Coronavirus live news: world has ‘a long way to go’, warns WHO chief | World news

The UK government is being urged to recognise that race and racial inequalities are a risk factor for Covid-19 as Guardian research reveals that ethnic minorities in England are dying in disproportionately high numbers compared with white people, Caelainn Barr, Niko Kommenda, Niamh McIntyre and Antonio Voce write.

The revelation that people from minority groups appear to be over-represented among the deaths, by as much as 27%, “confirmed the worst fears” of campaigners who said there was now no question of an excessive toll.

The Guardian analysis found that of 12,593 patients who died in hospital up to 19 April, 19% were Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) even though these groups make up only 15% of the general population in England.

And the analysis revealed that three London boroughs with high BAME populations – Harrow, Brent and Barnet – were also among the five local authorities with the highest death rates in hospitals and the community.

UK government ministers are being pressed to reveal the full details of how they missed out on four opportunities to join an EU medical supplies consortium, in the wake of a U-turn by the top civil servant in the Foreign Office over comments suggesting it was a “political decision”, Patrick Wintour and Daniel Boffey write.

The Labour MP Chris Bryant, who sits on the foreign affairs select committee, said on Wednesday that he “feared the government was involved in a full-on cover-up” over how it came to miss out on four rounds of procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and laboratory supplies launched by the EU in late February and March.

UK officials failed to take up an invitation to join the steering committee of participating countries that issues orders for medical equipment until 19 March – after the bulk purchases had been made.

Bryant said he feared either Foreign Office ministers or the prime minister decided not to be associated with any EU scheme for political reasons “even though it was patently in the interests of the NHS and its staff to explore every possible avenue to acquire masks, gowns and ventilator equipment, as fast and most effectively as possible”.

Egypt’s parliament has approved amendments to the country’s emergency laws that give expanded powers to the presidency and the military prosecution as authorities try to counter the epidemic.

The amendments allow the state to take and enforce a series of measures, some of which have already been deployed. These include suspending schools, banning public or private gatherings, quarantining returning travellers, prohibiting the export of certain goods and placing restrictions on the trade or transfer of commodities, according to a parliamentary report on the amendments.

The state will also be allowed to direct private hospitals and their staff to help with general healthcare for a specific period, and to convert schools, companies and other publicly-owned sites into field hospitals.

The family of the acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking has donated his ventilator to a hospital that had treated him in Cambridge. The hospital said:

Professor Stephen Hawking’s family has donated his ventilator to Royal Papworth hospital as we care for increasing numbers of Covid-19 patients.

His daughter, Lucy Hawking, described the care her father received there as “brilliant, dedicated and compassionate”, it said.

“We’d like to say a huge thank you to the Hawking family for supporting us at this challenging time,” said the hospital, which is a world-leading centre for heart and lung transplants.

The medical equipment was bought by Hawking himself, the BBC reported, and after checks had been added to the hospital’s fleet.

Bahrain has extended its lockdown measures for two more weeks, from 23 April until 7 May, its state news agency has reported.

Those measures include closing all cinemas, sports centres, gyms, salons, and restricting restaurants operations to food delivery and takeaway only, among other measures. Bahrain has registered 2,009 cases, with a death tally that stands at seven.

The director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned that complacency is the “greatest danger” facing countries in the fight against the pandemic:

Marianne Faithfull has been discharged from hospital after she was admitted for treatment while displaying symptoms of Covid-19. The singer spent nearly three weeks in hospital. Her agent said:

We are really happy to say that Marianne has been discharged from hospital today, 22 days after being admitted suffering from the symptoms of Covid-19. She will continue to recuperate in London.

Marianne thanks you all for your kind messages of concern, which have meant a great deal through what is such a difficult time for so many. She is also very grateful to all the NHS staff who cared for her at the hospital and, without doubt, saved her life.

Finland will adopt a hybrid strategy it hopes will allow a semblance of normality while still containing the outbreak, its prime minister, Sanna Marin, has said.

She said the strategy would involve Finland gradually scaling back the restrictions in place to contain the virus while further increasing testing.

Test, trace, isolate and treat thinking, alongside winding up restrictive measures in a controlled manner. We want to move towards even more widespread testing and tracking down those who have been exposed.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 802,583 cases as of Tuesday; an increase of 26,490 from Monday. It said the number of deaths had risen by 2,817 to 44,575.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

MIA has claimed that British Vogue magazine has cancelled a feature about her because of comments she made on vaccination in the coronavirus pandemic, reports Laura Snapes, the Guardian’s deputy music editor.

Last month, the Sri Lankan musician, whose real name is Mara Arulpragasam, said she would “choose death” over a vaccine for the coronavirus.

On Wednesday, the 44-year-old posted on her Instagram page screenshots of a text conversation with an unidentified person who said that the editor of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, had withdrawn his offer for a feature. She has since removed the post.

The message quoted a Vogue editor as saying:

Considering our August is an issue where we’re chronicling the struggles of the NHS to cope while a vaccine is tried to be made we don’t feel we can have her involved. It just wouldn’t be right. All of our issues July-September will be supporting the frontline healthcare workers and we need to be respectful of them and all they are doing until a vaccine exists.

It seems that everyone got something different out of today’s World Health Organization coronavirus press conference. Reuters focused on the funding issues caused by Donald Trump’s decision to withhold US payments to the global health body. The agency reports:

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that he hoped the Trump administration would reconsider its suspension of funding, but that his main focus was on ending the pandemic and saving lives.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, told a Geneva news conference: “I hope the freezing of the funding will be reconsidered and the US will once again support WHO’s work and continue to save lives.”

“I hope the US believes that this an important investment, not just to help others but for the US to stay safe also,” Tedros said.

Dr Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergencies expert, said that it was important to understand the animal origins of the new coronavirus which jumped the species barrier to humans in China late last year, adding: “It can be breached again.”

More than a dozen government-backed hacking groups are using the coronavirus pandemic as cover for phishing and malware attempts, according to security experts at Google.

Google said its Threat Analysis Group found hackers targeting international health organisations, including activity that corroborated a Reuters report from early April that the World Health Organization was targeted.

The WHO and other organisations at the centre of a global effort to contain the coronavirus have come under a sustained digital bombardment by hackers seeking information about the outbreak.

Google said it has detected 18m malware and phishing Gmail messages each day related to the coronavirus outbreak.

However, it said the number of phishing attacks was not in itself unusual, adding in the blog post published on Wednesday:

Generally, we’re not seeing an overall rise in phishing attacks by government-backed groups; this is just a change in tactics. In fact, we saw a slight decrease in overall volumes in March compared to January and February. While it’s not unusual to see some fluctuations in these numbers, it could be that attackers, just like many other organizations, are experiencing productivity lags and issues due to global lockdowns and quarantine efforts.

Turkey has its coronavirus outbreak under control, the health minister, Dr Fahrettin Koca, said on Wednesday as data showed deaths from the virus increasing by 117 to 2,376 with 3,083 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, Reuters reports.

The total number of cases in the country stood at 98,674, the data showed.

A total of 16,477 people have recovered from the virus so far, while the number of tests carried out over the past 24 hours stood at 37,535.