#	Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
	World	9,519,482	+172,383	483,959
1	USA	2,462,554	+38,386	124,281
2	Brazil	1,192,474	+40,995	53,874
3	Russia	606,881	+7,176	8,513
4	India	472,985	+16,870	14,907
5	UK	306,862	+652	43,081
6	Spain	294,166	+334	28,327
7	Peru	264,689	+3,879	8,586
8	Chile	254,416	+3,649	4,731
9	Italy	239,410	+190	34,644
10	Iran	212,501	+2,531	9,996
11	Germany	193,254	+476	9,003
12	Turkey	191,657	+1,492	5,025
13	Mexico	191,410	+6,288	23,377
14	Pakistan	188,926	+3,892	3,755
15	Saudi Arabia	167,267	+3,123	1,387
16	France	161,348	+81	29,731
17	Bangladesh	122,660	+3,462	1,582
18	South Africa	111,796	+5,688	2,205
19	Canada	102,242	+279	8,484
20	Qatar	90,778	+1,199	104
21	China	83,430	+12	4,634
22	Colombia	77,113	+3,541	2,491
23	Sweden	62,324	+343	5,209
24	Belgium	60,898	+88	9,722
25	Belarus	59,945	+458	362
26	Egypt	59,561	+1,420	2,450
27	Ecuador	51,643		4,274
28	Argentina	49,851	+2,648	1,116
29	Netherlands	49,804	+82	6,097
30	Indonesia	49,009	+1,113	2,573
31	UAE	46,133	+450	307
32	Singapore	42,623	+191	26
33	Kuwait	41,879	+846	337
34	Portugal	40,104	+367	1,543
35	Ukraine	39,014	+940	1,051
36	Iraq	36,702	+2,200	1,330
37	Oman	33,536	+1,142	142
38	Poland	32,821	+294	1,396
39	Philippines	32,295	+470	1,204
40	Switzerland	31,376	+44	1,958
41	Afghanistan	29,640	+159	639
42	Dominican Republic	28,631	+695	691
43	Panama	28,030	+716	547
44	Bolivia	26,389	+896	846
45	Ireland	25,396	+5	1,726
46	Romania	24,826	+321	1,555
47	Bahrain	23,570	+508	69
48	Israel	22,044	+532	308
49	Nigeria	22,020	+649	542
50	Armenia	21,717	+711	386
51	Kazakhstan	18,765	+534	136
52	Japan	18,024	+56	963
53	Austria	17,449	+41	693
54	Moldova	15,078	+364	495
55	Ghana	15,013	+445	95
56	Guatemala	14,540	+771	582
57	Azerbaijan	14,305	+590	174
58	Honduras	13,943	+587	405
59	Serbia	13,235	+143	263
60	Denmark	12,615	+54	603

 

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

 

 

 

Houston’s hospitals are running out of intensive-care beds.

 

A coronavirus testing site in Houston on Wednesday.Credit...Mark Felix for The New York Times

With cases surging in the Houston area, the city’s intensive-care units are now filled to 97 percent of capacity, Mayor Sylvester Turner told the City Council on Wednesday, with Covid-19 patients accounting for more than one-quarter of all patients in intensive care.

The city, known for its large concentration of medical schools and research hospitals, could run out of I.C.U. beds within two weeks if nothing is done to slow the upward trajectory of the virus, said Dr. Peter Jay Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He called on the state to reimpose more aggressive social distancing restrictions.

Dr. Hotez said that hospitalizations were rising along with the case counts, so the data is not just the result of increased testing. “That means we have to act this week,” Dr. Hotez said.

On Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a television interview that more than 5,000 people had tested positive in the past day and that more than 4,000 were hospitalized. There is a “massive outbreak of Covid-19 across the state of Texas today,” he said.

Apple said it closed seven of its stores in the Houston area because of rising coronavirus cases in the region. The move on Wednesday followed its closing of 11 stores in Arizona, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina because of the virus. Apple had closed nearly all of its roughly 500 stores worldwide months ago, but had opened most in the United States in recent weeks after cases declined. Just over 200 of Apple’s 271 American stores are now open, with some still closed because of damage from protests, an Apple spokesman said.

 

 

In other news around the United States:

• In Florida, which had a record number of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis urged people to avoid closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowds and close contact with others. Total virus cases in Florida exceeded 100,000 on Monday, with more than 3,100 deaths. About one-quarter of the cases have been in Miami-Dade County, where the per capita rate is twice the number statewide. Still, Trump National Doral, which is in the county and is the most important source of revenue for the president’s strained family business, reopened last weekend.

•  

Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, which reached a record 915 virus hospitalizations on Tuesday, announced on Wednesday that the state would pause its reopening for three weeks and require face masks in public. The state has more than 56,000 cases and nearly 1,300 deaths. Mr. Cooper said that hospitals had not reached capacity, but could quickly become overwhelmed. Also, a judge in the state ruled against the reopening of Ace Speedway, which state health officials had ordered to shut down, saying the racetrack had defied restrictions on the size of public gatherings.

•  

State officials in Virginia are proposing workplace virus safety rules that, unlike those in some other states, would be mandatory and backed by enforcement. Labor activists and state officials said Virginia was acting because the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration had not issued enforceable standards or acted on thousands of complaints. The Virginia rules would impose physical distancing and sanitation requirements, and among other measures, companies would have to notify workers of possible exposure. Violators could be fined or shut down.

•  

Joseph R. Biden Jr. has taken a commanding lead over President Trump in the 2020 presidential race, building a wide advantage among women and nonwhite voters, according to a new national poll of registered voters by The New York Times and Siena College. Mr. Biden has made deep inroads into some traditionally Republican-leaning groups that have shifted away from Mr. Trump after his ineffective response to the coronavirus pandemic. He currently leads Mr. Trump by 14 percentage points, garnering 50 percent of the vote. Nearly three-fifths of voters disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of the pandemic.

•  

A judge in Texas who signed an order requiring everyone in the San Antonio area to wear masks was assaulted at a Lowe’s home improvement store on Wednesday after he confronted another customer who was not wearing a mask, the authorities said. When Judge Nelson Wolff tried to hand a card to the man, the other customer slapped away his hand, surveillance video released by the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office showed. It was not clear what the card said. The man, who also berated the judge, could face a felony charge of assault of a public servant, the sheriff, Javier Salazar, said during a news conference at the store.

•  

As California recorded its highest number of infections, Disneyland indefinitely postponed its plans to reopen in Anaheim on July 17. The Walt Disney Co. said that it was awaiting the state’s guidelines for reopening theme parks, which were not expected to be issued until after July 4. Thousands of workers at Disneyland and at Walt Disney World in Florida, which is scheduled to begin a phased reopening on July 11, have signed petitions calling on Disney executives to pause plans.

 

 

In Yemen, the toll of the pandemic is rising. So is the cost of a burial.

 

The top U.N. relief official warned Wednesday of a drastic worsening in the outbreak in war-ravaged Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, where he said 25 percent of those infected die — about five times the global average.

As Covid-19 sweeps the country, many deaths are most likely going unreported, said Mark Lowcock, the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. But there is one unmistakable measure of the virus’s toll: “Burial prices in some areas have increased by seven times compared to a few months ago,” he said.

The United Nations has been chronically hampered in providing aid to Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been waging war on the rebel Houthi group for more than five years.

Even before the pandemic, the devastation caused by the war had left a vast majority of Yemen’s population hungry, destitute and afflicted with preventable diseases, including cholera and diphtheria. Millions of Yemeni children are malnourished, and some have died of starvation.

Mr. Lowcock spoke Wednesday at a United Nations Security Council briefing on the conflict, held three weeks after a major donor conference to raise money for the humanitarian emergency in Yemen secured $1.35 billion in pledges.

That was about half what was pledged a year earlier — and many of the pledges, Mr. Lowcock said, have not yet been paid.

If donors fail to make good on their pledges, he said, “at a minimum, we can expect many more people to starve to death and to succumb to Covid-19, and to die of cholera, and to watch their children die because they are not immunized for killer diseases.”

 

 

The pandemic could erase 20 years of progress against tuberculosis, H.I.V. and malaria, an NGO warns.

 

In low-income nations, the pandemic may erase 20 years of hard-fought progress against tuberculosis, H.I.V. and malaria, diseases that together claim more than 2.4 million lives each year.

A report released on Wednesday estimates that countries hit hard by these diseases will need at least $28.5 billion over the next year to shore up health campaigns and to respond to the pandemic itself. The figure does not include costs associated with a vaccine, assuming one is found.

 

The toll is most severe in nations already strapped for resources. The pandemic has overwhelmed fragile health care systems in those countries, disrupting programs for preventing and treating tuberculosis, H.I.V. and malaria. Restricted air and sea transport also threatens the availability of crucial medicines.

Several models produced by the World Health Organization and others project that deaths from these diseases could double as a result. Treatment interruptions also raise the threat of drug resistance, already a formidable problem in many countries.

“The stakes are extraordinarily high,” Peter Sands, who heads The Global Fund, a public-private partnership that published the estimates, said in a statement. “The knock-on effects of Covid-19 on the fight against H.I.V., T.B. and malaria and other infectious diseases could be catastrophic.”

Since March, The Global Fund, which works mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, has provided $1 billion to help countries maintain their campaigns against these diseases. In the new report, the organization said that amount served only as a stopgap measure.

The Global Fund estimated that countries would need more than $13 billion to protect front-line health care workers and shore up their health systems, about $9 billion to develop and deploy treatments, and nearly $5 billion for diagnostics.

 

 

At a nursing home where 76 veterans died, ‘the opposite of infection control.’

 

A disinfecting crew at Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in March.Credit...Cj Gunther/EPA, via Shutterstock

A state-run veteran’s home in Massachusetts was “total pandemonium” and a “nightmare” in late March, when a series of blunders contributed to the rapid spread of the virus at the home and the deaths of 76 patients, employees told investigators.

A blistering 174-page independent report on the outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, released on Wednesday, paints a picture of a facility in chaos, as traumatized nurses carried out orders to combine wards of infected and uninfected men, knowing that the move would prove deadly to many of their patients.

One social worker told investigators that she “felt it was like moving the concentration camp — we [were] moving these unknowing veterans off to die,” the report said.

More than 60 percent of fatalities from the coronavirus in Massachusetts have been at nursing homes.

In addition to combining crowded wards, the report said, the home rotated staff members between the wards; discouraged them from using protective gear in an effort to conserve limited supplies; and often failed to isolate infected veterans or to test those who had symptoms.

“In short, this was the opposite of infection control,” the report said.

 

 

U.S. immigration agency, citing application declines, plans large-scale furloughs.

 

Thousands of employees with the federal agency that administers the country’s immigration system are expected to begin receiving furlough notices as applications for green cards, citizenship and other programs drop, Zolan Kanno-Youngs reports.

At one office, where well over half the employees were warned to expect furlough notices, staffers were told that the agency was focused on retaining jobs that “keep the lights on,” according to an email obtained by The New York Times.

LaDonna Davis, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that more than 13,000 employees should expect to receive the notices in early July.

“This dramatic drop in revenue has made it impossible for our agency to operate at full capacity,” she said. “Without additional funding from Congress before Aug. 3, U.S.C.I.S. has no choice but to administratively furlough a substantial portion of our work force.”

The agency has asked lawmakers for $1.2 billion, citing economic damage from the pandemic.

But critics say the problem lies not with the recession but with the Trump administration’s restrictionist immigration policies, which have led to backlogs and skyrocketing denials. The agency relies on application fees to fund most of its operations.

Evan Hollander, spokesman for the Democratic-controlled House Appropriations Committee, said the Office of Management and Budget had provided a letter to the committee with “virtually no information on the shortfall or their proposed remedies.” He said Democratic lawmakers were prepared to discuss the financial situation with Republicans.

Citizenship and Immigration Services officials have told Congress they would repay the funds to the Treasury Department by adding a 10-percent surcharge to applications.

In the email obtained by The Times, Jennifer Higgins, associate director of the office that deals with asylum and refugee applications, said the agency would send furlough notices to 1,500 of its 2,200 employees. It will to retain people whose duties include border screenings, refugee case completions and parole requests, she said.

 

 

Source：https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/world/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus-national&variant=show®ion=TOP_BANNER&context=storylines_menu

 

 

 

Pride during a pandemic: Why visibility and connection still matter

From CNN's Talid Magdi and Leroy Ah-Ben

 

Each year, in cities around the world, LGBTQ community members and their allies take to the streets to celebrate Pride -- uniting around the movement's message of self-acceptance and inclusion.

But this year, the coronavirus pandemic is keeping many celebrants around the world inside. 

Since the first official marches, which took place in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in June 1970, Pride has become a global movement. Last year, at least 150 official Pride festivals and events took place around the world.

As many Pride celebrations go virtual this year because of Covid-19 social distancing guidelines, organizers and activists say the core mission remains the same -- providing visibility and unity in safe and inclusive spaces.

"No matter what, there is a need to connect," says Chris Frederick, former executive director of NYC Pride. "Whether it's virtually or it's in person, that's what Pride is all about."

On Saturday, over 300 million viewers are expected to tune in for a 24-hour live stream Global Pride celebration, event organizers say. It will feature musical and artistic performances, and speeches from activists and world leaders, including presumptive Democratic US presidential nominee Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The organizers claim it is the biggest of the many Pride events happening online this year.

 

 

Trump is not just in denial but also indifferent to an unfolding American tragedy

Analysis from CNN's Stephen Collinson

 

It's a "public health train wreck in slow motion," in the words of one health expert, and the best US President Donald Trump cares to offer the thousands more Americans projected to shortly die of Covid-19 is the unsubstantiated prospect of a "beautiful surprise."

The US just hit its third highest ever peak of new coronavirus cases, multiple states are registering their own daily records and three are now taking the extraordinary step of imposing quarantines for citizens from pandemic hotspots.

The world's most powerful nation lacks a coherent national strategy to meet another cresting viral crisis, the capacity or even the willingness to take steps that might stop it.

It is also led by a man who is suggesting by his actions and attitudes that he doesn't care that much about the unfolding tragedy.

Trump, who has previously predicted a "miracle" would occur or the virus would just disappear in the warmer weather, again declared falsely Wednesday that the danger had passed -- even with the nation racing towards another deadly summit of infection.

 

 

Hawaii plans to begin easing travel quarantine on August 1

From CNN’s Andy Rose

 

A surfer rides a wave as the sun sets on the horizon on the north shore of Oahu in Hawaii on January 28. Brian Bielmann/AFP/Getty Images

After three months of encouraging tourists to stay away from Hawaii, the US state will begin easing its mandatory quarantine on August 1.

“Now is the time to work together as a community to ensure that our residents and local businesses can safely return to a larger volume of travelers,” Gov. David Ige said in a news conference Wednesday.

Currently, anyone travelling into Hawaii from out of state must self-quarantine for 14 days. But the new program will allow visitors to avoid that quarantine as long as they test negative for coronavirus within 72 hours of their arrival. 

It comes as Hawaii faces a legal challenge claiming the quarantine is unconstitutional because it targets out-of-state residents.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said it’s critical to his community’s economy to get tourism back on track. “We need to return to welcoming visitors to our shores,” said Caldwell.

State Health Director Bruce Anderson says the state is in good shape to prepare for reopening, as he believes most residents have been following social distancing recommendations.

 

 

Japan reports 89 new coronavirus cases

From CNN's Junko Ogura in Tokyo

 

A man wearing a respirator and goggles sits in between commuters on a train in Tokyo on June 25. Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

Japan reported 89 coronavirus cases and five deaths on Wednesday, according to its health ministry.

The total number of people infected with Covid-19 in Japan stands at 18,822, with 712 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. At least 981 people have died from coronavirus, with 13 of those from the ship.

The ministry said 16,921 patients have either been discharged from hospitals or recovered by Tuesday.

The capital Tokyo reported 55 new cases on Wednesday, marking the highest rise since May 5.

 

 

Lufthansa agrees $562 million cost-cutting deal with flight attendants

From CNN's Frederik Pleitgen in Berlin  

 

A Lufthansa aircraft takes off from the Franz-Josef-Strauss airport in Munich, on June 18. Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images

Germany's flag carrier, Lufthansa, has reached a cost-cutting deal with the representatives of its flight attendants, both the airline and the flight attendants' union said in news releases. 

According to the airline, the package will entail cost cuts of about 500 million euros ($562 million).

The German flight attendants' union (UFO) said the deal involves a guarantee that there will be no layoffs for four years.

Any reduction in cabin personnel will be reached via buyouts and early retirement plans, both news releases say. 

"The package of measures includes a freeze on pay raises, a reduction of flight hours in exchange for lowered pay, and temporarily lowered pension contributions," Lufthansa said.

The deal comes as the airline gets set for an extraordinary shareholders' meeting, which has been called to approve a 9 billion euros ($10 billion) bailout from the German government for the ailing carrier.

 

 

Hospitals in Ecuador are overwhelmed after sharp rise in Covid-19 patients

From CNN's Ana Maria Canizares in Quito

 

Ecuador's vice president warned on Wednesday that public hospitals in the country's capital, Quito, have reached capacity from the coronavirus pandemic. 

Speaking at a news conference, Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner said that hospitals in Quito are feeling the strain after seeing an increase of Covid-19 patients. 

Sonnenholzner said that Ecuador plans to increase availability of intensive care units and hospital beds to help mitigate the strain.

Sonnenholzner also said they have learned from the city of Guayaquil, where overwhelmed hospitals prevented many people impacted by the virus from receiving treatment in March and April.

The vice president said Ecuador's changes will bring a higher possibility that a patient will get the medical care they need. 

Quito is now second after Guayaquil with the most number of confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to the country’s health ministry. On June 3 the capital entered a “yellow light” phase, considered as mid-level risk, which allows some mobility restrictions to be lifted and the reopening of some businesses. 

Ecuador has reported 51,643 coronavirus cases, and 4,274 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University. 

 

 

Delhi surpasses Mumbai as India's worst-hit city as country reports largest single-day jump in cases 

From CNN's Manveena Suri, Esha Mitra and Vedika Sud in New Delhi

 

Indian Hindu priests and devotees walk inside Hunuman Mandir, on June 8, in Delhi. Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

Delhi on Wednesday surpassed Mumbai as the worst-hit Indian city by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Delhi has so far reported a total of 70,390 coronavirus cases while Mumbai has seen 69,625 cases, according to health authorities. 

The chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, said at a news briefing Monday that testing in the city had been ramped up to 18,000 tests per day. 

Meanwhile, India reported 16,922 new coronavirus cases on Thursday -- the highest single-day jump so far, bringing the total number of cases found in the country to 473,105, according to its health ministry. India also registered 418 virus-related deaths in the past day, raising the death toll to 14,894. 

India has now recorded over 12,000 daily new cases for the eighth consecutive day.

More than 270,000 people have so far recovered from the virus, the ministry said. 

Some experts say the recent surge in new cases in India, and Delhi in particular, is due to the unplanned easing of lockdown measures.  

"Beyond a certain point you actually lose control over it when it goes into a community transmission phase which Delhi definitely is," Dr. Arvind Kumar, a senior doctor at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital told CNN. 
"In Delhi I would undoubtedly say that we have community transmission because we are seeing a large number of cases where we cannot identify any specific contact that this person got it from, so now it is kind of in a free for all stage," Kumar added. 

 

 

Texas cities could see "apocalyptic" numbers of Covid-19 cases, expert warns

From CNN’s Jen Christensen

 

 

A healthcare professional takes a sample from a patient at a United Memorial Medical Center Covid-19 testing site on Wednesday, June 24, in Houston. David J. Phillip/AP

The US city of Houston could be the worst-hit in the entire country if the current trajectory in Covid-19 cases continues as it has, a health expert has warned.

Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, said that new infection rates are also accelerating in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, and that case numbers could rival those in Brazil.

“The big metro areas seem to be rising very quickly and some of the models are on the verge of being apocalyptic,” Hotez told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Hotez, who is also a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine is working on a potential Covid-19 vaccine. 

He said the models are showing that Houston could have a four-fold increase in the number of daily cases by July 4.

“That is really worrisome and as those numbers rise, we’re seeing commensurate increases in the number of hospitalizations and ICU admissions and you worry, you get to the point where you overwhelm ICUs and that’s when the mortality goes up," he said.

Houston does have hospital bed capacity now, but Hotez said he is concerned about the future. “We have more room, but who wants to go there?” 

Something is needed to stop community transmission, he said. 

On Thursday, Texas announced 5,551 new Covid-19 cases -- the state's highest single-day rise. Florida and California also reported their biggest single-day increase in cases.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned residents on Tuesday that because the spread of the novel coronavirus is so rampant right now the safest place for citizens to be is at home. He did not issue an official order to stay home.

Reopening could have contributed: Hotez said the state was aggressive with social distancing at the start of the pandemic, which kept the number of cases down, but the state reopened at the end of April and right after Memorial day the number of cases started to rise. Hotez said the state did not put a “sufficient level” of public health infrastructure in place.

 

 

FDA Commissioner is "confident about our ability to find appropriate therapies" for Covid-19

From CNN Health’s Jen Christensen

 

US Food and Drug Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said he's optimistic that scientists will develop an FDA approved treatment for Covid-19.

“The short answer is, I am optimistic,” Hahn said on FDA Insight, the podcast the agency launched on Wednesday. “Of course, I can’t give a definitive answer because that depends on the science and the data, but we have great people working on this.” 

Hahn said that from the beginning the FDA has worked closely with the private sector to develop therapies and vaccines for Covid-19. “They have responded greatly to this pandemic,” Hahn said.

Hahn said there are more than 144 Covid-19 focused clinical trials underway in the US.

The FDA has been working closely with the NIH on ways they can speed up the discovery and approval process, Hahn said. The agencies developed a platform trial for Covid-19. 

“That way you can study multiple different drugs, all at the same time and much more efficiently and quickly study those,” Hahn said. It’s an approach he hopes the agency will be able to take with other therapies and diseases.

Safety, accuracy and effectiveness are essential to drug approval, Hahn said, and especially where this fast-moving pandemic is concerned, so is urgency.

“I can’t tell you when we’ll have a treatment for Covid-19,” Hahn said. “But a lot of great work in this country is in progress and I am confident about our ability to find appropriate therapies.”

 

 

"Going out in public without a mask is like driving drunk," US health expert warns

From CNN's Shelby Lin Erdman

 

Health experts continue to express the importance of wearing masks as coronavirus cases surge in some parts of the United States.

"Going out in public without a mask is like driving drunk," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. "If you don't get hurt. You might kill somebody else."

Reiner continued, "That's how I want people to think about not wearing a mask in public, just like driving drunk."

The nation’s top disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, responded Wednesday to the recent politicization of mask wearing, saying, "It should not be a political issue. It is purely a public health issue. Forget the politics -- look at the data." 

Yet mask wearing still faces resistance.

In Florida, where coronavirus cases spiked by 5,500 on Wednesday -- eight times more than in New York state -- Gov. Ron DeSantis said that any mandate ordering cloth face coverings in public would be too hard to enforce.

"The governor of Florida needs to make a clear, unequivocal statement that it’s dangerous to your community if you go out in public without a mask," Reiner said.

He faulted the White House for not setting a national example.

"This should really come from the White House, except the President is laser focused on reelection and he thinks that wearing a mask will impede that somehow. It’s bizarre," Reiner said.

 

 

Cruise ship passengers file lawsuit over coronavirus exposure

From CNN’s Andy Rose

 

 

The Zaandam cruise ship prepares to come into Port Everglades on April 2, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Two passengers of the MS Zaandam cruise ship filed suit against Holland America and its parent company, Carnival Corporation, Wednesday. 

Leonard Lindsay and Carl Zehner, who are married, accuse the company of mishandling the Covid-19 outbreak onboard. They say it led to Zehner contracting the disease and being on a ventilator for three weeks.

“This cruise was a life-threatening nightmare,” plaintiffs’ attorney Kenny Byrd says in a news release.

The attorneys are asking a federal judge to give the case class action status covering all of the passengers aboard the MS Zaandam. They claim Holland America did not follow through with promises to ensure the health of its passengers, who were allegedly not given a temperature screening at boarding.

“Additionally, Defendants did not implement social distancing among the passengers, or implement other reasonable precautions at this stage of the cruise,” the lawsuit states.

According to the suit, the ship was denied entry to a port in Argentina in March, but it was nearly a week before the crew began telling passengers to isolate in their staterooms. The plaintiffs claim the company was already aware that some of its crew members had become ill with coronavirus symptoms. It was not until April 3 that most passengers were allowed to disembark in Port Everglades, Florida.

CNN has reached out to Holland America for a response to the lawsuit.

 

 

Australia's Qantas to cut at least 6,000 jobs due to coronavirus pandemic

From Angus Watson in Sydney 

 

Qantas planes are parked on the tarmac at Sydney Airport on April 22, in Sydney, Australia. Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Australian airline Qantas announced on Thursday that it’s cutting at least 6,000 jobs as part of a three-year plan to help it recover from the coronavirus crisis.

The airline will also continue to stand down 15,000 employees and ground up to 100 aircraft for up to 12 months, some for longer, including most of its international fleet, according to a statement from the company.

The plan aims to save the company 15 billion Australian dollars ($10.3 billion) in costs over three years, the statement said.

Announcing the plan, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said the crisis had left them with no choice.

"We have to position ourselves for several years where revenue will be much lower. And that means becoming a smaller airline in the short term,” Joyce said. 

 

 

Source：https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-06-25-20-intl/index.html

 

 

 

Summary

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• · Cases worldwide passed 9.4 million on Thursday, with the WHO saying it expected global infections to pass 10 million by the end of the week. At least 480,000 people have died so far.

  · Cases continue to surge in the Americas, with the United States confirming its second-highest one-day total in the pandemic so far, according to Oxford University data project Our World in Data, with 34,700 new infections. It is the highest since 26 April, when a record 48,529 cases were confirmed in 24 hours. Researchers from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicted that US deaths would reach 180,000 by 1 October, up from the current toll of 121,969.

  · Mexico confirmed its second-highest daily coronavirus death toll so far, with 947 fatalities on Wednesday. The highest daily toll came on 3 June with 1,092 deaths. Mexico has 196,847 known cases.Judge orders Bolsonaro to resume publishing Brazil Covid-19 dataRead more6The death toll from the coronavirus in Latin America is expected to skyrocket to 390,000 by October, with Brazil and Mexico accounting for two-thirds of fatalities as other nations in the region contain their outbreaks, the University of Washington said on Wednesday. This week, deaths in the region passed 100,000 and cases have tripled from 690,000 one month ago to 2 million.

  · The World Health Organization has warned that hospitals are facing a shortage in oxygen concentrators, which are needed to support the breathing of Covid-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress, as 1 million new cases of coronavirus are confirmed worldwide per week. “Many countries are now experiencing difficulties obtaining oxygen concentrators,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “Demand is currently outstripping supply.”

  · New Zealand citizens returning home from coronavirus hotspots are facing a backlash from some as people worry that the arrivals will bring a resurgence in cases.

  · Australia’s Qantas airlines announced 6,000 job losses and 15,000 employees to be stood down as it predicted that most international flights were unlikely to resume until mid-2021. The airline also cancelled a $200m dividend payment it was due to make to shareholders in September.

  · In Victoria, Australia, more than 1,000 Australian defence force personnel will door-knock two suburbs at the heart of the latest outbreak of Covid-19, with residents offered free testing, as 33 more cases of the virus were identified in the state overnight.

  · Brothels in the Netherlands can reopen on 1 July after being shut for more than three months, the government announced on Wednesday

  · Volunteers in the UK, Brazil and South Africa received their first doses of an experimental vaccine as part of a human trial run by Oxford University, as cases continue to rise and concerns grow over potential access to life-saving treatments

  · The pilots of a plane that crashed last month in Pakistan, killing 98 people, were preoccupied by the coronavirus crisis and tried to land with the aircraft’s wheels still up, according to initial official reports.

  · In the US, democrats will hold an almost entirely virtual presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee using live broadcasts and online streaming. Joe Biden plans to accept the presidential nomination in person during the 17-20 August convention, but it remains to be seen whether there will be a significant in-person audience there to see it.

  · German airline Lufthansa’s top shareholder said on Wednesday he would back a €9bn government rescue package, removing the threat of a last-minute veto that could have plunged the airline into bankruptcy, AFP reports.

  · China reported 19 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus amid mass testing in Beijing, where a recent outbreak appears to have been brought under control. Of the new cases it reported Thursday, 13 were in Beijing and one in the neighbouring province of Hebei. Officials say the other five were brought by Chinese travellers from outside the country. No new deaths were reported.

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Source：https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jun/25/coronavirus-live-news-who-warns-of-global-oxygen-shortage-as-cases-rise-by-1m-per-week?page=with:block-5ef43df88f08277bcb45799e#liveblog-navigation