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The number of cases of coronavirus in Latin America exceeded seven million, as lawmakers in the Argentine capital passed a law requiring family members to keep a night watch for patients dying from COVID-19.
- South Korea extended rules on social distancing in the capital Seoul, amid triple-digit rise in cases, while India reported another record jump in daily cases. New Delhi has been reporting the highest caseload in the world every day since August 7th.
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Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention John Nkengasong said 23 of Africa’s 54 countries had reported a steady decline in newly confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past few weeks.
- More than 24.3 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, and 15.8 million have been recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 828,000 people have died.
Here are the latest updates:
Friday, August 28th
05:15 GMT – Japan aims to secure faxes for all citizens by mid-2021
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday announced new measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, including boosting testing capacity to 200,000 tests per day and aiming to secure vaccines for all citizens by mid-2021.
Abe also said that Japan will allow foreigners with residency status to enter the country from the beginning of new month.
04:52 GMT – India reports daily jump of 77,266 infections
India reported a record daily jump of 77,266 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s total to 3.39 million.
India has been reporting the highest caseload in the world every day since August 7, a Reuters tally showed, and is the third most hit country behind only the United States and Brazil.
Deaths in the same period increased by 1,057, bringing the total toll to 61,529.
Catholic nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, the worldwide order of nuns founded by Saint Mother Teresa, wear protective face shields as they prepare to distribute free snacks and tea among the poor in Kolkata, India [Rupak De Chowdhuri/ Reuters]
04:26 GMT – Venezuela uses COVID-19 to defeat critics, says HRW
Venezuelan security forces and authorities under President Nicolas Maduro have used the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to abduct various voices, Human Rights Watch reported.
The New York-based rights group said Venezuelan authorities had targeted dozens of journalists, health workers, human rights lawyers and political opponents critical of the government’s response to the pandemic.
Some critics have been physically abused to levels bordering on torture, it said in a report with 162 such cases from March to June.
“In Venezuela today, you can not even share a private message that criticizes the Maduro government via WhatsApp without fear of being prosecuted,” he said. Jose Miguel Vivanco, Director of America at Human Rights Watch.
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Crisis in Venezuela: Security forces accused of human rights abuses (2:50) |
03:57 GMT – Trump says US Covid-19 will ‘destroy’ this year ‘fax’
U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to “crush” the coronavirus pandemic by the end of the year because he accepts the Republican Party’s presidential nomination for a second term.
“We’re marshaling America’s scientific genius to make a vaccine in record time,” Trump said.
“We will have a safe and effective vaccine this year and together we will crush the virus.”
03:22 GMT – UN concerns over ‘widespread’ COVID-19 transmission in Syria
Ramesh Rajasingham, the UN’s deputy coordinator for emergency services, said COVID-19 has a dramatic impact on health care in Syria, where limited testing hides the true extent of the pandemic.
Official COVID-19 figures suggest that transmission from the coronavirus community is widespread in Syria, he told the UN Security Council, with the majority of the 2,440 cases confirmed by the Ministry of Health not being traced back to a known source.
“Reports of health care failures, of increasing numbers of deaths from reports and funerals, all seem to indicate that real cases far exceed official figures,” he told the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, health workers are still lacking enough personal protective equipment and several facilities have suspended operations due to lack of capacity and personnel becoming ill from COVID-19, he said.
02:43 GMT – S Korea extends coronavirus curbs as cases escalate
Chung Sye-kyun, the Prime Minister of South Korea, extended the rules for social distancing in the metropolitan area of Seoul for another week amid another three-digit increase in daily cases of coronavirus.
Phase two restrictions, which prohibit meetings of more than 50 people indoors, should expire this weekend.
Chung said there were growing calls to increase the distance requirements to the highest level at the three-phase level, but thart remains “the choice of the last resort considering its economic and social consequences”.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 371 new cases of coronavirus since midnight, bringing the country’s total to 19,077, including 316 deaths.
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Church groups in South Korea in conflict with COVID-19 efforts (2:24) |
02:16 GMT – US COVID-19 death toll exceeds 180,000
The United States added 931 new coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s total death toll to 180,527.
An additional 42,859 new infections brought their total property tax to 5,860,397.
01:39 GMT – Clock departure in Havana, Cuba
The governor of Havana announced a nightmare, a ban on travel from the Cuban capital to other provinces and greater restrictions on the circulation of cars in an attempt to restrict a new peak in cases of coronavirus.
The new measures will take effect on September 1, 15 days, said Reinaldo García Zapata on state television, at which point the situation will be reassessed.
01:01 GMT – Victoria in Australia reports steady rise in cases
Australia’s second most popular state – the epicenter of the country’s latest COVID-19 outbreak – said it had discovered 113 new cases in the past 24 hours, a number that remained unchanged from the previous day.
Strict lockdown measures have helped the daily rise of COVID-19 infections in Victoria, after the state hit a full day of more than 700 cases about three weeks ago.
Australia has now recorded nearly 25,500 COVID-19 infections nationwide, while the death toll rose to 584 after 12 people died in Victoria.
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COVID-19 destroys wool industry in Australia (2:30) |
00:54 GMT – Buenos Aires to allow families to die in patients
Health workers in the Argentine capital will be instructed to allow family members to hold a night shift for dying COVID-19 patients under a new law passed Thursday.
“In a large part of the world, the coronavirus is defined as the disease of loneliness. There are many cases where people said that their loved ones died because they felt alone,” said Facundo Del Gaiso. the city congressman who introduced the bill.
With the measure, one family member, between the ages of 18 and 60, can keep watch over the dying patient, with the exception of pregnant women or people with medical conditions.
00:31 GMT – Severe or fatal COVID-19 very rare in children, study finds
Children and adolescents are much less likely than adults to develop severe cases of COVID-19 infection, and death from the disease among children is extremely rare, according to research published in the British Medical Journal.
A study of COVID-19 patients admitted to 17 hospitals in the UK between 17 January and 13 July found that less than one percent were children, and of these, less than one percent – about six in total – died, all already suffering from serious illness as well as underlying health disorders.
“We can be sure that COVID in itself does not cause harm to children on a significant scale,” said Calum Semple, Professor of Outbreak and Pediatrics at the University of Liverpool, who co-led the work.
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THE BOTTOM ROW | How did school reopening become a political issue in the US? (24:52) |
“The message at the highest level must be that [in children with COVID-19] serious illness is rare, and death has disappeared rare – and that [parents] should be comforted that their children are not directly harmed by going back to school, “he told a briefing.
While the overall risk of children getting serious COVID is “small”, the researchers said, children of black ethnicity and those with obesity are disproportionately affected, as previous studies in adults have found.
00:18 GMT – Coronavirus cases in Latin America exceed seven million
Coronavirus cases exceeded the seven million mark in Latin America, according to a Reuters Tally, even as some countries began to see a slight decline in infections in the region with the highest level of infection in the world.
The daily average of cases fell in the last seven days up to and including Wednesday to about 77,800, up from almost 85,000 the previous week, the tally showed based on government figures.
The increase in Latin America from six million to seven million occurred in 13 days, two more than the previous million.
Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s ongoing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives.
Go here for all the major developments from yesterday 27th August.
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