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One crew member of the Italian cruise ship Costa Atranchica has tested positive for coronavirus, the mayor of Nagasaki, Tomihisa Tagami, said at a news conference on Monday.
The Costa Atranchica cruise ship, which is anchored at Nagasaki Port, has a total of 623 crew members who are foreign nationals. All crew members are now onboard the ship.
Health checks will be carried out on at least 53 people who may have had close contact with the crew member who tested positive, according to Tagami.
On March 13, Nagasaki Gov. Hoso Nakamura said the government requested that the crew refrain from disembarkation due to the spread of infection in Japan.
Local authorities did not provide any details on the crew members and their nationalities.
Chile will begin issuing digital immunity cards this week to people who have recovered from coronavirus, according to an announcement from health officials on Monday.
The so-called “Covid cards” will be issued to people who tested positive for the virus and have shown signs of recovery after a 14-day quarantine.
The program, which had been announced by the Chilean Health Minister last week, was scheduled to launch Monday but has now been postponed for the next “coming days,” according to the country’s Public Health Undersecretary Paula Daza.
Chilean Health officials said last week the Covid card would help identify those individuals who no longer pose a health risk to others.
As of Monday, Chile’s government reported 10,507 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and 139 deaths.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro defended his participation in a weekend rally, where protesters called for an end to quarantine measures and urged military intervention to shut down Congress and the Supreme Court.
Bolsonaro told reporters Monday he personally did not call for shutting down any branch of the government, adding that Brazil is a democracy and referring to the Supreme Court and Congress as “open and transparent.”
He also lashed out at the media, saying he will not “accept provocations by the press.”
National and local governments in Brazil have issued mixed messages on how to behave during the pandemic. While Bolsonaro has been pushing against strict restrictions, state and local governments in some of the country’s hardest-hit areas have closed schools and nonessential businesses, with firefighters and police in the streets urging people to stay indoors.
Brazil has the most confirmed coronavirus cases in Latin America. As of Sunday, Brazil reported 38,654 cases and 2,462 deaths, according to health officials.
There have now been at least 20,265 deaths from coronavirus in France, Jerome Salomon, the director of the country’s health agency, said on Monday.
He added that the death toll “has exceeded the symbolic and particularly painful threshold of 20,000 deaths.”
The coronavirus epidemic has killed more people in France than any other seasonal epidemic, Salomon said, and more than the 2003 heatwave that killed 19,000 people across the country.
Salomon also shared these figures:
He added that the numbers confirm France is on a “very high plateau.”
The Republic of Ireland reported its highest daily number of coronavirus deaths on Monday, the Department of Health said.
The country recorded 77 fatalities in 24 hours. Previously, the highest number of Irish fatalities in a 24-hour period was 44, recorded on April 17.
The number was also almost twice the number of fatalities from the day before, when 39 deaths were announced on Sunday.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia republic in Russia, to protest against self-isolation orders and job losses on Monday, state-run TV channel Alania and Russian agencies reported.
In videos emerging on social media, the protesters demanded the resignation of the head of the region and financial support from the authorities because of mass job losses amid the pandemic.
Local lawmakers responded with a video urging people to stay home and form an initiative group to address the issue of job losses and financial strains of the lockdown, state-run agency RIA Novosti reported.
Police special units largely dispersed the demonstration, detaining three organizers, according to OVD-Info, an NGO that monitors protests and police activity in Russia.
Local media reported that the protest had been initiated by an opera singer who last week posted videos saying the coronavirus was a “made-up disease” and the response measures are inadequate. Regional authorities initiated a criminal investigation for spreading fake news about the coronavirus in Vladikavkaz.
“Calling on the population of the republic to disobey and violate the regime of self-isolation, the suspect formed an opinion among citizens that there are no circumstances that constitute a threat to their life and health,” a statement from investigators read. “As it was established by the investigation, this information does not correspond to reality.”
Ninth Vatican employee has tested positive for coronavirus, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, said in a statement on Monday.
The person was admitted to hospital and is under observation, Bruni said.
People who came into contact with the employee have tested negative for coronavirus, Bruni added.
The number of active Covid-19 cases in Italy has decreased for the first time since the beginning of the crisis, according to figures released by Italy’s Civil Protection Agency.
On Monday there were 108,237 active cases in Italy, down from 108,257 on Sunday.
Remember: There have also been fewer tests conducted in the last few days, the Civil Protection Agency reported.
Public Health England is concerned about the availability of personal protective equipment for medical staff in the country, its director for health protection said Monday.
“It is of concern, and obviously we want people who are working with patients on the frontline have everything they need,” Yvonne Doyle, director for health protection and medical director of Public Health England said in the government’s daily press conference.
The British government has been accused of failing to do enough to make sure health workers in the country have sufficient personal protective equipment.
Over 140,000 British firms applied for government financial support on the first day the program was open, UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak said Monday.
The job retention “grants they will receive will help pay wages of more than a million people,” Sunak said at the government’s daily press briefing.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed her concerns over Germany’s next steps in confronting the coronavirus at a press conference in Berlin on Monday.
Preventing a relapse is not only in the interest of ourselves but also for our economy and social and public life, she said.
Merkel cautioned against the false notion that life will soon be safe, and addressed reports saying she was unhappy about discussions involving Germany reopening.
She said Germany doesn’t want to see what has happened in other countries.
‘The wiggle room we have here — that we have given ourselves — this room for maneuver is being implemented primarily by the federal states through the ordinances and the law governing infectious diseases.”
“To ensure we interpret this latitude we have given ourselves as narrowly as possible and not as broadly as possible, otherwise I fear we run the risk of not being able to keep the loosening restrictions under control.”
When asked how she spent her weekend, the German Chancellor smiled and answered, “I obeyed all rules that were submitted.”
The peak of Russia’s coronavirus outbreak still lies ahead as more and more cases are reported in across the country, Russia President Vladimir Putin said in a videoconference with specialists on Monday.
Putin initially said that early action had contained the spread of coronavirus. But the Russian government’s official assessments have since been more pessimistic.
Moscow and its region still account for the majority of coronavirus cases, but the country’s regions are lagging two to three weeks behind, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said at the meeting.
“According to experts — that is, you and your colleagues — the peak of the incidence rate is yet to come,” Putin said. “And now we need to do everything to smooth out this peak, to shorten the transit time through the so-called plateau, when the largest number of new infections is recorded.”
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told his ministers and advisers his main concern in easing restrictions would be a potential second wave of coronavirus, a government source told CNN.
Johnson expressed his concern during a two-hour Zoom video call with his team on Friday from the UK Prime Minister’s country residence, Chequers, where he is recovering from the virus.
On Monday, Johnson’s spokesperson said a potential second peak “is ultimately what will do the most damage to health and economy. If you move too fast you risk a second peak. The public will expect us to protect life. If you have a second peak, it’s not just damaging for people’s health but would end up in a second lockdown which would be damaging on the economy.”
He said the government will be “guided by the science” in terms of when to lift social distancing measures.
The UK government could however potentially relax some coronavirus restriction measures and strengthen others, when it comes to a second review of the current lockdown, the spokesperson said.
A rise of 399 deaths from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours brings Spain’s total death figure to 20,852, according to figures released by the Spanish Ministry of Health Monday.
The death toll is a 2% increase — a slower rise than last week’s average.
At the government’s daily technical committee briefing Simón reported 0.8% increase in hospital admissions, and 0.7% increase in ICU admissions over the last 24 hours — a lower trend than reported Sunday.
Meanwhile, Spain’s cabinet is due to discuss the rules for loosening measures for children and seniors on Tuesday. The new measures are planned to start on April 27th.
Simón warned that the expected relaxation of confinement measures for children means personal responsibility on the part of parents.
Simón cautioned the outdoor movement of seniors saying “this virus can infect anyone, but doesn’t affect everybody equally. The risks for older people are much bigger “not because they’re more easily infected, but because the risk is much bigger if they do become infected.”
One of the last cruise ships still at sea after the coronavirus outbreak began has docked in Marseille, France, a Marseille Tourism spokesperson tells CNN.
The MSC Magnifica docked Monday morning with 1,769 mostly European passengers on board. All of them are healthy, the spokesperson told CNN, but before disembarking they are being checked by firefighters for temperature and symptoms.
The spokesperson said she knew of another cruise liner, the Costa Deliziosa, still out at sea. That cruise liner is currently off the coast of Barcelona, and is expected to dock in Genoa, Italy, tomorrow, she said.
Some context: The MSC Magnifica left port in Genoa, Italy on January 5th and since has been to several ports, the last one on the 10th of March in Wellington, New Zealand, Anne Kaufmann, spokesperson for MSC Croisieres told CNN.
MSC Cruises has halted all of its cruise departures until May 29.
Shake Shack is returning a $10 million loan it received from the US government under an emergency program that was touted as a way to help small businesses pay workers and keep their operations running during the coronavirus crisis.
The burger chain was awarded the loan as part of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The $349 billion stimulus package, overseen by the Small Business Administration (SBA), ran out of funding last week.
There has been a growing backlash over the way the money was distributed, with several media outlets revealing how large chunks of the package were taken up by chain restaurants, hoteliers and publicly traded corporations, rather than small, local businesses.
Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti and chairman Danny Meyer revealed their decision to give back the funding in an open letter Monday, saying that the NYSE-listed company no longer needs the money because they are “fortunate to now have access to capital that others do not.”
The company said in a filing Friday that it expects to be able to raise up to $75 million from investors by selling shares.
The executives also shared their frustrations with the PPP, arguing that many restaurants had been left out unfairly because the program “came with no user manual and it was extremely confusing.”
Garutti and Meyer are now calling on the SBA to increase funding to the program. They also want the US agency to assign a local bank to work with each applicant and ease the process, and to make the forgiveness policy more flexible.
As the curve of new coronavirus cases begins to flatten in Italy, talks between the regions and the national government on the so-called “Phase 2” of restrictions are intensifying.
Phase 2 is the next stage of Italy’s attempts to contain its devastating coronavirus epidemic; it is expected to see the government gradually reopen the country’s economy following the advice of its scientific committee.
“The data indicates that the number of people with symptoms are decreasing and that the curve is in a decreasing phase. It shows a country with different zones, with a different circulation intensity,” Silvio Brusaferro, head of the National Institute of Health said during a press conference on Friday.
The Institute said that Italy’s number of cases won’t drop to zero by mid-May, meaning that the infection will continue to circulate. Brusaffero said it will be extremely important to be able to identify possible outbreaks, carry out tests, tracing and isolation of contacts and eventually create red zones to contain the virus.
On Monday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is expected to hold a cabinet meeting, and on Wednesday he will talk with some of the regional governors to try and come up with a more coherent nationwide calendar for reopening.
“May 4 is a date around which we have to build Phase 2. I hope that there will be a meeting between the key figures as soon as possible … but I want to be clear on one point: The battle is not won,” Health Minister Roberto Speranza told Italian radio on Monday.
Regarding the “Immuni” contact-tracing app, chosen by the government to track the spread of the virus in May, Speranza said it “is one of the tools in this crisis.”
Speranza also stressed the importance of the question: “How we will reopen?” and not necessarily: “When?”
“We are now equipping ourselves with a national guideline on how to meet this challenge,” Speranza added.
Lombardy looks to emerge from lockdown: Last week Lombardy, the Italian region worst affected by coronavirus, where nearly half of the total number of deaths have been registered, presented guidelines for a reopening of production activities: diagnosis and testing, digitalisation, social distancing, and rights of workers.
Lombardy is one of the richest regions in the EU, according to the latest Eurostat figures.
The reopening of businesses “must take place in the maximum protection of health and sanitary provisions,” the Lombardy region said Sunday in a statement.
However, the mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, criticised the Lombardy region’s plan in an interview with the Financial Times on Monday.
“I am very critical of (Lombardy’s governor) Fontana’s proposal. Lifting restrictions too soon could lead to extreme consequences,” he said.
In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Sala explained that next week, Milan would outline plans to reopen the city, reorganising public transport, staggering working hours to avoid rush hour, reopening schools, offering incentives to bars and restaurants, and a summer school option to help parents return to work.
“Three conditions are necessary to reopen,” Sala explained. “The first is trivial: We are notified in advance, because public transport cannot be reorganised in 48 hours. The second is fundamental: We do our part by reorganising, for example, transport and subways, but if the others don’t do their part, everything becomes useless,” Sala told the paper.
“Freedom over fear.” That’s just one of the messages from groups of protesters who ignored social distancing guidelines to voice their opposition to stay-at-home orders in several US states this weekend. President Donald Trump is coming under scrutiny for encouraging the demonstrations and seemingly fomenting rebellion, flouting his government’s own social distancing policy. “They have got cabin fever, they want to get back,” Trump said during yesterday’s White House press briefing.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro took Trump’s tactic a step further, joining a rally to end quarantine measures and cheering on protesters who called on the military to shut down congress and the supreme court.
As calls grow for a return to normal life, health officials warn that additional waves of the virus are virtually inevitable, and that letting up on social distancing too early will only make matters worse. Still, many hope antibody tests could provide the key to reopening.
New York will begin the “most aggressive” antibody testing survey in the US over the next week, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who warned was “only halftime” in the battle against the “beast.” Cuomo and other governors from both sides of the aisle have disputed Trump’s claims that there’s enough coronavirus testing.
Elsewhere, Chile is set to become the first country to issue “immunity cards” to those who recover from the virus, allowing them to go back to work. But the World Health Organization says there’s no evidence that antibody tests can determine immunity.
Here’s what else is important today…
UK government under fire: Hospital leaders have criticized the government for making announcements about personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies that cannot be delivered amid “critically low” stocks in some health trusts (and a shipment of PPE from Turkey, due yesterday, still hasn’t arrived).
Sex workers struggle: After some controversy, sex workers in Japan are now eligible to apply for financial aid from the government, under certain conditions — a move some activists have hailed as a sign of progress for an industry that has long suffered social stigma. But sex workers say it’s not enough to live on.
Beaches begin to reopen: Some beaches are beginning to reopen in Australia, but things aren’t back to normal just yet. The reopening of beaches in Jacksonville, Florida was met with less caution. Crowds cheered as police took the barriers down, and people were seen swimming, biking, surfing and fishing.
A version of this story appeared in the April 20 edition of CNN’s Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction newsletter. Read the full version here and sign up here to receive the need-to-know headlines every weekday.
David Attenborough is adding “geography teacher” to his résumé, stepping up to offer his unrivaled knowledge to British school children during the coronavirus lockdown.
The pioneering broadcaster and naturalist will educate students on topics such as mapping the world, animal behavior and the world’s oceans, as part of the BBC’s new virtual learning program, “Bitesize Daily,” which launched Monday.
Attenborough, 93, is among the famous faces leading lessons as part of the broadcaster’s plans to offer relief to parents struggling with homeschooling children during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The new series will also include Manchester City star Sergio Agüero, who will help youngsters learn to count in Spanish, and renowned physicist Professor Brian Cox, who has been recruited to bring science to life, covering topics such as force, the solar system and gravity.
Former Member of Parliament Ed Balls will revisit his past as shadow finance minister, delivering a math class, and “EastEnders” actor Danny Dyer – who is a direct descendant of King Edward III – will provide a history lesson on Henry VIII, the BBC said.
