Coronavirus latest: US mulls travel ban on Brazil
- The US has extended its border restrictions with Mexico and Canada, while weighing a travel ban on Brazil
- Brazil has registered more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours
- Russia has 300,000 registered cases, and India more than 100,000, as the global total nears 5 million
Updates in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC/GMT)
04:04 South Korean students are returning to schools for the first time in 2020, as authorities reopen high schools across the country.
“Schools have been anxiously waiting for all you students for the past three months,” Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, told students at a high school entrance. “From now on, we are entering an important phase where we need to succeed in both studies and (coronavirus) prevention.”
The spring semester for schools in the country was postponed multiple times as South Korea dealt with one of the earliest coronavirus outbreaks in the world. Classes were moved online.
With students — starting with seniors — back in classrooms on Wednesday, strict measures have been taken to ensure their safety. Everyone has to wear masks, except at mealtimes. Desks are placed at least a meter apart and teachers are armed with thermometers and sanitizers. Windows must be kept open to allow better airflow.
Between May 20 and June 1, schools will also reopen for elementary, middle and other high school students in phases. South Korea reported 32 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, taking the total number of infections to 11,110. The country has reported 263 deaths.
03:52 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has praised the efforts of African countries in handling the coronavirus pandemic, saying the developed world could learn lessons from the preventative measures they have taken.
“COVID-19 has made much slower progress (in Africa) than the predictions that were made at the beginning” of the crisis, Guterres said in an interview with RFL radio in France.
The UN chief noted the fact that “most African governments and organizations took in time very brave prevention measures which provide a lesson for some developed nations that did not.” Throughout the African continent, fewer than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths from 88,000 cases of the coronavirus have been registered.
Read more: Do coronavirus lockdowns in Africa make sense?
03:40 Colombian President Ivan Duque has announced an extension of the country’s mandatory quarantine until May 31. This is the fourth time that the lockdown, which began at the end of March, has been extended.
“The obligatory preventative isolation, exactly as we are having it now, will be extended until May 31,” Duque said during a television broadcast. “We will have an additional week, which is really important because in that week we will also be taking fundamental measures.”
Colombia has registered close to 17,000 cases of the virus with 613 deaths. “Everyone who doesn’t have to leave home should stay home,” Duque said, adding that the country’s health emergency will be extended until August 31.
03:08 The Venezuelan government announced new curfews in several towns along its borders with Colombia and Brazil, due to a rise in coronavirus cases. Authorities attributed the jump mostly to returning migrants and will now require those migrants to undergo quarantine at the border for 14 days.
Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said Venezuela had registered 131 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the most in a single day, bringing the total to 749, with 10 deaths nationwide.
As a result of the economic fallout in neighboring Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, due to coronavirus lockdowns, thousands of Venezuelan migrants have returned home. The government fears that these returnees could be bringing the virus with them.
Venezuela has so far registered far fewer coronavirus cases than most major Latin American countries, but the country’s Academy of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences published a report last week, saying that there could be at least 63% more infected people than official statistics show.
The academy has expressed concern about alleged government threats against it, as a result of its findings. “We were told someone said on television that we deserved to receive visits from the security forces,” daily El Nacional quoted the academy’s president, Mireya Goldwasser, as saying.
“I believe there is an intention to create fear, but we’ll stay calm and keep working,” she added.
Venezuela is currently suffering from an unprecedented economic crisis. Experts warn that a rapid increase in the number of coronavirus infections would deal a major blow to its health system, which is already on the verge of collapse prior to the pandemic.
02:47 The US state of Missouri has executed a death row inmate in what marks the first execution in the US since coronavirus-related restrictions were put in place.
Convicted in 2006 for the murder of 81-year-old Gladys Kuehler, Walter Barton was executed by lethal injection in Missouri’s Bonne Terre prison. He maintained his innocence in the 1991 case till the end.
Critics have slammed the state for proceeding with his execution even as the world attempts to deal with the pandemic. “The fact that the state of Missouri carried out the execution of Walter Barton tonight, as we face a deadly pandemic, is unconscionable,” American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Cassandra Stubbs said.
“By moving forward, the state not only put the health of the prison staff at risk and forced them to defy public health guidance, it also refused to consider new, persuasive evidence that Barton may be innocent,” the Director of ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project added.
02:20 The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York said it hopes to open its doors to visitors by mid-August after closing on March 13 amid virus fears. “As we endure these challenging and uncertain times, we are encouraged by looking forward to the day when we can once again welcome all to enjoy The Met’s collection and exhibitions,” museum president Daniel Weiss said.
The New York museum will implement measures like reduced visiting hours and no guided tours to encourage physical distancing when it finally reopens. The Met will also not offer any lectures or concerts until late 2020.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to reopen the state involves four distinct phases. Cultural activities will only resume in the fourth phase. The state, however, has not undertaken even phase one at the moment.
01:45 Costa Rica has announced the resumption of its professional football league, under coronavirus rules that include playing behind closed doors and substitutes sitting in the stands to ensure their distance from others.
The football league was suspended on March 15, when the country began implementing coronavirus measures.
Costa Rica’s top 12 clubs returned to training on May 15 and the league is now set to kick off again with hygiene rules such as a ban on hugging, the deep cleaning of dressing rooms and a provision for five substitutes instead of three.
The Central American nation is the first in the region to restart a sports league. Costa Rica has been an outlier in the region, recording just 866 cases of COVID-19 and only 10 fatalities.
Some clubs have sold “virtual tickets” to fans whose face is printed on a poster and placed on stadium seats. Others hope to create a live atmosphere with recordings of chants and songs.
01:11 Chile’s government has deployed soldiers to a working-class neighborhood in the nation’s capital Santiago, where discontent about effects of the coronavirus lockdown has sparked rioting.
The unrest comes as Chile recorded 3,520 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, its biggest daily increase. The total number of infections in the country is approaching the 50,000 mark and the overall COVID-19 death toll now stands at over 500.
Rioters looted a neighborhood gas station, while a mob downtown set a bus ablaze. Residents in both poor and middle-class neighborhoods banged pots and pans in protest. Demonstrators are angry about food shortages and job losses.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit Santiago hard, filling up 90% of the intensive care hospital beds, which has forced authorities to send patients to other cities. The city went into total lockdown last Friday. “We’re in a complicated moment, very difficult, with a lot of worried citizens,” said Health Minister Jaime Manalich. “We’re seeing what we call a social pandemic,” said Manalich. “It produces job losses, a lack of resources and the worst, it produces hunger.”
Manalich said President Sebastian Pinera was working to solve the lack of food problem. “The health and social crisis we’re going through has no precedent in Chile,” Manalich said.
Pinera has promised that the government will deliver bags with food staples to the poorest people but has not yet explained when or how distribution would take place. The Chilean president has been criticized for not delivering on a promise of government aid to 4.5 million vulnerable families, which had been announced in April.
00:30 Brazil tallied some 1,179 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, the nation’s Health Ministry said. It was the worst daily toll yet in the hardest-hit Latin American country.
While Brazil’s overall death toll hit 17,971, the country recorded 17,408 new infections in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 271,628. Public health experts have said that official figures may grossly understate the real death and infection toll, pointing to the country’s low coronavirus testing rate.
President Jair Bolsonaro has clashed with most of the country’s 27 state governors as he has sought to downplay the virus and end lockdown measures to rescue Latin America’s largest economy, now forecast to enter a deep recession.
Bolsonaro announced that the country’s Health Ministry will issue new guidelines recommending the use of chloroquine for treating COVID-19. The Brazilian president said he kept a box of the anti-malarial drug in case his 93-year-old mother needed it, adding that US President Donald Trump said he was taking it preventively.
Read more: Coronavirus: Brazil headed for catastrophe
00:15 The US extended border closures to non-essential travel until June 21 with both Mexico and Canada, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The restrictions had been set in place on March 18 and were extended in April.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau both confirmed the border closure extension.
The US said it would extend pandemic-related rules that permit rapid deportations of illegal migrants caught at the US border, according to a health emergency order by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trudeau said the border is a source of vulnerability, adding that the country’s provincial leaders backed the continuation of the measures. “This will keep people in both of our countries safe.” Trudeau said.
US President Donald Trump confirmed the extension saying he hoped things could get back to normal soon. “We love Canada, so we’re going to be talking, and at the right time, we’ll open that up very quickly. That will go very easily,” Trump added.
Currently, essential cross-border workers like healthcare professionals, airline crews and truck drivers are still permitted to cross. US citizens who are returning to the US and Canadians who are returning to Canada are also exempted from the border closure.
00:05 US President Donald Trump said he was considering imposing a ban on travel from Brazil, which has the world’s third highest coronavirus infections.
“We are considering it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I don’t want people coming over here and infecting our people. I don’t want people over there sick either. We’re helping Brazil with ventilators. … Brazil is having some trouble, no question about it,” he added.
Brazil is currently only behind the US and Russia in terms of the total number of coronavirus infections. The country has so far recorded 271,628 cases and 17,971 deaths, while 100,459 have already recovered.
00:00 Catch up on yesterday’s coronavirus news here: Germany ‘underestimated risk to public health’
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.
jcg/sri (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)
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