China records no new deaths from Covid-19
CHINA said it has recorded no deaths from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours.
The country gave rise to the global pandemic and has suffered 3,331 deaths and 81,740 cases of Covid-19.
Authorities said in their daily update yesterday that there were 32 new cases, all of which were from people who had returned to China from overseas.
Another 12 suspected cases – also all imported – were being kept under observation, along with an additional 30 asymptomatic cases.
China now has 1,242 confirmed cases in treatment and 1,033 asymptomatic cases under isolation and monitoring.
Numbers of daily new deaths have been hovering in the single digits for weeks, hitting just one on several occasions.
Beijing continues to take strong measures in a bid to keep the virus at bay.
China and Russia have closed their land border and river port near Vladivostok following the discovery of 59 confirmed cases of the new Covid-19 among Chinese citizens returning home via the crossing.
All Chinese citizens who arrive in the border region aboard Russian domestic flights will be forced to undergo a 14-day quarantine, according to a notice posted on the website of the Chinese consulate in Vladivostok.
Only those holding special passes will then be permitted to travel on the Russian side of the border area, the notice said. It was not clear whether pass holders would be able to cross into China.
In addition, all guesthouses and nursing homes on the Russian side of the border area will also be closed to outsiders until June 1, the notice said.
“Here, the consulate general strongly recommends and reminds relevant Chinese citizens to fully take into consideration the above situation” and not seek to return to China through the border crossing, the notice said. Hong Kong will continue to be closed to foreigners, extending the initial two-week entry restrictions on non-residents indefinitely.
Non-residents coming from overseas to Hong Kong by plane will be denied entry, and those coming from mainland China, Macao and Taiwan will be barred from entering if they have been overseas in the past 14 days.
The move to continue shutting out foreigners was announced by the government, and comes as the number of Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong rose to 915.
Meanwhile, more than 160 current and former global leaders are urging the world’s 20 major industrialised nations to approve $8 billion (£6.5 billion) in emergency global health funding to hasten the search for a vaccine, cure and treatment for Covid-19 and prevent a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an open letter to governments of the Group of 20 nations, the leaders, ministers, top executives and scientists also called for $35 billion (£28.5 billion) to support countries with weaker health systems and vulnerable populations, and at least $150 billion (£120 billion) for developing countries to fight the medical and economic crisis.
They also urged the international community to waive this year’s debt repayments from poorer countries, including $44 billion (£36 billion) due from Africa.
Spain has recorded a rise of daily coronavirus infections and deaths for the first time in five days, a result consistent with previous Tuesdays when a weekend backlog of tests and fatalities are reported.
With 743 new deaths in the last 24 hours, some 100 more than the fatalities seen from Sunday to Monday, Spain’s death toll neared 13,800 since the beginning of the pandemic, Health Ministry data showed.
The total of confirmed infections rose over 140,000, with 5,478 new ones yesterday, 1,000 more than on Monday. Both figures had been declining since April 2.
Authorities have said that cementing the flattening of the contagion arc will be a long process but they have pinned hopes on how pressure is easing in hospitals, mostly in emergency wards.
As part of de-escalating measures being debated for coming weeks, Spain’s left-wing government wants to test 30,000 households to draw the national map of the outbreak. The goal is to measure how much the virus has spread beyond hospitals and nursing homes, which had become big contagion clusters.