Global Updates
- In Malaysia, around 700 undocumented migrants, including children, were rounded up & detained as the police inspector general said that Malaysia cannot allow migrants “to move freely” during its lockdown. Malaysia will open most businesses starting Monday.
- 3 boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya refugees have been prevented from docking in both Bangladesh and Malaysia amid the COVID crisis, (some are saying that both nations used the crisis as a means to reject the refugees). For the last two months, these boats stayed adrift at sea, and it is now being reported that they have disappeared off satellite images.
- According to a letter written by Human Rights Watch, the Covid-19 crisis in Syria is dire. They claim that it takes up to 11 days for one test to come back from the only lab in Damascus, only 26/279 health clinics are open and only 2/11 hospitals are functioning.
- Today marked the first day that adults and teenagers in Spain could leave their homes for 1 hour of outdoor exercise. The gov’t has instituted a shift system based on age; people over the age of 14 are allowed to venture outside for 1 hour, between 6-10 am.
- Madrid has closed a temporary COVID hospital as cases and the death-toll have stabilized. PM Sánchez reversed his original statement and has now ordered all persons on public transport to wear masks, starting next week.
- India reported its highest single-day increase of confirmed cases. Most of the clusters are being traced back to neighborhoods in Mumbai where there are extremely high levels of population density.
- France will extend its ‘health emergency’ status until July 24th. This means that even though the gov’t is preparing to loosen some restrictions, they have the right to maintain or institute additional restriction measures until said date.
- France has instituted a two-week mandatory quarantine for all travelers entering the country, including French citizens returning home.
- Germany will add to the reopening of small shops and will reopen playgrounds, museums, and churches on Monday. The decision on schools will come next week, and Merkel warned her governors against reopening restaurants at this point.
- According to experts, the U.K. looks to be headed in a direction that would see them overtake Italy as the hardest-hit country in Europe. In good news, the U.K. has achieved its goal of testing 100,000 people a day but has largely failed in launching a successful contact-tracing program.
- The Philippines have released close to 10,000 prisoners from prisons in Manila and Luzon in an effort to curb the spread of the virus in overcrowded environments.
- Rwanda has announced a partial lifting of restrictions and said it will allow some people to return to work on May 4 in a bid to revive the economy.
- Singapore will move to ease restrictions. Starting May 5, some residents will be allowed to exercise in common areas like running paths; gyms and pools remain closed. On May 12, some low-risk businesses may resume operations like food delivery/takeout, manufacturing, and laundry. By June 1, Singapore hopes to have most businesses reopened with companies under strict requirements including staggered hours, required face masks, and social distancing within the office.
- Australia is considering ending its lockdown earlier than expected, with one catch- PM Morrison says that it is crucial for 10 million AUS citizens to download the CovidSafe App (their contact-tracing app). Right now, 3.5 million people have downloaded the app.
- El Salvador experienced a weekend of extreme violence that left at least 50 casualties. President Bukele has said that gang members are taking advantage of the pandemic and has authorized the use of lethal force by the police and army against gang members.
- Russia reported its highest daily rise of new cases (9,623), since the start of the pandemic.
Domestic Updates
- The FDA has officially granted emergency approval for remdesivir as a treatment for critically-ill Covid-19 patients. This is the first treatment that has been approved for the virus by the FDA.
- Gov. Cuomo reported a continuously flat 24-hour death toll in NY with 299 fatalities in the last 24 hours (slight up-tick from the day before).
- Out of the 15,000 antibody tests that New York has conducted, around 12.3% have tested positive for antibodies. Within NYC, no borough except the Bronx had higher than a 20% antibody positive result. The Bronx reported that 27.6% of their antibody tests came back positive.
- Gov. Cuomo announced that NY State will donate $25 million to food banks across the Tri-State region, and 7 million masks to vulnerable communities.
- More and more experts are coming forward to warn lawmakers in the US that a second wave is most likely to return in the fall, and that it could be worse than the first because it will coincide with the flu and massively overwhelm healthcare systems.
- More than 30 states have loosened restriction measures. Most noteworthy, next week: gyms and hair salons will reopen in Arkansas, bars and breweries will reopen in Montana, in Northern California’s Yuba and Sutter counties, restaurants, tattoo parlors, and shopping malls will all reopen and many offices in Colorado will resume work at 50% employee capacity.
- Yesterday, more than 30 people were arrested outside the Capitol building in California as they protested against Gov. Newsom’s restriction order. They were arrested because they continuously disobeyed social distancing rules. Around 3,000 people gathered in Huntington Beach to protest the closure of Orange County beaches.
- A congressional committee will examine the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Fauci was set to testify on May 6th but the White House has blocked this effort and he will no longer testify.
- Employees from Amazon, Target, and Instacart have staged protests and walkouts to demand a safer work environment and better pay during the pandemic.
- Models had predicted that Massachusetts would be seeing declining case #’s and fatalities by now, however that is not the case. MA is continuing to report around 2000 new cases per day, and their death toll is behind only New York, New Jersey, and Michigan.
This list has been curated by @jamieplancher