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Global Covid-19 deaths near 355,000 – as it happened

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Qatar Covid-19 app ‘exposed 1m people’s personal details’; WHO sounds alarm over surge of Covid-19 cases in Latin America. This blog is now closed

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Wed 27 May 2020 20.02 EDTFirst published on Tue 26 May 2020 19.57 EDT
Key events
 Nurses hold a sign in the neighbourhood adjacent to Fort McHenry national monument and historic shrine, where President Donald Trump attended a Memorial Day ceremony on Monday
Nurses hold a sign in the neighbourhood adjacent to Fort McHenry national monument and historic shrine, where President Donald Trump attended a Memorial Day ceremony on Monday. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP
Nurses hold a sign in the neighbourhood adjacent to Fort McHenry national monument and historic shrine, where President Donald Trump attended a Memorial Day ceremony on Monday. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP

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Amelia Hill
Amelia Hill

UK’s most vulnerable people at risk of losing 60% of their income

A loophole in government guidance has caused some of the country’s most vulnerable people to lose up to 60% of their income and is now forcing many to put their health at risk as lockdown comes to an end, one of the UK’s biggest charities has warned.

Around 2.5 million UK residents, hundreds of thousands of whom are in employment, have been identified by the government as being “extremely clinically vulnerable”. They were ordered to shield at home until the end of June, although their employers did not have to furlough them.

Research by Citizens Advice found that of the 2,000 people contacting them for help who were either shielding or at higher risk from coronavirus, over 70% had not been furloughed.

The research also found that more than one in 10 of the shielded group were working outside the home, including people who had undergone organ transplants or who had serious lung conditions.

Summary

Here are the latest developments from the last few hours:

  • Known global cases near 5.7m, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. According to their tally of official figures at least 5,682,389 people are known to have contracted the virus since the pandemic began, while at least 354,944 people are known to have died.
  • US deaths pass 100,000. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the United States has recorded more than 100,000 deaths from Covid-19, moving past a sombre milestone even as many states relax mitigation measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. The US has recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country in the pandemic, and almost three times as many as the second-ranking country, Britain, which has recorded more than 37,000 Covid-19 deaths. The latest count of fatalities is 100,047. Earlier this month, president Donald Trump said 100,000 deaths would be “horrible”, but he claimed that actions by his administration had prevented a much higher toll.
  • 61 Conservative MPs continued to defy British PM Boris Johnson’s calls to “move on” from the Dominic Cummings crisis as a senior minister broke ranks to accuse the special adviser of inconsistencies in his account of his behaviour during lockdown.The intervention of Penny Mordaunt deepened the turmoil within government following revelations by the Guardian and Daily Mirror that Cummings had travelled 260 miles to his family estate in Durham with his wife suffering coronavirus symptoms.The former chancellor Sajid Javid also said the journey was not “necessary or justified” as the number of backbenchers calling for Cummings to resign or be sacked grew to 44, with a total of 60 Tory MPs weighing in to criticise him.Two of those condemning Cummings are government whips.
  • A medical study in France suggests even mild cases of Covid-19 produce antibodies in almost all patients. The research raises hopes that everyone who has had the disease could acquire some degree of immunity, although it is not clear for how long or to what degree.
  • The European commission proposed a €750bn coronavirus recovery fund, as part of a €1.85tn budget to help member states whose economies have suffered as a result of the pandemic. The principal beneficiaries will reportedly be Italy and Spain, the hardest-hit EU member states.
  • Greece is preparing to send riot police to its border with Turkey. Greece’s citizens protection minister, Michalis Chrisochoidis, visited the region ahead of the redeployment of some 400 officers, in anticipation of a resumption of people trying to cross. Turkey is home to nearly 4 million Syrian refugees.
  • Restrictions on movement in Moscow are to be eased from 1 Juneafter the rate of new infections began to slow in the city, its mayor said. Sergei Sobyanin also announced plans to reopen non-food stores and services such as laundries, dry cleaners, and repair shops.
  • Qatar’s contact tracing app put the sensitive personal details of more than 1 million people at risk, according to an investigation by Amnesty International. The app, which is mandatory for Qatari residents to install, was configured in a way that would have allowed hackers “to access … the name, national ID, health status and location data” of users, Amnesty said.
  • Kenya recorded its highest one day rise in cases on Wednesday, hitting a triple-digit figure for new infections for the first time since the outbreak began. The health minister, Mutahi Kagwe, says it is “sombre news”.

Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll be taking you through the latest updates for the next few hours.

As always, please do get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan[at]theguardian.com. Comments, tips, news from your part of the world are all much appreciated.

Tom McCarthy writes that one of the key problems facing American efforts to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis is the population’s aversion to vaccines.

Only about half of Americans say they would get a Covid-19 vaccine if available, according to a poll, as a top US government scientist tempered claims by Donald Trump that the United States would be able to invent, manufacture and administer hundreds of millions of vaccine doses by the end of the year.

Trump has routinely touted the speedy development of a vaccine as America’s path out of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now taken 100,000 lives in the US. As part of an effort branded “Operation Warp Speed”, Trump has set a goal of a 300m-dose stockpile by January.

Vaccine developers say that time frame is “aspirational”. But polling published on Wednesday indicates that the country could run up against another obstacle in its fight against the virus: vaccine refusal.

Read the full story here

US deaths pass 100,000

Further to our story at 20.29, data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the United States has recorded more than 100,000 deaths from Covid-19, moving past a grim milestone even as many states relax mitigation measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The US has recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country in the pandemic, and almost three times as many as the second-ranking country, Britain, which has recorded more than 37,000 Covid-19 deaths.

The latest count of fatalities is 100,047. Earlier this month, president Donald Trump said 100,000 deaths would be “horrible”, but he claimed that actions by his administration had prevented a much higher toll.

Read the full story here

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Ramzan Kadyrov chairs a meeting of Chechnya’s emergency response committee for coronavirus. Photograph: Chechnya Administration Press Of

Chechnya’s autocratic leader Ramzan Kadyrov has reappeared in public for the first time in nearly a fortnight, Andrew Roth writes, after unconfirmed reports that he had flown to Moscow for treatment for coronavirus.

Kadyrov was filmed on Tuesday in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, holding a government meeting on the region’s response to the pandemic and delivering 10 ambulances to local hospitals. Russian journalists noted what appeared to be a cannula
on his right arm.

In remarks on Instagram on Wednesday, Kadyrov did not confirm that he had contracted coronavirus but offered a vigorous defence of his right to fall ill.

Read the full story here

Hollywood studios are planning on recruiting COVID-19 consultants to keep sets safe, according to a report by Reuters.

The coronavirus pandemic has prompted producers, movie studios and workers’ unions to seek expert advice on how to safely reopen film and TV sets, which shut down worldwide in mid-March.

In demand are epidemiologists and other public health specialists to provide detailed strategies for dealing with large crews who work in cramped spaces, makeup artists who get face-to-face with stars, and actors who kiss, hug and fight on set.

The shutdown has taken a severe financial toll across the industry, as well as on cities such as Los Angeles that benefit economically from production.Restarting is important to companies, including Netflix Inc, Walt Disney Co and others, which need fresh programming to engage audiences.

While sets remain empty in the United States, productions are ramping back up in South Korea, Australia, Sweden, as well as New Zealand, where James Cameron’s Avatar 2 is restarting this week.

People who work in the industry expect to see smaller crews, regular testing, hand sanitiser everywhere and the use of computer-generated imagery to create big crowds on screen when work resumes.

Our current splash by Rowena Mason reports that 60 Conservative MPs continued to defy British PM Boris Johnson’s calls to “move on” from the Dominic Cummings crisis as a senior minister broke ranks to accuse the special adviser of inconsistencies in his account of his behaviour during lockdown.

The intervention of Penny Mordaunt deepened the turmoil within government following revelations by the Guardian and Daily Mirror that Cummings had travelled 260 miles to his family estate in Durham with his wife suffering coronavirus symptoms.

The former chancellor Sajid Javid also said the journey was not “necessary or justified” as the number of backbenchers calling for Cummings to resign or be sacked grew to 44, with a total of 60 Tory MPs weighing in to criticise him.

Two of those condemning Cummings are government whips.

Read the full story here

Reuters reports that New York governor Andrew Cuomo called on Congress to “stop abusing” New York and other Democratic-controlled states and release more federal funds to help them combat the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking after meeting Donald Trump at the White House, Cuomo said funding for states and local governments was essential to fostering a national recovery from the outbreak, which has killed almost 100,000 Americans and ravaged the economy.

“States that bore the brunt of the pandemic account for one-third of the national GDP,” said Cuomo, a Democrat whose state has been hit hardest by the outbreak. “How can you tell one-third of the country to go to heck?”

“So my point to our friends in the Congress - stop abusing New York, stop abusing New Jersey, stop abusing Massachusetts and Illinois and Michigan and Pennsylvania - stop abusing the states who bore the brunt of the COVID virus through no fault of their own,” Cuomo said.

Massachusetts has a Republican governor, but the other five states’ governors are Democrats.

States have sought more help from the federal government to get through the crisis. Democrats who control the House of Representatives passed legislation on 15 May that would provide nearly $1 trillion for state and local governments, but the bill was rejected by Trump and the Republican-led Senate’s leaders.

Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell last month suggested that states whose finances are depleted by the coronavirus pandemic could declare bankruptcy instead of receiving federal aid. The suggestion sparked outrage from some state leaders.

Cuomo said his meeting with Trump on Wednesday focused on how to “supercharge” the economy by investing in infrastructure.

The NHS tracing system was meant to allow the country to emerge confidently from lockdown. But its development has been characterised by missteps, conflict and frustration behind the scenes, write Dan Sabbagh, Sarah Marsh and Jessica Murray.

At the heart of the difficulties have been tensions between central government and local public health officials, or as one insider complained: “There has been control freakery from start to finish by the NHS and the department of health.”

Public health officials say systems and protocols to manage so called “complex cases” involving central and local cooperation, such as the outbreak in Weston-super-Mare, have not yet been fully worked out days before schools start reopening on 1 June.

Read the full story here

Our colleagues running the Guardian US blog write that America’s coronavirus death toll is just hundreds away from reaching 100,000, and at least one database shows the country has already hit that grim milestone.

According to NBC News’ numbers, more than 100,000 Americans have already died from coronavirus.

However, other databases show slightly different totals because they rely on different sources to calculate the toll.

According to widely used data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, which the Guardian has been citing, the US death toll stands at 99,674.

The sudden drop-off in food and rubbish in our cities is exacerbating suburban rat infestations. Photograph: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP via Getty Images

The city of Sydney is bracing itself for a rat ‘plague’ after Covid-19 had forced hungry rodents to turn to cannibalism, Naaman Zhou reports from Australia.

Empty offices and restaurants in the city are driving hungry rats into homes and suburbs, and the loosening of restrictions could create “a new rat plague”, according to a leading rat-catcher.

As city centres have closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, suburban rat infestations have spiked, according to Geoff Milton, a Sydney rat-catcher with 35 years’ experience.

Rats naturally seek out houses during winter, and the sudden drop-off in food and rubbish in our cities is exacerbating the problem. Calls about suburban rats have risen 30% compared with the same time last year, Milton told Guardian Australia.

Read the full story here

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