Doctors in Germany are testing thousands of slaughterhouse workers for Covid-19.
The head of the British Foreign Office accused Russia, China and Iran of using the pandemic for their own purposes, a new outbreak of infection in Australia, India, Pakistan and other countries, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson discuss the terms of the British quarantine.
According to Johns Hopkins University, there are currently 8.4 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, with over 450,000 deaths. The epicenter of the spread of infection remains Latin America, where some countries are showing signs of a second wave of the epidemic. About the latest news about Covid-19 worldwide – in the daily selection of the Russian service of the BBC.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused Russia, China and Iran of exploiting the pandemic to further their own interests. According to Raab, Russia is engaged in the systematic dissemination of misinformation and propaganda on health issues through Internet platforms and other means. Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov called these accusations absurd. According to him, since the beginning of the epidemic, Russia has made every effort to cooperate with the whole world in the fight against the virus.
Scientists at the Royal College of London believe that pseudoscientific information on the Internet poses a significant risk to the health of the British people. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. The number of episodes should remain the same. End of story. Podcast Advertising.
At the same time, scientists from the Royal College in London have published a study claiming that social networks and other platforms such as Facebook and YouTube may pose a threat to public health by helping to spread conspiracy theories about the nature and transmission of the coronavirus. As a result, many users begin to think that following the quarantine rules is foolish and violate the authorities’ orders. In the course of research conducted in March-April this year, scientists found that many internet users in the UK are inclined to believe conspiracy theories that Covid-19 was supposedly deliberately released from a laboratory or is the result of radiation from 5G networks.
Google and Apple help track contacts. The British government on Thursday abandoned its own application for tracking the contacts of those infected with Covid-19 and will instead work with American companies Apple and Google, which dominate the mobile phone market.
The British health service tried to develop its own contact tracing app, but it had glitches. The National Health Service’s own application was due to be launched in May, but users who tested it kept complaining that it did not work properly on the iPhone. The National Health Service has handed over all its developments to the partner company of Google and Apple, and on Thursday the government announced that the system presented by the two companies at the end of May will be implemented on the territory of Great Britain. The head of the UK’s contact tracing program, Dido Harding, emphasized Thursday that having a dedicated application is not that important to the functioning of the overall system.
The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, admitted during a recent meeting with doctors in hospital that he still hasn’t regained his sense of smell and taste after recovering from the coronavirus. Loss of these two senses is one of the symptoms of Covid-19. While chatting with hospital staff, Charles shared his own experience of overcoming the disease. The 71-year-old prince was diagnosed with the coronavirus in March, at the very beginning of the epidemic in Britain. He complained of mild symptoms, but was not hospitalized and self-isolated in one of his residences. “He told journalists how he had lost his sense of taste and smell, and that he felt they still hadn’t returned,” said one of the hospital staff.
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in London for a visit. Among other things, he will discuss with Prime Minister Boris Johnson the British rules for a two-week quarantine for all those entering the country. They will discuss the possibility of creating special corridors for citizens of countries with a low infection rate, including France. So far, only people arriving from Ireland and the British Isles are exempt from the quarantine. The British government has faced a wave of criticism from the tourism industry for imposing a quarantine just as Europe began to emerge from lockdown and open borders. Britain remains the hardest hit country in Europe by the epidemic. According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 300,000 people have become ill (fifth in the world) and 42,300 have died (third in the world).
Thousands of people in Germany have been quarantined following an outbreak of the coronavirus at a slaughterhouse in Gütersloh, in the northwest of the country. Of the more than one thousand workers who have already been tested for Covid-19, 650 have been confirmed. Several thousand more are waiting in line to be tested.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on European Union authorities to agree on a long-term budget as soon as possible and to start providing funds to revive Europe’s weakened economies. Speaking in the German parliament, she said solidarity was needed for Europe to overcome the deep economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. According to her, the pandemic has clearly shown how fragile the project called European Union still is. Starting July 1, Germany will hold the presidency of the European Union for six months.
The Russian capital remains the hardest hit region in the country. According to Rospotrebnadzor, 489 healthcare workers in Russia have died from the coronavirus while infected at work. This is a huge jump compared to the statistics for May, which showed that at that time 101 medical workers had died from Covid-19. Russia takes third place in the world in terms of the number of infected – 561 thousand people, including 7790 cases detected in the past day.
Spanish authorities have announced that the world-famous nightclubs in Ibiza and other islands of the Balearic archipelago will not open this year and may not operate until the Covid-19 vaccine is available. During the season, tens of thousands of musicians, DJs and club music enthusiasts flock to the Spanish islands. Many nightclubs operate around the clock. This is a huge industry that provides seasonal employment not only to the local population but also to many European Union citizens. At the same time, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the allocation of 4.2 billion euros to save the country’s tourism industry. Among other things, the money will be spent on advertising Spanish resorts, ensuring sanitary standards and tax rebates for airlines. Tourism accounts for 12% of the Spanish economy. Beginning July 1, individuals entering the country will no longer be required to undergo a 14-day quarantine.
In Pakistan, selective quarantine has been implemented in several cities in the Punjab province. The population of the province exceeds 100 million. In recent weeks, coronavirus infection statistics have risen sharply in some areas, particularly in the administrative center of Lahore. A total of almost 60 thousand cases of infection have been registered in Punjab. Police are guarding the borders of the areas under lockdown. Only grocery stores and pharmacies are open. Public transportation is not operating, and travel in private cars is prohibited. According to the decision of the Pakistani authorities, quarantine will be imposed in the country if the number of new cases reaches 300.
In India, a record number of 12,881 cases were reported in one day. In Delhi, the health minister was found to be infected after complaining of breathing difficulties and a high temperature. Thousands of people have fallen ill in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai. Despite the negative trend, India continues to relax its quarantine for economic reasons. The country ranks fourth in the world in terms of the number of people infected – nearly 367,000 people, with more than 12,000 infected deaths.
Some subway stations in Beijing are still in operation, but only allow a limited number of passengers. China reports 28 new cases of Covid-19, 21 of them in Beijing. The new outbreak occurred last week in the capital, with the city’s largest food market as the epicenter. Prior to this, the city had not recorded any new cases of the disease for 57 days. Nearly 30 districts in Beijing are currently under quarantine. Sanitation workers are disinfecting the city’s streets. New cases have also been reported in Australia. In the second most populous state of Victoria, 18 people fell ill in two days. Doctors say the infection is occurring in local communities, not among foreign tourists, as was the case in New Zealand a few days ago. The situation in Victoria is of concern to authorities in neighboring New South Wales, where there have been no cases for several weeks. The Covid-19 infectivity index in Australia has been below 0.5 since April. Until recently, there were about 500 infected people in the country, most of whom are in quarantine after returning from overseas.
The first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been diagnosed with the coronavirus. His press service reports that there is no cause for alarm. Nazarbayev is in self-isolation and working remotely. Earlier, several members of the country’s government, including the health minister, were diagnosed with the disease. According to Johns Hopkins University, there are currently 22.7 thousand officially registered cases of infection in Kazakhstan, and 97 people have died.
The chief of the Kayapo Amazon tribe in eastern Brazil has died of coronavirus. Paulinho Paiakan, 65, was known as one of the staunchest defenders of the Amazon jungle. He gained worldwide notoriety in the 1980s when he began fighting the construction of the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam in the Belo Monte Valley. In 1998, he was found guilty of raping an 18-year-old girl, and his wife was implicated in the crime. His supporters claimed the case was fabricated to tarnish the leader’s reputation.
Peru has surpassed Italy in the number of Covid-19 cases. According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of infected people there has reached nearly 241,000. Peru is the second most affected country in Latin America after Brazil. However, Peru lags far behind Brazil in terms of deaths, with 7,200 and more than 45,000 deaths, respectively.
Medical professionals in Peru have to reach very high areas. In addition, the daily number of new cases in the country began to decline. In the last 24 hours, 3700 new cases have been detected in Peru, which is half the daily rate at the end of May. The country’s authorities have extended the strict quarantine until June 30. The situation in Chile remains complex. The country ranks ninth in the world and third in Latin America in terms of the number of infected – 220.6 thousand people. More than 7.2 thousand people have died. At the moment, Latin America is the main epicenter of COVID-19 spread in the world.