There were 636 more deaths from coronavirus in Italy on Monday, 111 more than the number registered on Sunday, bringing the death toll in Italy to 16,523, Angela Giuffrida reports from Rome.
The number of current new infections increased by 1,941, a rise of 2% since Sunday and the lowest day-to-day rise registered since 30 March. For the third day in a row, there was a decrease in the number of intensive care beds in use.
The total number of coronavirus cases in Italy to date, including deaths and 22,837 people recovered, stood at 132,547 as of Monday, according to figures from Italy’s civil protection authority.
A group of 24 senior diplomats and defence officials, including four former Nato secretary generals, have urged Donald Trump to ease medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran, writes Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.
The call has the backing of the former EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, the former director general of the World Health Organization Gro Harlem Brundtland, and senior American diplomats in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.
Trump reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran in May 2018 after withdrawing from an international deal that put curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Women wearing protective face masks walk in a market in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images
The bipartisan group is not pressing for a generalised lifting of the sanctions but instead a targeted effort to ease US rules that prevent Tehran trading in medical and humanitarian goods. The group says the move “could potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians and, by helping to curb the virus’s rapid spread across borders, the lives of its neighbours, Europeans, Americans and others”.
The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest test the European Union has faced in its history, Angela Merkel said on Monday.
Speaking before a key eurozone finance ministers’ conference to draw up an economic rescue plan for the bloc, the German chancellor told journalists:
In my view … the European Union stands before the biggest test since its founding.
.… Everyone is just as affected as the other, and therefore, it is in everyone’s interest, and it is in Germany’s interest for Europe to emerge strong from this test.
At Monday’s press conference, Merkel reiterated her government’s stance of activating the European stability mechanism bailout fund, which German finance minister Olaf Scholz has said could be triggered “with no senseless conditions” to help struggling states, AFP reported. But she made no mention of the controversial common debt facilities dubbed “coronabonds”.
Merkel also said a lesson to be learnt from the pandemic was that Europe needed to develop “self-sufficiency” in manufacturing of crucial medical gear such as masks.
Regardless of the fact that this market is presently installed in Asia … we need a certain self-sufficiency, or at least a pillar of our own manufacturing.
The director general of the World Health Organisation has said new guidance will be issued on the use of face masks in public to support countries that have decided to implement their wider use.
Speaking in the daily WHO press briefing, Tedros Adhanom said:
If masks are worn they must be used safely and properly. [The] WHO has guidance on how to put on, take off and dispose of masks.
What is clear is that there is limited research in this area. We encourage countries that are considering introducing masks for the genera population to study their effectiveness.
… Masks alone cannot stop the pandemic. Countries must continue to find, test isolate and treat every case and trace every contact.
After falls in the daily death tolls reported by Spain and the UK today, and Italy yesterday, the latest figures released by health authorities in Greece are also offering a glimmer of hope, Helena Smith reports from Athens.
In his daily briefing the government’s spokesman on coronavirus, prominent infectious diseases expert, Sotiris Tsiodras, said data suggested the country was “flattening the curve.”
Overnight 20 new coronavirus cases had been confirmed compared to 62 on Sunday, bringing the total number to 1,755.
Similarly the death toll was also displaying signs of stabilising, rising by six to 79 – compared to the five fatalities announced on Sunday. Of those hospitalised, an additional 90 people remain in intensive care.
Shoppers pick up groceries at a street market in Thessaloniki, Greece. Photograph: Giannis Papanikos/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock
But although Greece appears to have kept transmissions of the potentially lethal virus under control – after enforcing strict restrictions on movement early on – officials have repeatedly warned that this is not the time to be less vigilant.
Addressing the same health ministry briefing, the deputy civil protection minister Nikos Hardalias predicted that what would happen this month would be key – even if there were signs that “the chain of transmission” could be broken.
“April will be the most difficult and crucial month. If we relax the measures we could pay the price and regret it,” he said.
Mahmoud Jibril, the Libyan politician most closely involved in the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Libya’s troubled transition to democracy, has died from Coronavirus in exile in Egypt, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports.
Jibril was Libya’s first post transition head of government, and was supported by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the British prime minister David Cameron.
He was critical to persuading western leaders that Gaddafi had to be stopped from trying to enter the eastern city of Benghazi to commit a massacre in 2011. He then worked especially closely with the United Arab Emirates and France on plans to liberate Tripoli from Gaddafi’s rule issuing the decisive broadcast that was the signal for the uprising in the capital.
He had been in quarantine since 26 March in Cairo, and aged 67 suffered from a complex of health issues, including a heart condition. As head of Libya’s executive office of the national transition council, he led the apologies to the British people of the new regime for the Lockerbie bombing and provision of arms to the IRA. He resigned soon after Gaddafi was ousted.
He gradually lost the support of Islamist militia and proved unable to bring the country together as the country’s battered civil institutions tried to adjust to the end of Gaddafi’s dictatorship. In 2012 he stood for the premiership only to be defeated by two votes when the national assembly voted by 96 to 94 for his rival.
Libyan former interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril , pictured in May 2018. He has died from coronavirus while in exile in Egypt Photograph: Aidan Lewis/Reuters
The British embassy in Libya said on Monday it had heard of his passing with great sadness and said he has played an important role in helping usher Libya towards a more democratic future.
His death comes as the disease only slowly starts to take a grip in Libya itself. A total of 18 cases have been detected with only one death inside the country. There is a widespread concern that the country is badly prepared for any outbreak.
Fighting in the Libyan civil war continues with Turkish supplied drones backing the UN recognised government of national accord based in Tripoli causing damage on Sunday and Monday to eastern forces led by General Khalifa Haftar.
The department of health and social care said as of 5pm yesterday 5,373 people who had tested positive for coronavirus have died in UK hospitals.
As of 9am today, 208,837 people had been tested for the virus, of which 51,608 had tested positive.
ITV reporter Paul Brand has done the sums:
Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV)
The number of people recorded to have died with coronavirus in the UK was 439 yesterday.
It had been around 600-700 for the previous three days. But Mondays have typically seen a fall partly due to the weekend effect on the figures. https://t.co/qtephYFaXZ
Before reading too much into the UK figures, it is worth reading this article by the Guardian’s data team about why what we think we know about the UK death toll is wrong.
Authorities in New York City may soon start temporarily burying bodies in parks as the city grapples with overrun morgues because of the coroanvirus crisis, city councilman Mark Levine said.
Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC)
Soon we’ll start “temporary interment”. This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right). Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line.
It will be done in a dignified, orderly–and temporary–manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take. 9/
Levine also noted that the city is likely undercounting its coronavirus death toll because as many people are dying at home without receiving a test.
It is an interesting thread. Worth clicking through to see the rest of what he has to say. Truly apocalyptic scenes seem to be unfolding in New York City.
Dozens of doctors have been arrested in Pakistan after fighting with police during a protest over the lack of safety equipment to protect them while treating patients infected with Covid-19, AFP reports.
The arrests occurred after more than 100 doctors and paramedics rallied near the main hospital in Quetta and then moved to protest in front of the chief minister’s residence.
Police used batons to disperse the group after they tried to enter the chief minister’s home. Abdul Razzaq Cheema, a senior police official, told AFP that 53 doctors were detained for several hours until the provincial government ordered their release.
Doctors stage a demonstration in Quetta over the lack of personal protective equipment to protect them while treating Covid-19 patients Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA
Doctors and paramedics scuffle with policemen as they stage a protest against a lack of safety equipment Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP via Getty Images
The arrests occurred after more than 100 doctors and paramedics rallied near the main hospital in Quetta and then moved to protest in front of the chief minister’s residence Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA
Liaqat Shehwani, a spokesman for the provincial Balochistan government, told AFP that the doctors were protesting over the unavailability of personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks and goggles.
“We had assured them that the PPE would be provided soon but they started the protest,” Shehwani said, adding that authorities were planning to distribute protective equipment after receiving supplies from the federal government earlier on Monday.
Police used batons to disperse the group after they tried to enter the chief minister’s home Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA
A policeman arrests a doctor during the protest in Quetta, after medical staff tried to enter the home of the local chief minister Photograph: Arshad Butt/AP
A senior police official told AFP that 53 doctors were detained for several hours until the provincial government ordered their release Photograph: Jamal Taraqai/EPA
Yasir Achakzai, president of the doctors association in Quetta, told reporters that the government was not following the World Health Organization’s guidelines for protecting doctors and other health workers.
“So they forced us to protest for our rights,” said Achakzai.
Pakistani has recorded 3,277 COVID-19 cases and 50 deaths caused by the virus, however, the true tally is thought to be many times larger.
Black people are underrepresented in high-level decision making about tackling the coronavirus pandemic, leading to a failure to address the specific health risks faced by people of African descent, UN experts have warned.
The lack of representation also posed the risk that racism and implicit bias could creed into policies to tackle the pandemic, the UN’s working group of experts on people of African descent said in a statement.
Underlying health conditions that could place people of African descent at greater risk include hypertension, cardiovascular disease, lupus and autoimmune disorders. The working group also pointed to the disproportionate overrepresentation of black people working in service industries.
Widespread self-quarantine, physical distancing, and health mandates are heavily underwritten by the ongoing availability of a workforce that enables millions of people to reduce transmission by staying at home.
In many States, people of African descent disproportionately serve as home health aides, carers, and grocery and delivery personnel who help hospitals and health care systems focus on the most serious cases, despite no public efforts to ensure their safety and protection.
… In this respect, the treatment of people of African descent serving in this crisis as disposable recalls historical exploitation and implies a social mindset that may fail to critically analyse the assumptions it makes about the needs and the risks to people of African descent in this crisis.