Coronavirus live news: China GDP shrinks 6.8% as Trump says 29 states could reopen ‘relatively soon’ | World news

At 8pm on Thursday, people across the UK stood at their front doors and open windows, in gardens and on balconies, to raise a thunder of gratitude for those working on the frontline against coronavirus for the fourth consecutive week.

Some people played instruments and sang to show their appreciation:

Mexico will begin to restrict movement between places most affected by the Covid-19 virus mostly large cities and places with few infections, the president said Thursday.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked authorities Thursday in towns so far unaffected by the pandemic to help us establish sanitary cordons to slow the spread. Travel between low-infection and high-infection areas would be permitted for “urgent, justifiable” reasons, but authorities would likely set up highway checkpoints to check travellers for symptoms. In the past, that has mainly meant taking their temperatures.

However, López-Gatell said the exact measures were still to be defined. He said coronavirus cases have been confirmed in about one-fifth of Mexicos roughly 2,470 townships and municipalities.

The government is also extending its social distancing measures for another month to the end of May, predicting that the epidemic will peak in Mexico in about three weeks.
Mexico has confirmed nearly 6,300 infections and reported about 485 deaths.

López-Gatell said health officials believe the real number of infections is probably eight times that. On Thursday he presented lists saying the country had nearly 56,000 estimated cases, though most remain untested. Mexico is currently running only about 4,000 tests per week, and has completed only about 21,250 tests so far.

Ten US nurses have been suspended for refusing to work without N95 masks, AP reports.

Nurses in Santa Monica, California, who refused to care for Covid-19 patients after they say hospital didn’t provide essential protective gear have been suspended.

The hospital suspended ten nurses, according to the National Nurses United, which represents them. The nurses are now being paid but are not allowed to return to work pending an investigation from human resources, the union said.

They are among hundreds of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers across the country who say they’ve been asked to work without adequate protection. Some have taken part in protests or lodged formal complaints. Others are buying or even making their own supplies.

Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t require N95 masks for Covid-19 caregivers, but many hospitals are opting for the added protection because the infection is extremely contagious. The CDC said Wednesday at least 9,200 healthcare workers have been infected.

As South Africa’s lockdown continues, animals in the vast Kruger National Park are taking advantage of the peace and quiet.

On Monday, lions were spotted romping on the golf course inside the park:

Later in the week, ranger Richard Sowry took photographs of a pride sleeping just outside one of the rest camps.

Kruger media officer Isaac Phaala told the BBC the lions would normally be in the bushes but that they were “very smart and now they are enjoying the freedom of the park without us.”

The lions liked the road as it was dry, Phaala said. “The tar was drier than the grass at the time – big cats and water don’t mix.”

Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan handed out meals to sick people in Los Angeles, in their first known public activity since moving to California at the start of the state’s coronavirus lockdown.

The pair, who have formally stepped down as senior members of the British royal family, first volunteered with Project Angel Food last Sunday, delivering food to homes.

Project Angel Food delivers medically tailored food to chronically ill people and appears to be the first charity publicly supported by the pair since their secretive move.

“They were here Easter Sunday, and then they surprised us on Wednesday,” said Project Angel Food communications manager Anne-Marie Williams. “They handed out to 20 of our clients, and they rocked their worlds.”

A statement from the nonprofit said the pair “quietly continued delivering meals to relieve our overworked drivers,” who have faced an increased workload since the coronavirus lockdown began last month.

The couple relocated to California last month after announcing in January that they intended to quit royal life and “work to become financially independent”. They have kept a low profile, with even their location unknown amid unconfirmed reports that the pair are living in Malibu.

It emerged last week that they are planning to launch a wide-ranging non-profit organization in the United States named Archewell. It will include emotional support groups, a multimedia educational empire and a wellbeing website.

India has brought charges of culpable homicide against the chief of a Muslim seminary for holding a gathering last month that authorities blame for a big jump in coronavirus infections, police said on Thursday.

The headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat group in a cramped corner of New Delhi were sealed and thousands of followers, including some from Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, were taken into quarantine after it emerged they had attended meetings there in mid-March.

Authorities have said some of those infected at the gathering had died, although the numbers have not yet been released.

Police initially filed a case against Muhammad Saad Kandhalvi, the chief of the centre, for violating a ban on big gatherings but had now invoked the law against culpable homicide, a police spokesman said.

The Tablighi is one of the world’s biggest Sunni Muslim proselytising organisations with followers in more than 80 countries, promoting a pure form of Islam.

India has 12,759 cases of coronavirus and 420 deaths. In New Delhi, 1,080 of its 1,561 cases were linked to the group’s gathering, according to the city government data on Wednesday.

More now from Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth:

He says some governments were using the pandemic as an “opportunity for brutality”, citing Uganda, Kenya and El Salvador while other leaders such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had been using the virus as a pretext for power-grabs.

Meanwhile, a denialist approach from US President Donald Trump and his Mexican and Brazilian counterparts would prove costly.

Trump’s “two-week delay in recognising the severity of the pandemic probably caused 90% of the deaths so far in the United States,” said Roth.

Roth said the response to the crisis echoed that of the September 2001 terror attacks when “governments seized that opportunity to over-react” with highly intrusive surveillance.

“The fear is that this kind of over-reach is happening again,” and “is going to be with us for a long time”.

There is a “tremendous danger” of a Covid-19 resurgence in China due to Beijing’s censorship and suppression during the coronavirus outbreak, Human Rights Watch warned on Thursday.

Meanwhile the “culture of denialism” among the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Brazil was costing lives, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth told reporters in Geneva via a virtual press conference.

The non-governmental organisation’s chief said China was the “most notorious abuser” when it came to exploiting the pandemic to indulge in censorship. He said Beijing had allowed the virus to spread by having “censored and suppressed the Wuhan doctors” who first tried to warn of the outbreak there in December.

“That’s a classic example of how censorship is disastrous,” said Roth. “There’s a tremendous danger that censorship is going to permit the virus to reactivate,” he added.

President Xi Jinping “has almost staked his personal prestige on saying there is no more human to human transmission within China”, said Roth. “That message from Beijing that we don’t want accurate information but good news only is a recipe for the coronavirus’s re-emergence.”

Apple Inc said on Thursday it would reopen its sole retail store in South Korea on 18 April, marking it the first site to return to business after it closed all stores outside Greater China last month due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Once struggling with the first large outbreak outside China, South Korea has largely managed to bring its coronavirus cases under control without major disruptions thanks to a massive testing campaign and intensive contact tracing.

The iPhone maker reopened all 42 of its branded stores in China in March, more than a month after they were shut in the wake of the pandemic.

Apple’s plan of reopening the store in Seoul comes a day after it released a smaller iPhone priced at $399, to broaden its appeal to budget-conscious customers as the Covid-19 pandemic hobbles the global economy.

New York state will extend its stay-at-home restrictions at least through 15 May, amid signs the initial wave of the coronavirus outbreak has stopped getting worse.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that virus transmission rates still need to be tamed as he prolonged rules that have left many New Yorkers working from home, or out of a job entirely, and unable to gather in public since 22 March. The governor said the extension was made in consultation with other Northeast states and will be re-evaluated next month.

The number of people hospitalised statewide has ticked down to under 18,000 – far below initial projections. But there are still close to 2,000 newly diagnosed people coming into hospitals daily, Cuomo said.

New York recorded 606 Covid-19-related deaths Wednesday, the lowest daily number in more than a week. More than 12,000 people have died statewide in just over a month.

The governor also said he’s expanding the requirement starting Friday night that all residents wear face coverings when theyre out in public and within 6 feet of other people. He said that in addition to being required on subways and buses, coverings must be worn by drivers and passengers in for-hire vehicles.

New York City meanwhile is getting ready to use 11,000 empty hotel rooms for coronavirus quarantines.

Mayor Bill de Blasio also said the city is grappling with a projected $7.4bn loss in tax revenue because of the crisis.

The Trump administration has issued new guidelines for states, individuals and employers on how to gradually revive activity and ease up on social distancing in areas where coronavirus cases are on the decline.

The guidelines, distributed to governors Thursday, are published under the headline Opening Up America Again. They follow concerns voiced by President Donald Trump about the need to get more people back to work and shopping, as 22 million Americans lose their jobs.

Here is what needs to happen before states can enter Phase 1:

• A decline of documented Covid-19 cases within a 14-day period
• A robust testing program in place for at-risk health care workers
• A decline of influenza-like illnesses reported within a 14-day period
• Hospitals having enough protective gear for their workers and enough beds, ventilators and other needed supplies to treat all patients.

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday said the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, combined with other problems in recent years, meant Latin America and the Caribbean would likely see “no growth” in the decade from 2015 to 2025.

Alejandro Werner, who heads the IMF’s Western Hemisphere department, said the global lender was racing to process 16 requests for emergency assistance, about half of which were from Caribbean nations devastated by a halt in tourism.

Other countries had asked about traditional IMF programs or extensions of existing financing arrangements, he said.

Hello and welcome to today’s coronavirus live blog with me, Helen Sullivan.

The White House has issued “Guidelines for Opening Up America Again”, which includes three phases of reopening each dependent on infections within a state.

Trump said 29 states will be able to start reopening soon – and that those who meet the requirements for Phase 1 will be able to do so as soon as Friday.

Elsewhere, Japan has extended its state of emergency to the entire country; the UK has extended its lockdown by three weeks; and Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has fired his health minister.

I’ll be with you for the next few hours – get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

• Global coronavirus cases pass 2.1 million. The total number of coronavirus cases across the world has reached at least 2,138,763, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of cases of coronavirus registered globally passed 1.5 million on 9 April. Deaths have passed 142,000.
• US president Donald Trump has issued guidelines for reopening the country, with three phases each dependent on states meeting certain criteria. Trump says states who meet Phase 1 criteria can reopen tomorrow (on Friday), and that 29 states will reopen “relatively soon”.
• Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has sacks his popular health minister Luiz Mandetta, after a weeks-long stand-off between the two men over radically different views of the coronavirus pandemic.
• The UK government announces lockdown extension for three weeks. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who is deputising for Boris Johnson as he recovers from Covid-19, confirmed the extension following advice from the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies.
• 5 million more Americans sign on as unemployed. The US labour department announced that another 5.24 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week, making a total of 22.2 million since 14 March. The largest number of people to ask for unemployment benefits in a four-week period before the Covid-19 crisis came in 1992, when 2.7 million sought support.
• France registered 753 more deaths from coronavirus infections on Thursday, bringing the total to 17,920, the fourth highest tally in the world. But the number of people in hospital has declined for a second day running.
• Australia PM says more Covid-19 measures needed. Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, said the country had succeeding in flattening the infection curve but that a “more extensive surveillance regime” needed to be implemented if they were to forge “the road out” of lockdown.
• EU chief: ‘Europe owes Italy an apology’. Europe owes Italy “a heartfelt apology” for not offering assistance when the country was suffering in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, the head of the European Union executive said.
• New York State lockdown extended to 15 May. Governor Andrew Cuomo also announced that starting on Friday, anyone aged two and older would be required to wear face coverings in public. Another 606 people have died from the virus in New York, the lowest figure in 10 days, bringing the total above 12,000 in the state.
• IMF: Asian economies will not grow this year. Economies in Asia will see zero growth this year for the first time in 60 years, the International Monetary Fund has said.
• Singapore reports biggest jump yet in cases. Singapore reported at least 728 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, the biggest jump yet in numbers in the city-state, which had fought hard to keep its outbreak under control.
• Japan declares nationwide state of emergency. Japan has expanded its state of emergency to cover the entire country. According to AFP, the declaration allows regional governors to urge people to stay indoors, but with no punitive measures or legal force the measure is weaker than strict lockdowns seen in other parts of the world.
• Facebook to warn users who ‘like’ misinformation. Facebook will begin showing notifications to users who have interacted with posts that contain “harmful” coronavirus misinformation, the company announced.