Catalonia tightens lockdown after coronavirus outbreak
BARCELONA, SPAIN
Regional authorities in northeast Spain have tightened a health lockdown and confined over 140,000 people to only leaving their homes for work and other essential activities.
Catalan authorities announced the confinement on Sunday, a week after they had already limited travel to and from the county of El Segria, population 210,000, because of an outbreak of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Lleida, with 138,000 residents, is one of the municipalities in which people are confined to their homes.
“We must break the chain of contagion,” said regional health authority Alba Verges. “We must limit our contact to those people we live with.”
The outbreak in the rural area is connected to farm work and seasonal day laborers, many of whom work and live in precarious conditions.
Catalan health authorities are also keeping close watch on an outbreak in Hospitalet, a densely populated municipality in the greater Barcelona metropolitan area. In total, northeast Catalonia reported over 800 new cases on Sunday.
Spain emerged from a three-month nationwide lockdown in mid-June that it needed to rein in the virus that has officially claimed at least 28,000 lives. Elsewhere:
Switzerland: The
World Health Organization has reported another record in the increase in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases over a 24-hour period, at over
230,000.The U.N. health agency said Sunday the United States again topped the list among countries, with more than 66,000 cases recorded.
The previous record was Friday, with more than 228,000 newly recorded cases worldwide in a 24hour span.
Overall, the WHO has counted more than 12.5 million confirmed cases and more than 561,000 deaths from COVID-19.
New York: New York education officials are set to begin outlining what will need to be done to reopen schools as Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the state has maintained a “low and stable” number of people testing positive for coronavirus.
The state Education Department is scheduled to present a framework for the long-awaited reopening guidance to the Board of Regents on Monday, with the full guidance to come later.
New York reported five coronavirus deaths on Sunday, matching its lowest number since the pandemic emerged there. But Cuomo said the rising number of cases elsewhere is concerning.
Mexico: The ashes of 245 Mexican migrants who died of COVID-19 in New York have arrived back into their home nation.
A Mexican Air Force plane carrying the remains arrived at near midnight Saturday in what the Foreign Releations Department called an “unprecedented” effort.
The urns were taken from the plane and placed on a table adorned with white llowers for a brief ceremony.
“It’s the way Mexico expresses its gratitude for so much that our migrants have contributed from abroad, and of course in addition to giving consolation to their families, who can give them a final goodbye in their land,” said Roberto Velasco, the Foreign Relations Department’s director-general for North America.
South Africa: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the country will return to a ban of the sales of alcohol immediately to reduce the volume of trauma patients so that hospitals have more beds to treat COVID-19 patients.
Ramaphosa said that top health officials warn of impending shortages of hospital beds and medical oxygen as South Africa reaches a peak of COVID-19 cases, expected between the end of July and September.
United Kingdom: A British pilot who was Vietnam’s most critical COVID-19 patient has arrived back home in Scotland. Glasgow Airport said the man landed in Scotland on Sunday and was met by a waiting ambulance. He’s now in a hospital recuperating.
The 42-year-old, identified by the official Vietnam News Agency as Stephen Cameron, had flown out of Ho Chi Minh City the day before.
Vietnam had gone all out to save Cameron, who was working for national carrier Vietnam Airlines when he tested positive for the coronavirus in March. He had been critically ill and spent 65 days on life support.
Italy: Local outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers at a courier service in northern Italy and among migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea have helped swell an increase in the nation’s daily new cases.
Lebanon: Lebanon has reported its highest daily count of coronavirus cases, including dozens of foreign workers who work at a cleaning company, the health ministry said Sunday. The 166 cases came after three days in which the number was a record every day in Lebanon. The increase comes after Lebanon’s only international airport was reopened on July 1, after more than three months closure.
France: After images of thousands of people dancing provoked renewed debate in France over social distancing, the mayor of the Mediterranean resort of Nice announced Sunday that face masks will be obligatory at all of the city’s events from now on.