India cases top 150,000 with new daily record
India’s coronavirus caseload has surpassed 150,000, with another single-day high of more than 6000 yesterday.
The spike comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government prepares a new set of
5 killed in hospital fire
Fire swept through a through a unit of a hospital in an upscale area of the Bangladeshi capital to treat people infected with the coronavirus, killing five people, an official said yesterday. The fire started at about 10pm at the United Hospital Ltd in Dhaka’s Gulshan area. Firefighters recovered the bodies of four men and one woman after the blaze was controlled, Islam said. The cause was under investigation, but the country’s leading Bengali-language Prohom Alo newspaper said an airconditioning system exploded. Bangladesh yesterday had 38,292 coronavirus cases including 544 deaths.
Sao Paulo set to reopen
Sao Paulo state, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in Brazil, will reopen some businesses starting June 1 despite a fast growing number of guidelines, with the fourth phase of the two-month-old lockdown across the country set to end on Monday. The Health Ministry reported 151,767 cases yesterday, a jump of 6387, with 4337 deaths — an increase of 170 in the past 24
confirmed Covid-19 cases. Governor Joa˜ o Doria said stay-at-home recommendations will remain in effect until June 15, but some economic activity will resume in regions where daily increase in cases slow and enough intensive-care beds are available. More than 6700 people have died from Covid-19 in Sao Paulo state, about one fourth of all Brazil’s deaths. The state also confirmed almost 90,000 Covid-19 cases, while Brazil has nearly 400,000.
Luxembourg tests 600,000 Luxembourg started a coronavirus testing program yesterday to check each and every one of its roughly 600,000 people, as well as crossborder workers, over the next nine weeks. The testing hopes to try and blunt a second wave before it develops, as many predict will happen after the European summer. So far, hours. Most of the cases are in five of India’s 28 states. An increase has also been reported in some of the country’s poorest eastern states as migrant workers returning to native villages from large cities have begun arriving home on
Luxembourg has 110 confirmed deaths and almost 4000 people have been confirmed as having tested positive.
Merkel sidelined by states
Angela Merkel has been largely sidelined from discussions on ending the lockdown after regional governments vowed to go their own way. Under Germany’s federal constitution, the 16 regional state governments that have the final say on lockdown measures, and this week they moved to assert their control, effectively tearing up a plan put forward by Merkel for gradual further loosening in June. But now Germany faces a patchwork of different regional regulations, and there are already signs of discord between the state governments.
France halts Trump-drug France has scrapped a decree that special trains.
India eased lockdown restrictions earlier this month, allowing shops to reopen and manufacturing to resume. Some trains and domestic flights began operating again. —AP
allows hospitals to administer hydroxychloroquine, the drug Donald Trump, the US president, has said he is taking preventively to ward off Covid-19. The announcement comes two days after the World Health Organisation said it was pausing a trial of the malaria drug, also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, due to concerns that it is potentially harmful. The British medical journal The Lancet published a study that found patients taking hydroxychloroquine suffered higher death rates and irregular heartbeats. In March, France decided to allow its use in hospitals only. Some doctors started prescribing it, despite a lack of research into its efficacy. It was championed by Didier Raoult, a French infectious disease specialist, whose views apparently convinced Trump. The president stunned his own administration last week by saying he was using the drug himself.