Trump wears mask as Covid rages
US president visits military hospital; Brazil President Bolsonaro completes week with disease
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump wore a mask in public during a visit to a military hospital Saturday, falling in line with the recommendations of his public health officials and experts as the Covid-19 pandemic continued to rage in the United States.
He appeared at the Walter Reed military hospital just outside Washington DC in the adjoining state Maryland donning a navy blue mask with the golden presidential seal emblazoned on the left . “I’ve never been against masks, but I do believe they have a time and a place,” he told reporters earlier.
Infections in the US climbed to nearly 3.25 million, with 61,352 new cases, and fatalities went up to 134,817 with 685 added in the last 24 hours.
As deaths are expected to mount in coming weeks, “everything should be on the table,” including renewed lockdowns in hard-hit states, said Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of health.
Louisiana, a Democratic-governed state, also in the grip of the new surge, made masks mandatory on Saturday.
After months in which Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro downplayed Covid-19 by flouting social distancing recommendations and mostly shunning masks, both precautions became part of his cloistered life this week at the official residence in capital Brasilia.
Bolsonaro, 65, scrapped a trip he had planned to northeastern Piauí state, and all his meetings for the week were converted to video calls. One was with former congressman Roberto Jefferson, president of the conservative PTB party. Jefferson went to the presidential Planalto Palace and sat in front of a large television where he could see Bolsonaro in a makeshift office at his residence.
Since his diagnosis, Bolsonaro has held virtual meetings almost every day with Jorge Oliveira, secretary-general of government, to sign official documents. Only a few aides who were previously infected by the new coronavirus could get close to Bolsonaro during the week, one of them said on Tuesday.
Bolsonaro also spent some time in the afternoons in front of the palace with photojournalists 400 yards away, on the other side of a garden. He had met his supporters by that garden until his diagnosis, but no longer.
Raising questions again over whether the pandemic can spread through food or frozen products, China said a handful of packaging samples of imported shrimp tested positive for the coronavirus.
The virus was detected on the outside of about five shrimp packages and the inside of one shipping container, said China’s General Administration of Customs. The samples were from three Ecuadorian plants, and imports from those processors will be halted, it said. A leading Ecuadorian shrimp exporter disputed the findings.
“The test result doesn’t mean the virus is contagious, but reflects the loopholes in companies’ food safety regulations,” said Bi Kexin, director of the food import and export safety bureau in the customs department.
“Customs will further strengthen control of the origins of imported cold-chain food.”
The pandemic continued to affect life and politics across the world. Sri Lanka’s ruling party on Sunday called off its rallies ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections and delayed the international airport’s reopening over a surge in virus cases.
Over 4.4 million Spaniards in two northern regions are voting in regional elections Sunday amid tight security measures to avoid more outbreaks of the coronavirus.
Regional authorities in both the Basque Country and Galicia have prohibited over 400 people who have tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19 from going to polling stations to vote. They would have to vote by mail or delegate their vote to another person. Mail-in voting has increased in both regions.