#	Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
	World	22,043,483	+198,459	777,076
1	USA	5,612,027	+40,612	173,716
2	Brazil	3,363,235	+23,038	108,654
3	India	2,701,604	+54,288	51,925
4	Russia	927,745	+4,892	15,740
5	South Africa	589,886	+2,541	11,982
6	Peru	541,493	+5,547	26,481
7	Mexico	522,162	+4,448	56,757
8	Colombia	476,660	+8,328	15,372
9	Chile	387,502	+1,556	10,513
10	Spain	382,142	+1,833	28,646
11	Iran	345,450	+2,247	19,804
12	UK	319,197	+713	41,369
13	Saudi Arabia	299,914	+1,372	3,436
14	Argentina	299,126	+4,557	5,814
15	Pakistan	289,215	+498	6,175
16	Bangladesh	279,144	+2,595	3,694
17	Italy	254,235	+320	35,400
18	Turkey	250,542	+1,233	5,996
19	Germany	226,686	+1,689	9,296
20	France	219,029	+493	30,429
21	Iraq	180,133	+3,202	5,954
22	Philippines	164,474	+3,314	2,681
23	Indonesia	141,370	+1,821	6,207
24	Canada	122,872	+785	9,032
25	Qatar	115,368	+288	193
26	Kazakhstan	103,033	+337	1,269
27	Ecuador	101,751	+209	6,083
28	Bolivia	100,344	+1,198	4,058
29	Egypt	96,590	+115	5,173
30	Israel	94,751	+2,071	692
31	Ukraine	92,820	+1,464	2,089
32	Dominican Republic	86,737	+428	1,481
33	Sweden	85,045	+751	5,787
34	China	84,849	+22	4,634
35	Oman	83,226	+140	588
36	Panama	82,543	+603	1,788
37	Belgium	78,323	+454	9,939
38	Kuwait	76,827	+622	502
39	Romania	71,194	+733	3,029
40	Belarus	69,589	+73	613
41	UAE	64,541	+229	364
42	Netherlands	63,484	+482	6,172
43	Guatemala	62,944	+382	2,389
44	Poland	57,279	+595	1,885
45	Singapore	55,838	+91	27
46	Japan	55,667	+953	1,099
47	Portugal	54,234	+132	1,779
48	Honduras	50,502	+523	1,575
49	Nigeria	49,485	+417	977
50	Bahrain	47,185	+350	173
51	Morocco	43,558	+1,069	681
52	Ghana	42,653	+121	239
53	Kyrgyzstan	41,991	+135	1,496
54	Armenia	41,701	+38	824
55	Algeria	39,025	+442	1,379
56	Switzerland	38,252	+128	1,991
57	Afghanistan	37,599	+3	1,375
58	Uzbekistan	35,702	+373	236
59	Venezuela	34,802	+1,047	288
60	Azerbaijan	34,343	+124	508
61	Ethiopia	31,336	+1,460	544
62	Moldova	30,377	+194	908
63	Kenya	30,365	+245	482
64	Serbia	29,782	+100	677
65	Costa Rica	29,084	+619	304
66	Ireland	27,313	+56	1,774
67	Nepal	27,241	+581	107
68	Australia	23,559	+271	421
69	Austria	23,534	+164	729
70	El Salvador	23,193	+281	618
71	Czechia	20,202	+190	399
72	Cameroon	18,582	+113	403
73	Ivory Coast	17,107	+81	110
74	Palestine	16,844	+310	113
75	Bosnia and Herzegovina	16,111	+310	486
76	Denmark	15,740	+123	621
77	S. Korea	15,515	+197	305
78	Bulgaria	14,500	+135	512
79	Madagascar	13,886	+59	171
80	North Macedonia	12,840	+101	547
81	Sudan	12,410	+96	803
82	Senegal	12,237	+75	256
83	Paraguay	10,135	+344	145
84	Norway	10,060	+55	261
85	Zambia	9,839	+496	264
86	DRC	9,706	+30	243
87	Lebanon	9,337	+456	105
88	Malaysia	9,212	+12	125
89	French Guiana	8,622	+34	53
90	Guinea	8,620	+138	51
91	Libya	8,579	+407	157
92	Gabon	8,270	+45	53
93	Tajikistan	8,099	+34	64
94	Haiti	7,897	+18	196
95	Finland	7,752	+21	334
96	Albania	7,499	+119	230
97	Luxembourg	7,469	+11	124
98	Greece	7,222	+147	230
99	Mauritania	6,762	+61	157
100	Croatia	6,656	+85	166
101	Maldives	5,909	+124	23
102	Djibouti	5,372	+3	59
103	Zimbabwe	5,308	+47	135
104	Malawi	5,125	+53	162
105	Hungary	4,946	+30	608
106	Equatorial Guinea	4,821		83
107	CAR	4,667	+15	61
108	Hong Kong	4,525	+44	69
109	Namibia	4,344	+190	36
110	Nicaragua	4,115		128
111	Montenegro	4,085	+50	80
112	Eswatini	3,894	+55	73
113	Congo	3,831		76
114	Thailand	3,378	+1	58
115	Cuba	3,364	+48	88
116	Somalia	3,257	+1	93
117	Cabo Verde	3,203	+24	36
118	Mayotte	3,160	+41	39
119	Suriname	3,077	+61	48
120	Mozambique	2,914	+59	19

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

1. Deaths in India top 1,000 a day for the first time.

 

A health worker collecting a swab sample in Hyderabad, India, on Monday.Credit...Noah Seelam/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

India’s health ministry said the country had recorded more than 1,000 virus deaths on Sunday, the first time the daily death toll had been that high. Some health experts said the high number is likely to be seen again, as state-run hospitals are still overflowing with sick patients, and private hospitals are mostly out of reach for many Indians. The high count has some Indians questioning the government’s seeming failure to capitalize on the gains made during its initial moves to contain the virus.

In late March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi implemented one of the most severe lockdowns anywhere, ordering all Indians to stay inside, halting transportation and closing most businesses. But as the ailing economy started contracting, officials lifted some of the restrictions, hoping to ease the economic suffering. People soon thronged markets, maintaining little social distance. In some of the congested localities, there was an explosion of new infections. “We were cramped inside for months,” said Saurab Sharma, a schoolteacher, in Delhi, India’s capital. “But it seems the government did not know how to make the most out of the lockdown gains.” As of Sunday, India had more than 2.2 million infections and 44,386 deaths, according to a New York Times database. The country’s caseload is the world’s third-largest, after those in the United States and Brazil, and India has recorded at least 800 deaths a day in the past week. The country is recording more new cases than the United States and Brazil, although India carries out more tests than Brazil, at 700,000 a day. (An earlier version of this post mischaracterized the number of tests conducted by India. It conducts a similar number of tests as the United States, not more.)

Indian officials said on Monday that more than 80 percent of the new cases were being reported in 10 of India’s 29 states, and that the number of recoveries exceeded 1.5 million. Some public health experts have linked the country’s rising infection toll to its spread in densely populated areas of major cities, which have crowded marketplaces and almost no social distancing.

Retrieved from:  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

1. England will overhaul its contact tracing program

                                                    

People in the line for a show at the London Palladium in late July using their phones to sign up for Britain’s “test and trace” system.Credit...Lauren Fleishman for The New York Times

England will overhaul its faltering coronavirus contact-tracing system, the government said on Monday, shifting some control from private contractors to local public health teams and cutting the jobs of thousands of call center workers who had complained of having no one to call.

The changes were the clearest acknowledgment yet by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government that its centralized, privatized system for tracking down the patients’ contacts has come up short.

Instead, the government has heeded some of the pleas of underfunded local public health directors, who have been warning for months that a London-run contact tracing system would not deliver the local intelligence needed to squelch flare-ups of the virus.

Under the reorganization announced on Monday, 6,000 contact tracing jobs will be cut by late August, one-third of the total employed by two outsourcing companies. Some of the remaining 12,000 privately employed tracers will be redeployed to regional public health teams.

In some areas, “the national Test and Trace system wasn’t picking up enough of the cases and contacts on the ground to make a difference,” Dr. Lincoln Sargeant, the director of public health in North Yorkshire, said in an interview on Monday. “The knowledge and relationships we have in local government are certainly what you need to bridge that gap.”

Retrieved from:  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

1. Indonesia extends deadline for foreigners to leave country or switch visas

 

Security officers wears face masks and shields at the airport in Bali. The Indonesian government has extended a deadline for foreigners to leave the country or extend their visas. Photograph: Dicky Bisinglasi/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

 

The Indonesian government has extended a deadline for foreigners to leave the country or switch or extend their visas, following concerns that people may be forced to leave the country ahead of a deadline later this week.

Last month, Indonesia announced new visa rules for foreigners who had previously been allowed to stay in the country under emergency visas due to the coronavirus pandemic. Officials set foreigners a deadline of 30 days to apply for monthly extensions, switch visas or leave the country. Anyone who didn’t comply, officials said, would be subject to daily fines.

In response, Western Australia’s premier, Mark McGowan, had said he was seeking “urgent” advice from the commonwealth about the potentially large number of West Australians returning home from Indonesia.

On Tuesday, the Indonesian immigration department’s chief of public relations, Arvin Gumilang, told the Guardian that people would have more time to comply with the rules.

“For foreigners whose residence permits expired during the pandemic, [they] have the opportunity to apply for a visitor visa and a limited stay visa through the online visa service application,” Gumilang said.

“Everyone should apply for the new [visa] status, renew their status or extend before September 20.”

Foreigners who had permission to stay before the pandemic was declared can extend their residence permit again at their domicile immigration office, he added.

Some foreigners complained the rule changes were confusing, and that they were struggling to comply in time for a deadline set for later this. Others have praised the Indonesian government for making adaptations to their visa systems to allow foreigners to stay.

Kelli Swazey, an anthropologist living in Indonesia, said: “As someone who has lived and worked here for many years and dealt with the immigration system, I still think they are being very generous and trying to be lenient towards the foreigners here in an unprecedented situation. I think the extension today just underscores that.”

For the large cohort of Australians in Bali, getting back home is a challenge. There are strict limits on international passenger arrivals and no direct flights from the island into any Australian city available to purchase.

Some – including those returning to New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia – would also face the cost of mandatory quarantine. McGowan said his government would consider forcing people to pay for the cost of quarantining in hotels.

“People have had months and months and months to come home. And if they haven’t come home they need to pay for the hotel quarantine ... Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it,” McGowan said.

The Australian government ordered its citizens to return to the country in March, as the coronavirus pandemic spread caused countries around the world to impose travel restrictions.

Bali is also a popular destination for Perth residents, who, before the pandemic, could fly to the island on a three-and-a-half-hour direct flight – a closer trip than the five-hour flight to Sydney. Yet now, Perth residents still in Bali wanting to travel on Thursday will have to pay at least A$1,550 for a three-leg economy flight home via Singapore. A one-way economy ticket from Denpasar to Sydney on Thursday costs about A$5,300 for a four-leg trip that transits through Taiwan and China.

Australia’s international arrival caps have seen airfare prices surge and drawn complaints from economy passengers, who say they have been taken off flights to create space for business and first-class travellers.

Under the caps, which were introduced in July, Sydney airport is currently limited to 350 international passenger arrivals a day while Perth’s cap is 75 a day – meaning some flights can only carry 30 passengers.

Retrieved from:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/indonesia-extends-deadline-for-foreigners-to-leave-country-or-switch-visas

 

 

Trump calls out New Zealand’s 'terrible' Covid surge, on day it records nine new cases

 

 'Big surge': Trump angers New Zealand with coronavirus comments – video

 

Donald Trump has called out New Zealand for its recent Covid-19 outbreak, saying the places the world hailed as a success story is now facing a “big surge” in cases.

“The places they were using to hold up now they’re having a big surge … they were holding up names of countries and now they’re saying ‘whoops!.

“Do you see what’s happening in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something,” the US president said at a campaign rally in Mankato, Minnesota.

“Big surge in New Zealand, you know it’s terrible, we don’t want that, but this is an invisible enemy that should never have been let to come to Europe and the rest of the world by China.”

On Monday Auckland recorded nine new cases of the virus, and 13 on Tuesday, while the US’s Monday figure was just under 42,000.

It is the first time Trump has mentioned New Zealand in a campaign speech. On Tuesday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern responded, saying there was “no comparison” between the situation in the US and her country.

New Zealand’s government has described the outbreak as contained and manageable, and has chosen not to place the country or even Auckland in full, level 4 lockdown. The outbreak is currently limited to a single cluster of related cases, which as of Tuesday numbered 69.

Overall 22 people have died from Covid-19 in New Zealand, compared with more than 170,000 in the US, the highest death toll in the world. It accounts for nearly 22% of deaths globally.

In June, New Zealand declared it had eliminated the virus, and went 102 days without any infection in the community.

Last week four people tested positive for the virus, and dozens more in Auckland were been infected, prompting the prime minister to place the city of 1.5 million into a two-week, stage 3 lockdown.

It is still unclear how the virus got into the community, but health officials continue to test workers at the international borders, ports and a cool store factory that handles international freight.

President Trump has been criticised for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic – from labelling it a “hoax” in the early part of the year, to wrongly suggesting that injecting disinfectant could be a potential way to fight Covid-19. Until the past few weeks Trump has refused to wear a mask.

Cases began to rise for a second time after the Memorial Day holiday weekend at the end of May. Los Angeles county is the worst affected in the country, with more than 220,000 cases, followed by Miami-Dade in Florida, with 145,000 cases. This compares with Queens in New York, which has recorded the most deaths in the country (5,977), and 68,000 infections.

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/indonesia-extends-deadline-for-foreigners-to-leave-country-or-switch-visas