A new cluster of coronavirus cases in Tokyo has been traced to a boy-band musical, prompting authorities in the city to appeal for more than 800 theatregoers to get tested.
Reuters reports:
The Tokyo government said it was focussing on a 190-seat theatre in Shinjuku, a busy entertainment area and home to one of Asia’s biggest red-light districts which has been the centre of a recent spike in infections.
The latest cluster has been traced to Theatre Moliere, which staged a play for six days starring mainly up-and-coming boy-band members earlier this month.
The Tokyo government said it learned of the first infection among a cast member on July 6, after which testing found 20 related cases by late Monday. It called on all audience members who attended the performance to get tested.
The producers of the play, “Werewolf”, released a statement on Monday also asking audience members to seek health advice.
Good news from Pakistan, where officials say a polio vaccination programme will resume next week. The programme had been suspended because the country’s health system was overwhelmed by coronavirus.
The anti-polio campaign would last three days, from next Monday, with the plan to have about 800,000 children vaccinated, AP reported the officials as saying. Police departments have received requests to ensure the safety of the polio workers.
Polio vaccination teams and security escorts are routinely attacked by the Taliban and other militants who claim that the anti-polio drive is a Western conspiracy to sterilise children or collect intelligence.
Pakistan had hoped to eliminate the disease by 2018, when only 12 cases were reported. But there was a surge in new cases the following year. Since January, Pakistan has reported 58 new polio cases from various parts of the country, including the northwestern region bordering Afghanistan.
Pakistan has had more than 253,000 cases of the coronavirus, including 5,320 deaths, since the first infection was detected in February.
In Buenos Aires, Uki Goñi reports that political factions that were briefly united in efforts to prevent the spread of Covid-19 are at loggerheads again:
On one side, the Perónist administration of the president, Alberto Fernández, is struggling to keep its coronavirus lockdown in place after Argentina passed the 100,000 cases on Sunday – a four-fold increase from a month ago. On the other, an increasingly rebellious opposition and a defiant grassroots movement have been pressing for the end of quarantine rules…
Anti-lockdown sentiment is being stoked by Fernández’s predecessor, Mauricio Macri, a pro-business politician who lost his bid for re-election last year.
“We have seen a government that has tried during the pandemic to undermine freedom of expression, justice, independence of the branches of government and private property,” Macri said in a video posted on Twitter last week. “This has generated an active and strong reaction from society, which has mobilised to express itself against these actions.”
There are also sharp divides between Buenos Aires, where 95% of the country’s cases are and which remains in hard lockdown, and the rest of the country, where the virus has so far been controlled:
With zero deaths and only 126 cases so far, Corrientes enjoys freedoms Buenos Aires residents can only dream of. “We can hold social gatherings of up to 10 people and restaurants are open,” says Martín Barrionuevo, a Perónist senator in the legislature of the province of Corrientes.
Fearful of the spread of the pandemic, the provinces are monitoring the transport of merchandise from Buenos Aires. “We have control posts on every highway, we test every truck driver,” Raúl Jalil, the governor of the northern province of Catamarca, said.
You can read the rest of Uki’s excellent piece here.
Coronavirus has interrupted the education of around 10 million children in Afghanistan, leaving many without alternative learning options, the charity Save the Children has estimated.
The charity’s assessment comes as the number of Covid-19 deaths surges in Kabul, even as violence rages on across the country.
Save the Children said in a statement that the inability of attending school in addition to the job losses for many Afghan families “means that their children are having to work in the streets or marry early in order to support their families. Children must be studying safely in their homes through the most appropriate means.”
Milan Dinic, Save the Children’s Afghanistan country director, said that while many countries seem to be bringing Covid-19 under control, the situation in Afghanistan is worsening.
“The indirect impacts of Covid-19 on the lives of millions of children in Afghanistan cannot be ignored,” Dinic said. “Ten million have had their education interrupted while they see their parents and neighbours, struggling to cope with job losses and soaring food prices. Support is urgently needed across all areas – from income support for families to alternative education options for children.”
The number of deaths from Covid-19 has risen by 24 from the previous day to stand at 1,062. In its latest update, the health ministry said the number of people who had tested positive for the virus had reached 34,740, an increase of 135 on the day before. There have been 21,454 recoveries.
The number of daily infections has been dropping in recent days but the war-ravaged country’s capital is seeing a surge in the number of deaths. Kabul reported 19 deaths today. Kabul has been the country’s worst affected area, with 370 deaths.
Updated
at 5.15am EDT
AFP reports that in Turkmenistan, passenger trains have been halted from 16 July amid coronavirus fears – even though the country is yet to declare any cases.
While the central Asian country is officially corona-free, the news follows Monday’s announcement that masks should be worn because of “high concentrations of dust” and pathogens in the air.
A WHO delegation that has been in the country since last week will report its findings on Wednesday – which, you suspect, may contradict the governmental position.
The AFP story goes on:
A statement on the state-run railway’s website this week said that local passenger train travel would be suspended for a week from July 16 to July 23, but gave no reason for the stoppage.
Turkmenistan – a tightly controlled, oil-rich ex-Soviet state – is one of the few countries in the world yet to declare any coronavirus cases.
Its foreign ministry last month dismissed as “fake news” a US embassy health alert warning Americans over potential coronavirus cases in Turkmenistan.
On Monday, some people told an AFP journalist that they were being stopped by police for not wearing masks – a stark contrast to the government’s policy of discouraging the practice in recent months.
An announcement by the health ministry carried by the state information agency on Monday recommended mask-wearing because of a “high concentrations of dust” and pathogens in the air.
Updated
at 5.16am EDT
6,000 new coronavirus cases in Russia
Russia has reported 6,248 new cases on Tuesday, and 175 deaths in the last 24 hours.
That means the confirmed national tally is 739,947, the fourth highest in the world, and the official death toll is 11,614. But the number of cases in Moscow has dropped in recent weeks, and from yesterday rules requiring residents to wear masks outside were relaxed.
Here’s an interesting piece from the Moscow Times which raises accusations that the authorities have underplayed the crisis:
Critics have cast doubt on Russia’s low official mortality rate and accused authorities of under-reporting to play down the scale of the crisis.
Russia attributes its lower virus death figures to mass testing which has identified many cases with mild or no coronavirus symptoms.
The Health Ministry is now adjusting how it reports numbers to include all deaths believed to be related to the virus even if the direct cause of death was another condition or the patient tested negative.
It’s 14 July, which means it’s Bastille Day, and France has recalibrated its traditional celebrations to suit the times, with a focus on medical heroes rather than the military figures who are typically celebrated.
AP reports that at the main ceremony on Paris’s Place de la Concorde on Tuesday:
… instead of world leaders or other dignitaries, the guests will be nurses, doctors, supermarket and nursing home workers, mask makers, lab technicians and others who kept France going during its strict nationwide lockdown. Families of medical workers who died with the virus also have a place in the stands.
“Exceptionally, this year, our armies … will cede the primary place to the women and men in hospital coats who fought the virus and who remain at the ramparts in the crisis,” Macron said.
Elsewhere in the French capital, though, protesters will be out on Bastille plaza, with medical workers expect to be among those highlighting what they see as French failures to prepare adequately for the spread of the virus.
Updated
at 3.23am EDT
French president Emmanuel Macron will host Tuesday a Bastille Day ceremony scaled-down because of the coronavirus pandemic and also address the French in a rare television interview as fears grow over a potential second wave of infections.
For the first time since 1945, authorities have called off the annual military parade along the Champs-Elysees in Paris that marks the 14 July 1789, storming of the Bastille fortress that launched the French Revolution, AFP reports.
Just 2,000 soldiers – half the usual number– will gather at the Place de la Concorde.
Prominent doctors urged this week that face masks be mandatory indoors, while authorities have warned the virus appears to spreading faster in several areas as people let down their guard during summer holidays.
And despite billions of euros pledged to minimise the economic damage, questions remain over how the government will foster recovery from a recession expected to destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs.
