Coronavirus latest: Nearly 5 million cases worldwide
- The World Health Organization says the globe will soon hit 5 million infections
- Only 1% of Danes have contracted COVID-19, putting the country at risk of a new outbreak
- Germany’s foreign minister believes anti-lockdown protesters are vulnerable to radicalization
Updates in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC/GMT)
04:38 The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has increased by 745 to 176,752, Germany’s disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute said.
The death toll rose by 57 to 8,147. New daily case numbers in Germany have remained relatively stable over the last few days, with daily deaths staying under 100 for nearly a week.
03:19 Hiking has got more popular during the coronavirus crisis and its popularity will continue to grow as summer vacation approaches, the German Hiking Association has said. “Hiking will be in particularly high demand as a vacation activity, even for people that previously rarely or never hiked,” said managing director Ute Dicks.
The association recommends that people explore more than just the most popular hiking trails in order to reduce overcrowding. “The reasoning is that we’re expecting large crowds at the hiking hot spots. That’s why it can be practical to plan a hike off the beaten path,” she said.
The association expects the hiking hype is here to stay. “Hygiene and physical distancing rules can be easily followed while hiking,” Dicks said. The association has set up special guideposts along hiking paths to help hikers in times of coronavirus. The posts contain hygiene and behavior tips as well as information about pathways.
02:51 Japan is poised to lift a coronavirus state of emergency in three prefectures later on Thursday. The measures will be lifted in Osaka and two neighboring prefectures, where the infection is deemed to be slowing, but will remain in place in the region around Tokyo and in Hokkaido.
Osaka, Kyoto, and Hyogo are among the eight prefectures where emergency restrictions are still in place. Last week, Prime Minister Shnizo Abe lifted restrictions in all but eight of Japan’s 47 prefectures. Japan currently has around 16,424 cases of COVID-19 and has recorded 777 deaths, according to the Health Ministry.
Read more: Coronavirus crisis changing Japan’s work culture
02:40 Officials in Singapore have used the videoconferencing app Zoom to deliver a death sentence to a drug suspect amid the city-state’s coronavirus lockdown. The Supreme Court announced the penalty to Punithan Genasan from Malaysia in a virtual hearing on Friday, his defense lawyer Peter Fernando said Wednesday. Genasan was in jail, while Fernando and prosecutors participated from different locations.
The courts have been conducting hearings and delivering rulings remotely to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, a Supreme Court spokesperson said. The spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that Genasan’s case was the first “where a death sentence was pronounced by remote hearing in Singapore.”
The court ruled that Genasan, 37, was involved in drug trafficking in October 2011. The judge also found that he had recruited two drug couriers and directed them to transport cocaine.
The death penalty in Singapore is applied to a range of offenses, including drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, and the use of firearms. Human Rights Watch spoke out against the ruling, saying that the cruelty and inhumanity of the death sentence was made worse by the way it was delivered.
“It’s shocking the prosecutors and the court are so callous that they fail to see that a man facing capital punishment should have the right to be present in court to confront his accusers,” said the group’s deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson. He added that it raised concerns about why Singapore is rushing to conclude the case via Zoom.
Amnesty International called on Singapore to abolish the death sentence, whether announced via video conference or in person.
02:02 The payment processor company Mastercard says it will not ask employees to return to work until a coronavirus vaccine is available. A senior executive told Reuters that employees will not be asked to go back to its worldwide corporate offices until the company was comfortable that the sometimes-fatal virus had been brought under control, with a vaccine or other measures.
“We expect in the coming weeks and months that more employees will continue to work from home than come into office,” said Chief People Officer Michael Fraccaro. “And we are OK with that. We support that choice.” Mastercard, the world’s second-largest payment processor, employs nearly 20,000 people globally.
According to Fraccaro, when the coronavirus crisis stabilizes, companies may find their offices only 30% full, as people return to their physical workspace at different points in time based on their personal situations.
For this reason, Mastercard is also considering consolidating offices and reducing the size of its real estate. About 90% of the company’s workforce is currently working remotely. Several other technology and financial firms have said they do not intend to call people back to the office any time soon, including Mastercard’s main rivals American Express and Visa.
01:15 Bolivia’s health minister has been arrested and fired over suspicions of corruption related to the purchase of ventilators to use in the fight against the coronavirus. Former Health Minister Marcelo Navajas was detained on Wednesday in La Paz after interim President Jeanine Anez ordered an investigation into the questionable purchase, the police confirmed.
Bolivia recently bought 179 ventilators costing $27,683 (€25,244) each from a manufacturer in Spain, with a total cost of nearly $5 million. The purchase was funded by the Inter-American Development Bank. It was later revealed that the manufacturer had also offered ventilators for around half that price, between €9,500 and €11,000 per unit.
Another Spanish company acted as an intermediary. On Twitter, Anez said that Bolivia had already paid over $2 million for the ventilators but “will not pay one more cent” and that she was committed to “recovering the money of Bolivians.”
The scandal was uncovered last week when intensive care doctors said the new ventilators did not fit their needs. Bolivia has 4,481 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and recorded 189 deaths.
01:03 Over 100 employees at a slaughterhouse in western France have tested positive for COVID-19, regional health authorities have confirmed. The case marks the latest known outbreak at a meat processing plant, following similar developments in Germany, Spain, Australia, Brazil, and the US.
A total of 109 people have tested positive for the virus at the slaughterhouse in Cotes d’Armor, the ARS health authority said in a statement. 818 people at the plant have been tested. Slaughterhouses and meat processing plants have emerged as hotspots for coronavirus outbreaks, where employees tend to work close together in refrigerator-like conditions.
Read more: Coronavirus: ‘Modern slavery’ at the heart of German slaughterhouse outbreak
00:40 Protesters in the US state of Michigan gathered outside the state’s capitol building to give each other haircuts, as local public health orders kept barber shops closed in the state.
Dubbed “Operation Haircut,” this was the latest in a series of protests being carried out against the state’s coronavirus-related stay-at-home orders. According to local police estimates, about 300 people attended the protest.
While the haircuts were free of cost, massages were also offered for a small amount of money. Many attendees were not wearing masks or practicing physical distancing, even as Michigan remains one of the hardest-hit states in the US.
00:29 The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern about the rising number of cases in poor countries, as many rich nations begin easing lockdowns and slowly return to business as usual.
The UN health body said 106,000 new infections had been registered over the last 24 hours, the most in a single day worldwide since the virus first became public knowledge almost five months ago.
“We still have a long way to go in this pandemic,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference. “We are very concerned about rising cases in low and middle income countries.”
Dr. Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s emergencies program, said: “We will soon reach the tragic milestone of 5 million cases.”
00:10 Only 1% of Danes have contracted the coronavirus, a new study of virus antibodies has shown, raising concerns that Denmark is vulnerable to a new wave of the deadly infection. The report was released Wednesday by the Danish health agency SSI, a branch of the Health Ministry and the agency responsible for the surveillance of infectious diseases.
Of 2,600 randomly selected Danes, 1,071 had agreed to be tested for coronavirus antibodies. Only 12 test subjects tested positive, correlating to 1.1% of all subjects. SSI said the results were preliminary and that it was difficult to say at this point whether the results were representative of the Danish population as a whole.
Responding to the study, experts said the results were a cause for concern. “At the collective level we have no resilience, and that means there is a potential for epidemic spread again,” Jens Lundgren, professor of infectious diseases at one of Denmark’s largest hospitals Rigshospitalet, said in an interview with broadcaster DR.
As of Wednesday, Denmark had 11,117 confirmed coronavirus infections, resulting in 554 deaths thus far.
This week, Denmark moved ahead with further easing of restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the virus. Danish middle schools reopened on Monday, over a month after classes for pre-schools and the youngest primary school children resumed. Museums, movie theaters, and zoos are due to reopen soon.
00:05 Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has warned that demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions could be co-opted by radical extremists and anti-semites.
“People living in a democracy should always be able to discuss things respectfully with each other and should take every fact-based protests seriously. However, the freedoms ensured by the German constitution, which these demonstrators invoke, are limited by the freedom of our fellow human beings,” Maas said in an interview with German news channel Welt published Thursday.
“When radical extremists and anti-semites use demonstrations to agitate and divide, then everyone should keep much more than 1.5 meters distance away,” he said.
Maas also called for people to not let themselves become instrumentalized by right-wing radicals.
“Any person who doesn’t wear a mask or keep a minimum distance from others, and who screams conspiracy theories into the world without any concern for others, he or she is confusing courage with blind rage and freedom with empty egoism,” the foreign minister said.
00:00 Catch up on yesterday’s coronavirus news here: WHO reports most cases in a day
In reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, unless otherwise specified, DW uses figures provided by the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Coronavirus Resource Center in the United States. JHU updates figures in real-time, collating data from world health organizations, state and national governments and other public official sources, all of whom have their own systems for compiling information.
Germany’s national statistics are compiled by its public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). These figures depend on data transmission from state and local levels and are updated around once a day, which can lead to deviation from JHU.
kp, ed/ng (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)
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