Catalonia announces new lockdown – as it happened

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4 Jul 202018.58 EDT

Summary

Jedidajah Otte

Here the latest key developments at a glance:

• The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a record increase in coronavirus infections globally on Saturday, a rise of 212,326 in 24 hours.
• The US state of Texas has recorded 8,258 new cases in the 24 hours to Saturday, the highest single-day surge since the pandemic started, taking overall infections in Texas to 191,790. Current Covid-19 hospitalisations rose by 238 in one day to a record high of 7,890.
• The US state of Arizona reported 2,695 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, bringing its total to 94,553. The number of hospital admissions for Covid-19 increased by 100 to a record high of 3,113 on Friday.
• The number of confirmed infections in the US state of Florida increased by a record 11,458 on Saturday. This is the second time in three days that the figure has increased by more than 10,000.
• The Philippines recorded a record 7,027 new infections this week, pushing the overall tally in the country to 41,830.
• Brazil recorded 37,923 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, as well as 1,091 deaths.
• Over the 24 hours to Saturday, 1,008 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in Israel, raising the number of active cases in the country to 10,060.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that it was discontinuing its trials of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and combination HIV drug lopinavir/ritonavir in hospitalised patients with Covid-19 after they failed to reduce mortality.
• The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, is likely to face further questions after his own father refused to refute whether he had acted improperly flouting UK travel advice to visit his villa in Greece.
• Jordan on Saturday began putting electronic bracelets on travellers who have arrived recently in the kingdom to ensure that they observe home-quarantine.
• The 20-member cabinet in Africa’s last absolute kingdom of eSwatini has been ordered into isolation after one minister contracted coronavirus.
• Catalonia has put more than 200,000 people in the north-eastern Spanish region back into lockdown after more than 350 cases of coronavirus were detected in the area.

That’s all from me for today, it’s nearly midnight in London, but my colleagues in Australia will start bringing you the latest updates shortly. Thanks for reading, and writing in.

A weekly Kansas newspaper whose publisher is a county Republican party chairman posted a cartoon on its Facebook page likening the Democratic governor’s order requiring people to wear masks in public to the roundup and murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

The cartoon on the Anderson County Review’s Facebook page depicts governor Laura Kelly wearing a mask featuring a Jewish Star of David, next to a drawing of people being loaded on to train carriages and with the caption “Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask ... and step onto the cattle car.”

The newspaper posted the cartoon on Friday, the day that Kelly’s mask order aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus took effect.

Publisher Dane Hicks, who is also Anderson County’s GOP chairman, told the Associated Press on Saturday that he would answer emailed questions about the cartoon once he could reach a computer.

His newspaper is based in the county seat of Garnett, about 65 miles (105 kilometres) southwest of Kansas City, and has a circulation of about 2,100, according to the Kansas Press Association.

Kelly, who is Catholic, issued a statement saying: “Mr Hicks’ decision to publish anti-Semitic imagery is deeply offensive and he should remove it immediately.”

Brazil recorded 37,923 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, as well as 1,091 deaths, the health ministry said on Saturday.

Brazil has registered more than 1.5 million cases since the pandemic began, while cumulative deaths total 64,265, according to the ministry.

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Italy is carrying out tests on 180 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean with a view to transferring them to a quarantine vessel in Sicily, an interior ministry source has said.

The migrants were on the Ocean Viking ship operated by SOS Méditerranée for over a week, with fights and suicide attempts onboard prompting the charity to declare a state of emergency on Friday, Agence France-Presse reports.

A medical team sent by authorities in Pozzallo, Sicily, “ascertained the absence of particular health problems and also reported that some tensions that had been registered on the ship are being overcome”, the ministry source said on Saturday.

The medical team is testing the migrants for the Covid-19 virus after which they will be transferred to a quarantine ship currently in Porto Empedocle, also in Sicily.

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A man photographed fleeing smoke and debris as the south tower of the World Trade Center crumbled just a block away on September 11, 2001, has died from coronavirus, his family said.

The Palm Beach Post reported that Stephen Cooper, an electrical engineer from New York who lived part-time in the Delray Beach, Florida area, died 28 March at Delray Medical Center due to Covid-19. He was 78.

The photo, captured by an Associated Press photographer, was published in newspapers and magazines around the world and is featured at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York.

“He didn’t even know the photograph was taken,” said Janet Rashes, Cooper’s partner of 33 years.

“All of a sudden, he’s looking in Time magazine one day and he sees himself and says, ‘Oh my God. That’s me.’ He was amazed. Couldn’t believe it.”

The photo shows Cooper, who was 60 at the time, with a manila envelope tucked under his left arm. He and several other men were in a desperate sprint as a wall of debris from the collapsing tower loomed behind them.

The US state of Texas has recorded 8,258 new cases in the 24 hours to Saturday, the highest single-day surge in the state since the pandemic started.

The overall number of confirmed infections in Texas now stands at 191,790, the health department said.

Current Covid-19 hospitalisations rose by 238 in one day to a record high of 7,890.

Texas governor Greg Abbott took to Twitter to wish Americans a happy Fourth of July, earning a barrage of criticism from the public.

His critics are bitterly divided, however. One camp is voicing disappointment in his leadership amid rising infections, while the other is clamouring for his resignation after he issued an executive order on Thursday requiring Texans to wear face coverings in public in counties with 20 or more Covid-19 cases.

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The Philippines’ coronavirus infection tally has climbed to 41,830 after the Department of Health on Saturday announced 1,494 more infections, the Philippine Star reports.

Of these new cases, 403 were newly validated and labelled “fresh”, which means that test results were released to the patient within the last three days, while the remaining 1,091 were “late” (results released four days ago or more).

The health undersecretary, Maria Rosario Vergeire, however, said that from next week the department would change its case bulletin reporting protocol to exclude the “fresh” and “late” categories introduced in late May.

This week saw 7,027 additional infections on top of the 34,803 recorded as of last Saturday - the most reported in a single week so far.

An average of 1,003 cases was reported every day since Sunday, which is also the highest the country has seen within a single week.

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The 20-member cabinet in Africa’s last absolute kingdom of eSwatini has been ordered into isolation after one minister contracted coronavirus, the government said on Saturday.

The public works and transport minister, Ndlaluhlaza Ndwandwe, was found to be infected after a routine test on Tuesday.

“Following this development, all cabinet members will isolate with immediate effect and work from home,” government spokesperson Sabelo Dlamini said in a statement.

Numbers of detected coronavirus infections have climbed to 984, including 13 deaths in the southern African country with a population of around 1.3 million people.

Prime minister Ambrose Dlamini warned in April that the health system in the country - formerly known as Swaziland - would struggle with an upsurge of infections due to inadequate resources, Agence France-Press reports.

Research published in The Lancet late last month warned that countries such as eSwatini, with the world’s highest prevalence of HIV/Aids, needed to be particularly vigilant during the pandemic.

The rising toll of Covid-19 deaths is overwhelming the Bolivian city of Cochabamba, where desperate relatives of one apparent victim of coronavirus left his coffin in the street for several hours on Saturday to protest difficulties in getting him buried.

Neighbour Remberto Arnez told the Associated Press that the 62-year-old man had died on Sunday and his body had been in his home ever since, but that this was risky because of the possible contagion.

After a few hours, funeral workers arrived and took the coffin to a cemetery.

Police Col. Iván Rojas told a news conference that the city is collecting about 17 bodies a day, which is overwhelming the police personnel and funeral workers in the city of some 630,000 people.

“The crematorium oven is small, [but] that is where the bodies are [being collected],” said labour minister Óscar Mercado, who told reporters that officials were preparing 250 new burial plots in the city’s main cemetery.

The Andean nation has reported 36,818 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,320 deaths.

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As some countries and regions reintroduce restrictions and impose local lockdowns, Thailand’s nightlife venues have been allowed to reopen on 1 July after a three-month closure.

My colleague Rebecca Ratcliffe reports from Bangkok.

Israel is one of several countries so far that is seemingly paying the price for lifting lockdown restrictions early, as the government tries to grapple with rising infections.

Over the last 24 hours, 1,008 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19, raising the number of active cases in Israel to 10,060, according to data released by the health ministry.

Some 326 people have died from the virus.

Israel’s higher education system announced on Saturday that exams will no longer be administered on campus and will move fully online instead, Haaretz reports.

According to Palestinian health figures, there are 994 coronavirus cases in those under the age of 18 in the West Bank, including 406 children under the age of nine.

Only 95 of cases are in those over the age of 70. A rise in cases has not yet been reflected in a rise in hospitalisations and serious cases.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that it was discontinuing its trials of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and combination HIV drug lopinavir/ritonavir in hospitalised patients with Covid-19 after they failed to reduce mortality.

“These interim trial results show that hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir produce little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalised Covid-19 patients when compared to standard of care.

“Solidarity trial investigators will interrupt the trials with immediate effect,” the WHO said in a statement, referring to large multi-country trials that the agency is leading.

The UN agency said that the decision, taken on the recommendation of the trial’s international steering committee, does not affect other studies where the drugs are used for non-hospitalised patients or as a prophylaxis.

Another arm of the WHO-led trial is looking at the potential effect of Gilead’s antiviral drug remdesivir on Covid-19.