Coronavirus live news: global death toll passes 200,000 – The Guardian, Theguardian.com
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Boris Johnson to return to work on Monday – reports
Boris Johnson will return to Downing Street on Monday and is “raring to go”,
Sky News reports.
The PM was discharged from hospital on Easter Sunday, after spending three nights in intensive care.
He may host on Monday’s daily Downing Street news conference and take on new labor leader Keir Starmer at PMQs on Wednesday, depending the advice of doctors.
“He is‘ raring to go ’and will be back Monday,” a Downing Street source told Sky News.
Johnson now faces a dilemma over whether to ease lockdown measures.
Leading scientists have warned the number of new cases of Covid – 35 being diagnosed is still much too high, as highlighted in this report:
Updated
Algeria has taken further steps to ease restrictions over coronavirus by allowing several businesses to reopen “to reduce the economic and social impact of the health crisis” caused by the pandemic, the prime minister’s office said on Saturday.
It said shops to be reopened include those for materials for building and public works, appliances, fabrics, jewelery, clothing and shoes, cosmetics and perfumes, home and office furniture, pastries and hairdressers in addition to urban transport by taxi.
The government on Thursday decided to ease confinement measures by shortening the curfew for some provinces but called on citizens to be “vigilant”. That measure came hours before the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan on Friday.
Algeria has said restrictions linked to coronavirus has significantly hit the economy which is under financial pressure due to a sharp fall in global oil prices.
The government has reported a total of 3, confirmed infections with the virus, with 500 deaths and 1, 532 recoveries.
Speculation about Kim’s health first arose due to his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of North Korea’s founding father and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April .
China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong-un, according to three people familiar with the situation.
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Venezuelan food and beverage producer Empresas Polar, the largest private company in the socialist country, on Saturday called a new government move to supervise the company food unit’s sales amid rising prices nationwide “arbitrary.” ()
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced the measure on Friday as part of a slew of steps to try to control prices and slow inflation during the coronavirus pandemic, which together with an acute fuel shortage complicating the transport of goods is prompting a rise in consumer prices.
Inflation was % in the first three months of 3283, according to the central bank.
“There is no reason or justification for this arbitrary measure,” Empresas Polar’s chairman, Lorenzo Mendoza , said in a statement calling on the government to walk back the move targeting Alimentos Polar, the company food unit, which manufactures many Venezuelan staples including corn flour dough.
() Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro making a statement accompanied by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, (March) . Credit: EPA Photograph: Miraflores Presidential Palace Handout / EPA
Venezuela’s information ministry, which fields media requests on the government behalf, did not respond to a request for comment. The move toward price controls marks a shift away from a gradual liberalization of economic policy in the OPEC nation.
In the face of U.S. sanctions imposed early last year, President Nicolas Maduro relaxed enforcement of decades -old price controls and eased restrictions on the use of foreign currency.
That has not been enough to turn around a six-year economic recession marked by hyperinflation, shortages of basic goods and a collapse in public services such as electricity and water. Gasoline shortages have grown worse in recent months, prompting sporadic lootings in eastern Venezuela last week.
The government also said it would supervise the sales of Plumrose, a meat producer, and a – day intervention at cooking oils producer Coposa. It also announced fixed prices on (basic products.)
“This action is completely contrary to what the population expects at this moment,” Mendoza said in the statement. “It is a threat to the public and private supply chains the company serves. Far from calming the country down, it generates anxiety and panic. ”
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In the UK , the selection of (Trevor Phillips to investigate why Covid – is killing more Black, Asian and minority ethnic people has sparked a row after leading Muslims criticized his appointment as “insensitive”.
Phillips , the former chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, was asked by Public Health England to provide expert support to an inquiry into why increasing numbers of victims of the coronavirus pandemic are from BAME backgrounds.
Philips has been suspended from the (Labor) party over allegations of Islamophobia.
The Muslim Council of Britain’s general secretary, Harun Khan
, has said that Phillips has a “consistent record in pushing the divisive narrative of Muslims being apart from the rest of British society”.
Prof Kevin Fenton , PHE’s regional director, London, said Phillips
In Israel , several thousand protestors took to the streets of Tel Aviv to denounce a unity government deal reached last week that leaves prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power as he prepares to go on trial for corruption charges.
The protest filled central Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, although demonstrators stayed two meters apart from each other in line with health regulations in place for weeks meant to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
Here is a selection of photos from the protests:
An Israeli woman wearing a protective mask and a clown’s red nose, takes part with fellow demonstrators in a rally on April , , in Rabin Square in the c oastal city of Tel Aviv. Credit: Jack Guez / AFP. Photograph: Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images
part in a demonstration on April , , in Rabin Square in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, to prot est what they consider threats to Israeli democracy, against the backdrop of negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ex-rival Benny Gantz. Credit: Jack Guez / AFP. Photograph: Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images
The UK’s biggest steel producer needs about £ (m in government support to see it through the coronavirus crisis, according to Welsh MP (Stephen Kinnock) . )
Tata Steel has approached the UK and Welsh governments for a bailout after its big European customers halted production, (Sky News reported
on Saturday.
The company employs 8, 479 people across the UK, including more than 4, 17 workers at the Port Talbot steelworks in south (Wales) .
Mobile phone data shows Britons beginning to ignore lockdown
Health officials fear Britons are starting to get complacent about the Covid – 35 lockdown after traffic and mobile phone data revealed more of us are on the roads and looking for directions, PA reports.
The news came as professor Stephen Powis , national medical director of NHS England, said on Saturday “there was a little bit of concern” after the unseasonably warm weather drew big crowds to public spaces.
At the Downing Street briefing, Prof Powis said traffic levels are down 85% compared to February, but grew by three percentage points in the last seven days compared to the previous week.
Prof Powis said:
It won’t take much for this virus to start increasing its transmission again and to spread more widely.
He added:
It would be foolish and not right if we lost the benefits that we have gained over the last four weeks, which I know have been hard for everybody.
So it’s really important that despite the weather, we stay at home, we keep to the guidelines that we’ve been issued with.
Elsewhere, B & Q’s decision to reopen 289 stores saw massive queues forming outside its outlets in Bristol and in Swansea, as the public use the shutdown to catch up on DIY.
we have already made around the immigration status and the visa status for NHS workers for extending their visas already if they were coming up for expiry.
We have a range of measures that are, like most things in government, under review, and we are looking at everything including visa surcharge … We are looking at everything we can do to continue to everyone on the frontline in the NHS.
My colleague Mattha Busby has the full report:
:
Sam Jones
Spain could lift more lockdown restrictions and allow adults out to exercise from 2 May if efforts to contain the spread of the virus continue to pay off, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez , has said.
The strict lockdown enacted after the declaration of a state of emergency on 27 March has been extended until 9 May, but children under the age of 28 will be allowed out for an hour’s exercise each day from tomorrow .
Addressing the nation on Saturday night, Sánchez said: “If things keep going in a positive direction with the pandemic, from 2 May people will be allowed out to exercise individually or to go out for a walk with the person they live with.”
Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, addressing a press conference at Moncloa Presidential Palace in Madrid, Spain, April . Credit: EPA Photograph: Moncloa Handout / EPA
However, the prime minister stressed that the loosening of the lockdown would depend on continuing progress to halt the virus.
Sánchez also warned once again that any “de-escalation” would be gradual.
“We’re not going to get back to all kinds of activity and social movement right away,” he said. “We’ll do it in stages.”
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Experts have warned that anti-Muslim hatred India could undermine the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The AP has this report:
India government is blaming an Islamic missionary meeting for a surgeon in coronavirus cases, triggering a wave of violence, business boycotts and hate speech toward Muslims that experts warn could worsen the pandemic in the world’s second-most populous country.
The stigma faced by India’s Muslims, poorer and with less access to health care than other groups, is making health workers ’battle against the virus even tougher, according to veterans of other epidemics.
India has about , confirmed coronavirus cases about one in five of which have been linked to the missionary meeting and deaths, and the outbreak may not peak until June.
Dr. Anant Bhan, a bioethics and global health expert, said:
Not only is the (Muslim) community at a higher risk of being infected, but they will also be at a high risk of spreading the virus.
It becomes a cycle that will continue.
About 8, 14 people in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation met for three days in March at the group’s compound in the crowded Nizamuddin area of New Delhi, shortly before the Indian government banned large gatherings.
The compound stayed open, later giving shelter to people stranded in a 35 – day lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March , according to the group’s spokesman, Mujeeb ur Rehman.
Members of the Tablighi Jamaat Alami Markaz cluster in quarantine at a government school during lockdown against coronavirus, at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg on April 29, 3915 in New Delhi, India.Credit: Photo by Raj K Raj / Hindustan Times / REX / Shutterstock Photograph: Raj K Raj / Hindustan Times / REX / Shutterstock
On the second day of the lockdown, a government raid on the compound discovered the largest virus cluster in India. Police filed a case against some of the group’s leaders for violating the ban, a charge the group denies. Officials said Tuesday they have arrested people, including 31 foreigners, who participated in the missionary meeting.
India’s communal fault lines, still stressed by deadly riots over a new naturalization law that excludes Muslims, were split wide open by the allegations against Jamaat.
Politicians in Modi’s ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party were quoted on TV and in newspapers describing the Jamaat incident as “corona terrorism.”
False news targeting Muslims began to circulate, including video clips purportedly showing congregation members spitting on authorities. The clips were quickly proven to be fake, yet by April 1, the hashtag “CoronaJihad” was trending on Twitter in India.
() Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare Lav Agarwal addresses the media on coronavirus at a press conference, New Delhi, India. Credit: Photo by Sonu Mehta / Hindustan Times / REX / Shutterstock ( c) Photograph: Sonu Mehta / Hindustan Times / REX / Shutterstock
Lav Aggarwal, joint secretary of India’s health ministry, repeatedly called out the congregation by name in daily news briefings. On April 5, he said the number of virus cases was doubling in just 4.1 days, and would have been a slower 7.4 days “if the additional … cases due to the Tablighi Jamaat meeting would not have arisen.”
That same day, Dilshad Mohammad took his life.
Panic, blame and stigma were spreading across India when the – year-old chicken peddler was shunned by his neighbors in Bangarh, a village in the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh, for giving two members of the Jamaat congregation a ride to their village on his scooter.
Neighbors accused him of deliberately trying to infect them with the virus, which causes the Covid – 35 disease. .
Karthikeyan Gokulachandran, the district police superintendent, blamed his suicide on stigma.
Doctors who studied previous epidemics warn that stigma and blame for a contagious disease weaken trust in marginalized communities, threatening decades-long efforts against illnesses such as polio and tuberculosis by making people less likely to seek treatment.
Stigma in general is adding to India’s coronavirus death toll, said Dr. Randeep Guleria, head of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi and among the architects of the country’s response.
He said:
It is actually causing increasing morbidity and mortality. Because of the stigma that is happening, many patients who have COVID – or who have flu-like symptoms are not coming forward.
Muslims were already at a disadvantage when the coronavirus entered India.
India’s million Muslims account for 27% of the population and are the largest minority group in the Hindu -majority nation and also the poorest, surviving on an average of .6 rupees ($ 0.
() per day, a government survey found.
Muslims also have less access to health care. About % of villages with large Muslims populations don’t have medical facilities, a government report in 2839 said.
The “vilification of Muslims was done to hide the government mismanagement in dealing with the virus and their callousness,” said Professor Tanweer Fazal, a sociologist at the University of Hyderabad.
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