More than 8,000 people have now died of Covid-19 in Germany, according to the country’s center for disease control.
Data released Tuesday showed 72 new coronavirus-related deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 8,007, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
The institute also recorded an increase of 513 new infections, taking the total number of cases in the country to more than 175,000.
Bavaria, Germany’s largest federal state, remains the worst hit area, with 26% of Covid-19 infections in the country and 29% of the overall death tally.
On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new Franco-German fund worth 500 billion EUR as part of the European Union’s coronavirus recovery plan.
It’s 5.30 a.m. on Yemen’s remote island of Socotra, a 3,625 square kilometer desert paradise 60 miles east of the Horn of Africa.
The sun barely reaches over the island’s towering sand dunes and rocky cliffs, but Eva zu Beck is out of her tent and at the water’s edge.
Armed with a snorkel mask and a long piece of wood topped with a fierce-looking metal hook, she dives into the calm Indian Ocean in search of her breakfast: Socotran lobster.
Remote island life has become the new normal for the 29-year-old, an adventure YouTuber and travel documentary host from Poland.
While the rest of the world stays inside, Zu Beck, who grew her social media following to over 1 million with her travel vlogs on off-the-beaten path destinations including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Syria, has spent the last two months wild camping on deserted white-sand beaches, fishing for grouper in the open ocean and climbing 10 story-high sand dunes as she waits out the pandemic on one of the world’s most isolated islands.
The only catch? She has no idea when she’ll be able to leave.
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China urged “a few US politicians to stop the blame game” when asked about the letter US President Donald Trump sent to the World Health Organization on Monday.
“The US letter is full of vagueness, it tries to mislead the public to smear China and shift the blame away from its own incompetent response, currently Covid-19 is still spreading in the US, the most pressing task is solidarity and cooperation to save lives. We urge a few US politicians to stop the blame game and together defeat the virus,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters Tuesday.
When it came to payments to the global health body, Zhao said “paying assessed contribution in full and on time is the obligation of every member state of the WHO.”
“Supporting the WHO is upholding multilateralism and supporting international cooperation. To save lives, China abides by the WHO rules and pays its assessed contribution in full,” he added.
What happened? US President Donald Trump late Monday threatened to permanently pull US funding from the WHO if it does not “commit to major substantive improvements in the next 30 days.”
In a letter to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Trump said, “It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world. The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China.”
“My administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organization. But action is needed quickly. We do not have time to waste.”
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The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the United Kingdom rose by nearly 70% between March and April, according to preliminary data from the country’s Office for National Statistics.
The number of claimants rose to almost 2.1 million in April, a rise of over 850,000 from March.
The unemployment rate in the first quarter (January to March) was 3.9%, according to the ONS. This represents a 0.1% rise in unemployment from the previous quarter, though this only included one week of the UK’s shutdown.
UK Work and Pensions Secretary Thérèse Coffey said in a BBC television interview that her department was working to help people back into the labor market once the economy recovers.
The city of Shulan in northeastern China has tightened its lockdown measures after reporting a number of locally transmitted coronavirus cases over the past week.
Under the new rules, only one person from each household will be allowed to leave their home once every two days to purchase necessities, according to a statement released Monday by the Jilin provincial government, which administers Shulan.
Each outing is limited to two hours.
The notice added that communities with confirmed or suspected cases will be locked down, and no one will allowed to leave. Authorities say they will deliver necessities to those households.
Last week, the local government banned public gatherings and closed all entertainment venues in the city, while outbound train services were suspended.
Shulan is in Jilin province, which borders Russia and North Korea. On Tuesday, Jilin province reported two new coronavirus cases.
Bangladeshi officials are planning to evacuate some 2 million people along coastal areas as the country braces for Super Cyclone Amphan.
In India, officials said up to 300,000 people in the coastal areas of West Bengal and Odisha are in immediate danger from the storm and may also need to be evacuated.
The senior information official for the Disaster Management Ministry said Bangladesh has the capacity to move 9.1 million people to safety in cyclone shelters while assuring Covid-19 social distances measures are followed. So far 5,000 people have already moved to shelters in two districts ahead of the storm.
“We have prepared more than 12,000 cyclone shelters to evacuate coastal villages. The number is more than doubled in comparison to the last cyclone. We are initially aiming to move some 2 million people to these safely,” Bangladesh disaster management junior minister Enamur Rahman said on Tuesday.
Pradeep Jena, special relief commissioner for India’s Odisha State, said emergency services had to balance saving lives from the cyclone with savings lives from the coronavirus.
“Social distancing is definitely a very good concept but enforcing it in the strictest possible manner in a disaster situation may not always be possible,” he said.
The novel coronavirus has infected more than 4.8 million people and killed at least 318,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. If you’re just joining us, here’s the latest on the pandemic:
- Trump’s ultimatum: President Donald Trump threatened to permanently pull US funding from the World Health Organization if it does not “commit to major substantive improvements in the next 30 days.” Trump also castigated the global health watchdog’s stance toward China during the pandemic in a letter to the WHO director-general.
- Bracing for a storm: Millions of people in India and Bangladesh are in the path of a super cyclone that is due to make landfall in less than 36 hours. The storm comes as both countries struggle to bring local coronavirus outbreaks under control — India passed more than 100,000 confirmed infections on Monday.
- New restrictions: The city of Shulan in China’s northeastern Jilin province has increased its lockdown measures following newly reported local cases over the past week. Residential communities have been ordered to strengthen “closed management systems” and set up epidemic prevention and control points.
- Future of air travel: Australia’s Qantas group released new guidelines for passengers in preparation for eased travel restrictions. Measures include contactless check-in, sequenced boarding and face masks onboard.
- Steps to prevent another pandemic: China’s Hunan province has announced a scheme to buy wild animals from farmers as the country cracks down on the trade of wildlife for consumption. The initial outbreak of coronavirus has been linked to a Chinese wet market where wild animals were sold as meat.
- Trump taking hydroxychloroquine: The US President said he is taking daily doses of the drug that he’s long touted as a potential coronavirus cure. Medical experts and the FDA question its efficacy and warn of potentially harmful side effects.
- Positive early results in vaccine trial: All eight volunteers who received Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine developed antibodies to the virus, according to the biotech company, which has partnered with the US National Institutes of Health for the trial.
Millions of people in India and Bangladesh are in the path of a super cyclone that is due to make landfall in less than 36 hours, bringing damaging winds and heavy rain to a region already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic.
Super Cyclone Amphan became the strongest storm ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal on Monday night, after intensifying with sustained wind speeds of up to 270 kph (165 mph), according to data from the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
Double disaster: The storm comes as both India and Bangladesh struggle to bring local coronavirus outbreaks under control. India passed more than 100,000 confirmed infections on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s infection count is rapidly rising — the country has recorded 23,870 confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins.
Complicated challenge: Tackling both disasters at once will be challenging for the two governments, especially if they attempt to maintain social distancing in packed evacuation centers and emergency shelters.
“(All India’s National Disaster Relief Force workers) have to be masked, everyone has to wear visor, gloves … It’s almost certain that they will be going to do rescue work in red (heavily-infected) zones … They may be actually rescuing people who are already infected. It is a double challenge,” said NDRF director-general Satya Narayan Pradhan.
Pradhan said that in the state of West Bengal there is normally room in cyclone shelters for 500,000 people but because of social distancing rules due to the epidemic, that number had been reduced to just 200,000.
He added that the areas under threat from the cyclone were comparatively less developed, with many villagers in temporary homes with thatched or tin roofs. “That is going to be in the line of fire,” he said.
Refugee risks: Cyclone Amphan could also bring heavy rains to the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where almost 1 million Rohingya refugees live after fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The first known Covid-19 cases were confirmed in the camp last week and with the storm now imminent, the two disasters could make for a devastating combination.
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The management of South Korean boyband BTS have apologized after one of the band’s members went to bars while the country’s strict social distancing rules were in place.
BTS, which has seven members, is one of the biggest bands in the world — last year it became the first group in Billboard history to spend five weeks at number one on the Billboard Artist 100 chart.
Jungkook — who, at 22, is the band’s youngest member — visited bars and restaurants in Seoul’s nightlife district Itaewon on April 25, BTS’ label Big Hit Entertainment said in a statement on Monday.
At the time, South Korea was still under strict social distancing rules, and citizens were encouraged to stay home and limit unnecessary contact with others. Those social distancing rules were lifted on May 6.
A total of 187 coronavirus cases have been linked to an Itaewon nightclub cluster, Kwon Jun-wook, deputy director of the country’s Central Disease Control Headquarters, said in a briefing on Tuesday. The first reported case as part of this cluster was a 29-year-old man who visited several clubs in Itaewon on the night of May 1 and the early hours of May 2.
In the statement, Big Hit said that Jungkook went out with friends on April 25. But he did not go to the places that the patient had visited in early May, Big Hit said.
“After his visit, there were no symptoms of coronavirus including coughs or fever; and he had voluntarily taken the test at a designated clinic and the result was negative. The artist himself is deeply regretting that he hadn’t faithfully participated in the grand social endeavor to socially distance,” the statement said.
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