Jordan reported the first death from coronavirus, a woman in her 80s, according to Reuters, quoting the state news agency.
Jordan registered 23 new cases on Friday, bringing the total in the country to 235, the health minister said.
Brazil’s polemicist president Jair Bolsonaro has sparked further outrage by insinuating that the number of coronavirus cases here is being inflated for political purposes and declaring: “Some people will die. I’m sorry. That’s life.”
Bolsonaro is facing furious criticism for his slaphappy handling of the coronavirus crisis, which he continues to dismiss as overblown and has called a media “trick”.
But on Friday afternoon — as the death toll here rose to 92, with 3,417 cases — he doubled down on his position telling Brazilian television he suspected those figures were being inflated by a political rival and denouncing coronavirus “alarmism”.
Bolsonaro subsequently admitted lives would be lost but added: “That’s life.”
“You can’t shut down a car factory because people die in traffic accidents,” Bolsonaro said.
Brazil’s far-right leader — who is pushing for tough lockdown measures to be lifted in states across the country — is facing growing fury from across the political spectrum and the country’s media.
In an article titled “Trial of the future”, the Brazilian writer Ruy Castro captured the revolt: “There’s a sense that, if Jair Bolsonaro isn’t tied to a tree and gagged, before making any more disastrous moves, the cost in lives will be incalculable. But one day these lives will be counted.”
Castro added: “Every single member of the government who, with their deeds or words, opposed the policy of social distancing and helped coronavirus spread will have to pay the price ... It isn’t right to call Jair Bolsonaro irresponsible. He is the person most responsible for whatever happens in Brazil — and he will have to answer for it.”
Social distancing appears to be keeping the coronavirus at bay in a Canadian province — a rare moment of positive news as cases around the world continue to surge.
“I’m trying not to over-call it, but I do believe we’ve seen a flattening, a falling-off of that curve,” said Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s top medical officer.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Henry said the extreme measures taken by the province in recent weeks—shutting down schools, non-essential businesses— have shown promising results.
“What we need, though, is for everybody to continue to pay attention to these measures so we can continue to prevent transmissions in our communities ... for the coming weeks.”
The daily rate of growth of coronavirus cases in the province has been cut from 24% to 12%, far lower than that of China and Italy during their severe outbreaks.
The updated figures comes amid a report from the province that suggests it is well-equipped to handle a Hubei-like breakout of infections. A level of spread similar to that of Italy’s Lombardy region, however, would stress the system— but the province nonetheless believes it has sufficient ventilators.
More than 4,600 cases have been reported in Canada, with 725 in British Columbia as of Thursday.
Syria said on Friday it was banning travel between cities and governorates as part of tightening measures to curb the spread of coronavirus, state-run Ikhbariya TV reported, citing the interior minister.
Syria has recorded five cases of corona virus so far but relief agencies worry that any outbreak could be lethal after years of conflict that has ravaged its healthcare system, Reuters reports.
The travel restriction, effective from Sunday, comes on top of a curfew announced this week from 6pm to 6am and after the country has halted flights and ordered the closure of most businesses.
Humanitarian agencies have expressed deep concern over the prospect of coronavirus spreading in Syria’s northwest, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced by war live in tightly packed camps and have severely limited access to healthcare.
In the UK, the Principality Stadium in Wales is to be converted into a temporary hospital providing around 2,000 additional beds to support the NHS, PA media reports.
The Welsh Rugby Union, which owns and operates the venue, has been working with the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board as part of contingency planning around the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
The facility is now being assessed by specialists and contractors to complete the transformation. This follows the news that Birmingham’s NEC arena and Manchester’s G-Mex will also be converted into field hospitals.
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US President Donald Trump has publicly ranted at car-manufacturing giant General Motors over a delay in its production of ventilators.
There has been some suggestions he could invoke the Defense Production Act, which allows the federal government to direct industries.
Donald J. Trump(@realDonaldTrump)
General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!! @GeneralMotors@Ford
His tweet comes a day after he dismissed demands from governors for more ventilators and said New York, which is the epicentre of the crisis in the US, was exaggerating the need.
The state of New York pleaded to be sent 30,000 ventilators to help with its growing numbers of coronavirus patients.
A further three people with coronavirus have died in Ireland, taking the country’s death toll to 22, the National Public Health Emergency Team has announced.
The latest victims were described as a person in the north-west of the country and two females in the east.
There were 302 new confirmed cases of coronavirus announced on Friday evening, taking the total in Ireland to 2,121.
This is Nicola Slawson, taking over from my colleague Simon Murphy. I’ll be keeping you up to date this evening on the situation around the world. You can get in touch with me via Twitter or by email nicola.slawson@theguardian.com. I might not have time to reply but I will certainly give emails and messages a read.
The UK has again recorded its biggest daily rise in coronavirus deaths. In the last 24 hours, 181 people have died after testing positive for Covid-19. It comes after 115 deaths were recorded the day before. The UK death toll stands at 759, with 14,579 confirmed cases.
Matt Hancock, the UK’s health secretary, tests positive
Following the news that the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had tested positive for Covid-19, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, confirmed that he too has coronavirus. Both are experiencing mild symptoms and are in self-isolation.
Italy records highest daily rise in deaths and has not yet reached peak, experts say
Italy also recorded its highest daily rise in Covid-19 deaths, with 919 new fatalities, taking the total to 9,134. The update follows a warning from the head of the country’s national health institute that infections have not yet reached their peak and that lockdown measures will have to be extended.
France extends lockdown by a fortnight
France – which has recorded 299 Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours – has extended its lockdown until 15 April, the prime minister announced in a speech. Edouard Philippe said it was clear that the country was “just at the beginning of this epidemic wave”.
Congress has given final approval for a $2.2tn financial package designed to rush federal aid to workers, businesses and a healthcare system ravaged by the virus, after politicians united to overcome a last-minute attempt to delay its passage.
In Greece, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases has jumped to 966, according to the government.
The figure marks an increase of 74 new cases that emerged last night. But experts also point out that in the absence of widespread testing (only 13,477 people have been tested for the virus so far), the real number is almost certainly higher.
Giving his daily update, Prof Sotiris Tsiodras, the health ministry spokesman on coronavirus, said the death toll had also gone up, with 28 fatalities recorded as of Friday. Of that number 23 were men, said the professor, an infectious diseases expert who is advising the centre-right government on how best to contain the spread of transmissions.
The average age of those who had died was 73, he said, adding that while 66 of the total number of patients confirmed as having Covid-19 were in intensive care, 52 people had also made a full recovery. “The fast implementation of measures [to contain the disease] has saved our country from many deaths,” he said, emphasising that although the trajectory was currently under control it was vital that the general population remained vigilant. “Every day we win small victories but the battle continues.”
Greece was among the very first countries in Europe to apply stringent restrictions, with officials recognising that after years of steep staff and budget cuts, the price of the country’s near decade-long debt crisis, the state health system was in no position to deal with a significant public health crisis.
In the UK, Virgin Atlantic is applying for hundreds of millions of pounds in state aid to keep afloat during the coronavirus crisis, after the chancellor told the stricken aviation sector this week he would consider assisting firms on a case-by-case basis.
As a purely long-haul, passenger airline, Sir Richard Branson’s carrier has been hard hit by the travel bans and does not have the cash reserves of larger rivals such as British Airways or even EasyJet.
Virgin led calls for state aid for airlines two weeks ago, as bookings dropped to near zero. Virtually all staff have accepted unpaid leave and Branson has said he will inject $250m (£201m) across the group, including the unfortunately timed launch of his Virgin Voyage cruise line.
The airline declined to comment but is understood to have approached the government via bankers Rothschild for a package worth hundreds of millions of pounds in commercial loans and guarantees.
The ‘special relationship’ appears to be alive and well as US president Donald Trump has wished the UK prime minister Boris Johnson a speedy recovery from coronavirus during a phone call on Friday.
“They agreed to work together closely, along with the G7, the G20, and other international partners, to defeat the coronavirus pandemic,” Downing Street said in a statement.
Johnson and health secretary Matt Hancock have both contracted Covid-19, it emerged earlier.
More on the situation in the US, as my colleague Jonathan Freedland skewers Donald Trump in a newly posted comment piece in which he accuses the US president of putting his ego first in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He writes:
The US president always was capricious and vengeful, but now that character flaw is a matter of life and death. State governors are crying out for federal help, not for themselves but for the people they represent: the nurses and doctors who need protective equipment and testing kits, the patients who need ventilators. But instead of leaping to their aid, Trump tells the governors it’s their responsibility, even though they have a fraction of the procurement power of the US government – adding that if they want help, they’d better grovel. ‘It’s a two-way street,’ Trump said this week. ‘They have to treat us well.’ Even when lives are on the line, his ego with its paper-thin skin comes first.
Another country, another lockdown. Zimbabwe, which has five confirmed coronavirus cases including one death, will impose a nationwide lockdown for 21 days from Monday to help curb the spread of Covid-19, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said.
Only state and health workers will be exempted from the lockdown, he added.
In other news, it emerges a global shortage in condoms is looming because of the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s biggest producer has said.
Karex Berhad, which makes one in every five condoms globally, has not produced a single condom in its three Malaysian factories for more than a week because of a lockdown imposed by the government to halt the spread of the virus, Reuters reports.
That is already a shortfall of 100m condoms – normally marketed internationally by brands such as Durex – supplied to state healthcare systems such as the NHS in the UK or distributed by aid programmes such as the UN Population Fund.