The ticket resale website Viagogo is refusing to refund fans who bought tickets for gigs and sporting events cancelled because of the pandemic, according to the consumer group Which?.
Hundreds of summer events have fallen victim to the coronavirus outbreak, with organisers offering to give fans their money back if they do not want to, or cannot, transfer their tickets to 2021.
But Viagogo, which has been criticised by the music industry, MPs and campaign groups over its treatment of customers and alliances with powerful ticket touts, is refusing to follow suit:
Hong Kong records 113 new cases
Hong Kong has reported a record 113 new cases for Wednesday, in a continuing third wave of Covid-19 infections, including a large proportion of which are unsourced. The government said the risk of large scale community outbreak was now the highest since the pandemic began.
“New cases recorded during the period from July 15 to July 21 include 393 cases without travel history during the incubation period and 56 imported cases,” said a government statement.
“The recent emergence of local cases of unknown infection source indicates the existence of sustained silent transmission in the community.”
Of Wednesday’s 113 cases, just five were imported and 63 of the local transmissions did not have a known source. Restrictions have now been tightened again.
Masks are mandatory at indoor public spaces and outdoor transport hubs, from today for 14 days. People have been largely wearing masks everywhere in the city since the pandemic began.
“Many indoor public places would be included, for example, shopping malls, supermarkets, markets, all the covered places, the shops and all that, even building lobbies,” said Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan.
Anyone arriving to Hong Kong from the US or Kazakhstan must now have proof of a negative Covid-19 test in the preceding 72 hours. The two countries join Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa, which were already on the list of high risk departure points.
The government also extended quarantine orders on arrivals. Hong Kong remains closed to non-residents.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday downplayed the importance of wearing face masks during the pandemic, calling his treasury secretary’s assertion that using them would be a factor in reactivating the economy “disproportionate”, AP reports.
López Obrador had never been seen publicly wearing a mask until he flew to Washington earlier this month to meet with President Donald Trump.
“If a mask was an option for the economy’s reactivation, Id put one on immediately,” López Obrador said Wednesday. “But it’s not like that. I follow the recommendations of the doctors, of the scientists.”
The World Health Organization recommends the wearing of masks among other measures to slow the spread of Covid-19. At age 66, López Obrador also falls into an at-risk group of people who should wear masks.
Mexico continued to report high transmission rates Wednesday, with 6,019 newly confirmed cases, for a cumulative total of 362,274 infections. The Health Department also reported 790 more deaths, bringing the total so far in the pandemic to 41,190, the fourth highest total behind the United Kingdom at 45,586.
The European Union has granted Honduras €80m ($93m) in aid to help the impoverished Central American nation’s health system cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, an EU representative said on Wednesday.
Reuters reports that, despite strict measures to curb the spread of the pandemic, local hospitals have struggled to cope with the number of patients with respiratory illnesses in Honduras, which has registered 35,345 infections and 988 deaths from the virus.
“In Honduras, €80m will be allocated in the areas of health, early recovery, measures to aid economic recovery, jobs and human rights,” Alessandro Palmero, the EU’s representative to Honduras, told reporters. Analysts expect the pandemic to cause the Honduran economy to contract by between 2.9% and 3.9% this year and lose 500,000 jobs. Some 62% of the population already lives in poverty.
Trump ties climbing Covid-19 cases to Black Lives Matter protests
Donald Trump has cited Black Lives Matter protests against the police killing of George Floyd as among the likely causes of the recent surge in coronavirus cases.
The US president did not blame the anti-racism demonstrations directly but suggested that they “presumably” led Americans to lower their guard against the pandemic.
“There are likely a number of causes for the spike in infections cases,” Trump told reporters at his second briefing on the virus in two days following a three-month impasse. “Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations, which you know very well about, which presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide.”
Public health experts say there is little evidence that the protests spread Covid-19 in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Washington or other cities. They took place outdoors, where the virus spreads less easily, and most participants wore face masks, which Trump has conceded is an effective preventive measure:
South Africa reports record number of daily virus deaths
South Africa on Wednesday announced a record 24-hour increase of 572 coronavirus deaths, bringing its total number of fatalities to 5,940, AFP reports.
The country is the worst-affected in Africa and among the top five in the world in terms of confirmed cases, with 394,948 infections reported to date.
“Regrettably we report 572 new Covid-19 related deaths. This brings the cumulative number of deaths to 5,940,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a daily statement.
Almost half the total number of deaths have been reported in the Western Cape province, while the majority of positive cases are in Gauteng – South Africa’s financial hub and epicentre of the outbreak.
The mortality rate has remained low, however, at around 1.5% on Wednesday.
Almost 60% of the country’s Covid-19 patients have recovered from the virus.
Updated
at 7.54pm EDT
