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Volunteers in Brazil and South Africa receive first doses of experimental vaccine – as it happened

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Vaccine developed at Oxford University; deaths in Latin America pass 100,000; Brazil records 39,436 new cases. This blog is now closed

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Wed 24 Jun 2020 19.20 EDTFirst published on Tue 23 Jun 2020 19.06 EDT
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'A sobering reminder': global coronavirus cases to hit 10 million next week, says WHO – video

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Sarah Butler
Sarah Butler

The British public is set to discard 67m items of clothing and 22m pairs of shoes after two in five of us had a wardrobe clear-out during lockdown.

While clothing is the most common item destined for charity shops, clothing recycling schemes or the bin, other accessories including bedding, household textiles and bags all contribute to an estimated 184m textile items waiting to be disposed of, according to the government-backed recycling and reuse body Wrap.

On average, people want to get rid of 11 items of clothing, with more than half of these items still at home awaiting disposal because charity shops and many local authority bins have yet to reopen.

Almost half of participants (49%) in a Wrap survey said they would hand unwanted clothes to a charity shop or charity bag collection service, with shops prepared for a surge in donations after they gradually began to reopen last week. But as many as 14% plan to put unwanted clothes in the general rubbish, with just over one in three of those who have already disposed of these items having put them in the bin.

Summary

Here are the latest developments from the last few hours:

  • Deaths worldwide passed 475,000, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, with the known toll currently at 477,584, and known infections standing at 9,263,466.
  • Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far, as cases surge in the US following the easing of restrictions.Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas –which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.
  • Brazil confirmed more than 39,000 in a single day on Tuesday. The death toll in Latin America’s biggest economy stands at 52,645. A judge on Tuesday ordered Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, to wear a mask in public after the right-wing populist attended political rallies without one.The death toll in Latin America passed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, with Mexico the second-worst affected region in the nation. Mexico on Tuesday registered 6,288 new infections and 793 additional deaths, the health ministry said, bringing the totals for the country to 191,410 cases and 23,377 fatalities.
  • A Chinese pharmaceutical firm has won approval to run a large-scale “Phase 3” clinical trial of its novel coronavirus vaccine candidate in the United Arab Emirates. China is seeking to test potential vaccines overseas because of a lack of new patients at home. No other experimental vaccines has yet successfully completed a late-stage “Phase 3” test to determine efficacy in shielding healthy people from the virus.
  • A South African school confirmed 200 infections among pupils and staff. More than 200 pupils and staff who returned to a boarding school in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape province this month tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday, officials said.Eastern Cape accounts for around 15% of South Africa’s 101,590 cases, making it the country’s third worst-affected province, AFP reports.
  • The next few weeks are critical to tamping down a ‘disturbing’ coronavirus surge, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress on Tuesday issuing a plea for people to avoid crowds and wear masks just hours before mask-shunning President Donald Trump was set to hold a campaign rally in one hot spot.
  • Russia will hold a second world war parade ahead of vote on Putin reforms on Wednesday despite rising cases. Putin announced the new dates for the parade and a vote extending his rule – initially planned for April – last month despite Russia still recording thousands of new cases every day. Russia has 598,878 cases, the third-highest globally – and 8,349 deaths, significantly lower than most other countries in among the 10 worst affected, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data.
  • Australia confirmed its first death in a month. The man in his 80s died in the state of Victoria, in the first coronavirus-related death in more than a month. Australia’s total death toll from the virus now stands at 103.
  • New Zealand recorded one new case, diagnosed in a traveller returning from abroad who remains in government-run isolation facilities. The country has reported 11 active cases, all in people returning to the country. Nine of them were diagnosed during their government-managed isolation and remain there.
  • Novak Djokovic tested positive for Covid-19 amid Adria Tour fiasco.The beleaguered world No 1 tested positive, along with his wife, Jelena, throwing tennis into turmoil as the sport’s official tour prepares to resume. They join three other leading players and two trainers infected by the disease towards the end of the Serb’s unsanctioned Adria Tour.
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Global report: seven US states report record Covid-19 hospitalisations

Seven US states have reported their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far, as cases surge in the US following the easing of restrictions.

Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas –which also confirmed a record daily case increase on Tuesday – each admitted record numbers of infected people to hospital, the Washington Post reported.

More than 800 deaths were reported across the country on Tuesday, it said, saying ti was the first increase in fatalities since 7 June.

California saw record infections, too, with more than 5,000 in a single day for the first time, as Arizona, Nevada and Missouri also reported record case increases.

In Florida, Homestead hospital warned that its intensive care unit was at capacity, NBC reported. Florida confirmed 3,200 new cases on Tuesday, which marked the sixth day of more than 25,000 cases:

New coronavirus cluster discovered in Tokyo office

Tokyo will record “quite a large number” of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday after a cluster of infections was discovered at an office, Governor Yuriko Koike said.

“Clusters in the workplace have become a big problem lately,” Koike told reporters, adding that test results from the same unnamed company were expected to add to the seven infections found there previously, Reuters reports.

In addition, more than 10 positive results are expected from group testing in Shinjuku, Koike said, referring to an area of the Japanese capital known for its night life.

People walk through Shibuya on 23 June 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
Tom Phillips
Tom Phillips

Those who knew and loved him say Leandro Maduro Costa was born a clown, lived his life as a clown – and had hoped to die as one.

“He always said to me: ‘Felipe, if I die first, bury me as ‘Potato’,” said Felipe Alves Guimarães, a friend and fellow entertainer known by audiences as Tambourine.

“It’ll be the first time a clown has ever been buried dressed as a clown,” Guimarães remembered his performing partner as saying. Tambourine promised to honour Potato’s wishes.

But when Covid-19 began tearing across Brazil in March it destroyed those plans as it has now destroyed more than 50,000 lives in the world’s second worst-hit country after the US.

Potato the Clown was laid to rest in Rio on 11 May, surrounded by a small group of relatives and in a sealed coffin.

“Because of this virus we couldn’t make his wish come true,” Guimarães said. “It really upset me. I spent two or three days locked up at home in pieces – because I wasn’t able to say a final farewell to my friend.

In altogether more bananas news, residents in Lopburi, Thailand, are hiding behind barricaded indoors as fights between rival monkey gangs create no-go zones for humans.

The ancient Thai city has been overrun by a growing population of monkeys super-charged on junk food – and angry at its dwindling supply under coronavirus restrictions, AFP reports.

Pointing to the overhead netting covering her terrace, Kuljira Taechawattanawanna bemoans the monkey menace across the heart of the 13th-century city in the central province of the same name.

“We live in a cage but the monkeys live outside,” she tells AFP.

“Their excrement is everywhere, the smell is unbearable especially when it rains.”

A longtail macaque tears down a poster reading “Don’t feed the monkeys” in the town of Lopburi, some 155km north of Bangkok, on 21 June 2020. Photograph: Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images

AFP reports:

The fearless primates’ antics were largely tolerated as a major lure for the tourist hordes who descended on the city before the coronavirus outbreak to feed and snap selfies with the plucky animals.

But a government sterilisation campaign is now being waged against the creatures after the epidemic provoked an unexpected change in their behaviour. As foreign tourism - Thailand’s cash cow - seized up so did the flow of free bananas tossed their way, prodding the macaques to turn to violence.

Footage of hundreds of them brawling over food in the streets went viral on social media in March. Their growing numbers - doubling in three years to 6,000 - have made an uneasy coexistence with their human peers almost intolerable.

An abandoned cinema is the macaques’ headquarters. Nearby, a shop owner displays stuffed tiger and crocodile toys to try to scare off the monkeys, who regularly snatch spray-paint cans from his store.

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Latin America coronavirus deaths top 100,000

The number of people who have died from coronavirus in Latin America surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally of registered deaths, while Mexico announced a record one-day total for new infections.

In recent weeks Latin America has emerged as the epicentre of the pandemic, with a spike in cases and deaths even as the tide of infection recedes elsewhere on the planet.

Mexico on Tuesday registered 6,288 new infections and 793 additional deaths from the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, the health ministry said, bringing the totals for the country to 191,410 cases and 23,377 deaths.

Funeral workers stand by the coffin of a woman who died of coronavirus , as musicians stand next to them at the Municipal cemetery in Nezahualcoyotl, State of Mexico, Mexico 12 June, 2020. Photograph: Carlos Jasso/Reuters

Mexico has been the worst hit-nation in the region after Brazil, where a judge on Tuesday ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a mask in public after the right-wing populist attended political rallies without one in the middle of the world’s second-worst coronavirus outbreak.

The virus also appears to be on the rise in Central America, where Guatemala on Tuesday recorded more than 700 new infections for the first time. Additional 35 deaths were registered in Guatemala, taking it deaths total to 582.

Brazil confirms 39,436 new cases in 24 hours

Brazil recorded 39,436 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, as well as 1,374 new deaths resulting from the disease, the country’s health ministry has said.

Brazil has registered more than 1.1 million cases since the pandemic began, while cumulative deaths reached 52,645, according to the ministry.

Russia to hold WWII parade ahead of vote on Putin reforms

Columns of tanks and troops will parade through Red Square on Wednesday as President Vladimir Putin oversees grand World War II commemorations to stir up patriotic fervour ahead of a vote on extending his rule, AFP reports.

Forced to postpone the country’s traditional 9 May Victory Day celebrations by the coronavirus pandemic, Putin rescheduled the parade for just a week ahead of a 1 July public vote on controversial constitutional reforms.

Among other changes, the reforms Putin proposed earlier this year would reset the presidential term-limit clock to zero, allowing him to potentially stay in the Kremlin until 2036.

Russian military servicemen walk near Red Square in Moscow, Russia, 23 June 2020. The military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II will take place on the Red Square on 24 June 2020. Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA

He announced the new dates for the parade and the vote - initially planned for April - last month despite Russia still recording thousands of new coronavirus cases every day.

Russia claims to have 598,878 coronavirus cases and 8,349 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data.

The rate of new infections has fallen in recent weeks and cities including Moscow have lifted anti-virus lockdowns, but critics accuse Putin of rushing ahead with public events to pursue his own political ends.

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The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 587 to 191,449, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday.

The reported death toll rose by 19 to 8,914, the tally showed.

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