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Worldwide Covid-19 deaths pass 290,000 – as it happened

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Spain to quarantine overseas travellers; Trump walks out of press conference; White House staff ordered to wear masks. This blog is now closed

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Tue 12 May 2020 19.33 EDTFirst published on Mon 11 May 2020 19.30 EDT
Workers inform people about the new measures and timetables following the easing of lockdown in Menorca, Spain.
Workers inform people about the new measures and timetables following the easing of lockdown in Menorca, Spain. Photograph: David Arquimbau Sintes/EPA
Workers inform people about the new measures and timetables following the easing of lockdown in Menorca, Spain. Photograph: David Arquimbau Sintes/EPA

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Some more information on reports of an attack on a Médecins Sans Frontières facility in Afghanistan.

Gunmen stormed a maternity hospital in the Afghan capital of Kebul on Tuesday setting off a gun battle with police, officials said.

Afghan forces carried out newborn babies and their mothers as they evacuated the hospital, AP reports. At least four people were reported wounded.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but both the Taliban and the Islamic State group are active in Kabul and its surroundings, and both frequently target the military and security forces, as well as civilians.

Black smoke rose into the sky over the hospital in Kabul’s Dashti Barchi, a mostly Shiite neighborhood that has been the site of past attacks by Islamic State militants.

Interior ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said that over 80 women and babies were evacuated by Afghan security forces as the firefight got underway.

A pediatrician who fled the hospital told AFP he heard a loud explosion at the entrance of the building.

“The hospital was full of patients and doctors; there was total panic inside,” he said, asking not to be named.

The attack comes just a day after four roadside bombs detonated in a northern district in Kabul, wounding four civilians including a child.

The bombings were later claimed by the Islamic State group, according to the SITE intelligence group.

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China has suspended imports from four major Australian beef suppliers just weeks after Beijing’s ambassador warned of a consumer boycott in retaliation for Canberra’s push to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.

Analysts said the move raised concerns of a possible standoff between Australia and its most important trading partner, which could spill over into other crucial sectors as it struggles to navigate the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus.

The federal trade minister, Simon Birmingham, said shipments of meat from the abattoirs had been suspended over “minor technical” breaches related to Chinese health and labelling certificate requirements. He added:

We are concerned that the suspensions appear to be based on highly technical issues, which in some cases date back more than a year.

We will work with industry and authorities in both Australia and China to seek to find a solution that allows these businesses to resume their normal operations as soon as possible.

The four meatworks account for around 35% of Australia’s beef exports to China in a trade worth about A$1.7bn (US$1.1bn), according to national broadcaster ABC.

China has also flagged major tariffs on Australian barley over allegations it is selling the grain in China for less than it costs to produce it - known as dumping. The Australian Financial Review cited confidential documents as saying Beijing is considering duties of 73.6%.

Tensions between the two countries have increased since Australia started calling for an independent investigation into the origin of the coronavirus outbreak, which was first detected in China in late 2019.

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Ryanair will restore 40% of flights from 1 July, after running a skeleton service since mid-March as the coronavirus pandemic grounded planes worldwide.

However, the air carrier warned the move was dependent on EU flight restrictions being lifted, as well as public health measures put in place at airports.

“Ryanair will operate a daily flight schedule of almost 1,000 flights, restoring 90% of its pre-Covid-19 route network,” the Irish low-cost carrier said in a statement.

Crew and passengers will wear face masks and have to pass temperature checks, while social distancing at airports and on aircraft would be encouraged, it added.

“It is important for our customers and our people that we return to some normal schedules from 1 July,” said Ryanair chief executive, Eddie Wilson.

After four months, it is time to get Europe flying again so we can reunite friends and families, allow people to return to work, and restart Europe’s tourism industry, which provides so many millions of jobs.

Wilson added that Ryanair would “work closely with public health authorities to ensure that these flights comply, where possible, with effective measures to limit the spread of Covid-19”.

As had been the case in Asia, “temperature checks and face masks/coverings are the most effective way to achieve this on short haul” flights in Europe.

He said the resumption of nearly half of Ryanair’s flights schedule would “allow those tourism-based economies such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, France and others, to recover what is left of this year’s tourism season”.

Ryanair is cutting 3,000 pilot and cabin crew jobs, or 15% of staff, mirroring moves by airlines globally.

News of flights resuming comes after the UK, a significant market for Ryanair, revealed at the weekend that international arrivals will soon face a 14-day quarantine to stop new coronavirus infections.

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Spain orders two-week quarantine for all incoming travellers from 15 May

The Spanish government has ordered a two-week quarantine for all travellers coming into the country from 15 May.

These people will have to remain indoors and will only be allowed to exit for grocery shopping, to visit health centres and in case of a “situation of need”, an official order published on Tuesday said.

The quarantine has been enforced for all travellers entering Spain until at least 24 May, when the state of emergency is due to end.

The quarantine order can be extended jointly with possible state of emergency extensions. Spain has so far extended its restrictions four times since mid-March.

The measures apply to all travellers, including Spanish citizens returning to the country. Only truck drivers, airplane and ship crews, cross-border workers and health staff who are entering Spain to work are exempt from the quarantine.

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Singapore’s health ministry said on Tuesday it had confirmed another 884 coronavirus cases, taking the city-state’s tally of infections to 24,671.

French economic activity down 27% in April

French economic activity plunged 27% in April compared with its expected trajectory before the coronavirus pandemic but this was still a slight improvement on March, the Bank of France said.

The economy had been predicted to grow 0.1% in the first quarter of the year, the central bank said, with the 27% drop counted from where it would have reached in April.

While the lost output was massive, the outcome actually represented an improvement on the last two weeks in March after the lockdown began, when the downturn was running at an estimated 32%, it said.

“With a full month of lockdown in April, economic activity hit a particularly low level,” it said.

Industrial capacity use, for example, fell from 77% in February to 56% in March and then 46% in April, “the lowest level ever recorded,” the Bank of France said in a regular report.

For April alone, industrial capacity in use varied from 77% in the pharmaceutical sector to just 8% in the auto industry.

The central bank noted that companies had adapted to the new conditions, putting in place health measures for workers and this meant fewer plant closures and the resumption of output.

Services such as restaurants and hotels were badly hit, with closures running at 24 days for the month of April, while other sectors such as programming and consultancy suffered much less.

“For the month of May and after the lockdown, companies expect a pickup in activity, with the exception of hotels and restaurants, but this will be a long way from making up for the losses of the two previous months,” the central bank said.

Separately, Bank of France governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the two-month coronavirus lockdown from mid-March had already knocked nearly six percentage points off GDP and worse could be to come.

“The loss for the whole year will be larger than that because as things get going again, activity will remain partial,” he told France Inter.

The British government will today set out details on how to make workplaces safer as some businesses start to resume operations after the prime minister, Boris Johnson, set out a cautious plan to exit the coronavirus lockdown.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the business ministry would set out details of how employers could make workplaces safer. He said:

This stuff isn’t straight forward but we’ll be coming forward with a huge amount of more detail on how to make work places safe today.

We work not only with employers but also with the trade unions who last night called what we’re coming out with a step forward.

Hancock said the coronavirus reproduction number - R0 or ‘R nought’ - was in the middle of the 0.5 to 0.9 range.

You can follow the latest UK-specific coronavirus developments on our UK live blog, currently being headed up by my colleague Simon Murphy.

Gunmen attacked a Médecins Sans Frontières medical clinic in the western part of the Afghan capital of Kabul, a source from the ministry of interior said on Tuesday.

“A hospital belonging to Doctors Without Borders is under attack,” the source told Reuters, adding that security forces were working to counter the attack and the deputy health minister may have been visiting the clinic at the time.

A ministry of interior statement confirmed an attack had taken place at a hospital.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack or whether there were any casualties.

Médecins Sans Frontières, the international medical aid charity, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

India’s enormous railway network was grinding back to life on Tuesday in a gradual lifting of the world’s biggest coronavirus lockdown, even as new cases surge.

The country imposed a strict shutdown in late March, which prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has credited with keeping cases to a relatively modest 70,000 with some 2,000 deaths.

Restrictions have been steadily eased and on Tuesday parts of India’s passenger train network, which in normal times transports over 20 million people on 20,000 trains daily, were scheduled to resume.

Several tens of thousands of tickets for the initial 30 trains sold out online within three hours on Monday, reports said, with the first set to depart New Delhi at 4pm (10.30 GMT).

Stranded people who have their train tickets sit outside the railway station in New Delhi. Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

There have already been special train services to transport some of the millions of poor migrant workers left jobless and destitute by the shutdown back to their home states.

The government did not set out a programme for when more services will resume.

Haruki Murakami, one of Japan’s most acclaimed novelists, will host a radio special to try to lift the nation’s spirits as a state of emergency over coronavirus lingers.

Murakami, whose breakout novel Norwegian Wood debuted in 1987, will play favourite songs and welcome listener comments during a Stay Home Special, the name evoking a plea from Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike for residents to avoid going out.

“I’m hoping that the power of music can do a little to blow away some of the corona-related blues that have been piling up,” Murakami wrote.

Haruki Murakami has been translated into 50 languages and sells millions of copies outside his native country of Japan. Photograph: Ali Smith/Photograph by Ali Smith

While a nationwide state of emergency is due to last until 31 May, officials said some regions may be able to lift restrictions as early as this week if infections are under control.

Tokyo, the centre of Japan’s outbreak, confirmed 15 new cases on Monday, the first time in 42 days that the daily number has fallen below 20.

Murakami, a perennial favourite for the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a notorious recluse but has hosted his Murakami Radio Show every couple months.

As a teenager he developed a passion for jazz and spoke of writing to its beat. He and his wife, Yoko, opened a jazz club while still university students and ran it for seven years.

The Murakami Radio Stay Home Special will play on Tokyo FM 80.0 and 38 stations nationwide on 22 May.

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