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Up to 2% of Moscow’s population may be infected with coronavirus, the city’s mayor warned on Saturday, as hospitals in the Russian capital were overwhelmed and another high government tested positive.
Covid-19 took hold relatively late in Russia, but is now growing rapidly, with the country showing the second spread of the disease in the world. A record 9,623 new cases on Saturday indicated that infections have not yet reached a plateau.
If Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s estimate is correct, that would mean that more than 240,000 people may have the virus, four times the city’s official figures. Hospitals in the capital are already full, with television images showing ambulances forced to wait hours to deliver the infected.
On Friday, authorities announced that the Housing Minister was the last senior official to test positive. Vladimir Putin has not been photographed in public for nearly a month and works from his residence on the outskirts of Moscow.
The outbreaks are feared to have become undetected in other areas that initially appeared to have escaped the worst ravages of the disease.
In Somalia, doctors, funeral workers and gravediggers have reported an unprecedented increase in deaths in recent days in the capital Mogadishu, suggesting that official Covid-19 death counts, currently only 601 confirmed cases and 28 deaths , reflect only a fraction of the cost of the virus.
Mohamed Osman Warsame, an ambulance driver, said he had transported 15 to 18 bodies to cemeteries in the capital every day for the past two weeks, many times above the usual daily figure of two to four. “There are many deaths. It is as if we are in a deadly war. People die very fast, “said Warsame.
On the island of Bali, an entire village was closed after rapid tests showed that hundreds of residents were likely infected, the Jakarta Post reported. Of 1,200 initial tests, 400 yielded a reactive result; Authorities will follow up with swab tests to confirm infection rates.
Increasing efforts to stop the spread of the disease have raised concerns about human rights and civil liberties. Malaysia has come under fire from the UN after arresting hundreds of undocumented immigrants, including young children and Rohingya refugees, as part of its efforts to contain the coronavirus.
The UN said arrests could lead vulnerable groups into hiding and prevent them from seeking treatment, and warned that overcrowded detention centers carry a high risk of increasing the spread of the virus.
Privacy advocates in India have also attacked a government order that all public and private sector employees should use a government-backed Bluetooth tracking app as New Delhi begins to relax some of its blocking measures in low risk areas.
Critics caution that it is unclear how the data will be used. They note that India lacks privacy laws to govern enforcement. New Delhi has said that the app will not violate privacy as all data is collected anonymously.
Worldwide there are now 3.4 million coronavirus cases and more than 238,000 deaths, although many countries that have exceeded the peak of their infections are now working to relax their blocking restrictions.
Singapore’s health minister said on Saturday it will begin to reduce some restrictions after a second wave of coronavirus concentrated in the state’s crowded dormitories of migrant workers appears to be easing, and some students may return to school later this month.
In Spain on Saturday, adults were allowed to exercise for the first time since March; As the country returns to work, the government has made facial masks mandatory on buses, tubes, and trains. About 15 million will be delivered by authorities and charities.
All governments, however, move cautiously, fearing a second wave. In China, the northeastern city of Harbin closed services in restaurants and cafes, as the rest of the country eased restrictions on the May Day holiday.
Mainland China reported only one new case on Saturday, but Heilongjiang province is currently dealing with the country’s largest coronavirus group, with half of 140 recent local transmissions, according to a Reuters count.
In the USA The US, Australia and the UK have focused on how and why residential facilities have become deadly incubators of the disease.
A nursing home in New York has reported a “fatal” number of deaths of 98 people from the coronavirus, one of the worst outbreaks in the country and a shock even in New York. An official state count of nursing home deaths had previously listed only 13 as of Friday.
In the United Kingdom, the number of coronavirus deaths rose sharply this week after authorities began counting deaths in the country’s nursing homes along with deaths in hospitals. Britain now has the third highest number of deaths in the world, 27,510, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, behind only the United States and Italy.
In Australia, although the virus has been controlled much more quickly, deaths also continued to rise in a nursing home in western Sydney. Thirteen residents account for more than 10% of total national deaths at just 93, and threatens to overtake the Ruby Princess cruise ship as the largest source of death in the country.
In other parts of the world, key developments include:
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The US Federal Drug Administration. USA He has approved that remdesivir the experimental drug be used in an emergency in patients suffering from Covid-19.
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Also in the United States, the White House has banned the administration’s top pandemic expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, from presenting evidence at a hearing in Congress. He said it was inappropriate for a member of the pandemic response team to testify.
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Europe’s tourism industry and its host economies, such as Spain, Italy and Greece, are ruined by the shutdown caused by the virus. The European Commission estimates that EU hotels and restaurants will lose half of their income this year.
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The UK government was urged to prioritize spending in the poorest areas of the country after official statistics revealed that those regions have been the hardest hit by Covid-19 deaths. Read our report on life in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, Newham, in East London.
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The economic cost of the crisis has continued as equity markets fell sharply on Friday, largely thanks to the continuing war of words between the United States and China. In the UK, the Financial Times has reported that Rolls-Royce plans to ditch 8,000 of its 52,000 workforce.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom promised to make “significant” changes to orders to stay home in the coming days, as thousands of protesters rallied across the state to condemn the blockade and defy its ordinances.
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Donald Trump told Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer that he should “come to terms” with protesters against the blockade after groups of heavily armed men invaded the state capitol. Whitmer declined to make a deal during a public health emergency, but said some outdoor work will be allowed to resume next week.
