Coronavirus live news: Sweden’s cases pass 70,000; Tokyo confirms highest new case tally in two months

Doctors treating patients with Covid-19 in Sierra Leone went on strike on Thursday, leaving patients in some of the main treatment centres without care, Reuters reports.

The strike marks an escalation in a row between doctors and government over what doctors say is a misuse of funds for the coronavirus response in the small West African country, and a lack of protection and compensation for healthworkers.

Doctors say that they were promised hazard pay for their work during the outbreak, but that the pay has not come.

A spokesman for the coronavirus response team previously told Reuters the government was carrying out an audit of health workers to verify who was directly involved in the response.

Since the outbreak began, around 20% of Sierra Leone’s total coronavirus expenditure, or nearly $850,000, went to procuring 30 new SUVs and 230 motorbikes for the Emergency Operations Center, Office of National Security, police force, and military, according to procurement reports released by Sierra Leone’s finance ministry on 22 May.

The only medical equipment listed on that procurement report was eight ventilators, which cost the finance ministry approximately $85,285.

Meanwhile, the health ministry’s Covid-19 situation reports routinely describe a lack of funds to pay for contact tracers. Doctors complain of a lack of protective equipment like gloves, masks and coveralls vital to prevent infections spreading from patients to hospital staff.

Of the some 1,500 Covid-19 cases confirmed in Sierra Leone, 160 have been health workers. The country’s ranks of medical staff were already hit hard during an Ebola outbreak from 2014-16 that killed 250 medical workers out of a total of only around 4,000.

S.K. Jusum, the head doctor at Fourah Bay College, a school whose dormitories have been transformed into the country’s largest coronavirus treatment centre on a hill overlooking the capital Freetown, said:

No patient showing Covid-like symptoms will be treated by any doctor until we have the support we need.

No new patients were being accepted on Thursday because the five doctors at the 200-bed facility were all on strike, leaving community health workers and nurses to care for the sick. There were no critically ill patients on site, Jusum said.

Jusum and other staff acknowledged that this could lead to a rise in cases in the community.

“It is going to be a hell of a problem if this thing isn’t quickly resolved,” said senior community health officer Kiya Conteh who was coordinating lunch deliveries for patients.

Our people need treatment. If they’re not treated here, what can we expect them to do?

The Swiss government has published a list of 29 restricted countries including the US, Russia, Brazil and Sweden, from which visitors entering the country must go into isolation.

From 6 July, travellers to Switzerland who have spent time in the previous 14 days in countries designated as at high risk of infection will have to register with the Swiss authorities immediately on arrival and then go into quarantine for 10 days.

This is just lovely. A Belgian retirement home has set up a “hug curtain” so residents can receive a comforting embrace from loved ones and still adhere to social distancing.

Staff at the Jardins de Picardie nursing home near the French border installed the large plastic curtain on 14 June and it has proven very popular with the residents, who had not been allowed any visitors for 11 weeks.

The curtain, decorated with flowers and bright colours, is made of a big plastic sheet with two pockets on each side where residents and visitors or staff insert their arms. After each use, nurses carefully disinfect the plastic curtain.

Lili Hendrickx, an 86-year old resident of the home, said the curtain was “the most beautiful invention” she had ever seen. “It’s terribly emotional for me,” she said, adding that she cried the first time she was able to hug her daughter again.

The feeling you get when you are close to someone like that, I felt like the heat was passing through.

The Alpine skiing World Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo will take place in February 2021 as originally scheduled, the International Ski Federation (FIS) said on Thursday.

In May, the Italian winter sports federation (FISI) had asked to postpone the event by a year due to uncertainties linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and its negative impact on the country.

“It was clear that there was a strong desire to carry out the event in 2021 … FISI expressed to the FIS Council the importance of these World Championships to be staged in 2021 as a positive signal for the entire country,” FIS said in a statement.

FISI said FIS had decided to provide a financial guarantee of up to 10 million Swiss francs ($11 million) to Italy should there be a new outbreak of coronavirus, the federation said in an online statement.

“It is a form of guarantee that the federation wanted to give to Italy, hoping that there is no need and that the World Championship will go ahead regularly,” FIS president, Gian Franco Kasper, was quoted as saying in the FISI statement.

Italy has been one of the worst-hit countries by the Covid-19 pandemic, with almost 34,800 deaths and close to 240,800 cases.

Alessandro Benetton, Cortina 2021 Foundation chairman, said:

We worked hard in the last few years without even stopping during the toughest months of the coronavirus emergency … the team is ready and we are putting the finishing touches to the infrastructure to host the competitions.

Cortina d’Ampezzo, located in the Dolomites, will also host the 2026 Winter Olympics together with the northern Italian city of Milan.

Florida shattered records on Thursday when it reported over 10,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase in the state since the pandemic started, according to a Reuters tally.

Outbreaks in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona have send cases rising at rates not seen since April.

In June, Florida infections rose by 168% or over 95,000 new cases. The percentage of tests coming back positive has skyrocketed to 15% from 4% at the end of May.

Home to 21 million residents, Florida has reported more new daily coronavirus cases than any European country had at the height of their outbreaks.

To contain the outbreak, the state has closed bars and some beaches but the governor has resisted requiring masks statewide in public or reimposing a lockdown.

Only one other state has reported more than 10,000 new cases in a single day. New York recorded 12,847 new infections on 10 April, three weeks after the state implemented a strict lockdown that closed most businesses. While the state has relaxed many measures, it requires masks in public and mandates anyone arriving from 16 other US states with high infections to self-quarantine for two weeks.

The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said on Thursday that Poles should not be afraid to vote in the second round of a presidential election due on 12 July because the coronavirus has become a disease “like any other”.

His nationalist ruling party’s presidential candidate, the incumbent, Andrzej Duda, faces a neck-and-neck re-election bid against centrist Warsaw mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, following a first round of voting last Sunday.

Poland has weathered the Covid-19 pandemic relatively well, with fewer than 1,500 deaths so far out of a total population of some 38 million, though it continues to report new cases in the hundreds each day.

“This is now a disease that we could say is like any other, we are only waiting for a vaccine,” state news agency PAP quoted Morawiecki as saying.

He added:

And the institutions assessing the first round [of the election] have confirmed that it was organised in a very appropriate way. Let’s not be afraid of participating in the second round.

Duda’s re-election is pivotal for the ambition of Morawiecki’s Law and Justice (PiS) government to make further progress on its conservative agenda, which includes justice reforms the European Union says subvert democratic standards.

Earlier this week Morawiecki appealed especially to elderly Poles not to be deterred by the pandemic and to turn out to vote in the second round.

Despite his comments and an easing of its lockdown measures, Poland has yet to see a sustained decline in new Covid-19 cases. On Wednesday, it reported 382 new cases, the highest number since 17 June, and on Thursday 371 more cases.

Poland’s presidential election was originally set for 10 May but had to be delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Europe was facing the toughest situation in its history and warned the coronavirus pandemic that has wreaked havoc on the economy has not yet disappeared.

“We see every day that the virus is not gone,” she said in a joint press conference with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Thursday, adding that the pandemic was testing Europe’s ability to stick together.

More than 140 research teams across the globe are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19, but how close are we?

This handy Guardian explainer breaks down the stages in vaccine development and where things stand with the vaccines currently in clinical trials.

The Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, will be soon be discharged from hospital to continue his recovery from coronavirus at home, Reuters is reporting.

One of his doctors said on Thursday that the president has demonstrated clear improvement. Alicia Jimenez, a doctor at the military hospital where Hernández was being treated, said:

Over the last few days he has gradually presented clear improvement in his general condition, with a decrease in respiratory symptoms and a significant decrease in inflammation.

Hernández, 51, was hospitalised with pneumonia after testing positive for Covid-19 two weeks ago. His symptoms were said to be mild and he was reportedly in good condition.

The US president, Donald Trump, celebrated a government report showing the country gained 4.8m jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% last month, when states began allowing businesses to reopen from strict shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic.

“Today’s announcement proves that our economy is roaring back,” Trump said, rattling off different sectors that saw job gains according to the monthly report.

“These are historic numbers,” he said.

The president took the victory lap as the coronavirus resurges in states with large economies such as California, Texas and Florida, prompting local governments to once again shutter bars and other businesses where the deadly respiratory disease is thought to spread easily.

A separate report on Thursday said that 1.43 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the final week of June.

Despite the swelling loads of new cases, Trump said he expected to see good employment numbers in the coming months and that the third quarter gross domestic product report, due days before the November presidential election, would also be strong.

Thursday’s report, Trump said, “suggests that workers are confident about finding a new job”. He added, though, that the White House and Congress continue to negotiate on another round of stimulus, frequently called “phase 4”, to help the economy withstand a pandemic, now in its fourth month.

Oman’s health minister said the sultanate has witnessed a “scary” surge in Covid-19 cases that required boosting hospital capacity, especially for intensive care units.

The country reported another 1,361 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday and three deaths in the last 24 hours, to take its total count to 42,555 cases with 188 deaths.

Minister Ahmed bin al-Saeedi told a news briefing:

In the last six weeks there has been a radical change which is very disturbing and scary.

He blamed individuals who did not wear masks or practice social distancing, and said some employees were going into offices when they had been in contact with infected people, instead of self isolating.

He said there had been more than 9,000 new infections and 43 deaths since last Thursday, the biggest weekly spike since Oman first reported cases in late February.

Saeedi said Oman, a country of 4.7 million people, was working to increase capacity at intensive care units and planned to set up a field hospital with 250 to 300 beds in the Muscat region for non-urgent cases.

Hospitals were coping for now but were under pressure, particularly intensive care units, he said.

Oman will also start a 10-week nationwide survey, including citizens and non-citizens, on 12 July to analyse the spread of the coronavirus. Blood samples to detect antibodies will be part of the data collection, the ministry of health said on Twitter.

In March Oman began to introduce lockdowns in certain regions such as Muscat, Dhofar and Duqm and some tourist towns, but since April it has gradually allowed commercial centres to reopen and lifted the lockdown in the Muscat region, which includes the capital.

Saeedi said mosques will not be allowed to reopen or large gatherings to take place at the current rate of infection.

Air and land borders remain closed except for repatriation flights.

The father of the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has flown to Greece, despite current advice for British nationals to avoid all but essential international travel.

Greek government officials confirmed on Thursday that author Stanley Johnson had arrived, likely via Bulgaria, in the northern region of Pelion where he has a holiday home, but said there was nothing untoward in his arrival.

Photos on Stanley Johnson’s Instagram account showed him wearing a mask in what appeared to be an airport. Two videos on the same account showed an aircraft coming in to land.

“Arriving in Athens this evening!,” the caption said.

Stanley Johnson was quoted on Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper website as saying he was in Pelion “on essential business trying to Covid-proof my property in view of the upcoming letting season”.

Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas said: “We have banned flights, direct flights from UK and Sweden until 15 June. If a citizen from these countries arrives in a different way to Greece, of course they can come.”

Boris Johnson’s spokesman declined to comment on the specific case but when asked whether the prime minister thought the public should follow travel advice, he said: “In relation to Foreign Office advice, that is what it is, it’s advice and it is for individuals to make the judgments themselves.”