Protests flare in Brazil despite rising infections
In Brazil, there have been clashes on the streets of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro after protests both for and against President Jair Bolsonaro. Over the weekend, Brazil overtook France in the total number of coronavirus deaths with nearly 29,000 people losing their lives....
Tropical Storm Amanda: At least 14 dead in El Salvador
Tropical Storm Amanda killed at least 14 people when it struck El Salvador, unleashing flooding and landslides, officials say. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has declared a 15-day state of emergency to deal with the effects of the deadly storm. He said it...
New Ebola outbreak hits DR Congo
New cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Health Minister Eteni Longondo said four people had died from the virus in the western city of Mbandaka, which has a population of about a million people. It is more than 1,000km...
Faithful return to St. Peter’s Square to hear Pope Francis’ words
In a small sign of life getting back to normal, crowds returned to St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican City on Sunday as Pope Francis resumed his traditional greeting from his window, for the first time since lockdown began in Italy nearly three months ago....
Bars, gyms and restaurants in South Korea to keep a QR-code log of customers
Recreational venues in South Korea, including bars, nightclubs and indoor gyms, will be required to keep a QR code-based customer log from June 10, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said Sunday. This data will be automatically erased after four weeks to safeguard customer information. The minister...
Scotland’s First Minister warns coronavirus still poses “significant risk” as England prepares to lift restrictions
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has warned that coronavirus still poses a “significant risk,” calling on citizens to not become complacent as the UK government prepares to lift some lockdown restrictions in England on Monday. “We have got to be very cautious. The virus has...
World Health Organization releases new guidance for outdoor events and mass gatherings
The World Health Organization on Saturday released new guidance for mass gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic, recommending a number of possible changes to large events — once they’re allowed to take place. Holding gatherings outdoors, limiting attendance to healthy people and staggering arrivals could all...
Venezuela announces five days on, ten days off partial reopening plan
Venezuela will begin a partial reopening of nine economic sectors on June 1, which will see them open for five days and then observe quarantine for the next ten, the country’s President Nicolas Maduro announced on Saturday. Border towns will not be part of the...
He walked and hitchhiked 1,250 miles home. India’s lockdown left him no choice.
Rajesh Chouhan had covered 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) in five days. His legs were swollen and his blisters had burst. A piece of Styrofoam trash he’d found on the roadside was soaking up the pus seeping from his feet. But he didn’t stop walking. He...
Peru reports more than 7,000 new cases
The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Peru rose to 155,671 on Saturday, a jump of 7,386 from the previous day, according to the country’s health ministry. The country reported 141 new coronavirus-related deaths, taking the national death toll to 4,371, according to the ministry....
Coronavirus: Belgian Prince Joachim tests positive after lockdown party
A Belgian prince has contracted coronavirus after attending a party during lockdown in Spain, the country’s royal palace says. Prince Joachim, 28, travelled from Belgium to Spain for an internship on 26 May, the palace said. Two days later, he went to a party in...
Coronavirus: India to loosen lockdown despite record cases
India has announced plans to further ease a strict national lockdown even as the country reported a record daily rise in new coronavirus cases. From 8 June, restaurants, hotels, shopping centres and places of worship will be allowed to re-open in many areas in the...
Merkel “cannot confirm” G7 attendance amid coronavirus pandemic
German Chancellor Angela Merkel “cannot confirm” that she will attend a possible G7 summit of world leaders in Washington amid the coronavirus pandemic, a spokesperson at the Chancellery said Saturday. US President Donald Trump has said the summit could be held in Washington in late...
The world’s new Covid-19 epicenter could be the worst yet
For months, Latin America watched the rest of the world suffer as the coronavirus spread. It is a spectator no longer. “This is the new epicenter,” said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases at the Pan American Health Organization. Months after emerging from a...
Japan’s coronavirus cases rise for fourth day in a row since country lifted state of emergency
Japan’s Health Ministry announced 75 new coronavirus cases and 12 deaths for Friday — the fourth consecutive day that the country has seen a rise in coronavirus cases since fully lifting its state of emergency. This brings the number of total Covid-19 cases in Japan...
Politics and poverty hinder Covid-19 response in Latin America
Wuhan was the original epicenter. Then the coronavirus migrated to Europe. New York was the next hotspot, and now world health authorities are worried about South America. The region as a whole is reporting more daily cases than the United States. And politics, rather than...
How a country of 97 million people managed to keep its coronavirus death toll at zero
When the world looked to Asia for successful examples in handling the novel coronavirus outbreak, most eyes were on South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. But there’s one overlooked success story — Vietnam. The country of 97 million people is yet to report a single...
Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll has roughly doubled in two weeks
Mexico recorded 3,227 new coronavirus cases and 371 additional virus deaths on Friday. The country’s death toll, now at 9,415, has roughly doubled in the last two weeks and remains the second-highest in Latin America, behind Brazil. Mexico is likely to surpass 10,000 coronavirus deaths...
Combinations of drugs may be needed to fight coronavirus, FDA scientists say
Combinations of antivirals, anti-inflammatories and other drugs will likely be needed to treat people with coronavirus, a team of US Food and Drug Administration scientists said Friday. It might even be necessary to customize treatment patient by patient, the FDA team said in a review...
Brazil overtakes Spain in reported Covid-19 deaths
Brazil recorded 1,124 new coronavirus-related deaths in 24 hours, according to the country’s Health Ministry, raising its overall death toll to 27,878. The new fatalities pushed Brazil’s nationwide death toll past that of Spain, which has reported 27,121 Covid-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University....
More on the EU’s statement on Trump
Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn gave the first clear-cut European reaction to President Trump’s announcement, calling it a “disappointing backlash for international health. This latest reaction comes from the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borell, and the head of the EU’s executive, Commission President Ursula...
Coronavirus: Trump terminates US relationship with WHO
US President Donald Trump has announced that he is terminating the country’s relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO). The president has accused the WHO of failing to hold Beijing to account over the coronavirus pandemic. “China has total control over the World Health Organization,”...
Trump targets China over Hong Kong security law
President Donald Trump has announced that he will start to end preferential treatment for Hong Kong in trade and travel, in response to a new security law pushed by Beijing. He described the Chinese government’s moves to introduce the measure in Hong Kong as a...
‘You can’t ask people to die’: Coronavirus woes deepen Argentina’s crisis
Sergio Sanchez, 56, has lived through enough defaults and crises to know that Argentina’s economy can be a rollercoaster. Politicians come and go but economic troubles rarely go away. “Some governments have been better than others,” Sergio says. But the coronavirus pandemic has had a...
Moscow more than doubles city’s Covid-19 death toll
Moscow’s authorities have more than doubled the official death toll from Covid-19 in the Russian capital for the month of April. The city’s health department now says 1,561 people died from the disease – not 639 as initially announced. The department stressed that the new...
Nigerian Air Force researchers unveil new ventilator
Nigeria’s Air Force Institute of Technology, based in Kaduna, has unveiled locally made ventilators that it hopes will be a game changer in the country’s fight against Covid-19. “The ventilators will go a long way to help not only coronavirus patients but also others with...
US death toll rises to 101,621
At least 101,621 people have died in the US from coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University, with at least 1,721,926 cases recorded across the country. The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. The US has...
Moscow revises Covid-19 death toll, more than doubling April fatalities
Moscow health authorities have revised the city’s coronavirus death toll for April, revealing that more than twice as many people died than previously reported. Officials raised the documented number of fatalities attributed to Covid-19 to 1,561 up from 636. CNN and other news outlets reported in mid-May that...
Berlin’s pubs and fitness studios allowed to reopen
Berlin is further easing its coronavirus restrictions, by allowing pubs and fitness studios to reopen and increasing limits for public gatherings, according to the region’s Senate. Starting this weekend, outdoor prayer services with an unlimited number of people will be allowed in Germany’s capital, in...
South Korea authorities race to contain a new cluster at a logistics center near Seoul
South Korea recorded 58 new coronavirus cases and no new deaths on Thursday, said authorities Friday. That brings the national total to 11,402 cases and 269 deaths. Authorities are also working to contain a new cluster that emerged this week in a logistics center near...
