Coronavirus live news: US death toll surpasses 130,000; India’s cases third-highest in world

New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday called on Donald Trump to not be a “co-conspirator” of the coronavirus and acknowledge the “major problem” it poses as cases spiked in dozens of states after some rushed to reopen, Reuters reports.

The number of US coronavirus deaths exceeded 130,000 on Monday (see 3.59pm.), following a massive surge of new cases that has put Trump’s handling of the crisis under the microscope and derailed efforts to restart the economy.

“So, Mr. President, don’t be a co-conspirator of Covid,” Cuomo said at a news briefing.

Acknowledge to the American people that Covid exists, it is a major problem, it’s going to continue until we admit it and each of us stands up to do our part.

Cuomo said the president was “enabling” the virus if he failed to acknowledge the severity of the situation, and slammed the president’s comments that the surge in US cases was due to increased testing.

“He makes up facts. He makes up science,” Cuomo said, citing several past Trump statements on the virus such it would disappear like a miracle as the weather got warmer.

He said all those things, none of them were true. And now we have a problem in 38 states because some people believe him.

Cuomo said coronavirus hospitalisations in New York dropped to 817 – the lowest since 18 March – and nine people died from Covid-19 on Sunday, adding:

The numbers have actually declined since we started reopening.

Cuomo warned about complacency now that the worst seemed to be over in New York, pointing to reports of some July Fourth celebrations, including in Manhattan and on Fire Island and upstate, where revellers ignored social distancing and face covering rules. He said:

That curve was purely a function of what we did. If we change what we’re doing, you’re going to change the trajectory of the virus.

Puerto Rico’s government reported a new daily high in Covid-19 cases on Monday, but critics said the numbers were deeply flawed.

The health department reported 530 new coronavirus cases, topping a spurt of 485 on 4 June.

But the numbers include both molecular swab tests for current infections and serological tests for antibodies, and independent health experts complained that some of the results date back as far as April, so they don’t provide an accurate picture of the current situation.

“We keep watching the virus through a rearview mirror”, Puerto Rico epidemiologist Roberta Lugo told the Associated Press, adding that the government keeps taking decisions based on faulty and incomplete data.

The US territory of about 3.2 million people has reported 8,585 confirmed or probable cases of Covid-19 and at least 155 deaths.

A spokeswoman for Puerto Rico health secretary Lorenzo González said he was not immediately available. The secretary told WAPA TV on Monday that while the government has seen a progressive increase in cases, there is currently no strain on health resources. He said 115 patients are hospitalised, with 18 of those in the intensive care unit and another 11 on ventilators.

González said he might recommend rolling back recent re-openings if the increase in cases continues.

Puerto Rico was one of the first US juristictions to impose tight restrictions to fight the disease and it is lifting those in stages. Governor Wanda Vázquez last week announced strict new rules for anyone flying into Puerto Rico, including a mandatory Covid-19 molecular test within 72 hours before travelling.

Saudi Arabia on Monday opened hajj registration for foreign residents in the kingdom, saying they will make up 70% of the pilgrims after it scaled-back the annual ritual due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Saudi Arabia has said it will allow only around 1,000 pilgrims already present in the kingdom to participate in this year’s hajj, scheduled for the end of July, a far cry from the 2.5 million who attended the five-day pilgrimage last year.

Foreign residents, aged between 20 and 65 who have no previous health ailments such as diabetes and heart conditions, are allowed to register on localhaj.haj.gov.sa., the hajj ministry said.

The registration process will be open until Friday, it added.

Saudi citizens will make up the remaining 30% of the pilgrims, with the ritual restricted to medical professionals and security personnel who have recovered from the virus, the ministry said.

“They will be selected through the database of those who have recovered from the virus,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The pilgrims will be tested for coronavirus before arriving in the holy city of Mecca and are required to quarantine at home after the ritual, according to health officials.

Last month, Saudi Arabia announced it would hold a “very limited” hajj, a decision fraught with political and economic peril as it battles a coronavirus surge.

The decision to exclude pilgrims arriving from outside Saudi Arabia is a first in the kingdom’s modern history and has sparked disappointment among Muslims worldwide, although many accepted it was necessary due to the health risks involved.

Saudi Arabia has so far reported more than 213,000 coronavirus infections – the highest in the Gulf – and nearly 2,000 deaths.

Covid-19 could cause an additional half a million AIDS deaths if treatment is disrupted long term, the United Nations said Monday in a warning that the pandemic was jeopardising years of progress against HIV.

The Associated Press reports that at the start of a week of virtual International AIDS Conferences, the UN said the world was already way off course in its plan to end the public health threat even before Covid-19.

Although AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 60% since the peak of the HIV epidemic in 2004, in 2019 around 690,000 still died from the illness.

Around 1.7 million people were infected last year, and there are now close to 40 million people living with HIV worldwide.

The UN’s annual report said that the 2020 target of reducing AIDS-related deaths to fewer than 500,000, and new HIV infections to under 500,000 will now be missed.

Millions of people had died in recent decades despite the existence of effective treatments, it said, calling on the world to learn lessons from the AIDS epidemic in its Covid-19 response.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said:

Like the HIV epidemic before it, the Covid-19 pandemic is exposing our world’s fragilities – including persistent economic and social inequalities and woefully inadequate investments in public health.

Key populations at high-risk of HIV/AIDS are being put in further danger as lockdowns and distribution of medicines leaves them “even more vulnerable than usual”, the report said.

Research released Monday showed the pandemic was already impacting access to preventative medicine (PrEP) among at communities at risk.

At one Boston medical centre, a survey of more than 3,500 patients on the PrEP programme showed that lapses in picking up repeat medication had risen 278 percent in the first four months of 2020.

Year on year, the overall number of patients receiving PrEP had fallen 18%, the research showed.

World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the findings “deeply concerning”. He said:

We cannot let the Covid-19 pandemic undo the hard-won gains in the global response to this disease.

Reuters is reporting that Russian authorities have dug a trench around a remote Siberian village to enforce a quarantine, after dozens of residents contracted the coronavirus, which local officials believe was spread at a traditional shaman ritual.

The village of Shuluta, located 30 kilometres south-east of Lake Baikal in Siberia’s Buryatia region, has 37 confirmed cases of the virus among its 390 residents.

A further 95 people are believed to have been in contact with those infected and are also required to quarantine, said the head of the local administration, Ivan Alkheyev.

Alkheyev said the outbreak started after dozens of villagers took part in a shaman ritual on 10 June, performed by an infected woman.

The ditches that encircled Shuluta were dug on 29 June as a measure to stop tourists from driving though the village to nearby Tunka National Park, as well as to limit movement by the local residents, some of whom were sceptical about an order to self-isolate.

“I don’t believe it! There should at least be symptoms and I don’t have any,” local resident Engelsina Shaboyeva, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, told a regional television crew filming in the village along with a group of volunteers who went to bring food.

Another resident, Svetlana Shaglanova, whose husband died after a stroke and had tested positive for the virus, said she did not agree with the diagnosis.

“They put that he died of the virus on the papers, but it is not true, it was just a stroke,” Shaglanova said.

Russia’s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said those who performed the shaman ritual despite a ban on public events in the region could face a fine.

The only road to the village which was not cut off by the ditch is now patrolled by local officials and Russian national guards who allow only ambulances and food deliveries in.

Russia’s official coronavirus case tally, the fourth largest in the world, rose to 687,862 on Monday.

The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has turned down a White House invitation to celebrate the new regional free trade agreement in Washington with US president Donald Trump and and Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Trump and López Obrador are due to meet on Wednesday in Washington, but Trudeau spokesperson Chantal Gagnon said on Monday that while Canada wishes the US and Mexico well, Trudeau will not be there.

While there were recent discussions about the possible participation of Canada, the prime minister will be in Ottawa this week for scheduled cabinet meetings and the long-planned sitting of parliament, Gagnon said.

Trudeau is conducting online cabinet meetings instead of in person meetings because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A senior US administration official, speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to be quoted by name, said Trudeau had multiple conflicts related to the start of parliament and coronavirus regulations that require Canadians who travel abroad to quarantine for 14 days on return. The official said Trudeau has asked to speak with Trump by phone.

López Obrador also said he would be speaking to Trudeau by phone.
Gagnon said the treaty that took effect on 1 July was good for Canada, the US and Mexico, and “will help ensure that North America emerges stronger from the Covid-19 pandemic”.

The US’s coronavirus death toll topped 130,000 on Monday amid a surge in cases that has put president Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis under the microscope and derailed efforts to restart the economy.

The overall rate of increase in US deaths has continued to trend downward despite case numbers surging to record levels in recent days, but health experts warn that fatalities are a lagging indicator, showing up weeks or even months after cases rise.

At least five states have already bucked the downward trend in the death rate, according to a Reuters analysis. Arizona had 449 deaths in the last two weeks of June, up from 259 deaths in the first two weeks of the month. The state posted a 300% rise in cases over the full month, the most in the country.

Nationally, cases are approaching 3m, the highest tally in the world and double the infections reported in the second most-affected nation Brazil.

Sixteen states have posted record daily increases in new cases since the start of July including Florida, which confirmed more than 11,000 in a single day. As well as the state’s largest one-day rise so far, that was more than any European country reported in a single day at the height of the crisis there.

As health experts cautioned the public not to gather in crowds to celebrate Independence Day over the weekend, Trump asserted without providing evidence that 99% of American coronavirus cases were “totally harmless”.

Steve Adler, the Democratic mayor of Austin, Texas, on Monday criticised the president’s comment over the weekend that the virus was mostly harmless. He told CNN:

It’s incredibly disruptive and the messaging coming from the president of the United States is dangerous.

One of the biggest challenges we have is the messaging coming out of Washington that would suggest that masks don’t work or it’s not necessary, or that the virus is going away on its own.

The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has forecast between 140,000 to 160,000 coronavirus deaths by July 25 in projections that are based on 24 independent forecasts. The forecast projects a rise in deaths in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, according to the CDC website.

Five members of Japan’s Sumo Association were confirmed to have the coronavirus antibody, public broadcaster NHK said on Monday, citing the association.

The association has conducted antibody tests for 891 members including sumo wrestlers and stable masters who wished to, NHK said. Among the five who were confirmed to have the antibody, four were found negative for PCR testing and one appears to have already been cured, according to the report. It did not say if the five were wrestlers or had other roles.

A 28-year-old sumo wrestler, Shobushi, died from the coronavirus in May, the first figure in the sport to do so.

The next big event of the season, the 2020 July Grand Sumo Tournament, is scheduled to take place behind closed doors in Tokyo from 19 July to 2 August.

The coronavirus pandemic is threatening to put progress in the fight against HIV back by 10 years or more, the UN has said.

“The global HIV targets set for 2020 will not be reached, the UN’s AIDS agency said in a report. “Even the gains made could be lost and progress further stalled if we fail to act.”

Data from 2019 shows that 38 million people worldwide are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS – a million more than in 2018 – the report said.

Although 25.4 million HIV positive people were on antiretroviral treatment in 2019, 12.6 million people are still not getting medicines.

The report also found the world is far behind in preventing new HIV infections, with 1.7 million new HIV cases in 2019.

“Every day in the next decade decisive action is needed to get the world back on track to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS’ executive director.

Pakistan’s health minister has become the country’s latest senior government figure to contract coronavirus.

“I have tested positive for Covid-19. Under (medical) advice I have isolated myself at home and taking all precautions. I have mild symptoms. Please keep me in your kind prayers,” Zafar Mirza said on Twitter.

A number of high-level officials have tested positive in Pakistan, where rising cases of Covid-19 are putting pressure on the health system.

On Friday, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced he had the virus, while the minister for railways Sheikh Rasheed and the speaker of the lower house of parliament Asad Qaiser have also contracted it.

Pakistan has confirmed 229,831 cases and 4,762 deaths in total. Although daily testing numbers are falling, about 4,000 new cases per day continue to be confirmed.

Bars, nightclubs, gyms and event halls have been closed in Israel as restrictions are reimposed to combat a spike in coronavirus infections.

At a special cabinet meeting on Monday, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country had to reverse course to avoid a wider lockdown that could devastate its economy, where unemployment is above 20%.

Netanyahu said:

The pandemic is spreading – that’s as clear as day. It is rising steeping daily and it is dragging with it, contrary to what we had been told, a trail of critically ill patients.”

A statement issued by the government said in addition to the closure of some leisure and hospitality venues, the number of diners in restaurants will be limited to 20 indoors and 30 outdoors.

Attendance at synagogues has also been capped at 19 worshippers, while buses can only carry up to 20 passengers.