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
As many as 50,000 people in South Africa could die from Covid-19 by the end of the year, with up to 3 million infected, according to a worst-case scenario suggested by scientists and statisticians working for the health ministry.
Despite a national lockdown slowing the spread of the virus, South Africa has already has the highest number of infections on the continent, with more than 18,000 identified cases and 339 deaths.
Taking into account the southern hemisphere winter, the modelling by scientists suggests there could be between 35,000 and 50,000 Covid-19 deaths by November.
“We haven’t really crushed the curve,” said one of the experts, Harry Moultrie, during a presentation shown on television, according to a Reuters report. “We also have some significant concerns that because of the focus on Covid-19, this may compromise other areas like HIV and TB.”
The models, which consider best and worst scenarios, suggest as many as 3 million coronavirus cases by November and demand for hospital beds peaking at 45,000, about 10 times the country’s intensive care bed availability.
660,000 forced to flee homes since UN's call for Covid-19 ceasefire
Fighting has forced 660,000 people to flee their homes since the UN secretary general called for a global ceasefire to focus on handling the coronavirus pandemic, an NGO says.
On Thursday, Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for an end to fighting, which he first issued on 23 March. But the Norwegian Refugee Council said that the UN’s security council had failed to provide leadership for ceasefires, peace talks or protection of civilians during the pandemic.
Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the NRC, said:
While people are being displaced and killed, powerful members of the UN security council squabble like children in a sandbox.
World leaders must rise to the occasion and jointly push parties to cease their fire and unite in protecting all communities from Covid-19. Now is not the time for kindergarten politics.
According to NRC, the worst affected country was the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 480,000 people have been forced to escape fighting between armed groups and the country’s army.
NRC also pointed to Yemen, where despite the Saudi-led coalition announcing it would implement a unilateral ceasefire, airstrikes have continued. Those attacks and other armed operations have resulted in the displacement of 24,000 people.
Fifty more people have died from Covid-19 in Pakistan, the government reports, its third highest official daily death toll since the pandemic began. This brings the total number of coronavirus deaths in the country to 1,067.
According to the latest update, out of 16,387 tests carried out in the past 24 hours, 2,603 people tested positive, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 47,429. So far, 15,201 people have recovered.
Sindh is the country’s worst affected province, with 19,924 cases, followed by Punjab, with 18,455.
The coronavirus is tearing through Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander communities in California, fanning longstanding health disparities and killing community members at a higher rate than any other racial group in the state, Mario Koran reports for the Guardian US from Oakland.
Data from California’s department of public health reveals that Pacific Islanders have contracted coronavirus at nearly twice the state’s overall rate. As of 17 May, they have died from the virus at a rate 2.6 times higher than the state average – the highest death rate of any racial or ethnic group.
The pattern extends beyond California. Oregon, Utah, Washington and Arkansas – where many Marshallese work in meatpacking plants – have all seen similar trends.
Public health experts have often said the group’s relatively small size can skew the numbers, making percentages appear outsized. But to community members and advocates, that argument obfuscates a long history of overlooked needs and health disparities.
Fifty-one people in Iran died from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, as 2,311 more tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the health ministry.
In his daily update, Kianoush Jahanpour, the health ministry’s spokesman, said the total number of confirmed cases across the Islamic republic, scene of one of the earliest outbreaks outside China, had now reached 131,652, of whom 102,276 patients had subsequently been given the all-clear.
The death toll now stands at 7,300 and 2,659 remain in a critical condition in hospital, Jahanpour said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iranian health authorities have so far carried out 763,913 tests for the virus.
Vali-E-Asr street, in Tehran, on Wednesday. Photograph: Wana News Agency/Reuters
It would be hard to overstate the importance of developing a vaccine to Sars-CoV-2 – it’s seen as the fast track to a return to normal life, writes Ian Sample, the Guardian’s science editor. That’s why the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the UK was “throwing everything at it”.
But while trials have been launched and manufacturing deals already signed – Oxford University is now recruiting 10,000 volunteers for the next phase of its research – ministers and their advisers have become noticeably more cautious in recent days.
Africa is approaching 100,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization’s regional office for the continent.
In its daily update on Twitter, the WHO African region office reported that there were over 99,400 cases across the continent, about 4,500 more than on Thursday.
The discrepancy over the number of recoveries - where the WHO reported 1,000 fewer recoveries on Thursday than on Wednesday - seems to have been cleared up. It is now saying that about 39,000 people infected with the virus have now been given the all clear.
Just over 3,000 people in Africa have died.
Over 99,400 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent - with more than 39,000 recoveries & 3,078 deaths. View country figures & more with the WHO African Region COVID-19 Dashboard: https://t.co/V0fkK8dYTgpic.twitter.com/46DZhvIegy
Tax revenues in Germany fell by a quarter last month, compared with a year earlier, as Europe’s largest economy faced its most severe recession since the second world war.
According to the finance ministry’s monthly report, published on Friday, the central government and the 16 federal states pulled in about 39bn euros in April, 25.3% less than the same month in 2019, Reuters reported.
The revenue decline was most severe for income, corporate and air traffic taxes, the report showed. The pandemic’s impact on tax revenues were first visible in March but has now accelerated.
Germany authorities imposed a strict lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, closing most businesses and limiting people’s movement outside their homes.
The finance minister, Olaf Scholz, said earlier this month that the plunge in tax revenues will not stop the government from presenting a stimulus package next month to help companies recover from the coronavirus crisis.
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus increased by 460 to 177,212, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday.
The reported death toll rose by 27 to 8174, the tally showed.
Hi, this is Damien Gayle taking over the blog now, bringing you the latest in coronavirus-related news from around the world.
If you have any comments, or tips or suggestions for coverage please drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter direct message to @damiengayle.
Here’s an outline of some of the key global coronavirus updates so far this morning.
Pictures have emerged of Donald Trump wearing a face mask during a visit in Michigan. The US president had previously been called a “petulant child” by a state attorney general for allegedly refusing to wear the covering during a tour of the Ford plant.
India has reported 6,000 new cases in its biggest one-day rise since the outbreak started. The country has also reported over 118,000 confirmed cases – around a 5% increase from yesterday.
Coronavirus cases in war-torn Yemen are believed to be “widespread”, while its health system has “in effect collapsed”. A UN spokesman said on Friday that the reported total of 184 cases in the country is also “almost certainly much higher”.
Hong Kong activists have called for citizens to rise up against Bejing’s plans to impose national security legislation in the financial hub. Many believe the plans have reignited the anti-government movement that had lost its focus and dwindled amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Indonesia has reported 973 new infections – its highest number of daily coronavirus cases – bringing the country’s total cases to 20,162. The figures come as millions of people in the world’s fourth most populous country mark the festival of Eid al-Fitr without the usual celebrations.
The leader of New Zealand’s main opposition party has been ousted after opinion polls showed Jacinda Ardern’s soaring popularity. Around 84% of New Zealanders approve of the prime minister’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, which has helped to boost her ratings ahead of a general election in September.
