Cyprus Mail 3 April 2020 - Reuters News Agency
As of 06.00 today more than 1,015,870 people have been infected across the world and over 53,215 have died but at the same time 212,992 people have recovered.
The USA is now the country with the most infected cases (245,193) ahead of Italy (115,242) and Spain with 112,065. Germany follows with 87,794 cases who overtook China (81,620) a few hours ago.
Italy though has most deaths, 13,915, with Spain moving second with 10,348 deaths with USA overtaking China into third with 6,088.
All the latest news in brief as it happens
10.05 China advises foreign diplomats to stop coming to Beijing
China’s foreign ministry is advising foreign diplomats to stop coming to Beijing, after the country temporarily banned most foreigners from entering to prevent a resurgence of a coronavirus epidemic, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters during a daily briefing that the ministry was aware of confirmed coronavirus cases among foreign diplomats in China.
09.35 EU’s von der Leyen: talks underway over possible border closure extension
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that talks were underway among European Union member states over whether or not to extend border closures beyond Easter.
“We are in consultation with member states on how to proceed beyond Easter,” she told Europe 1 radio.
Von Der Leyen also reiterated that the next EU budget should take the form of a new “Marshall Plan” to drive Europe’s recovery and that she felt Europe would emerge from the crisis in a stronger state.
09.18 British supermarket Sainsbury’s to remove most customer purchasing limits
British supermarket group Sainsbury’s said on Friday it would start to remove the customer purchasing limits it imposed as a response to increased demand during the coronavirus emergency.
“As stock continues to build, we have been reviewing whether we still need to limit the number of items people buy. I am pleased to tell you that we will start to remove limits from Sunday,” Chief Executive Mike Coupe said in a letter to customers.
Limits will remain in place on the most popular items which include UHT milk, pasta and tinned tomatoes, he said.
09.09 Poland’s national airline LOT will need state aid
Kazakhstan may call up thousands of reservists for up to three months to help combat the coronavirus outbreak and also provide temporary employment to those who have lost jobs in lockdowns and business closures, the government said on Friday.
Defence Minister Nurlan Yermekbayev said it was up to the governor of each province to decide how many reservists, men with the rank of sergeant or lower, aged up to 50 and officers aged up to 60, to call up to the so-called territorial forces.
09.06 Hungary to unveil pandemic fund on Saturday, detailed plans on Tuesday -PM
Hungary will introduce a new pandemic fund on Saturday and work out the details of the country’s biggest economic stimulus package by Tuesday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday, adding that the plans focus primarily on employment.
Healthcare workers will receive a 500,000 forint ($1,500) bonus this year to compensate them for the extra workload and risk that fighting the coronavirus entails, he added.
08.52 Kazakhstan to call up reservists to fight coronavirus, unemployment
Kazakhstan may call up thousands of reservists for up to three months to help combat the coronavirus outbreak and also provide temporary employment to those who have lost jobs in lockdowns and business closures, the government said on Friday.
Defence Minister Nurlan Yermekbayev said it was up to the governor of each province to decide how many reservists, men with the rank of sergeant or lower, aged up to 50 and officers aged up to 60, to call up to the so-called territorial forces.
08.07 Australia closes internal borders to capitalise on fall in new cases
Australian officials closed internal borders on Friday and warned people to stay home over the upcoming Easter holiday as the country seeks to capitalise on a further fall in the rate of new coronavirus cases.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia was shifting to a “suppression” phase in its fight against the highly contagious illness, but stressed that people had to continue to follow orders restricting socialising in public.
08.04 Saudi Arabia advances curfew in three areas
Saudi Arabia has advanced to 3 p.m. (1200 GMT) its curfew in three areas, starting from Friday until further notice, state news agency SPA said, citing a senior official of the interior ministry.
The measure in the city of Dammam, and the governorates of Taif and al-Qatif, aims to rein in the virus, as the kingdom has recorded 1,885 infections and 21 deaths, the most among any of the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
07.56 Thailand reports 103 new coronavirus and 4 new deaths; total cases at 1,978
Thailand on Friday reported 103 new coronavirus cases and four more deaths, bringing its total number cases to 1,978, a health official said.
There were four new deaths, bringing total fatalities to 19, said a spokesman for the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration, Taweesin Wisanuyothin.
07.36 Germany’s coronavirus infections rise to 79,696 -RKI
Germany’s coronavirus infections have risen to 79,696, with 1,017 deaths, statistics from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday.
Cases rose 6,174 from the previous day, while the death toll climbed by 145, the tally showed.
07.31 Nissan Vietnam to close plant due to coronavirus containment measures
Nissan Vietnam will shut down its plant for two weeks amid a nationwide social distancing campaign to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the company said on Friday.
“Our plant in central province Danang will close from April 5 for 15 days, in line with the government’s order of social distancing,” Nissan Vietnam’s spokeswoman said.
07.03 Malaysia’s indigenous people flee into forests to escape coronavirus
After blocking the entrance to their village with logs, half the people of Jemeri fled into the surrounding forest in fear as the coronavirus spread in Malaysia, infecting the first indigenous ‘Orang Asli’ person.
“We are going back into the forest, to isolate ourselves and find food for ourselves,” villager and activist Bedul Chemai told Reuters by phone from Jemeri, in Malaysia’s Pahang State.
06.49 Mexico’s Grupo Modelo to suspend beer production amid coronavirus
Mexico’s Grupo Modelo said on Thursday that it will temporarily suspend the production of its beer brands after the country’s government declared a health emergency over coronavirus and ordered the suspension of non-essential activities.
06.45 Kyrgyzstan reports first coronavirus death
A 61-year-old coronavirus victim has died in Kyrgyzstan, the government said on Friday, the first virus fatality in the central Asian nation.
The patient, treated in a hospital in the southern province of Osh, had suffered from other serious diseases, the authorities said.
06.26 Australia’s health system capable of managing coronavirus pandemic – prime minister
Australia’s healthcare system should be able to cope with the coronavirus pandemic based on its current trajectory, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday.
Australia has more than 5,200 cases of coronavirus, though the growth in new infections has fallen to single digits in recent days from spikes of between 25% and 30% two weeks ago. The country has confirmed 28 deaths from the virus so far.
06.08 Singapore reports fifth person has died from coronavirus
Singapore reported another coronavirus-related death on Friday, raising the city-state’s total fatalities from the disease to five.
The latest death was of an 86-year-old female Singapore citizen, the health ministry said in a statement.
The country has reported 1,049 coronavirus cases in total.
05.39 New Zealand to introduce measures to help companies facing insolvency
New Zealand said on Friday that it would introduce new legislation to help companies facing insolvency due to the coronavirus pandemic to remain viable and keep people employed.
The new legislation gives directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems a “safe harbour” from insolvency under the Companies Act, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in a news conference.
05.38 Fujifilm says new coronavirus test can produce results in two hours
Fujifilm Holdings Corp said it has developed a new test for the novel coronavirus that reduces the results time to about two hours.
The test was developed by subsidiary Fujifilm Wako Pure Chemical Corp and will be released on April 15, the company said in a release on Friday.
05.08 China’s Hubei province reports 4 new coronavirus deaths as of April 2
Mainland China reported 31 new confirmed coronavirus cases, including two locally transmitted infections, the country’s National Health Commission said on Friday.
Mainland China also reported four new deaths as of Thursday, all in Wuhan, the city where the outbreak began, the commission said in a statement. The total number of infections now stands at 81,620 and 3,322 deaths have been reported from mainland China to date.
04.15 Mexico registers 1,510 coronavirus cases, 50 deaths – health official
The death toll in Mexico from coronavirus jumped to 50 on Thursday from 37 a day earlier, the health ministry said. The number of coronavirus cases was 1,510, up by 132 cases.
04.11 Trump says 3M ‘will have a big price to pay’ over face masks
U.S. President Donald Trump slammed 3M Co in a tweet late on Thursday after earlier announcing he was invoking the Defense Production Act to get the company to produce face masks.
“We hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their Masks. ‘P Act’ all the way.’ Big surprise to many in government as to what they were doing – will have a big price to pay!” Trump said on Twitter.
02.48 Panama registers 1,475 coronavirus cases, 37 deaths
Panama’s health ministry said on Thursday it had registered 1,475 coronavirus cases in the Central American country, an increase of 158 from a day earlier.
It also registered five more deaths, bringing the total number to 37.
What happened yesterday
EUROPE
- The death toll in Italy has climbed by 760 to 13,915, as the head of the European Commission apologised to the country for a lack of solidarity from Europe in tackling its coronavirus crisis.
- Britain’s health minister promised a tenfold increase in the number of daily tests, as a poll said more than a half of Britons think the government was too slow to order a lockdown.
- 570 people have died in nursing homes in France’s eastern region, suggesting the national death toll could be far higher than thought.
- Switzerland’s government said it was still far too early to relax measures.
- Spain’s death toll exceeded 10,000 after a record 950 people died overnight, but health officials noted a slowdown in proportional daily increases in infections and deaths.
- The separatist government of Spain’s Catalonia region asked the national military for assistance.
- Portugal extended its state of emergency by another 15 days.
- Greece has quarantined a migrant camp after 20 asylum seekers tested positive, its first such facility hit since the outbreak.
- President Vladimir Putin prolonged until April 30 a paid non-working period across Russia, which has reported 3,548 cases and 30 deaths.
- Russia’s medical equipment delivery to the United States drew anger from critics at home who pointed out severe shortages at home.
AMERICAS
- A record 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, and another four states told residents to stay at home – orders which now affect more than 80% of Americans in 39 states as cases in the country rose to 213,144, with the death count at 4,513.
- The pandemic’s mounting death toll besieged New York City morgues and hospitals struggled to treat thousands of infected patients.
- Canada faces “a critical week” in fighting the coronavirus, a senior official said, as the death toll jumped 21% to 127.
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
- Mainland China logged fewer new infections, but measures restricting movement were tightened in some areas due to a fear of more imported cases.
- India will pull out of a three-week lockdown in phases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said as officials battle to contain the country’s biggest cluster of infections in New Delhi.
- Facing calls to declare a state of emergency, Japan’s prime minister was derided on social media for instead offering people cloth masks.
- Indonesia’s coronavirus death toll rose to 170, passing South Korea as the country with the highest number of recorded fatalities in Asia after China.
- WHO expects the number of cases in Malaysia to peak in mid-April, saying there are signs of a flattening of the infection curve.
- Singapore suffered its fourth death, a day after it reported a record number of new cases that took its total to 1,000.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
- Saudi Arabia imposed a 24-hour curfew in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, while other Gulf Arab states locked down districts with large migrant worker populations.
- Iraq has thousands of confirmed COVID-19 cases, many times more than the 772 it is has publicly reported, according to three doctors closely involved in the testing process, a health ministry official and a senior political official.
- Hackers linked to the Iranian government have attempted to break into the personal email accounts of staff at the World Health Organization, sources told Reuters.
- Turkey’s tourism minister said he expected flights to return to normal by the end of June, as the country planned to step up measures if the virus keeps spreading and people ignore “voluntary” quarantine rules.
- A United Nations agency has negotiated a humanitarian corridor to keep food aid flowing in southern Africa after most countries shut borders.
ECONOMIC FALLOUT
- World equity markets climbed on Thursday on the back of a surge in risky assets like oil, offsetting concerns over an increasing death toll from the pandemic.
- The Trump administration said it was allocating $25 billion in emergency funding grants to public transportation systems.
- The World Bank said its board of executive directors approved an initial $1.9 billion in emergency funds for coronavirus response operations in 25 countries, and said it was moving quickly on projects in 40 additional countries.
- Years after Japan made a cautious recovery from its long deflationary spell, the world’s third-largest economy may be headed back into a cycle of falling prices.
- Global financial regulators said they are in talks with governments to allow key staff at financial firms to work on site to keep markets open.
- The European Commission proposed measures to protect the EU economy, including a short-time work scheme and easier access to funds for farmers and fishermen.
