asian nation, closed since March, will reopen for diplomats, their family members, investors and medical tourists, as well as Uzbeks leaving the country for study or medical treatment, the cabinet said in a statement.

Depending on where they are coming from, visitors will be either quarantined, placed under observation at home, or just let in; the latter will apply to those arriving from China, Japan, South Korea and Israel.

The former Soviet republic has confirmed 4,966 Covid-19 cases with 19 deaths.

Delhi is to use 500 railway coaches as hospital facilities after a surge in the number of coronavirus cases led to a shortage of hospital beds.

India’s federal government said on Sunday it will provide New Delhi’s city authorities with 500 railway coaches that will be equipped to care for coronavirus patients, Reuters reports.

The coaches will increase Delhi’s capacity by 8,000 beds, home minister Amit Shah said on Twitter after a meeting with the capital’s chief minister.

The government will also ramp up testing in the city, especially in containment zones, conduct a door-to-door health survey of residents and provide sufficient supplies of oxygen cylinders and ventilators, he said.

India is the fourth-worst affected country in the world, with cases steadily increasing. It reported a record single-day jump in cases on Sunday, adding nearly 12,000 confirmed infections and taking the total to more than 320,000, according to health ministry data.

Prime minister Narendra Modi imposed a nationwide lockdown in late March that has since been loosened.

Iran’s daily virus death toll has exceeded 100, for the first time in two months, AFP reports.

In televised remarks, health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari announced 107 Covid-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, raising the overall toll to 8,837.

Lari said:

It was very painful for us to announce the triple-digit figure. This is an unpredictable and wild virus and may surprise us at any time.

Iran last recorded triple-digit daily fatalities on April 13, with 111 dead.

Lari also announced 2,472 new cases confirmed in the past day, bringing the total infection caseload to 187,427, with over 148,000 recoveries.

There has been scepticism at home and abroad about Iran’s official COVID-19 figures, with concerns the real toll could be much higher.

Iran has struggled to contain what has become the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak of the illness since it reported its first cases in the Shiite holy city of Qom in February. But since April it has gradually lifted restrictions to ease the intense pressures on its sanctions-hit economy.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday reproached citizens for failing to observe measures designed to rein in the virus.

Official figures have shown a rising trajectory in new confirmed cases since early May, which the government has attributed to increased testing rather than a worsening caseload.