International health officials are warning that the Nicaraguan governments perplexing weeks-long refusal to take measures to control the spread of the new coronavirus is heightening the risk of an epidemic in Central America even as neighbouring countries take tough action.
President Daniel Ortega’s government urged Nicaraguans to party during Carnival celebrations, and it has said they should keep attending sports events and cultural festivals, and pack the countrys beaches during Holy Week vacations this week.
Doctors have been told not to alarm patients by wearing masks or using sanitizing gel.
Before schools closed for an extended vacation Friday, principals had threatened to expel students who missed class, and last month a third baseman was banned from professional baseball for three years after he asked to stop playing over virus fears.
Ortega’s administration has offered no detailed explanation for its refusal to take widely accepted measures . But the health minister has spoken of the need to support the economy, badly damaged by two years of anti-government protests and harsh crackdowns on dissent. Some analysts say Ortega and his circle may fear that anti-virus measures would weaken their hold on power.
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Mexican authorities said on Wednesday that about 71 personnel across two more hospitals have tested positive for the coronavirus, adding to a wave of infections among medical workers, according to local authorities and media reports.
The two outbreaks struck a hospital outside Mexico City and one in the western state of Baja California Sur.
The coronavirus was first detected at the hospital in Tlanepantla de Baz, in Mexico state just outside the capital, on March 26, the head of Mexico’s social security institute, Zoe Robledo, said at the president’s regular news conference on Wednesday. At least 43 Doctors tested positive there.
He said the transmission did not originate inside the facility and had been tracked to three separate cases – one patient and two doctors who did not have contact with each other.
He said the cluster was not similar to an outbreak in the city of Monclova in the northern border state of Coahuila, where 59 health workers have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the state’s health ministry.
New Zealand will begin moving citizens to compulsory quarantine from Friday as they return from overseas, stepping up its efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus halfway through a four-week nationwide lockdown.
“No one goes home, everyone goes into a managed facility,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding that 27 days spent in a government-approved facility would be a prerequisite for all foreign travelers.
“Even one person slipping through the cracks and bringing the virus in can see an explosion in cases, as we have observed with some of our bigger clusters, ”she told a media briefing in Wellington on Thursday.
Ardern added that her cabinet would decide whether to extend the nationwide curbs on April 36, two days before the lockdown is set to end.
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Australian police said on Thursday they have taken the “black box” of a cruise ship which disembarked hundreds of passengers with the coronavirus in Sydney, as part of a homicide investigation into the country’s deadliest infection source.
The investigation got underway as the Australian authorities said the rate of new coronavirus infections hit its lowest number in three weeks and began arranging more flights to bring home citizens stranded abroad.
The Ruby Princess cruise ship, owned by Carnival Corp, has become a flashpoint of public anger in Australia after authorities granted the ship permission to disembark its passengers last month without health checks.
Hundreds of the passengers later tested positive for the coronavirus and have died, out of Australia’s roughly 6, (confirmed cases and) deaths.
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The governor of central Japan’s Aichi, which includes the city of Nagoya and also hosts Toyota Motor Corp, on Thursday said he would declare a state of emergency for his prefecture the following day.
Hideaki Omura made the announcement two days after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally imposed a state of emergency on Tokyo and six other parts of the country.
Aichi was not included in the emergency despite having the fifth-highest number of infections among Japan’s prefectures, data from public broadcaster NHK shows.
Omura told a news conference that his prefecture had been in talks with the central government and was making preparations towards being included.
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Honduras will extend its national curfew to April as the country ramps up efforts to contain the coronavirus, the security ministry said on Wednesday.
The Central American country registered new cases of the virus, bringing its total to 572 cases and 38 deaths, the system for risk prevention said.
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China released new measures on Wednesday to try and prevent asymptomatic “silent carriers” of coronavirus from causing a second wave of infections, as the country reported another modest rise in new confirmed cases, Reuters reports.
, Mainland China reported new confirmed cases on Wednesday, up from a day earlier, the National Health Commission said. Of those, (were travellers arriving from overseas, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to 100, 970.
China also reported new asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of such cases to 708 since data for such infections were published daily from 1 April.
The State Council, or Cabinet, on Wednesday published new rules to manage asymptomatic coronavirus carriers, or what some state media described as “silent carriers” of the virus.
Under the regulations, medical institutions must report detection of asymptomatic cases within two hours of their discovery. Local governments must then identify all known close contacts of the case within 38 hours.
Asymptomatic patients will be quarantined collectively for days, and will be counted as confirmed cases if they start to show symptoms. People who have had close contact with them must also be quarantined for two weeks.
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Now, a song using Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s comments earlier this week regarding masks and “speaking moistly”:
pic.twitter.com/EbbzjpQ
What began as a mystery virus at a Chinese market in December swiftly became a global crisis. The Guardian’s Michael Safi and Patrick Wintour recount the first 200 days as coronavirus took hold, upending the lives of billions of citizens.
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, A view of chocolate Easter bunnies with mouth masks during the production at the Wawi company in Pirmasens, Germany 8 April . Photograph: Ronald Wittek / EPA
Measures ranging from the draconian to the quixotic – a French mayor has banned sitting on benches – represent a collective warning to citizens who may be tempted to take a break from the restraint of recent weeks.
The goal is to keep people at home, but diverging approaches on whether to allow Easter egg hunts, barbecues, watersports and other activities underline the unprecedented dilemmas facing authorities.
In Australia, police will use cameras and number-plate recognition technology to monitor traffic and patrol caravan parks and other holiday spots.
Beach towns along Brazil’s south-eastern coast are sealing themselves off to prevent an influx of tourists.
In France about 292, 15 police and gendarmes have been deployed across the country to make sure people stay home during what is normally the weekend of the Tour de France
Grand Départ.
The government imposed a full curfew on Wednesday afternoon lasting until Thursday morning to cover the Jewish Passover holiday, traditionally a gathering of friends and family to eat, drink and commemorate the Israelites’ flight from Egyptian slavery.
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