South America at centre of pandemic, says WHO – as it happened
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Madrid and Barcelona to ease lockdown as Spain’s death toll stays under 100 again; 660,000 people forced to flee homes during crisis despite UN global ceasefire call
And on a serious note on President Trump, he has just tweeted that he has asked for all flags on federal buildings and national monuments to fly at half mast for the next three days, honouring victims of the virus.
I will be lowering the flags on all Federal Buildings and National Monuments to half-staff over the next three days in memory of the Americans we have lost to the CoronaVirus....
And here he is explaining that he did wear a mask for some of the time at his visit to a Ford plant in Michigan, but he didn’t wear it all the time because he didn’t want to “give the press the pleasure of seeing it”.
President Trump’s confusing statement today on his latest coronavirus test, has made it to Tiktok. The president said he had tested positively, in that he had tested negative.
"I tested very positively in another sense so— this morning. Yeah. I tested positively toward negative, right. So. I tested perfectly this morning. Meaning I tested negative." pic.twitter.com/xA0DBUcfr9
British PM, Boris Johnson, has instructed civil servants to make plans to end UK’s reliance on China for vital medical supplies and other strategic imports in light of the coronavirus outbreak, The Times newspaper reported on Friday.
Boris Johnson returns inside after participating in a national ‘clap for carers’ to show thanks for the work of Britain’s NHS (National Health Service) workers and other frontline medical staff. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images
The plans, which have been code named “Project Defend”, include identifying Britain’s main economic vulnerabilities to potentially hostile foreign governments as part of a broader new approach to national security, the newspaper reported, adding that the efforts are being led by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab.
Italy's Covid-19 deaths could be 19,000 higher than official toll
Italy’s death toll from Covid-19 in March and April could be nearly 19,000 higher than the official figure of 32,000, the national social security agency said Thursday.
The Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale (INPS), the largest social security and welfare institute in Italy, said in a new study that the official death figures were not “reliable”.
Its study showed that 156,429 total deaths were recorded in Italy in March and April, which is 46,909 higher than the average number of fatalities in those months recorded between 2015 and 2019.
Italians have been enjoying eased restrictions after of one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in Europe. Photograph: Steve Bisgrove/REX/Shutterstock
But only 27,938 deaths linked to coronavirus were reported during that period by the Civil Protection Agency, whose toll forms the basis of national statistics.
That meant there were 18,971 more deaths than normal during this period, with the vast majority of 18,412 recorded in the coronavirus-ravaged north of the country.
Still in Russia and the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, was on Thursday reportedly being treated for coronavirus in Moscow according to Russian news agencies.
The 43-year-old calls himself the Kremlin’s “foot soldier” but is widely thought to enjoy carte blanche from Moscow, which turns a blind eye to heavy-handed tactics in his North Caucasus fiefdom in exchange for loyalty.
Ramzan Kadyrov was reported to have been taken to hospital in Moscow, with suspected coronavirus. Photograph: Alexey Nikolsky/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA
Russia’s industrial output fell by 6.6% in April compared to the previous year, dampened by the country’s coronavirus lockdown, the state statistics agency said Thursday.
Russia imposed a “non-working” period across the country at the end of April which “served as the decisive factor in lowering industrial output,” Rosstat said in a statement.
Industries were delivered a double blow as President Vladimir Putin ordered companies to stop work activities but continue paying salaries.
At the same time, “consumer demand fell for a range of goods and services,” the agency said.
Parts of Russia have continued to experience wintery weather, including this major snowfall outside the town of Sergiyev Posad, 70km from Moscow. Photograph: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
However it reported a surge in demand for some products, including food, household products and laptops, sought as people began telecommuting.
Russia’s commodities sector only decreased by 3.2% year-on-year, and oil production actually grew by 0.2%, the agency said, noting that for many of those companies ceasing activity was not possible.
The Russian economy has already been battered by low prices of oil, a key export shaken by a price war with Saudi Arabia in March which sent the Russian ruble tumbling.
Pharmaceutical industries showed growth of 13.5% year on year, while the automotive sector was the worst-hit, plummeting by 79.2%.
Still on Brazil, and President Jair Bolsonaro, a long-running advocate of malaria drug chloroquine to treat Covid-19, said on Thursday he knew there was no proof it works, but said there are cases in which it appears to have been successful, Reuters reports.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s health ministry issued new guidelines for the wider use of anti-malarial drugs in mild coronavirus cases, in defiance of public health experts warning of possible health risks.
A man walks past a mural referencing the Covid-19 pandemic in Rio de Janeiro. Photograph: Silvia Izquierdo/AP
The interim health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, an army general, authorised the use after two doctors left the ministry’s top job under pressure to promote early use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
The new guidelines suggested dosage for the anti-malarials along with the antibiotic azithromycin at the onset of symptoms. Patients or family members would have to sign a waiver recognising potential side effects.
Brazil has had another terrible day with coronavirus figures passing the 20,000 Covid-19 deaths, as the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Philips, reports:
Brazil has just passed another grim coronavirus milestone, with more than 20,000 deaths from Covid-19 now officially confirmed here.
On Thursday evening Brazil’s health ministry announced a daily record of 1,188 deaths confirmed in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of officially recorded deaths to 20,047.
Brazil also confirmed another 18,508 infections, taking the total number to 310,087. That is the third highest number in the world, after the US and Russia.
President Bolsonaro has been criticised for playing down the seriousness of coronavirus. Photograph: Joédson Alves/EPA
Despite Brazil’s rising death toll the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, continues to downplay the dangers of the coronavirus, which he has repeatedly dismissed as “a bit of a cold” and “a little flu”. On Thursday, just hours before the new death toll was announced, Bolsonaro claimed the pandemic’s threat had been exaggerated with “a great deal of propaganda”.
“This has brought dread to the heart of the Brazilian family,” Bolsonaro complained.
Sub-notification and low rates of testing mean the real number of infections and deaths are likely to be s
Trump declines to wear mask, calls for churches to open
It’s been another controversial day in the US for President Trump, who visited a Ford plant in the crucial battle state of Michigan.
Trump toured the Ford plant, which has been recast to produce ventilators and personal protective equipment, without wearing a face mask in front of TV cameras. This was despite Ford on Tuesday reiterating its policy that all visitors must wear them.
Surrounded by Ford executives who were wearing masks, Trump told reporters he had put one on out of the view of cameras,
“I had one on before. I wore one in the back area. I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,” Trump said.
Trump starts his tour of Ford’s Rawsonville Plant with four executives in face masks. He isn’t wearing one. pic.twitter.com/GZm6FTdEcv
When asked if Trump was told it was acceptable not to wear a mask in the plant, Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford said, “It’s up to him.”
“Honestly I think I look better in a mask,” Trump added jokingly.
Trump has been highly critical of the state’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is seen as a potential vice presidential running mate for Joe Biden.
On Thursday the president called for churches to reopen and said guidelines on that should be issued soon.
Guardian US’s Joanna Walters says it looks like the president is putting pressure on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue guidelines of some kind that will indicate it’s okay to restart in-person services.
Walters says Trump made an eyebrow-raising statement a little earlier when he told a gathering of African American leaders: “We are opening our churches again. I think the CDC is going to put something out very soon, spoke to them today. I think they are going to put something out very soon. We got to open our churches.”
The president said the guidance was expected today or tomorrow. “I said you better put it out and they’re doing it and they’re going to be issuing something today or tomorrow and churches are going to get our churches open,” Trump said.
Leading federal public health officials have repeatedly urged caution about easing social distancing restrictions, warning it could cause a surge in coronavirus infections.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Donald Trump has promised that he is working on plans to allow churches to hold Sunday services again, and“you’re going to see something come out very soon”. He made his remarks at a Ford factory in Michigan, where he did not wear a mask, despite, the state’s attorney general writing an open letter to him yesterday saying the president had “not only a legal responsibility, but also a social and moral responsibility” to wear a mask during his tour. Trump has locked horns with Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, over the states lockdown rules and restrictions.
In other coronavirus developments.
Brazil’s death toll from Covid-19 has passed 20,000, after a daily record of 1,188 deaths announced on Thursday. The country’s surge in cases and fatalities comes despite President Bolsonaro’s assertion that the virus was nothing more than “a little flu”.
Russia’s industrial output fell by 6.6% in April compared to the previous year, dampened by the country’s coronavirus lockdown, according to the state statistics agency Rosstat.
Italy’s coronavirus death toll in March and April could be nearly 19,000 higher than the official figure of 32,000, the national social security agency said on Thursday.
Indonesia recorded its biggest one-day jump in cases with 973 new infections. It now has the highest death toll in Asia outside China, at 1,278.
Austria’s hotels will reopen as planned on 29 May, chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced on Thursday.
Puerto Rico will cautiously reopen beaches, restaurants, churches, malls and hair salons next week under strict new rules as the US territory emerges from a two-month lockdown that stifled business activity on an island already beset with economic woes.
Half of Facebook’s workforce could shift to permanent home working by the end of the decade, founder Mark Zuckerberg has revealed
