A girl sporting a face masks has her temperature checked upon her arrival for a Sunday drive-in worship service on the Seoul Metropolis Church in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 5, 2020. The church determined to carry their Sunday service with drive-in worship service as part of precaution in opposition to the brand new coronavirus. South Korea on Saturday prolonged for 2 weeks tips urging folks to stay to social distancing.
AP Picture
The Newest on the coronavirus pandemic. The brand new coronavirus causes gentle or average signs for most individuals. For some, particularly older adults and folks with current well being issues, it could possibly trigger extra extreme sickness or demise.
TOP OF THE HOUR:
— British virus disaster deepens, whereas New York sees positives.
— Land border and river port between China and Russia is closing.
— Over 10,000 COVID-19 circumstances have now been confirmed on African continent.
— Russia data greater than 1,000 new coronavirus circumstances in 24 hours for the primary time.
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BEIJING — China and Russia are closing their land border and river port close to Vladivostok following the invention of 59 confirmed circumstances of the brand new coronavirus amongst Chinese language residents returning house by way of the crossing.
Starting Tuesday, all Chinese language residents who arrive within the border area aboard Russian home flights will probably be compelled to bear a 14-day quarantine, in response to a discover posted on the web site of the Chinese language consulate in Vladivostok.
Solely these holding particular passes will then be permitted to journey on the Russian aspect of the border space, the discover stated. It wasn’t clear whether or not cross holders would be capable of cross into China.
As well as, all guesthouses, nursing properties, on the Russian aspect of the border space will even be closed to outsiders by June 1, the discover stated.
“Right here, the consulate common strongly recommends and reminds related Chinese language residents to totally consider the above state of affairs” and never search to return to China by the border crossing, the discover stated.
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JOHANNESBURG — The African continent now has greater than 10,000 coronavirus circumstances. That’s in response to the Africa Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Fifty-two of Africa’s 54 nations now have the virus, with island nation Sao Tome e Principe the most recent to verify circumstances.
Solely the small kingdom of Lesotho and the island nation of Comoros haven’t confirmed circumstances. South Africa has probably the most circumstances on the continent with greater than 1,600.
The scarcity of testing capabilities throughout the continent has raised considerations that the variety of precise circumstances in Africa could possibly be increased.
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MOSCOW — Russian authorities registered greater than 1,000 new coronavirus circumstances in 24 hours for the primary time because the starting of the outbreak.
The federal government coronavirus activity drive reported 1,154 new circumstances on Tuesday, bringing the nation’s complete caseload to 7,497, with 58 deaths and 494 recoveries.
The epidemic in Russia picked up velocity in March, with the variety of circumstances rising exponentially and doubling each few days.
In an effort to curb the outbreak, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered everybody to remain off work this month, with solely important companies, reminiscent of grocery shops, pharmacies and so on., working. The overwhelming majority of Russian areas are at present on lockdown, ordering residents to self-isolate at house and never exit, until it’s to purchase groceries, drugs, stroll their canines or take out trash.
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LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has spent the evening in an intensive care unit of a London hospital after his coronavirus signs dramatically worsened.
Cupboard Minister Michael Gove instructed the BBC that Johnson was receiving oxygen however was not on a ventilator.
Gove says that he’s “receiving the very, best possible care from the staff at St Thomas’ and our hopes and prayers are with him and along with his household.”
The 55-year-old Conservative chief was admitted to St. Thomas’ Hospital late Sunday, 10 days after he was identified with COVID-19, the primary main world chief to be confirmed to have the virus.
He was moved to intensive care after his situation deteriorated Monday.
Britain has no official publish of deputy prime minister, however Overseas Secretary Dominic Raab has been designated to take over ought to Johnson grow to be incapacitated.
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says it’ll quickly announce a suggestion for hospitals on experimental coronavirus therapies utilizing donated blood from sufferers who survived.
Kwon Jun-wook, an official from South Korea’s Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, stated Tuesday the rule will draw from the nation’s expertise with comparable therapies on sufferers who contracted the MERS virus throughout an outbreak in 2015.
Center East Respiratory Syndrome, found in 2012, is brought on by a coronavirus in the identical household because the frequent chilly, SARS and the brand new virus that’s inflicting the COVID-19 sickness. The 2015 outbreak killed 36 folks and sickened almost 200 in South Korea.
Kwon stated officers had been analyzing current recoveries of two aged COVID-19 sufferers at a hospital in Seoul who had been infused with survivors’ plasma — the liquid a part of blood that incorporates antibodies — after different therapy makes an attempt failed to enhance their circumstances.
He cautioned there’s nonetheless no assure that plasma therapy will work, and that well being authorities and civilian consultants are persevering with to debate its effectiveness.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand has determined there may be some magic on the planet after formally declaring kids’s favorites the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are important employees.
Meaning they’ll keep on with their work whereas others keep at house throughout a monthlong lockdown.
“You can be happy to know that we do think about each the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny to be important employees,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated Monday. “However, as you possibly can think about at the moment, after all, they will probably be fairly busy at house with their household as nicely and their very own bunnies.”
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TOKYO — Japan’s Protection Ministry stated it has despatched a bunch of troopers to a Tokyo lodge to arrange rooms for COVID-19 sufferers with no or slight signs to remain.
It’s an try to alleviate overburdened hospitals and save beds for sufferers with extra severe signs as Tokyo sees the variety of circumstances surge. The Protection Ministry stated 10 troopers had been to assist the switch of the sufferers, ship meals and supply different help.
The measure, below the well being ministry’s new medical care guideline for the coronavirus, is designed to alleviate overburdened hospitals amid a rising worry of a medical system collapse. Monday’s pilot case started at Toyoko Inn, the place about 100 folks can keep in single rooms whereas being monitored.
The step comes hours earlier than Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and 6 different prefectures later Tuesday to bolster social-distancing measures within the hard-hit areas.
Tokyo has seen a surge of latest circumstances since late March, with its metropolis complete doubling each few days to 1,116 as of Monday, an indication consultants say of an an infection explosion. Nationwide, Japan has four,618 circumstances together with 712 from a cruise ship.
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NEW DELHI — India says it’ll raise a ban on some drug exports together with hydroxychloroquine after President Donald Trump threatened retaliation if India didn’t ship the anti-malarial drug to america.
Overseas ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava stated in a press release Tuesday that having confirmed enough provides for India’s wants, export restrictions “have been largely lifted.”
The White Home has been championing hydroxychloroquine as a therapy for COVID-19, regardless that it hasn’t been confirmed efficient in opposition to the illness. The drug is formally authorized within the U.S. for treating malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and consultants warn it could possibly trigger coronary heart rhythm issues.
Trump has stated that he spoke to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi final week about lifting the ban, and in a information convention Monday stated that he can be stunned if Modi didn’t comply.
“If he doesn’t enable it to come back out, that may be OK, however after all there could also be retaliation. Why wouldn’t there be?” Trump stated.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s well being minister has described himself as an “fool” and has been stripped of some obligations after breaching the nation’s strict lockdown measures.
David Clark drove about 12 miles to the seashore to take a stroll along with his household. He stated that at a time when the federal government was asking New Zealanders to make historic sacrifices by staying at house, he had allow them to down.
“I’ve been an fool, and I perceive why folks will probably be indignant with me,” he stated in a press release.
Clark had earlier admitted to driving to a park close to his house to go mountain biking.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated below regular circumstances, she would sack Clark. However she stated the nation couldn’t afford huge disruption in its well being sector whereas it was preventing the virus. As an alternative, she stated, she was stripping Clark of his function as Affiliate Finance Minister and demoting him to the underside of the Cupboard rankings.
New Zealand is sort of midway by a deliberate four-week lockdown geared toward minimizing the unfold of the virus.
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Hong Kong will proceed to be closed to foreigners, extending the preliminary two-week entry restrictions on non-residents indefinitely.
Non-residents coming from abroad to Hong Kong by airplane will probably be denied entry, and people coming from mainland China, Macao and Taiwan will probably be barred from coming into if they’ve been abroad prior to now 14 days.
The transfer to proceed shutting out foreigners was introduced by the federal government on Monday, and comes because the variety of COVID-19 circumstances in Hong Kong rose to 915. Hong Kong has seen an increase within the variety of imported circumstances within the metropolis, and its confirmed circumstances has greater than doubled within the final two weeks.
On Sunday, Hong Kong’s airport noticed solely 813 arrivals, a drop of near 82% in comparison with earlier than the restrictions had been put in place on March 24.
Hong Kong’s entry restrictions exempt sure teams, together with plane crew, authorities officers on obligation, spouses and minor kids of Hong Kong residents in addition to personnel engaged by the federal government in anti-epidemic work.
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UNITED NATIONS — Greater than 160 present and former world leaders and different VIPs are urging the world’s 20 main industrialized nations to approve $eight billion in emergency world well being funding to hasten the seek for a vaccine, remedy and therapy for COVID-19 and forestall a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an open letter to governments of the Group of 20 nations launched Monday evening, the leaders, ministers, high executives and scientists additionally known as for $35 billion to assist nations with weaker well being programs and particularly weak populations, and at the least $150 billion for growing nations to struggle the medical and financial disaster.
In addition they urged the worldwide group to waive this yr’s debt repayments from poorer nations, together with $44 billion due from Africa,
Whereas the communique from the G20 leaders’ summit on March 26 acknowledged the gravity and urgency of the well being and financial disaster sparked by the pandemic, the letter stated “we now require pressing particular measures that may be agreed on with velocity and at scale.”
The group known as for a worldwide pledging convention, coordinated by a G20 activity drive, to commit sources to fulfill the emergency must sort out COVID-19.
The 165 signatories included former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, 92 former presidents and prime ministers, the present prime ministers of Ethiopia and Bangladesh, Sierra Leone’s president, philanthropist George Soros, former Irish president Mary Robinson who chairs The Elders, and Graca Machel, the group’s deputy chair.
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean officers are contemplating utilizing digital wristbands to watch the rising variety of folks positioned below self-quarantine to gradual the unfold of the brand new coronavirus.
Well being Ministry official Yoon Tae-ho on Tuesday stated such gadgets had been considered one of a number of measures mentioned by officers as they seek for “sensible and efficient methods” to watch folks remoted at properties and amenities.
Yoon acknowledged that wristbands would include privateness considerations and didn’t supply a selected reply when requested how possible it was that the federal government would implement their use.
The variety of folks positioned below quarantine has ballooned since final week when South Korea started imposing 14-day quarantines on all passengers arriving from abroad to stem an increase in imported infections.
Lee Byeong-cheol, an official from the Ministry of the Inside and Security, stated greater than 46,500 folks had been below self-quarantine as of Monday night, together with 38,400 who’ve lately arrived from overseas. He stated the quantity might finally attain 80,000 or 90,000.
Whereas quarantined people are required to obtain an app that alerts authorities in the event that they go away their properties or amenities, Yoon stated apps aren’t sufficient when persons are slipping out by leaving their smartphones behind or switching off location features.
Lee stated South Korean police are at present investigating greater than 70 folks over allegations of breaking quarantine.