Singapore, Japan virus cases jump

India extends largest lockdown

BANGKOK, April 14, (AP): Singapore has reported its biggest daily jump in new coronavirus infections, most of them linked to foreign workers living in crowded dormitories.

Foreigners account for over a third of Singapore’s workforce, many of them people from poorer Asian countries working in construction, shipping and maintenance jobs that support Singapore’s trade-reliant economy.

Over 200,000 Asian migrant workers live in 43 registered dormitories that house up to 20 men per room, with shared toilets, cooking and other facilities.

The 386 newly confirmed cases raise Singapore’s tally to 2,918. Health authorities also reported a ninth death in a statement late Monday.

The tiny city state of nearly 6 million people has shut down nonessential businesses and schools until May 4 in a partial lockdown to try to halt the spread of the new coronavirus. Tens of thousands of foreign workers are quarantined in their dorms and some were moved elsewhere to reduce crowding.

Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli wrote on Facebook late Monday that the remaining three weeks of the partial lockdown will be “a critical window that will determine if we can successfully flatten the curve, prevent large-scale community spread, and save our loved ones.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday that the lockdown would be extended till May 3 as the death toll due to the COVID-19 rose to 339 and infections to 10,363.

In a televised speech to the nation today morning, the Indian PM said that the decision to extend the lockdown was taken after consulting the chief ministers of the states.

He added that the same would be strictly implemented in coming days to ensure that the virus does not spread to new areas.

“After taking into account all suggestions, we have decided to extend the

Phoenix, said it’s working with a Tempebased nonprofit to make 8,500 reusable surgical gowns. The nonprofit, F.A.B.R.I.C., was created to provide resources for emerging fashion designers but is now working to sew the gowns based on a design by Dr Ronald lockdown till May 3. Till April 20, each district, each state will be monitored closely to see whether the lockdown is being followed. Then we can decide on relaxing the restrictions,” said Modi in his address.

Appreciating the health workers and the public in general the PM said: “If the country had not taken a holistic, integrated approach and had not acted fast, then it is frightening to think what it would have been like today.”

Preventing

India had announced a 21-day lockdown on March 25 which is coming to an end tonight. The move is seen as a major factor in preventing the spread of the deadly virus to more areas.

The PM’s message came as the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced that the death toll following COVID-19 has reached 339 people while the total number of infections rose to 10,363 adding that 1,036 people recovered and were discharged from the hospitals while the pandemic spread to 32 Indian states.

Maharashtra is on the top of affected states as the death toll rose to 160 while total infected people are standing at 2,334 followed by capital New Delhi with 28 deaths and 1,510 positive cases.

BENI, Congo:

Also:

Congo marked the Easter holiday by bracing to battle both COVID-19 and a continuing outbreak of Ebola, after a second death from that disease was announced in eastern Congo Sunday.

Across Africa, Easter was marked at home, with many Christians following services broadcast on television and radio as a result of bans on movement and gatherings to combat the new coronavirus.

The confirmation of a second Ebola death in Beni, after the first was announced on Friday, was a stark warning to residents that they must continue to protect themselves from that disease as

Gagliano, a Dignity Health surgeon.

An Arizona National Guard KC-135 picked up fabric last week from Precision Fabrics Group, a textile firm in North Carolina.

Government and health officials in Arizona

Health staff with protective gears take the body temperature of a man at an entrance to the Menara City One condominium as it has been placed under a lockdown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tuesday, April 14. Forced apart by the coronavirus pandemic, Southeast Asian leaders linked up by video Tuesday to plot a strategy to overcome a crisis that has threatened their economies and bound millions of people

in their homes under lockdowns. (AP)

well as taking new precautions against COVID-19.

Beni, a city of some 600,000 in eastern Congo, has been at the center of the Ebola outbreak that started in August 2018 and became the second largest in history, killing more than 2,260 people so far.

There were widespread hopes that the Ebola outbreak could be officially declared finished after more than 40 days passed without a new case, but then the new deaths were announced.

Health workers are busy tracing the contacts of the two who died from Ebola, to try to prevent the disease from spreading any further. Already 215 contacts have been identified, 53 of whom are healthcare workers, said Boubacar Diallo, surveillance coordinator for the World Health Organization.

Because church gatherings have been banned, Beni resident Jeannot Sikivahwa said he listened to a preacher on the radio.

“He told us about the resurrection of Jesus Christ but also he talked about Ebola and coronavirus. He said that we must protect ourselves from these two epidemics plaguing us here in Beni,” Sikivahwa told The Associated Press. “It’s my first time to have this holiday under such confinement.”

Also contributing to a timid celebration in Beni is a series of attacks by rebel groups which are blamed for hundreds of deaths, according to aid organizations operating in the area.

“I prayed that God would give us peace, health and keep us away from these two plagues that are ravaging thousands of people around the world,” said Sikivahwa.

Across Africa, Easter services were held in nearly empty churches. In Lagos, Nigeria, a Catholic mass was held in the Holy Cross cathedral and broadcast for viewing by people at home. In Nairobi, Kenya, a Catholic mass was held at the capital city’s cathedral and residents were able to stream on social media or national broadcast networks.

and around the country have scrambled to acquire personal protective equipment for doctors, nurses and other medical staff working with COVID-19 patients.

Dignity Health says the gowns its making can be washed more than 100 times.

In a bid to help reduce COVID-19 risks in jails, 189 Maricopa County inmates who have already been sentenced were transferred from county jails to state prisons.

Jails are vulnerable to the spread of the coronavirus because inmates with compromised health live in closed quarters and can’t practice social distancing. Authorities say lowering the jail population creates space for quarantines if outbreaks were to occur there.

There have been no COVID-19 cases reported among inmates and employees at county jails in Arizona.

The Recreation Centers of Sun City West closed the retirement community’s seven golf courses on Monday evening over growing concerns of residents and employees getting exposed to the coronavirus. The city shut down all of its recreation centers last month.

“Our average age is 74 and many residents have chronic conditions,” Recreation Centers general manager Bill Schwind told Phoenix TV station KTVK. “We’ve kept golf open as long as we thought it was safe. But with cases in Sun City West increasing and the peak just around the corner, it’s time to close them and let everyone get through this peak safely.”

Navajo Nation officials reports the number of positive tests for COVID-19 in the vast reservation had reached 813 as of Monday, an increase of 115 over the past two days. (AP)