Trump urges US to re-open, British death toll hits 32,000
LONDON, United Kingdom — US President Donald Trump on Tuesday made his first major foray out of the White House since the coronavirus lockdown began, pushing for the US economy to reopen as Britain officially became the second worst-hit country.
The growing US death toll is already more than 70,000 — by far the highest globally - while Britain's rose to 32,000, putting it above Italy in the grim ranking of national fatalities.
Elsewhere in Europe, hard-hit Italy, Spain and France have reported a levelling off of figures, offering hope that life could slowly start returning to normal.
With experts warning of a global recession not seen in decades, many governments have stepped up the pace in easing stay-at-home measures in a bid to revive badly hammered economies.
Financial markets saw some light at the end of the tunnel, with stocks and oil prices rallying Tuesday.
"We can't keep our country closed for the next five years," Trump said on a trip to a mask-making factory in Arizona, conceding that some people would be "badly affected."
He urged US states to ease restrictions as he attempts to fire up the world's biggest economy before the November presidential election, when the high death toll and millions of lost jobs could cost him dearly.
Countries are balancing the need to revive stalled economies against the risk of a new wave of deadly infections.
In Germany, regional leaders pushed back against Chancellor Angela Merkel's pleas for caution, with the biggest state Bavaria saying it would reopen restaurants and hotels this month.
Hong Kong announced plans to reopen schools, cinemas, bars and beauty parlours from Friday, while in California, bookshops, florists and clothing stores will also be allowed to reopen at the end of the week.
'I'm used to working'
"It's better now that I'm waking up and doing something," South African technician Milton Nkosi, 40, told AFP as he checked a new set of tyres at a garage in Johannesburg.
"I'm used to working," he added. "It's the first time in my life to stay home so many days."
But the garage only called back four of its eight employees after being closed for five weeks and is only partially open -- underlining the huge challenge to rebuild the global economy.
At least 254,532 people have died of the novel coronavirus since the epidemic surfaced in China late last year, according to an AFP tally at 1900 GMT Tuesday based on official sources.
Russia cemented its place as the European country reporting the highest number of new infections as its total cases soared past 155,000.
Despite the increases, the Russian government has indicated it could gradually lift confinement measures from May 12.
The economic casualties have also piled up from the impact of the pandemic.
Spain added 280,000 people to its jobless ranks, while the Virgin Atlantic airline said it would have to fire one in three staff as the virus grounds planes worldwide.
Walt Disney said it expected an impact of some $1.4 billion in the current fiscal quarter as a result of a massive hit to its theme parks and other operations.
And home-sharing platform Airbnb announced it would slash one fourth of its workforce -- some 1,900 people -- due to the collapse of the travel industry.
In India, police used batons to beat back crowds jostling to buy alcohol for the first time in 40 days as the world's biggest lockdown eased.
The government in New Delhi credits its strict shutdown of almost all activity with keeping the official tally of COVID-19 deaths to 1,400 in a country with a population of 1.3 billion.
But the lockdown has resulted in misery for millions of workers in India's vast informal sector left suddenly jobless.
India said Tuesday it had embarked on a "massive" operation calling up passenger jets and naval ships to bring back some of the hundreds of thousands of its nationals stuck abroad.
Evacuees will have to pay for their passage and spend 14 days in quarantine on arrival.
Baseball, without fans
Polish voters were still in the dark as to whether their presidential election will go ahead as scheduled on Sunday.
The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government is seeking parliamentary approval to conduct the election by postal ballot -- despite widespread concern that it would not be fair, legal or safe.
In a ray of hope for the sports world, South Korea's baseball players returned to action, albeit to empty stadiums.
Banners with photos of masked fans stretched across the bleachers at the Incheon-based SK Wyverns club's Munhak Baseball Stadium.
Players have been asked not to shake hands or exchange high-fives, while spitting is prohibited.
Friday will also see the delayed start of the country's football K-League.
Juventus players returned to individual training at the team's sports centre in Turin on Tuesday, though star player Cristiano Ronaldo began two weeks' quarantine after returning to Italy following two months of confinement on his native island of Madeira.
But in Britain, sports leaders warned of the "catastrophic" impact of the virus, with football, cricket and rugby counting the cost of delayed or cancelled tournaments and leagues. — with Brendan Smialowski in Phoenix, Arizona
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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