i_need_contribute
|
# |
Country, |
Total |
New |
Total |
|
World |
11,942,118 |
+208,087 |
545,655 |
|
|
1 |
3,097,084 |
+55,442 |
133,972 |
|
|
2 |
1,674,655 |
+48,584 |
66,868 |
|
|
3 |
743,481 |
+23,135 |
20,653 |
|
|
4 |
694,230 |
+6,368 |
10,494 |
|
|
5 |
309,278 |
+3,575 |
10,952 |
|
|
6 |
301,019 |
+2,462 |
6,434 |
|
|
7 |
299,210 |
+341 |
28,392 |
|
|
8 |
286,349 |
+581 |
44,391 |
|
|
9 |
261,750 |
+4,902 |
31,119 |
|
|
10 |
245,688 |
+2,637 |
11,931 |
|
|
11 |
241,956 |
+137 |
34,899 |
|
|
12 |
234,509 |
+2,691 |
4,839 |
|
|
13 |
217,108 |
+3,392 |
2,017 |
|
|
14 |
215,855 |
+10,134 |
3,502 |
|
|
15 |
207,897 |
+1,053 |
5,260 |
|
|
16 |
198,355 |
+298 |
9,103 |
|
|
17 |
168,810 |
+475 |
29,933 |
|
|
18 |
168,645 |
+3,027 |
2,151 |
|
|
19 |
124,494 |
+4,213 |
4,359 |
|
|
20 |
106,167 |
+232 |
8,711 |
|
|
21 |
100,945 |
+600 |
134 |
|
|
22 |
83,565 |
+8 |
4,634 |
|
|
23 |
83,426 |
+2,979 |
1,644 |
|
|
24 |
77,279 |
+1,057 |
3,489 |
|
|
25 |
73,344 |
+57 |
5,447 |
|
|
26 |
66,226 |
+1,268 |
3,309 |
|
|
27 |
64,701 |
+2,426 |
2,685 |
|
|
28 |
64,003 |
+199 |
436 |
|
|
29 |
63,245 |
+865 |
4,873 |
|
|
30 |
62,058 |
+42 |
9,774 |
|
|
31 |
52,600 |
+532 |
326 |
|
|
32 |
51,245 |
+601 |
377 |
|
|
33 |
50,694 |
+37 |
6,132 |
|
|
34 |
49,683 |
+1,109 |
264 |
|
|
35 |
49,607 |
+564 |
1,283 |
|
|
36 |
48,997 |
+1,262 |
224 |
|
|
37 |
47,873 |
+1,540 |
1,309 |
|
|
38 |
45,140 |
+157 |
26 |
|
|
39 |
44,416 |
+287 |
1,629 |
|
|
40 |
40,509 |
+1,212 |
1,476 |
|
|
41 |
40,291 |
+957 |
799 |
|
|
42 |
38,430 |
+302 |
821 |
|
|
43 |
36,412 |
+257 |
1,528 |
|
|
44 |
33,384 |
+194 |
920 |
|
|
45 |
32,369 |
+54 |
1,966 |
|
|
46 |
32,222 |
+1,473 |
342 |
|
|
47 |
30,321 |
+500 |
98 |
|
|
48 |
29,789 |
+503 |
669 |
|
|
49 |
29,620 |
+397 |
1,799 |
|
|
50 |
29,285 |
+349 |
503 |
|
|
51 |
25,538 |
+7 |
1,742 |
|
|
52 |
24,787 |
+815 |
1,004 |
|
|
53 |
24,665 |
+722 |
656 |
|
|
54 |
21,968 |
+891 |
129 |
|
|
55 |
21,374 |
+537 |
265 |
|
|
56 |
19,981 |
+206 |
978 |
|
|
57 |
18,421 |
+56 |
706 |
|
|
58 |
18,141 |
+235 |
603 |
|
|
59 |
16,879 |
+475 |
968 |
|
|
60 |
16,719 |
+299 |
330 |
Source：https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
President Trump on Tuesday at the White House. With children at home, many parents are unable to resume work, hindering the economic resurgence Mr. Trump hopes to elicit before the election in November.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
Mr. Trump is pressing schools to physically reopen in the fall, pursuing his goal of reopening the United States even as the pandemic surges through much of the country.
In a daylong series of conference calls and public events at the White House on Tuesday, the president and other senior officials kicked off a concerted campaign to lean on governors, mayors and other local officials — who actually control the schools — to find ways to safely resume classes in person.
They argued that the costs of keeping children at home any longer would be worse than the virus itself.
“We hope that most schools are going to be open, and we don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons,” Mr. Trump said. “They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed. No way. We are very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools to get them open, and it’s very important. It’s very important for our country.”
The president brushed off the risks of spiking infection numbers.
Mr. Trump has been pressing more businesses to reopen, but it will be difficult for many parents to work if the schools do not reopen and they have no child care.
Beyond generalities, neither Mr. Trump nor his team offered concrete proposals or new financial assistance to states and localities struggling to restructure programs that were never designed to keep children six feet apart or cope with combating a virus that has killed more than 130,000 Americans.
Before the White House event, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos castigated the nation’s school administrations for moving too slowly to reopen in the fall.
“I was disappointed frankly in schools and districts that didn’t figure out how to serve students or that just gave up and didn’t try,” Ms. DeVos told the nation’s governors, according to a recording of the conference call obtained by The New York Times.
Ms. DeVos was not impressed with school districts that want to experiment with a mix of part-time in-person teaching and online classrooms. She singled out Fairfax County, Va., as a district “playing both paradigms.”
“Here in the D.C. area, Fairfax County, one of the wealthiest districts in this region with a $3 billion budget, has offered families a so-called choice this fall, zero days or two days in school,” she said. “A couple of hours of online school is not OK, and a choice of two days per week in the classroom is not a choice at all.”
The Trump administration has formally notified the United Nations that the United States is withdrawing from the World Health Organization, officials said Tuesday, cutting off one of the organization’s biggest sources of aid amid a pandemic that has infected more than 11.6 million people, killed more than a half a million, and upended life around the world.
“The United States’ notice of withdrawal, effective July 6, 2021, has been submitted to the U.N. secretary general, who is the depository for the W.H.O.,” said a senior administration official.
By law, the United States must give the organization a year’s notice if it intends to withdraw, and meet all the current financial obligations in the current year.
Mr. Trump, whose response to the pandemic has drawn criticism, first announced that he planned to halt funding to the W.H.O. in April, claiming that the organization had made a series of mistakes as it battled the coronavirus.
His move to withdraw drew immediate criticism. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a Republican who is the chairman of the Senate’s health committee, said that he disagreed with the president’s decision.
“Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need,” he said in a statement. “And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.”
The nation cannot withdraw until next year, after the presidential election. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, said on Twitter that he would rejoin the W.H.O. “on my first day as President.”
The president of the United Nations Foundation, Elizabeth Cousens, said in a statement that the administration’s “move to formally withdraw from the W.H.O. amid the greatest public health crisis that Americans and the world have faced in a century is shortsighted, unnecessary, and unequivocally dangerous.”
Mr. Trump turned on the W.H.O., the world’s premier global health organization, this spring, accusing it of doing too little to warn the world of the outbreak. In fact, the agency issued its first alarm on Jan. 4, just five days after the local health department of Wuhan, China, announced 27 cases of an unusual pneumonia at a local seafood market, and followed up with a detailed report the next day.
Lawrence Gostin, the director of the W.H.O.’s Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law, called the decision “among the most ruinous presidential decisions in recent history.”
“It will make Americans less safe during an unprecedented global health crisis,” he said. “And it will significantly weaken U.S. influence on W.H.O. reform and international health diplomacy.”
Experts acknowledged that the W.H.O. has made some missteps during the pandemic, but said that it has largely done well given the constraints under which it operates. The agency is coordinating clinical trials of treatments, as well as efforts to manufacture and equitably distribute the vaccine worldwide.
Picnickers in Stockholm in April. Sweden largely avoided imposing prohibitions because of the pandemic.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times
What would happen in a pandemic if a government allowed life to carry on largely unhindered?
As the world looked on, Sweden conducted what amounted to an unorthodox, open-air experiment testing just that proposition.
Now the results are in.
Not only have thousands more people died in Sweden than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but its economy has fared little better.
“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”
The results of Sweden’s experience are relevant well beyond Europe.
In the United States, where the virus is spreading with alarming speed, many states have — at President Trump’s urging — avoided lockdowns or lifted them early. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson reopened pubs and restaurants last weekend.
Implicit in these approaches is the assumption that governments must balance saving lives against protecting the economy.
But Sweden’s grim result — more death, and nearly equal economic damage — suggests that the supposed choice between lives and paychecks is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time.
Sweden put stock in the sensibility of its people as it largely avoided imposing government prohibitions, allowing restaurants, gyms, shops, playgrounds and most schools to stay open.
More than three months later, the virus has been blamed for 5,420 deaths there. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland and six times more than Denmark.
A Hong Kong restaurant in May. Tables were separated by foam boards to reduce the likelihood of infection.
Hong Kong has entered what one health official described as “a third wave” of coronavirus infections, a setback for a city where the Covid-19 death toll remains in the single digits and many social-distancing restrictions were relaxed in April.
The health authorities reported 14 new cases on Tuesday, a spike after months in which few or no new daily infections were detected. Of the 14, five were brought in by residents who were subject to a mandatory two-week quarantine.
But nine were locally transmitted, and the authorities said they had been unable to trace the infection pattern in five of those cases. That raises the prospect that the virus is circulating silently, after months in which community transmission appeared to have been at a standstill.
“We could describe this as a third wave,” Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, a top official at the Center for Health Protection, told reporters on Tuesday. “We are worried about a big outbreak in the community.”
Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory, closed its borders to nonresidents in March and mandated quarantine for returning residents after experiencing a second wave of infections imported from Europe and the United States. Its robust contact-tracing system helped the authorities contain the local outbreak this winter, and the city was among those that won praise from international health experts in the pandemic’s early days.
In April, health officials began to ease social-distancing rules and gradually allow schools, gyms and movie theaters to reopen. Since then, most reported cases of the virus in Hong Kong have been imported. As of Wednesday, the city of more than seven million people had 1,299 confirmed infections and seven deaths.
But the authorities have said that gaps began to appear in their maps of local clusters around the time that the rules were eased.
Dr. Chuang told reporters that the latest patients had come into contact with many people in public places before they tested positive, making it impossible to trace all their contacts.
“We cannot solely rely on this method to break transmission chains,” she said.
On Tuesday, Sophia Chan, the city’s health minister, suspended residents’ visits to nursing homes and said she would contemplate reinstating restrictive social-distancing measures. A few high schools and universities, including the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, also said that they would suspend classes.
But otherwise, most businesses and offices stayed open, and the city’s subways and buses teemed with commuters.
Los Angeles International Airport in late June.Credit...Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock
Five American travelers who set out for an island getaway in Sardinia were turned away last week after their private jet landed on the Mediterranean island. In Canada, two Americans were fined for flouting the border ban with their northern neighbor. And in Mexico, governors are pleading with the central government to introduce tighter restrictions on travelers from the United States to prevent an influx of potentially disease-carrying visitors.
While virus travel restrictions may vary from country to country, much of the world is united in one aspect of their current response: Travelers from America are not welcome.
An American passport was long seen as a golden ticket to travel visa-free in much of the world, save for a few notable exceptions. Now that former symbol of power and exceptionalism is becoming stigmatized as the United States continues to break records of new cases.
While restrictions have been centered on travelers coming from U.S., rather than on all American citizens, the cachet of the American passport has nevertheless been dented. Last week, the American passport suffered a stinging blow when the European Union formalized a plan to restart travel from certain countries, and visitors from America were conspicuously absent from the list.
The U.S. passport had long provided its holders with an outsize sense of freedom that was the envy of others. The restrictions that Americans now face are “something that much of the rest of the world knows very well,” said Dimitry Kochenov, a co-creator of The Quality of Nationality Index, which explores the benefits accorded to citizens of different countries.
A line of cars at a Miami Beach testing site on Tuesday.Credit...Saul Martinez for The New York Times
As cases surge in Florida, more than 40 hospitals in counties across the state reported having no more beds available in their adult intensive care units, according to the state’s health care administration website.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who pushed to reopen the state swiftly, announced Tuesday that he was taking steps to augment hospital capacity. The state has reported at least 213,786 cases, according to a Times database, and at least 3,840 people there have died. The average number of new cases in Florida each day has doubled since late June. On Tuesday, the state added more than 7,300 new cases.
Mr. DeSantis said the state would help create another nursing home for people with the virus and would send 100 health care workers, mostly nurses, to Miami-Dade County’s public hospital network, Jackson Health System. Some patients seeking medical care for other problems were testing positive, he said, putting a strain on space and staffing as hospitals were forced to isolate them.
“We have abundant capacity, but I think that having some of the personnel support will be very very important,” the governor said.
Miami-Dade County has been hit particularly hard. Its mayor, Carlos A. Gimenez, said that the county’s positivity rate had risen above 20 percent, more than double what it was two weeks ago. And nearly 80 percent of its I.C.U. beds are filled with virus patients, the county reported.
Mr. Gimenez has sent conflicting messages in recent days about some of the steps he was taking to curb the spread in the Miami area. After announcing on Monday that he would close gyms and restaurants, except for takeout and delivery, he later amended his decision and said that he would allow outdoor dining at tables with no more than four people. On Tuesday, he added that he had reached a compromise to allow gyms to stay open as long as people wear masks.
Picking strawberries at Hall Hunter farm in Surrey southwest of London, where the average weekly pay last year was roughly $520.Credit...Alex Atack for The New York Times
Fruit picking in Britain is traditionally done by seasonal workers from Eastern Europe. Over all, 70,000 to 90,000 seasonal workers are needed to pick all the fruit and vegetables that grow in the country.
Because of travel restrictions to curb the spread of the virus, many of those workers haven’t been able to make the trip, have been delayed or have chosen not to come. By the time the pandemic hit Europe, most of the crops had been planted.
As a result of the looming labor shortage, the government started a “Pick for Britain” campaign in April to attract British workers. Prince Charles released a video in which he said the country needed “pickers who are stickers.”
Farmers say they have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of interest in these jobs, but the placement of workers has its challenges. Four-fifths of the people who initially expressed interest drop out before moving to the next stage, according to HOPS Labour Solutions. Some realized that manual labor was not for them, or their furlough ended, or the contracts offered by farms were too long.
Still, many are enjoying the work.
“It’s been really fun, but it’s been tiring and hard work,” said Ella Chandler, 19, a cricket player whose season was cut short. On a recent day, she said, she picked almost 556 pounds of strawberries.
A closed child-care center in Brooklyn in April.Credit...Andrew Seng for The New York Times
New York City’s Board of Health approved guidelines on Tuesday that will allow more than 3,000 child care centers to open next week with new limits.
The rules will allow no more than 15 children in a room, require children and workers to wear face coverings, limit the sharing of toys and allow for frequent disinfection.
At full capacity, 3,000 child care centers can accommodate 150,000 children.
“Folks need to get back to work, and the only way they can do it is with child care,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference, adding that “the data consistently shows a low infection rate among children when it comes to the coronavirus.”
The lack of child care options remains one of the biggest obstacles to a wider reopening of New York City, which just eased more restrictions after entering Phase 3 on Monday.
After public schools closed in March, the city opened centers for the children of essential workers. But child care has been limited during the pandemic.
It is still unclear what city schools will look like when they reopen in the fall, but it’s unlikely that children will be in school five days per week. Instead, there are likely to be staggered schedules mixed with remote learning.
Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city’s health commissioner, said that child-care centers will have to meet all state regulations, including daily health screenings and safety plans that include signage for social distancing.
“This decision is rooted in health as well as equity,” Dr. Barbot said in a statement after the vote, emphasizing that white and wealthy parents were more likely to have options that Black and low-income families, as well as other families of color, do not. “Every child deserves a safe place where they can learn and grow.”
During the virtual meeting, teachers and child care center owners complained about how short notice they were given of the changes. They asked questions about the safety of children and staff and questioned how they would pay to put all of the protocols in place.
Health officials said they planned virtual seminars for providers in the next few days.
The board vote rescinds a previous resolution closing child care centers. After the vote, each center would have to develop a safety plan and affirm they meet state guidelines before opening. The city’s Bureau of Child Care will provide technical assistance to centers that want to open and will also conduct inspections to ensure compliance with the guidelines.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain on Sunday.Credit...Andy Rain/EPA, via Shutterstock
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain drew furious reactions from health care professionals and opposition lawmakers after he suggested on Monday that “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have,” while pleading for better organization and support for the sector.
A spokesman later said that the hasty comments weren’t intended to blame those working in nursing homes. They came as total coronavirus deaths of nursing home residents in England and Wales approached 20,000, with the figure expected to become much higher.
Mr. Johnson’s remarks were criticized as cowardly and unfair by nursing home leaders. Nadra Ahmed, the chair of the National Care Association, told The Guardian that Mr. Johnson’s words were “a huge slap in the face for a sector that looks after a million vulnerable people.”
The pandemic has struck nursing homes hard in various European countries, including France, Italy and Spain, and Britain hasn’t been exempt. Although the British authorities have argued that they threw “a protective ring” around nursing homes and gave the first instructions in February, staff members have repeatedly said that they felt abandoned compared with hospital workers.
More than half of nursing homes in England have reported virus cases, and in facilities where the virus moved in, one in five patients was infected, according to official statistics.
As the British authorities ease confinement restrictions but continue to fear new waves of infections, they have announced that nursing home residents will be tested for the virus monthly, with staff members tested weekly.
Mr. Johnson’s government also pledged 600 million pounds, or $749 million, in support of the country’s nursing homes in May, in addition to £3.2 billion — $4 billion — to local governments for key public services like nursing-home facilities.
After months of waiting for a steep drop in cases that never came, many local governments have started reopening their buildings. But the business of assessing properties, paying fines and running America’s cities looks little like it did before the pandemic.
In Aurora, Ill., City Hall was set to open just three days a week, with the first hour each day set aside for older residents. In Detroit’s partly reopened municipal center, appointments were recommended, employees were being tested for the virus and workers were no longer accepting cash payments. And in Dayton, Ohio, where City Hall had been closed since March 18, it was set to reopen this week with hand-sanitizing stations and security guards performing temperature checks.
Even with their front doors unlocked, cities were not exactly encouraging visitors. Officials in Buffalo, who also planned to reopen, said residents with a temperature over 100.4 degrees would not be allowed inside. Detroit officials planned to offer curbside service. Dayton’s news release announcing its reopening included an explicit suggestion to not come:
“The City of Dayton is encouraging customers to continue conducting business with the city remotely and electronically, as physical distancing standards are practiced at city facilities and many employees continue to work from home,” the statement said.
All four of the large U.S. airlines have agreed to terms for loans from the federal government under the March stimulus bill, the Treasury Department said Tuesday.
Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines signed letters of intent under that law, known as the CARES Act, Treasury said. Last week, the department announced that American Airlines had agreed to a five-year $4.75 billion loan.
The terms of the loans announced Tuesday have not yet been disclosed, though Delta and United have said that they expect to receive loans nearly as large as American’s. Southwest has said it expects to receive a $1.1 billion loan. In a statement, Southwest said it has only agreed to terms for a loan but has not decided whether it will borrow the money, a decision it will make by Sept. 30.
The CARES Act set aside $25 billion in loans for passenger airlines. The Treasury Department earlier distributed another $25 billion to help the airlines pay workers through September.
Besides the big four airlines, Treasury has also agreed to lend to Alaska Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Sky West Airlines and Spirit Airlines.
Nearly 350 public health organizations and agencies released a letter Tuesday to Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, urging him to champion the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health agencies amid “increasing reports of resistance” to their recommendations for fighting the virus.
That resistance has come not just from members of the public but from some local and state elected officials and from President Trump, who seldom wears a face covering despite the C.D.C.’s recommendation to do so and continues to minimize the threat of the virus.
The groups, including the American Public Health Association and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, asked Mr. Azar to push for “robust, sustained, and predictable funding” for the C.D.C. and other public health agencies.
But their emphasis was on protecting the C.D.C. from political interference, a mounting concern in recent months as the White House has largely relegated the agency to a behind-the-scenes role during the pandemic.
“C.D.C. continues to be the world’s premiere public health institution and should be treated as such during this pandemic,” the 347 groups wrote. “It is a scientific organization that functions best as an apolitical agency trusted to guide the strategy of our nation to be healthier and safer.”
In the letter, written last week but released on Tuesday, they declared: “We must amplify the unfettered voice of C.D.C., not stifle it.”
The agency, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services with 11,000 employees, cannot make policy. But it guides state and local public health systems and advises government leaders.
Mr. Azar, too, has had a diminished role in recent months, focusing largely on Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to quickly make coronavirus vaccines and treatments available to the American public.
The virus death toll in India surpassed 20,000 on Tuesday, and, with more than 719,500 confirmed cases, the country has overtaken Russia to become the third hardest-hit, after the United States and Brazil.
Officials said India recorded 22,252 new cases and 467 deaths in the past 24 hours. The country is now averaging 450 deaths each day, double what it was seeing in the first week of June.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said the average number of positive cases in New Delhi, India’s capital, had increased from 5,481 to 18,766 in about a month. The situation in New Delhi and Mumbai remains particularly dire, as state-run hospitals are overflowing with the sick.
India is one of many developing nations where leaders feel the economic situation means they have no choice but to prioritize reopening despite surging infections. But its public health system is severely strained, and experts believe it may reach a breaking point as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government continues to ease a nationwide lockdown.
Vasudev Venugopal, a health expert in the southern Indian city of Chennai, said the increasing number of cases was largely because of the infection’s spread in densely populated areas of major cities, with crowded marketplaces and almost no social distancing. India has nearly 720,000 cases in total, according to a New York Times database.
“The more the virus travels to populous states, the greater the number of cases,” Mr. Venugopal said. “The worst, it seems, is yet to come.”
Correction: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this item misattributed a distinction to the coronavirus outbreak in India. The country’s total number of confirmed cases is now the world’s third-largest, not its number of deaths.
From CNN’s Milena Veselinovic
Protesters scuffle with police in front of the National Assembly building in Belgrade, on July 7, as Serbian police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters angry at the return of a weekend coronavirus curfew. Oliver Bunic/AFP/Getty Images
Police in the Serbian capital Belgrade fired tear gas at protesters demonstrating against the country's President Aleksandar Vucic after he announced a weekend-long curfew to try to combat a surge in coronavirus cases.
Video from the scene showed at least several hundred demonstrators gathered around Serbia's Parliament where scuffles erupted, prompting riot police to fire thick plumes of tear gas.
Some protesters also threw objects at the police, video showed.
On Tuesday, Serbia recorded its highest daily death toll from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, with the country's President calling the situation in Belgrade “alarming."
But protesters told CNN affiliate N1 they were angry because the government allowed the virus to spike out of control by lifting most restrictions in early May, meaning bars and nightclubs were able to operate at full capacity.
The protesters also said the government lifted restrictions in order to hold a general election in June -- the first Europe country to do so during the pandemic. Campaign rallies – with little or no social distancing – were held.
As they surrounded the Parliament building in central Belgrade, protesters chanted "arrest Vucic" and "treason." A small group of protesters managed to enter the Parliament's lobby before they were pushed out by the police.
The Balkan nation initially implemented one of Europe's strictest lockdowns to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak, with nightly and weekend-long curfews across the country and over 65s banned from leaving their homes.
From CNN’s Shelby Lin Erdman
A woman wearing a face mask walks past a Boardwalk store with signs warning patrons of mask requirements on July 3, in Wildwood, New Jersey. Mark Makela/Getty Images
The World Health Organization confirmed there is “emerging evidence” of airborne transmission of the coronavirus.
It comes after 239 scientists published a letter urging the agency to be more forthcoming about the likelihood that people can catch the virus from droplets floating in the air.
“We acknowledge that there is emerging evidence in this field, as in all other fields regarding the Covid-19 virus and pandemic and therefore we believe that we have to be open to this evidence and understand its implications regarding the modes of transmission and also regarding the precautions that need to be taken,” said Dr. Benedetta Alleganzi, WHO Technical Lead for Infection Prevention and Control, during a briefing on Tuesday.
Infectious disease epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkove, with WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said many of the letter’s signatories are engineers, “which adds to growing knowledge about the importance of ventilation."
“We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol transmission as one of the modes of transmission of Covid-19, as well as droplet. We've looked at fomites. We’ve looked at fecal oral. We’ve looked at mother to child. We’ve looked at animal to human, of course as well,” Van Kerkove said.
She said the WHO is working on a scientific brief summarizing the current knowledge around transmission of the coronavirus, which should be available in the coming weeks.
Alleganzi cautioned that more research is still needed on Covid-19 transmission.
“These are fields of research that are really growing and for which there is some evidence emerging but is not definitive,” she said.
From CNN's Anna Coren in Hong Kong and Sugam Pokharel in Atlanta
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the latest coronavirus outbreak in the city of Melbourne is "particularly serious" but added that it is "not surprising and that's why we need to continue to focus on our effort and work together."
“We will prevail and we will get on top of it, and we will protect the rest of the country,” the Prime Minister said at a press conference Wednesday.
As Melbourne prepares to go into lockdown from midnight Wednesday, Morrison said, “We're all Melbournians now when it comes to the challenges we face.”
More than 800 federal public servants are helping with the door-to-door health effort in the state of Victoria, he announced.
Morrison said he will be taking a proposal to the National Cabinet to reduce the number of international flights arriving in the country.
From CNN's Chandler Thornton and Claudia Dominguez in Atlanta
Nurses transfer a coronavirus patient to the Critical Patients Unit, at Barros Luco Hospital on June 24 in Santiago, Chile. Martin Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images
Latin American and Caribbean countries have recorded more than 3 million Covid-19 cases combined as of Tuesday evening, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The following 33 countries are included in this region:
Brazil; Peru; Chile; Mexico; Ecuador; Colombia; Argentina--Dominican Republic; Panama; Bolivia; Guatemala; Honduras; Haiti; El Salvador; Venezuela; Cuba; Nicaragua-; Costa Rica; Paraguay; Uruguay; Jamaica; Guyana; Suriname; Trinidad and Tobago; The Bahamas; Barbados; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Antigua and Barbuda'; Grenada; Belize; Saint Lucia; Dominica; and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The combined total stands at 3,010,954 confirmed cases, according to JHU's tally.
Source：https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-08-20-intl/index.html
Summary
Here are the key global developments from the last few hours:
· There are nearly 11.8m confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, and 543,558 known deaths.
· Britain to reveal post-coronavirus recovery plan. Britain will Wednesday unveil a mini-budget to kickstart the UK economy, hoping costly infrastructure investment will help build its way out of the crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Finance minister Rishi Sunak is due to deliver his spending plans at 1130 GMT, having already flagged £3 billion (US$3.7 billion, €3.3bn) of green investment.
· Washington has formally begun the process of leaving the World Health Organization. The US will withdraw on 6 July 2021 under a 1948 joint resolution of the US Congress, which also obliges Washington to pay financial support. Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic challenger for the presidency, said he would return the US to the WHO once elected.
· The WHO says coronavirus cases are increasing by 200,000 a day, doubling from April and May. The WHO emergencies chief said that the number of Covid-19 deaths appeared to be stable for the moment, but he cautioned that there is often a lag time between when confirmed cases increase and when deaths are reported due to the time it takes for the coronavirus to run its course in patients.
· The World Health Organization on Tuesday acknowledged “evidence emerging” of the airborne spread of the coronavirus, after a group of scientists urged the global body to update its guidance on how the respiratory disease passes between people.
· New Zealand opposition MP who leaked details of Covid-19 patients steps down. An opposition MP in New Zealand has announced he will not stand at September’s election after he confessed to leaking private details about all of the country’s active Covid-19 cases to several news outlets.
· Australia to consider limiting returning residents, PM Morrison says. Australia’s coronavirus emergency cabinet will consider limiting the number of its citizens and residents returning home from overseas, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday. The prime minister added there were no plans to reimpose restrictions across the country, after Victoria, the country’s second-most populous state, enforced stay-at-home rules in metropolitan Melbourne and one regional area due to a spike in infections.
· Victoria reported 134 new coronavirus cases as NSW warns of border region restrictions. fter the New South Wales-Victoria state border closed at midnight on Tuesday, the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, warned the risk of contagion spreading into her state was “very high” and said even tougher border restrictions might be implemented targeting those living in border communities such as Albury.
· Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for Covid-19. He said he began feeling ill on Sunday and has been taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug with unproven effectiveness against Covid-19.
· Brazil has recorded another 1,312 deaths and more than 48,000 new cases. According to a coalition of Brazilian news outlets keeping an independent tally, that takes Brazil’s total death toll to nearly 67,000, the second highest number in the world. Brazil has now registered 1.67 million confirmed cases, including that of Brazil’s far-right leader who is facing domestic and international condemnation for his handling of the crisis.
· Israel’s public health director has quit amid a spike in new coronavirus cases, saying the country had been too hasty to reopen its economy and had lost its way in dealing with the pandemic. Siegal Sadetzki, an epidemiologist, announced her resignation a day after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu reimposed a series of restrictions, including the closure of bars, gyms and event halls.
Medicine
