Dan McGarry in Port Vila and Tess Newton Cain:
Here is the latest news about the Covid-19 outbreak across the Pacific, from Dan McGarry and Tess Newton Cain on Wednesday 3 June.
The total number of cases of Covid-19 infection across the region stands at 294, an increase of two since last week, both in Guam.
As the global and regional situation stabilises and the direct threat of Covid-19 recedes, Pacific countries are beginning to ramp up repatriation efforts. Thousands of agricultural and cruise ship workers, diplomats and officials, as well as people simply caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, are finally being afforded the chance to return.
Some people in virus-free countries, such as Palau, remain ultra-cautious about any potential for infection by these new arrivals.
New Zealand sees 12th consecutive day with no new cases
The Guardian’s Charlotte Graham-McLay has this report:
New Zealand has reported a 12th straight day of no new cases of Covid-19, as the government considers abandoning as early as next week all remaining restrictions on the country except stringent border controls.
Just one person in New Zealand is still recovering from the illness, health officials said on Wednesday. They are not in hospital. There have been fewer than 1,500 confirmed cases of the virus in the country, with 22 deaths.
“Even though are in this very favourable position in New Zealand, there are record numbers of cases being reported globally every day,” Ashley Bloomfield, the director-general of health told reporters on Wednesday.
“This pandemic continues apace outside our borders and we cannot afford to let our guard down.”
Currently, New Zealand has physical distancing measures and gathering limits of 100 people in place, although businesses and schools are open.
The government will consider lifting those restrictions next Monday. Border restrictions would remain; only New Zealanders and their families can enter the country and must enter government-run quarantine for two weeks.
Ukrainian football club Karpaty Lviv has been placed in quarantine after 25 people among the players and staff tested positive for the coronavirus, the country’s Premier League said Tuesday.
All those infected have self-isolated while the club was “put in quarantine for at least two weeks,” the league said in a statement. Training has been suspended. The next two games for the Lviv side, scheduled for mid-June, have been cancelled.
Karpaty said that 65 people were tested for the coronavirus, and urged other clubs to view testing of its players and staff with “utmost responsibility.” A game set for last Sunday between Karpaty and Lviv had been cancelled after the first positive test results came back.
A sports official told AFP under condition of anonymity that most of those who have the coronavirus have “no symptoms”. Ukrainian football matches restarted last weekend behind closed doors, as part of easing of the virus lockdown.
Ukraine on Tuesday registered a total of 24,340 cases of the coronavirus, and 727 people died from the illness.
Latvia said Tuesday it will drop coronavirus quarantine rules for travellers from more than 20 European countries, a move already adopted by its Baltic eurozone neighbours Estonia and Lithuania, AFP reports.
Mandatory two-week self isolation will no longer apply to visitors arriving from “low risk countries” from Wednesday, Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins told reporters in the capital Riga.
A free travel list published by Latvia’s Centre for Disease Prevention and Control did not include countries like Sweden and Britain, where the rate of infection remains high. Borders with neighbouring Russia and Belarus will also remain sealed for passengers, but open to goods.
With the pandemic believed to be virtually extinguished in Latvia, authorities plan to lift all emergency measures on 9 June.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania reopened their shared borders on May 15, becoming among the first in Europe to allow citizens free movement for business and pleasure after two months of restrictions.
A country of 1.9 million people, Latvia has confirmed 1,071 cases of coronavirus, including 24 deaths.
British poverty campaigners have called for an emergency cash support scheme to help struggling low-income households after UK food bank charities reported that the first full month of coronavirus lockdown was their “busiest ever”.
The charities said their experience of record food bank use in April, following a huge surge in food aid in March, showed it was clear that current social security safety net measures were not enough to prevent poorer families being swept into destitution.
The Trussell Trust, the UK’s biggest food bank network, said it gave out 89% more food parcels in April, compared to the same month last year, while the Independent Food Aid Network (Ifan) recorded a 175% increase over the same period.
The number of families with children who received food parcels almost doubled in April compared to the the same period last year, the Trussell Trust said, a rise it described as unprecedented.
Updated
Brazil deaths pass 30,000 after record daily rise
A record 1,262 Covid-19 deaths have been recorded in Brazil today – taking the country’s total death toll to 31,199 – but the president continues to downplay the pandemic.
The figures were announced on Tuesday evening by Brazil’s health ministry, which also said the number of coronavirus cases had risen to 555,383, second only to the United States.
The South American country is now on the verge of overtaking Italy, where 33,530 deaths have been recorded, as the country with the third highest number of deaths.
But Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has dismissed Covid-19 as a “little flu”, again brushed off the tragedy on Tuesday.
“I regret each of the deaths – but that’s everyone’s destiny,” Bolsonaro told supporters outside his palace in the capitalBrasília.
Brazil’s most populous state, São Paulo, registered a record number of deaths on Tuesday taking the total number of fatalities there to nearly 8,000. Rio de Janeiro has Brazil’s second highest death toll with 5,686 deaths, followed by the northeastern state of Ceará where 3,421 people have died.
For all Bolsonaro’s dismissiveness, scientists and medical experts believe the situation is dire and likely to get worse. “Not even in our most dreadful nightmare could we have imagined the situation we are now in,” Drauzio Varella, a doctor and broadcaster, wrote in one of Brazil’s top newspapers last week.
India evacuates 100,000 from homes, virus hospital ahead of cyclone
At least 100,000 people, including some coronavirus patients, were being moved to safer locations according to officials Tuesday, as India’s west coast braced for a cyclone, the first such storm to threaten Mumbai in more than 70 years, AFP reports.
Authorities in India’s financial capital, which is struggling to contain the pandemic, evacuated nearly 150 Covid-19 patients from a recently built field hospital to a facility with a concrete roof as a precautionary measure, officials said.
The chief minister of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said people living in flimsy homes near the shore were being moved to safer places before Cyclone Nisarga makes its scheduled landfall on Wednesday afternoon or evening.
“Slum-dwellers… in low-lying areas have been instructed to evacuate,” Uddhav Thackeray said in a message posted by his office on Twitter.
In Maharashtra’s Palghar district, more than 21,000 villagers were being evacuated, local media reported, citing officials.
Indian meteorologists have warned of heavy rainfall – with winds of 100-110 kilometres (60-70 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 120 kph – causing damage to thatched huts, power lines and one to two metre-high (three to 6.5 feet) storm surges inundating low-lying areas of Maharashtra.
