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COVID-19 news update May/25
source:WTMF 2020-05-25 [Medicine]

 

 

                                      

 

 

Country,
Other

Total
Cases

New
Cases

Total
Deaths

World

5,494,455

+96,505

346,434

USA

1,686,436

+19,608

99,300

Brazil

363,618

+16,220

22,716

Russia

344,481

+8,599

3,541

Spain

282,852

+482

28,752

UK

259,559

+2,405

36,793

Italy

229,858

+531

32,785

France

182,584

+115

28,367

Germany

180,328

+342

8,371

Turkey

156,827

+1,141

4,340

India

138,536

+7,113

4,024

Iran

135,701

+2,180

7,417

Peru

119,959

+4,205

3,456

Canada

84,699

+1,078

6,424

China

82,974

+3

4,634

Saudi Arabia

72,560

+2,399

390

Chile

69,102

+3,709

718

Mexico

65,856

+3,329

7,179

Belgium

57,092

+282

9,280

Pakistan

54,601

+2,164

1,133

Netherlands

45,236

+172

5,822

Qatar

43,714

+1,501

23

Ecuador

36,756

+498

3,108

Belarus

36,198

+954

199

Bangladesh

33,610

+1,532

480

Sweden

33,459

+271

3,998

Singapore

31,616

+548

23

Switzerland

30,736

+11

1,906

Portugal

30,623

+152

1,316

UAE

29,485

+781

245

Ireland

24,639

+57

1,608

South Africa

22,583

+1,240

429

Indonesia

22,271

+526

1,372

Poland

21,326

+395

996

Kuwait

21,302

+838

156

Colombia

21,175

+998

727

Ukraine

20,986

+406

617

Romania

18,070

+213

1,185

Egypt

17,265

+752

764

Israel

16,717

+5

279

Japan

16,550

+14

820

Austria

16,503

+17

640

Dominican Republic

14,801

+379

458

Philippines

14,035

+258

868

Argentina

12,076

+723

452

Denmark

11,360

+71

562

S. Korea

11,190

+25

266

Serbia

11,159

+67

238

Panama

10,926

+349

306

Afghanistan

10,582

+584

218

Bahrain

9,138

+336

14

Czechia

8,955

+65

315

Norway

8,352

+6

235

Kazakhstan

8,322

+403

35

Algeria

8,306

+193

600

Nigeria

7,839

+313

226

Oman

7,770

+513

37

Morocco

7,433

+27

199

Malaysia

7,245

+60

115

Australia

7,114

+3

102

Moldova

7,093

+99

250

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

The U.S. is barring travel from Brazil.

 

Passengers during peak commuting hours in São Paulo, Brazil, this month.Credit...Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

 

The Trump administration is banning travel into the United States from Brazil, where the Covid-19 pandemic has been spiking, using the same authority it used earlier to halt certain travel from China and Europe.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that President Trump was adding Brazil to the list of countries where travel has already been banned, including Europe and China.

“As of May 23, 2020, Brazil had 310,087 confirmed cases of Covid-19, which is the third highest number of confirmed cases in the world,” Ms. McEnany said in a statement. “Today’s action will help ensure foreign nationals who have been in Brazil do not become a source of additional infections in our country.”

She added that the new travel restrictions did not apply to the flow of commerce between the two countries.

 

 

Trump tweets and golfs as U.S. coronavirus deaths approach 100,000.

 

President Trump plays a round of golf at his course in Sterling, Va., on Sunday.Credit...Tom Brenner/Reuters

As President Trump’s motorcade pulled into his golf club in Virginia on an overcast Sunday, a small group of protesters waited outside the entrance. One held up a sign.

“I care do U?” it read. “100,000 dead.”

Mr. Trump and his advisers have said that he does, but he has made scant effort to demonstrate it this Memorial Day weekend. He finally ordered flags lowered to half-staff at the White House only after being badgered to do so by his critics and otherwise took no public notice as the American death toll from the coronavirus pandemic approached a staggering 100,000.

While the country neared six digits of death, the president who repeatedly criticized his predecessor for golfing during a crisis spent the weekend on the links for the first time since March. When he was not zipping around on a cart, he was on social media embracing fringe conspiracy theories, amplifying messages from a racist and sexist Twitter account and lobbing playground insults at perceived enemies, including his own former attorney general.

This was a death toll that Mr. Trump once predicted would never be reached. In late February, he said there were only 15 coronavirus cases in the United States, understating even then the actual number, and declared that “the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” In the annals of the American presidency, it would be hard to recall a more catastrophically wrong prediction.

 

 

Boris Johnson says he won’t fire top aide who defied lockdown orders.

 

Dominic Cummings, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, leaving 10 Downing Street with his job intact on Sunday.Credit...Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

Despite calls for him to oust a top adviser who disobeyed Britain’s stay-at-home order, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is standing by that official, Dominic Cummings, who had fallen ill with the coronavirus.

During a news briefing on Sunday, the prime minister staunchly defended Mr. Cummings for driving in April to visit his parents in Durham, in the north of England. But Mr. Johnson deflected questions about whether he had known of Mr. Cummings’s travels and muddied the details of the lockdown rules.

Mr. Cummings has said there was no other way to get care for his young child after he and his wife began showing symptoms of the virus.

“He followed the instincts of every father and every parent, and I do not mark him down for that,” Mr. Johnson said on Sunday. “I believe that in every respect, he has acted responsibly, and legally, and with integrity.”

Mr. Johnson’s decision to stand by his adviser underlines his deep reliance on Mr. Cummings, who was the architect of his election victory last year and the driving force behind his ambitious post-Brexit agenda. But it is unlikely to defuse the uproar over Mr. Cummings’s actions, which critics say send a signal that Britain’s leaders can ignore the rules they impose on others.

The opposition Labour Party called for an inquiry into Mr. Cummings’s conduct and accused Mr. Johnson of double standards.

“It is an insult to sacrifices made by the British people that Boris Johnson has chosen to take no action against Dominic Cummings,” the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said in a statement. “The public will be forgiven for thinking there is one rule for the prime minister’s closest adviser and another for the British people.”

 

 

The vaccine developed first may not be the best, an expert warns.

 

Though there are promising signs that coronavirus vaccines will be successfully developed, an expert cautioned on Sunday that the first vaccines that become available may not prove to be the most effective.

Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said on the NBC program “Meet the Press” that some early vaccines may be only partly protective.

“They may reduce hospitalization and death, which is still very important,” he said, but in the end, the first to be released “may not be the ones we wind up with.”

“History tells us they get replaced with new and improved vaccines, so this is a gradual process,” Dr. Hotez said, stressing that the next year or so would probably not result in the introduction of “a magic bullet” against the virus.

Despite President Trump’s efforts to speed up the availability of a vaccine by early next year, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, both Dr. Hotez and Dr. Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who is working with Johnson & Johnson on a vaccine, said it takes time to ensure that any vaccine to be administered widely would be safe and effective.

Dr. Barouch cautioned that while it “is theoretically possible” to develop a vaccine in 12 to 18 months, “many, many things would have to go perfectly the first time” for that to happen.

 

 

As Americans gather on a holiday weekend, governors and officials stress continued safety measures.

 

Groups in the boardwalk of Venice Beach in Los Angeles on Saturday.Credit...Apu Gomes/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Governors and Trump administration officials appearing on the Sunday talk shows stressed the need for caution as the country gingerly tries to restart something resembling normal life.

Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat, said it was too early to tell whether residents were following social distancing guidelines after beaches were reopened.

“For the most part, folks have been extraordinary in doing the right thing in the state now, for going on two and a half-plus months,” Governor Murphy said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “And I fully expect that will continue on the beaches, even when Mother Nature begins to cooperate with good weather.”

He stressed the need for federal aid to shore up his depleted state budget and prevent layoffs of essential workers, including police officers, health care workers and teachers.

Administration officials were in talks with lawmakers about another round of economic assistance to hard-hit individuals, businesses and possibly state and local governments, the White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on the same program.

Mr. Hassett touted the effectiveness of stimulus payments to many Americans, and said the economy may now be improving fast enough for lawmakers to decide against a second round of payments, and instead turn to tax cuts — including one that would largely benefit high-earning investors.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican who never issued a full stay-at-home order, likened efforts to reopen while maintaining social distancing to wearing a seatbelt.

“You can be in an automobile, and it’s very risky, but you manage the risk by wearing a seatbelt,” he said in an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” “At first, everyone resisted wearing a seatbelt and said, ‘Well, that’s a matter of freedom.’ Well, it is, but it’s also a matter of safety.”

Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, also a Republican, urged residents to wear masks when entering local businesses.

“This is not about whether you’re liberal or conservative, left or right, Republican or Democrat,” Mr. DeWine said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “We wear the masks not to protect yourself so much as to protect others. This is one time when we truly are all in this together. What we do directly impacts others.”

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, sounded a similar note on “Fox News Sunday,” emphasizing how easy it can be to transmit the virus even by talking.

 

 

Tourism and cultural life are creeping back around the world, with a raft of caveats.

 

An empty beach on the Spanish island of Minorca last week.Credit...David Arquimbau Sintes/EPA, via Shutterstock

As countries begin to open their economies, a monthslong deep freeze on tourism and cultural life is gradually thawing — with caveats.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain announced that the country, which is highly dependent on tourism for the health of its economy, would allow international visitors in July.

Mr. Sánchez did not set a specific date, but his government has been under intense pressure to help salvage the summer for a tourism industry that accounted for 12 percent of Spain’s gross domestic output last year, when Spain received almost 84 million visitors.

“There will be a summer tourism season,” Mr. Sánchez said in a televised address on Saturday. “We will guarantee that tourists will not face any risks, nor will they bring any risk to our country.”

Exceltur, a Spanish tourism lobby, said that the decision to reopen in July could help reduce the cost of the lockdown, which began in mid-March, by about 20 billion euros, or about $22 billion. Exceltur previously forecast the Spanish tourism sector would lose as much as €92 billion in revenue this year.

In the United States, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston became the first major art museum to reopen since the country went into lockdown in March. Mask-wearing visitors encountered virus-specific restrictions even before they went inside on Saturday, lining up on large blue stickers placed six feet apart.

Other countries are also eager to restart their tourism industry, with officials in Greece suggesting an “air bridge” with other nations that have few cases of the coronavirus.

International flights to Athens are to resume June 15, followed by the rest of the country’s airports on July 1. But tourists will be admitted only if their home countries meet certain “epidemiological criteria,” officials said.

Britain will make international air travelers self-isolate at a home or hotel for 14 days as of June 8. The government published a list of travelers who would be exempt, including truck drivers, seasonal farmworkers and medical workers, but airlines and tourism companies say that the requirement will damage their industries.

 

 

Afghanistan begins an Eid cease-fire, but concerns about the virus linger.

 

Prayers during Eid al-Fitr at a mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday.Credit...Mohammad Ismail/Reuters

For only the second time in almost two decades of conflict, the Taliban and the Afghan government announced a cease-fire for the three days of the Muslim festival Eid al-Fitr, which starts on Sunday in Afghanistan. But the relief that washed over people in the war-torn nation was partially offset by lingering concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.

As Muslims around the world celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday this weekend, the communal prayers, feasts and parties that usually accompany it have been restricted or scrapped. Not everyone in the Muslim world is sticking to the rules, however.

In Afghanistan, the authorities have struggled to enforce their call for people to stay home during Eid, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Markets were crowded in recent days, and many shoppers went maskless.

Afghanistan has nearly 10,000 confirmed cases, and nearly half of a limited number of tests being carried out are turning out positive day after day. In late March, Ferozuddin Feroz, Afghanistan’s health minister, warned that unless stricter social-distancing measures were enforced, 16 million Afghans could be infected and 110,000 could die.

Last month, at least 40 staff members in Afghanistan’s presidential palace tested positive for Covid-19. That forced President Ashraf Ghani to isolate himself and manage the country’s response to the virus — amid a raging war — largely via video conference.

 

Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/24/world/coronavirus-news-update.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus-world&variant=show®ion=TOP_BANNER&context=storylines_menu

 

 

New Zealand aiming for no transport restrictions and all schools reopening within a month

From journalist Alex Lin in Hong Kong

 

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country should aim to reduce its Covid-19 alert level from 2 to 1 by June 22. 

Alert level 1 means no restrictions on domestic transport or gatherings, and all schools and workplaces can open. 

If measures were relaxed to this level, the government risk assessment would be that "the disease is contained in New Zealand," and only "isolated household transmission could be occurring," according to the country's alert system website.

"It's the government's view that we should move as quickly as we safely can to alert level 1. On that basis, Cabinet will check in again on alert level 2 settings on June 8, and we've agreed that no later than June 22, four weeks from today, we will consider the move to alert level 1," Ardern said in a post-Cabinet media conference.
"The fact that we are even making these decisions shows the success we've had to date in fighting the virus. It highlights we can now make choices many other countries can't."

 

 

Brazilian President called "killer" and "trash" by angry crowd in capital

 

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro interacts with the crowd at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, on May 24. Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was abused by onlookers in the capital Brasilia after going out for a hotdog and drink on Saturday, in a video seen by CNN.

In the video, Bolsonaro eats and drinks while onlookers yell "killer" and "trash" in the background. The President is surrounded by a security team and at one point turns and wags his finger at the crowd.

Brazil became the country with the second-highest number of cases in the world over the weekend, with daily five-figure increases pushing it above Russia and the United Kingdom.

On Sunday, Brazil reported 15,813 new cases of the coronavirus -- pushing its total to at least 362,000. So far, at least 22,000 people have died in the country.

Bolsonaro has frequently dismissed the coronavirus threat, calling it a “fantasy” or “little flu.” He claims the economic impacts of shutdowns and quarantine measures will have a much more negative effect on the country. 

 

 

Days after reporting no symptomatic infections for first time in months, China confirms 11 new cases

From Alexandra Lin in Hong Kong

 

China has reported 11 new imported coronavirus cases, including 10 from Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region bordering Mongolia. The other is in Sichuan province.

China's National Health Commission said the total number of confirmed cases in the country is now 82,985, with 83 still active.

It comes after China reported no new symptomatic coronavirus cases on Saturday for the first time since the global pandemic began.

In addition, 40 new asymptomatic cases were reported today. A total of 396 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation. 

No new deaths were reported, leaving China's death toll at 4,634.

To date, 78,268 confirmed coronavirus patients have recovered and been discharged

 

 

FDA commissioner issues Memorial Day warning: "Coronavirus is not yet contained"

From CNN's Devan Cole

 

A sign on a boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 24, suggesting visitors wear masks. Mark Makela/Getty Images

The commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration on Sunday urged Americans observing Memorial Day weekend to follow federal guidelines aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, saying the deadly virus "is not yet contained."

"With the country starting to open up this holiday weekend, I again remind everyone that the coronavirus is not yet contained. It is up to every individual to protect themselves and their community. Social distancing, hand washing and wearing masks protect us all," Dr. Stephen Hahn wrote in a tweet.

Some context: The commissioner's Memorial Day warning comes as some states begin to reopen, allowing people to go to beaches, cookouts and bars as they observe one of the more popular holidays taking place amid the pandemic. But as social activities increase, health experts like Hahn warn the US is not out of the woods.

"Even as states and some state officials rush to reopen it's on us to make smart and safe decisions," Dr. Seema Yasmin, a former disease detective at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN Saturday night.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told the public last week that going outside was fine, with cautious measures.

"Go out, wear a mask, stay 6 feet away from anyone so you can have the physical distancing," he told a CNN coronavirus town hall. "Go for a run. Go for a walk. Go fishing. As long as you're not in a crowd and you're not in a situation where you can physically transmit the virus."

Source:https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-05-25-20-intl/index.html

 

 

Spain suggests foreign tourists welcome from July

Spain’s tourism minister has said this morning that foreigners can book vacations in Spain from July as the two-week self-quarantine for overseas travellers is likely to be suspended by then.

Spain – one of the worst-hit nations in the world from the coronavirus – has an economy that is heavily dependent on tourism. While it is gradually easing its strict lockdown measures, it has kept a quarantine for foreign visitors to try to prevent a second wave of infections.

“It is perfectly coherent to plan summer vacations to come to Spain in July,” Reyes Maroto said in an interview with the local radio station Onda Cero.

The country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on Saturday the government would guarantee the safety of visitors and locals when they started to return from July. “Spain needs tourism, and tourism needs safety in both origin and destination,” he said.

 

 

 

Summary

  • Global cases pass 5.4m. There are currently 5,407,701 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The death toll stands at 345,036. Both figures are likely to be higher, due to differing test rates, definitions and deliberate underreporting.

  • White House official likens China’s handling of coronavirus to Chernobyl cover-upA top White House official on Sunday likened China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak to the Soviet Union’s cover-up of the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. National security adviser Robert O’Brien said Beijing knew what was happening with the virus, which originated in Wuhan, from November but lied to the World Health Organization and prevented outside experts from accessing information.

  • China says virus pushing US ties to brink of “Cold War”. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday that Washington seemed infected by a “political virus” but that Beijing would nevertheless be open to an international effort to find the coronavirus source.“Some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War,” Wang said.

  • Dominic Cummings reported to police over lockdown breach. Boris Johnson’s chief advisor is facing a possible police investigation under health laws over a claim that he breached self-isolation rules in north-east England, after a weekend of mounting pressure on the prime minister to sack his chief adviser.
    Boris Johnson described Cummings as acting “responsibly, legally and with integrity”.

  • World’s top drug firms turned down proposals for work on pathogens like coronavirusThe world’s largest pharmaceutical companies rejected an EU proposal three years ago to work on fast-tracking vaccines for pathogens like coronavirus to allow them to be developed before an outbreak.

  • US bars travellers who have been in Brazil in last two weeks. The White House has announced it is prohibiting foreigners from traveling to the US if they had been in Brazil in the last two weeks, two days after the South American nation became the world’s second-worst affected country in terms of cases.

  • Brazil registers 15,813 new cases, 653 new deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 22,666, the Health Ministry said. Brazil has 363,211 confirmed cases.

  • France has lowest daily rise in new coronavirus cases and deaths since lockdown. French authorities reported the smallest daily rise in new coronavirus cases and deaths on Sunday since before a lockdown began on 17 March, raising hopes that the worst of the epidemic is over in France.

  • The French government has discouraged citizens from travelling abroad this summer, recommending they holiday in France, the environment minister Elisabeth Borne has said. This follows Emmanuel Macron saying it was unlikely that French people would be able to undertake major foreign trips this summer.

  • First Spanish beaches to reopen as lockdown eases. Coronavirus lockdown measures will finally be eased for people in Madrid and Barcelona from Monday, while elsewhere in Spain the first beaches are due to reopen, AFP reports. Residents in the two cities can now meet in groups of up to 10 people in their homes or on the terraces of bars and restaurants.The gates of the capital’s parks will also be reopened, and major museums will be able to receive a limited number of visitors.

  • Australian children return to school. Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, on Monday deployed hundreds of crowd control staff to enforce social distancing on public transport amid an expected commuter surge as schools and offices reopened and coronavirus cases fell. Australia has reported just over 7,100 Covid-19 infections, including 102 deaths, well below figures reported by other developed countries.

  • New Zealand expected to further loosen lockdown restrictions.
    New Zealand has reported another day of no new cases of Covid-19, with the news from health officials coming hours before Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, is expected to announce further loosening of lockdown restrictions on the country. After a week of “zero days” for the coronavirus, peppered with the odd day of one new case – most recently on Friday – New Zealand’s total number of confirmed instances of Covid-19 remains under 1,500.

  • Chile’s healthcare system “very close to the limit”. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said on Sunday that the country’s healthcare system is under strain and “very close to the limit”, as the number of confirmed novel coronavirus infections approached 70,000, after a rapid increase in recent days. The Ministry of Health reported 3,709 new cases in the last day, bringing the total to 69,102. The death toll is at 718.

  • South Africa announces further easing of lockdown. South Africawill further relax coronavirus lockdown restrictions from 1 June, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced, allowing large areas of the economy to fully reopen. “Cabinet has determined that the alert level for the whole country should be lowered from level four to level three,” he said in an address broadcast on television, describing the move as a significant shift in approach to the pandemic.

  •  India resumes domestic flights despite record spike in new cases. Domestic flights will resume across India on Monday, the federal civil aviation minister has said, despite a 24-hour record increase in new cases on Sunday. The announcement follows a day of “hard negotiations”, the minister said, after some states sought to limit the number of flights.

  • Thousands of pro-democracy protesters assembled in Hong Kong against a controversial security law proposed by China, defying a coronavirus measure banning gatherings of more than eight people. The planned legislation is expected to ban treason, subversion and sedition, and the clashes between police and demonstrators were the most intense seen in months.

 

Source:https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/may/25/coronavirus-live-news-us-bars-travel-from-brazil-as-british-pms-adviser-reported-to-police-over-lockdown-breach?page=with:block-5ecb4f268f0886ce4f5d9ba7#liveblog-navigation