May 13 coronavirus news

Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has moved here.

Italy’s Serie A soccer clubs held a vote Wednesday to resume the season starting on June 13, pending government approval.

The statement from the league would only resume “in accordance with the decisions of the Government and in compliance with the medical protocols to protect players and all involved personnel.”

This announcement follows Italian Minister for Sport Vincenzo Spadafora’s declaration at the House of Representatives today, which confirmed that the government and the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) have agreed to allow the league to resume training starting May 18.

Spadafora added that “in the case that a player is positive, the team needs to be in quarantine for 14 days”

If you’re just joining us, here are the latest developments from around the globe:

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro before a flag raising ceremony outside Alvorada palace, the presidential residence in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 12.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative for coronavirus in three separate exams that were released to the public on Wednesday afternoon. 

Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski released the test results.

The three tests were administered between March 12 and March 17 after Bolsonaro returned from a bilateral meeting with US President Trump in Florida and many in his entourage tested positive. 

The release of the exams brings an end to a prolonged standoff in which Bolsonaro had refused to make tests public despite repeated legal rulings. The first request came from Brazilian newspaper Estado de S. Paulo and made its way up in the courts.  

In the three tests released on Wednesday, Bolsonaro uses codenames, but the ID numbers match his.

Bolsonaro handed over the tests to the Supreme Court.

France has recorded another 83 deaths due to coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing the total number of deaths to more than 27,000 since the first of March, according to a statement from the country’s Health Ministry.

Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes

Belgium will move forward with the second phase of its reopening plan on May 18, when some school classes for primary and secondary students will resume and museums will be reopened under certain conditions, the prime minister announced Wednesday.

Wilmes also announced that some other services, such as hairdressers or beauticians, could also reopen but only through appointments and the mandatory use of masks for both the customers and staff. Local authorities might also choose to reopen markets with a maximum of 50 food stalls.

Most shops opened across Belgium on Monday.

Sporting events have been suspended until July 11. There is still no reopening date for restaurants and bars.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday, May 13.

The European Commission President on Wednesday outlined a plan to fund European recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, while warning that “we will not just go back to business as usual soon.”

The recovery instrument will be focused on those member states who have been most affected and where needs are the greatest, the European Union’s top leader said, adding that the money for the recovery plan will be on top of the existing EU budget and will also be managed through rules of the budget.

That will give European lawmakers full scrutiny over how the money is managed and spent. Parliamentarians expressed concern last week over using rules where the Parliament would only “be informed” of decisions made on the recovery funds.

Von der Leyen did not mention exact numbers, but said she wants to present an “ambitious” relaunch plan for Europe.

In the plan presented by the EU leader, recovery will be financed across three pillars:

Children under the age of 14 were allowed to go outside on the street today for the first time since the Turkish government announced a lockdown for the age group in early April.

The children were allowed out for four hours, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. local time.

Turkey has opted for an age-specific lockdown prohibiting people over the age 65 and below the age of 20 from leaving their homes. People in the 15 to 20 year age group will be allowed out on Friday.

Turkey started slowly lifting some restrictions on Monday.

Dr. Mike Ryan

The new coronavirus may never go away and may just join the mix of viruses that kill people around the world every year, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization health emergencies program, said Wednesday.

“I’m not comparing the two diseases but I think it is important that we’re realistic. I don’t think anyone can predict when or if this disease will disappear,” Ryan added.

With a vaccine, “we may have a shot at eliminating this virus but that vaccine will have to be available, it will have to be highly effective, it will have to be made available to everyone and we’ll have to use it,” Ryan said. “This disease may settle into a long-term problem or it may not be.”

Yet the future of coronavirus does not have to be all doom and gloom, according to WHO infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove.

“The trajectory of this outbreak is in our hands,” Van Kerkhove said during Wednesday’s briefing.

“The global community has come together to work in solidarity,” Van Kerkhove said. “We have seen countries bring this virus under control. We have seen countries use public health measures.”

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed Van Kerkhove’s sentiments on Wednesday and added, “We should all contribute to stop this pandemic.”

A health worker puts on her personal protective equipment (PPE) before starting to work at the intensive care unit, treating COVID-19 patients, of the Tor vergata hospital in Rome, on Tuesday May 12.

The number of active Covid-19 cases reported in Italy has dropped to at least 78,457 on Wednesday — a decrease of 2,809 cases since the day before. It’s the first time the number of active cases in the country stands below the 80,000 mark since March 31.

On Wednesday, the country added at least 3,502 new recoveries, bringing the total number of people who have so far recovered from the virus to 112,541, according to the Italian Civil Protection Agency.

The total number of cases, including deaths and recoveries, is now more than 221,000, according to a count from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Mike Ryan

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, said the world needs to reach “a point of very significant control over the virus” to no longer consider coronavirus a pandemic. 

Ryan said as countries try to find a path toward a new normal, “we’re going to be on that pathway for a long, long time.”  He explained that the International Health Regulations only allows two choices: there is either a global public health emergency, or there is not. 

“We can obviously, as time goes on in our risk assessment, reduce the level of alert at national, regional and global levels, through our systematic risk assessment process,” Ryan said. “At the moment, we obviously consider the risks to still be high.”  

Ryan said as time goes on, WHO could consider moving the risk assessments for each country down, but “that is going to require us reaching a point of very significant control over the virus, very strong public health surveillance and stronger health systems in place to cope with any recurrent cases.”

“I think we’re going to have to remain on alert, stay the course and ensure that we’re ready to respond,” he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said negotiations continue between his government and the Trump administration about whether to keep the border closed to nonessential traffic. The mutual border agreement is set to expire May 21.

The agreement as it stands forbids any nonessential travel, although commercial traffic continues. Canadian business groups say the border has been functioning well, allowing for a substantial flow of essential and commercial goods to cross the border in both directions. 

Trudeau on Tuesday said that even when some border restrictions are lifted, Canada may need some “stronger measures” at the border to safeguard public health. Canadian public health officials are looking at enhanced screening, including temperature checks and medical history evaluations for travelers coming in from the US, including those arriving at land borders. 

“Different countries are facing different challenges and as we manage the spread of Covid-19 we want make sure that we’re not becoming vulnerable from travelers arriving from elsewhere, that’s why we made strong moves to secure, to close our borders including to American travelers at this time,” Trudeau said Wednesday. 

Canada’s top doctor also said Tuesday that easing any border closures should proceed with “extreme caution.”

“Of course, the United States being one country that still has cases and is still trying to manage outbreaks, they present a risk to Canada from that perspective,” Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer said Tuesday. 

Sweden announced it is extending “advice against all nonessential travel to all countries” until July 15, according to the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry

Sweden’s advice against nonessential travel initially began on March 14.

Sweden has been an outlier during the coronavirus outbreak. The country had not joined many of its European neighbors in imposing strict limits on citizens’ lives.

Last month, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde told Swedish TV the country’s approach was, “No lockdown and we rely very much on people taking responsibility themselves.”

Health workers perform a nose swab during a drive-through coronavirus testing site at Diriyah hospital in the Saudi capital Riyadh on May 7.

Saudi Arabia has announced a new 24-hour nationwide curfew starting May 23 and during Eid holidays to control the spread of coronavirus, state-news agency SPA said on Tuesday quoting the Ministry of Interior.

The kingdom had last month eased lockdown measures during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which started from April 23. The important Eid holidays mark the end of Ramadan.

With ramped up testing, reported coronavirus cases continue to rise in Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, at least 1,905 new cases were reported, bringing the total number of cases to over 45,000 with 273 deaths, the Saudi Health Ministry said.

Over 500,000 tests have been performed so far and with increasing cases, authorities have called on residents to limit gatherings, an important custom during Ramadan and Eid holidays.

With some countries in the Middle East moving towards easing restrictions, others have doubled down by reimposing lockdown measures.

However in countries like the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, measures have been relaxed with some malls, parks, hairdressers and malls reopening.

Tourists who travel in Europe this summer do so at their own risk, the European Commissioner for Transport Adina-Ioana Valean told CNN’s Hala Gorani on Wednesday.

On Wednesday the European Union unveiled an action plan to get its internal borders reopening, safely fire up its hospitality sector and to revive rail, road, air and sea connections that have been strangled during the pandemic.

The plan includes proposals for permitting special “green corridors” or “travel bubbles” that would allow certain countries with low or sharply declining infection rates to open up to a select few destinations until borders are fully reopened.

Regarding hotels, the commissioner said measures, such as disinfection and social distancing, “can be observed easily but the risk is taken by the traveler in the end because no one can guarantee [safety]”.

As for plane and train travel, Valen said the EU is recommending the use of masks and physical distancing “as a matter of principle”. However, she added, that might not be possible from an economic point-of-view on a plane. “A flight cannot observe 2 meters between passengers because it won’t be worth it to fly that route,” she said.

The commissioner added that the so-called travel bubbles will depend on the decision taken on a national level. Regarding EU-wide travel guidelines, she said the bloc is aiming for the measures to be “proportionate and not discriminatory and applied the same way all over Europe”.

Read more about the EU’s plan here.

Spain recorded 184 new coronavirus-related deaths in the past day, taking the country’s total death toll to 27,104, the Spanish Health Ministry said Wednesday.

The 0.7% increase in the death toll is the same as the percentage rise recorded on Tuesday, and in line with others recorded over the past week.

Spain has a total of 228,691 confirmed cases so far, with the daily increase calculated by the government holding steady at 0.2% for each of the last three days.

Spain’s Director of Health Emergencies, Dr. Fernando Simón, was asked at the government’s daily coronavirus briefing about the guidance for wearing masks, amid reports they might become obligatory in all public places in Spain, and not just on public transport, which is already the rule.

Simón said masks are a “good prevention measure” and that “the best masks are the two meters of distance,” or six feet, in support of continued social distancing measures. But he deferred to the government regarding any final decision about the masks.

Spain, which for weeks had been the country with the second-highest total confirmed cases of coronavirus in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally, has now dropped to third, behind Russia. Both are behind the United States, which has the most cases.

The Indian government has announced details of a support package worth more than $40 billion to help small businesses affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.

The majority of the money will go toward providing collateral-free loans until October 31, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today during a press conference.

The finance minister also announced that in order to help local industries, foreign companies will be prevented from tendering for contracts worth up to $26.5 million.

“This will reduce competition for local industries,” the minister said.

Some background: Modi in March announced an unprecedented three-week shutdown for the country’s 1.3 billion people that required everything to shut except for health services, grocery stores and other essential services.

The lockdown has been extended a few times since then. The current, third phase — which eased some aspects of the lockdown, allowing the limited reopening of construction sites and private offices — will last until May 17. The next phase will include more adjustments, which Modi said will be announced in the coming days.

The US Embassy in Tanzania has warned that many hospitals in the city of Dar es Salaam have been overwhelmed in recent weeks, classifying the risk of contracting Covid-19 in the country as “extremely high,” in a health alert Wednesday. 

The health alert notes that the Tanzanian government has not released any data on Covid-19 since April 29.

Tanzania has had a more lenient approach to the outbreak in the region. President John Magufuli suggested his citizens “pray the virus away,” and allowed places of worship to remain open while schools closed. The President also vowed he wouldn’t put the country under any lockdown but did make social distancing and mask wearing mandatory. 

The embassy recommends all US government personnel and their families remain at home except for essential activities, and substantially limit entry of non-residents into private homes. The embassy also signaled that US citizens in Tanzania should expect to remain in the country for an “indefinite period” as the government “does not anticipate arranging additional repatriation flights in Tanzania at this time.”

The last coronavirus report to come from the Prime Minister’s office on April 29 indicated 480 confirmed cases.

People walk past a closed cafe terrace in Venice, Italy, on May 13.

Up to 420,000 jobs in trade and tourism could be lost in Italy due to the coronavirus emergency, Enrico Postacchini of the Italian Confederation of Enterprises — called Confcommercio — said Wednesday during a senate hearing in Rome.

Confcommercio estimates that 270,000 businesses in the trade and tourism sector — 10% of the total number — are in danger of closing down.

Postacchini appealed to the government to act immediately to help businesses. “Business operators have lost patience, they have not seen anything apart from the 600 euros,” he said referring to the emergency bonus for workers introduced by the government in March.

Huge losses will be registered during the tourist season and once the health emergency is over, “there will be the problem of filling hotel rooms,” Confcommercio’s representative for tourism Alberto Corti said in the same hearing.

Only 20% of Italians will be able to go on vacation, with the exception of those who have second homes, he said. In the tourism sector the losses could be around 120 billion euros (about $130 billion USD) between now and the end of 2020, Corti said.

The number of calls to a government run anti-violence helpline in Italy increased by 73% during the coronavirus lockdown, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) said Wednesday.

Between March 1 and April 16, at least 5,031 calls were registered, an increase of 73% compared to the same period of 2019. Just under half of those who called the hotline asked for help, an increase of 59%, Istat said in a statement.

Remember: According to the statistical agency, the increase is not necessarily attributable to greater violence but could be due to more awareness.

Meanwhile, the worst-hit Italian region of Lombardy on Tuesday registered a small increase in the number of Covid-19 cases for the second day in a row, after a few days in which active case numbers were going down, according to the Italian Civil Protection Agency.

Lombardy officials said the increase in cases could be explained by the addition of data that was collected from the past few day.

The total number of cases in Italy, including deaths and recoveries, stands at 221,216.