Slovakia has registered its first death since the outbreak began,
according to data from the National Health Information Centre. As of
midnight on Monday, Slovakia had 363 confirmed cases of coronavirus
infection.
The central European country has banned international travel to try to
stem the epidemic, closed schools and most shops, and made it compulsory
to wear a face mask outside the home.
Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Martinique and Barbados have refused to
accept the medical evacuation of two critically ill passengers from a
stranded coronavirus-stricken cruise ship, according to the vessel’s
owner, Erin McCormick and Patrick Greenfield write.
Four people have died, nine people have tested positive for Covid-19 and
dozens of people are ill with flu-like symptoms on the Zaandam and the
Rotterdam, which are traveling towards Florida two attempt to dock. William Burke, chief maritime officer for the boats’
owners Carnival Corporation, made the disclosure about critically ill
passengers while answering questions about plans to enter Port
Everglades, which have so far not been approved.
On Monday, a rescue plane carrying medical supplies was banned from
landing on a remote Columbian island in order to resupply the Zaandam,
which is carrying dozens of sick passengers and crew.
Burke told commissioners that coming to Fort Lauderdale was a “place of
last resort after being turned away by several Latin American countries.
After the first session of the meeting, Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief told
that Guardian that while there may be opponents to the plan to allow
the ships to dock, she thinks the plan proposed by Carnival is
ultimately a workable approach.
This is Carnival using their resources to get people home. The county
commissioners can’t turn a ship away. They can say what they want. But
it’s ultimately up to the county administrator and the Unified Command
whether to let the ship come in.
She said most of the calls she is getting from the public are from those who want the county to rescue the passengers.
Most people want us to give humanitarian aid, which is something
American is known for. I don’t know how, if there are Americans aboard,
we would turn these people away.
A group of 28 spring break tourists who returned to Texas from the
Mexican beach resort of Cabo San Lucas have tested positive for
coronavirus, the city of Austin has said.
About a week and a half ago, approximately 70 people in their 20s
departed in a chartered plane for a spring break trip. Some of the group
returned on separate commercial flights. Currently, 28 young adults on
this trip have tested positive for COVID-19 and dozens more are under
public health investigation.
Burundi has confirmed its first cases, the East African nation’s health
ministry has said. Both men are Burundian. One, aged 56 years, has
recently returned from neighbouring Rwanda and the other, aged 42, has
recently returned from Dubai, the government said.
Global deaths pass 40,000. Data collected by Johns
Hopkins University researchers show at least 40,636 people have died
across the world, while 174,019 people have recovered after becoming
infected. At least 823,479 people have been infected.
UK sees largest one-day increase in deaths. A total of 1,789 patients have died in
UK hospitals after testing positive as of 5pm on Monday (BST), the
country’s Department of Health and Social Care says. That is up 381 from
1,408 on the previous 24 hours and represents a 27% day-on-day increase
– by far the biggest so far.
US deaths now exceed those in China. Monday was the deadliest day yet for the US,
which has now lost more than 3,400 people. The figures mean the
coronavirus death toll has now surpassed that of the 11 September terror
attacks and is greater than that of China – 3,309.
Italy death toll rises by 837. A total of 12,428 people are now known to have died in
the southern European country; the world’s worst national death toll.
Some 77,635 are currently infected with an increase of 2,107 new cases
on Tuesday, 459 more than Monday.
Worst FTSE quarter since 1987. The FTSE 100 posts its worst quarter since autumn 1987 as
it closes for the night at 5671 points (up 108 points, or 1.95% today).
That means it has shed 24.8% of its value in the last three months.
That’s its second-worst quarter since being created in 1984.
More than 1,000 have now died in the Netherlands. The number of deaths in the Netherlands resulting from the epidemic rises by 175 to
1,039. The number of confirmed infections has increased by 845 to
12,595, the Netherlands’ National Institute for Health (RIVM) says.
Sierra Leone confirms first case. The president of
the west African nation says a 37-year-old man who traveled from France
on 16 March and has been in isolation ever since has tested positive.
UK shows early signs of flattening the curve. The
NHS needs everyone to play their part in reducing transmission of the
virus, the medical director of NHS England Stephen Powis says, as signs
emerge that physical distancing measures are beginning to work.
‘Stay healthy!’ US urges Americans left behind in Pakistan. A
US government-arranged flight is to leave Islamabad in Pakistan on
Wednesday night to repatriate Americans in the country. But not all US
nationals will be on it. Their embassy’s advice to them while they await a plan to get them home is: “Stay healthy!”
Ireland: confirmed cases of coronavirus halve. Ireland
on Monday confirmed 295 new cases, the second highest daily number,
bringing the total to 2,910. It recorded eight deaths, bringing the
death toll to 54. Northern Ireland has 533 confirmed cases and 22
deaths.
That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for today. I leave you in the capable hands of my colleague Kevin Rawlinson.
Pregnant women in prison in the UK who are judged to not pose a high
risk of harm to the public will be temporarily released within days to
protect them and their unborn children from Covid-19, Jamie Grierson, the Guardian’s home affairs correspondent, reports.
Prisoners in mother and baby units meeting the same risk assessment will
also be released with their children, the the Ministry of Justice said.
Prison governors will be able to grant release on temporary licence to
pregnant inmates once they pass a risk assessment and suitable
accommodation for the women has been identified, the MoJ said.
There were 35 pregnant women in prison and 34 women in mother and baby
units as of 6pm on Monday. The department expects most, but not
necessarily all, to be released, as some will not pass the risk
assessment and some will be on remand and only a court has the power to
bail them.
The announcement came as the department confirmed the number of
confirmed cases of Covid-19 among prisoners increased 18% in 24 hours to
65 cases across 23 prisons as at 5pm on Monday. There are around 83,000
prisoners in England and Wales across 117 prisons.
The number of prison staff who have tested positive rose from 13 to 14
in the same period, while the number of infected prisoner escort and
custody services (Pecs) staff remained at four.
The justice secretary, Robert Buckland, said:
We have already taken extraordinary measures to protect prisoners and
the public over the last few weeks, but it’s clear now that we must
temporarily release pregnant women and those with small babies with them
inside prison.
Governors can now temporarily release pregnant prisoners so that they
can stay at home and reduce social contact like all other expectant
mothers have been advised to do.
Those released will be subject to licence conditions, including a
requirement to stay at home, and wear an electronic tag, where
appropriate, the MoJ said. They can be immediately recalled to prison
for breaching these conditions or committing further offences, the
department added.
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On the subject of coronavirus testing rates, it seems I may have been
overhasty in granting Iceland the accolade of the most widespread
epidemiological surveillance of the spread of the disease.
A reader, Steen Rossau, emailed to point out that actually it is another
northern Atlantic island nation that leads the world in the proportion
of residents tested for the virus.
The Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago that is
part of the Kingdom of Denmark (at least, depending on who you talk
to), had as of 5pm on Tuesday tested 4,065 inhabitants, which is 8% of
the total population.
So far there are 169 people confirmed to have been infected with
coronavirus on the Faroes, including two new cases detected in the past
24 hours, and no one has died there from Covid-19, according data
provided on the Danish government website.
The worst affected area is Suðurstreymoy, with between 85 and 89 cases, followed by Norðoyggjar, with 43 cases, local news site KVF reports.
Although people in the islands have been asked to abide by social
distancing advice, police received reports of parties held across the
country over the weekend.
“Officers showed up at some of these parties, where they spoke with the
young partygoers about the coronavirus and the restrictions on group
activities,” KVL reported.
France’s health authorities announced an increase of
499 deaths of patients with the coronavirus in the country’s hospitals
on Tuesday, the biggest jump in deaths since the start of the pandemic, Kim Willsher reports from Paris.
Here is the full update on coronavirus cases in France from Jérôme
Salomon, head of the French health authority, as the French lockdown
entered its third week.
Number of deaths in hospitals 3,523 (+ 499 )
Number of cases 52,128 (+ 7,578 )
Number of people in hospital 22,757 (+1,749)
Number of people in intensive care 5,565 (+ 478)
A
worker prepares a coffin for a Covid-19 victim at a funeral logistic
centre in Ris-Orangis, near Paris, as the spread of the coronavirus
continues in France Photograph: Benoît Tessier/ReutersPatients
continued to be evacuated from hospitals in the Grand-Est region where
hospitals are said to be “saturated” with Covid-19 patients, with
several patients were airlifted by helicopter to Germany on Tuesday.
The Grand-Est is the second worst coronavirus crisis area after the
Ile-de-France, which is the Paris region. There are reported to be 2,000
people needing intensive care in the Ile-de-France, a region that has
around 1,200 intensive care beds.
French president Emmanuel Macron called for national unity and said the
naysayers criticising the government and authorities were
“irresponsible”.
“When you are fighting a battle you have to be united in order to win it,” Macron said.
Opinion poll published by Paris Match suggested that the popularity of
both Macron and his prime minister Édouard Philippe have risen.
The US has now more reported more deaths as a result of coronavirus infection than China, according to official statistics given by both countries that in all likelihood mask the true rates of infection in either.
The US now has 3,415 deaths from the virus, surpassing China’s figure of
3,309, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
However, there are doubts about the accuracy of both countries’ figures,
with the US having been slow to start widespread testing and China
suspected to have hidden the true extent of its outbreak.
Earlier I reported how Iceland was a world leader in epidemiological
surveillance of the spread of coronavirus, with nearly 5% of the
population already tested. But another small, comparatively (well in
this case actually very) rich country is snapping at its heels, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports.
The United Arab Emirates is now testing more of its
population for Coronavirus per head than any other country, and is on
track with the help of Chinese technology to scale up the level of
testing to reach the bulk of the population .
A UAE spokeswoman said “testing is at the heart of our containment
strategy”, but said it had set no date by which it will reach the entire
population of 9m.
The UAE health department says it has so far carried out 220,000
laboratory tests representing 22,900 tests per million people, the
second highest test density in the world.
The UAE is making two moves to scale up the level of testing further. It
has introduced drive through testing initially in Abu Dhabi with those
suspected of carrying the virus tested for free, and those showing no
symptoms offered a test at a $100 fee. The first drive through testing
centre was opened at the Zayed sports city in Abu Dhabi and is capable
of testing 600 people per day over a 12 hour period
The nasal swab test takes about 5 minutes. A further 8 test sites are being opened each capable of testing 600 per day.
A
mother and daughter, wearing protective gloves and face masks, walk
together in the Emirate city of Dubai on Tuesday Photograph: Karim
Sahib/AFP via Getty ImagesIn a second development,
Group 42, an Abu Dhabi based technology firm, and the Chinese global
genomics leader BGI, announced on Tuesday the launch of a
mass-throughput laboratory. The lab, modelled on one built in Wuhan,
China is capable of conducting tens of thousands real-time “reverse
transcription-polymerase chain reaction”, (RT-PCR) tests per day. The
company claims it is the first in the world of this scale to be
operational outside of China.
Peng Xiao, Chief Executive of G42, said: “This high throughput lab
provides the scale and firepower to enable all people in Abu Dhabi and
the UAE to access the most reliable PCR tests, which are also provided
by G42 in partnership with BGI. We thank the UAE leadership’s support in
protecting the health and wellbeing of the country’s residents against
this pandemic.”
Overall the UAE in the final week of March was testing at rate of just
over 10,000 per day, The speed with which the UAE, a wealthy oil Gulf
state, has moved to harness Chinese technology raises questions as to
why some western countries have been unable to source testing kits and
set up infrastructure with comparable speed.
More than 40,000 people have died from the coronavirus since the
outbreak began in Hubei, China, in January, according to statistics
collected by Johns Hopkins university.
According to the latest tally of official figures kept by the Maryland,
US-based university, 40,636 people have died from Covid-19, the
respiratory illness caused by the virus.
The highest death toll is in Italy, which just reported its most recent
daily increase, where 12,428 people have died so far after being
infected, followed by Spain, where 8,269 people have died. The US is now
the third worst affected country, with 3,175 deaths.
Despite a major lockdown and huge efforts at halting local transmission
of the disease, China remains the fourth worst affected country, with
3,309 deaths - including four in Hong Kong. Most deaths in China occurred
within the first few weeks of the outbreak and, so far, the disease
appears to be effectively contained in the country.
As feared, the FTSE 100 has just posted its worst quarter since autumn 1987, Graeme Wearden reports on the Guardian business blog.
The blue-chip index has just closed for the night at 5671 points (up 108 points, or 1.95% today).
That means it has shed 24.8% of its value in the last three months.
That’s its second-worst quarter since being created in 1984 -- only
beaten by the wild slump in autumn 1987 when the Black Monday stock
market crash struck.
The FTSE 100 began 2020 at 7542 points before the full scale of the
Covid-19 crisis spooked investors in mid-February, leading to a dramatic
slump in share values.
Follow our business blog for the latest updates.
Port Everglades, in Florida, has published a 12-point list of conditions that
a coronavirus-stricken cruise liner must meet to dock. But the coast
guard officials have warned the Zaandam and its sister ship “will not be
allowed in US waters” if it fails to meet them, Patrick Greenfield and Erin McCormick report.
Four people have died, eight people have tested positive for covid-19
and dozens of people are ill with flu-like symptoms on the Zaandam,
which is traveling towards Florida with a second ship – the Rotterdam –
which is carrying asymptomatic passengers.
Hundreds of elderly passengers are from around the world are aboard the Zaandam.
The
cruise ship MS Zaandam, which is gripped by a deadly coronavirus
outbreak, pictured on Sunday as it navigated the Pacific side of the
Panama Canal Photograph: Erick Marciscano/ReutersA
Broward County Commission meeting to discuss whether to allow the
vessels into port has heard the entry plan submitted by Carnival Cruise
Lines, the boats’ owners, is “not there yet”.
Captain Jo-ann Burdian, the commander of Coast Guard Sector Miami who is
on the Unified Command decision making body that published the 12-point
conditions, has told the meeting there are “no great choices left”.
“If the plan is not approved, I will not permit the vessels to enter US waters,” she said.
On Monday, Orlando Ashford, president of the ships’ operator Holland
America Line, warned that more people could die at sea unless its
vessels are allowed to dock.
The death toll from coronavirus in Italy rose by 837 to 12,428 on Tuesday, Lorenzo Tondo reports.
Some 77,635 are currently infected with an increase of 2,107 new cases
on Tuesday, 459 more than Monday. In the last 24 hours 1,109 have
recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 15,729.
In total, 105,792 people have tested positive with coronavirus in Italy,
including people who have died, recovered and the ones who are
currently infected.
According to the National Higher Health Institute, Italy’s coronavirus
curve has reached its plateau but lockdown measures are still needed to
defeat it. ISS President Silvio Brusaferro said:
The curve tells us that we’re at the plateau. That doesn’t mean we’ve
hit the peak and that it is over but that we must start the descent and
you start the descent by applying the measures in force.
The ISS said authorities were set to broaden its tests to include “broader swathes of the population”.
Italy reported 812 deaths from Covid-19 on Monday.
