Hotels and restaurants in Kyrgyzstan have been converted into makeshift hospitals after widespread complaints about the lack of hospital beds to treat coronavirus patients, AP reports.
Kyrgyzstan has reported over 33,000 cases and more than 1,300 deaths. On Tuesday, health officials reported 548 new infections.
The teetering health care system, with only 2,036 hospital beds for virus patients in late June, started to collapse.
Patients complained it was impossible to find available beds in hospitals.
That’s when thousands of ordinary people rushed to help. Hotels and restaurants were converted into facilities for patients. Activists found protective gear, drugs, medical supplies, and food and water for medical workers.
Hospitals reported fewer patients, and volunteers said they weren’t getting as many calls at night from people gasping for breath. Experts interviewed by the AP all credited activists for filling the gaps in the response to the outbreak.
“On one hand, we had this collapse of the health care system, but on the other hand, the nation rallied around it, and the support for ordinary people was immense,” said Dr. Sultan Stambekov, a surgical oncologist who has spent over a month working in a coronavirus ward.
The head of the Chinese centre for disease control and prevention says he has been injected with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an attempt to persuade the public to follow suit when one is approved, AP reports.
“I am injected with one of the vaccines,” Gao Fu told a webinar hosted by Alibaba Health, an arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant, and Cell Press, an American publisher of scientific journals. “I hope it will work.”
A state-owned Chinese company injected employees with experimental shots in March, even before the government-approved testing in people a move that raised ethical concerns among some experts.
Gao did not say when or how he took the vaccine candidate, leaving it unclear whether he was injected as part of a government-approved human trial.
The claim underscores the enormous stakes as China competes with US and British companies to be the first with a vaccine to help end the pandemic a feat that would be both a scientific and political triumph.Eight of the nearly two dozen potential vaccines in various stages of human testing worldwide are from China, the most of any country.
Gao said he took the injection to instill public confidence in vaccines
The French government will reconsider plans to build a fourth terminal at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport because of the impact of the coronavirus crisis, according to the transport minister, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari.
“The project to receive 40 million more passengers by 2030 is probably no longer justified as it was planned,” Djebbari said on Europe 1 radio, Reuters reports.
He said French airports would still need investment for upgrades and would have to make sure that new types of planes, such as hydrogen-powered planes, can land.
Almost a quarter of the population of Sudan are going hungry as conflict, rising food prices and the coronavirus take their toll.
UN agencies working in the country warned of severe consequences. “If no measures are taken, people may slide into chronic food insecurity and poverty – and perpetual high vulnerability to future hazards,” said Woo Jung Kim, communications officer at the World Food Programme in Sudan.
“Currently, there is widespread food insecurity due to conflict, and economic decline and inflation [are] driving down the purchasing power of the population.”
The UN has also warned that it is unable to reach some of the most vulnerable because of Covid-19 restrictions and instability. A source at the UN, who preferred to remain anonymous, said staff are finding it difficult to get visas or permission from the government to travel inside the country.
According to the World Health Organization, as of 27 July, Sudan had recorded 11,424 cases and 720 deaths from Covid-19.
As the coronavirus crisis takes its toll on the UK labour market, the hunt for jobs has intensified. Last week, a Manchester restaurant said it had received nearly 1,000 applications for a receptionist post within 24 hours, reflecting the pressure that the jobs market is under. Paid employment in Britain has fallen almost 650,000 employees since March, which has left some businesses inundated with applications:
Covid-19 outbreak in Xinjiang prompts fears of spread inside China’s camps
Rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in the Xinjiang region has sparked fears the outbreak could reach the secretive internment camps where China is believed to have detained more than a million Muslim minority people.
On Monday, Chinese health authorities reported 68 new cases of Covid-19, including 57 in the far western region of Xinjiang, bringing the area’s reported total to 235. After a reported five-month streak of no infections in Xinjiang, the outbreak that began almost two weeks ago has appeared to take hold in the capital city of Urumqi, and spread to Kashgar about 300km away.
The region is home to China’s program of mass incarceration of Uighur and other Turkic Muslims, which has drawn international condemnation and accusations that the detention, abuse, surveillance and restrictions on religious and cultural beliefs amount to cultural genocide. The accusations are strenuously denied by Beijing despite growing evidence and international pressure. It claims its policies are to counter terrorism, but the camps are kept secret from the public and international inspectors:
Agencies fear hidden cholera deaths in Yemen as Covid-19 overwhelms clinics
Aid agencies are warning that thousands of people in Yemen could be dying undetected from cholera as people are too frightened to seek treatment in health facilities overwhelmed by coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases in the war-torn country are due to peak in the coming weeks, but Oxfam has warned that health centres are seeing an unexpected drop in cholera cases, ahead of August’s rains when cholera will also increase.
Already experiencing what has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with approximately 80% of the population requiring urgent assistance, Yemen is also facing a worsening food crisis.
The country also suffered the worst cholera outbreak in modern times, with 110,000 cases between January and April this year.
A 50% drop in people seeking treatment for cholera in the past three months has led to concern that tens of thousands of people are avoiding health centres for fear of contracting Covid-19:
Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov has detailed his battle with Covid-19 and said it was “no fun” dealing with the physical and mental effects of the virus, AAP reports.
Like Novak Djokovic, the world No 1’s wife, two other players and their coaches, Dimitrov contracted the virus while playing in last month’s Adria Tour exhibition series in Serbia.
The former world No 3 and Australian Open semi-finalist says the ordeal really shook him up and that he is still feeling the ongoing effects:
