Name: Turkey sees over 1,000 new cases for second day in a row – as it happened
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Turkey sees over 1,000 new cases for second day in a row – as it happened

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This article is more than 2 years oldThis article is more than 2 years oldFrance reports , Spain reports ; Greek health officials since 22 April. This blog is now closedWe’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest: Hi, joining you now. I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next few hours. Get in touch on Twitter or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com. Here are the latest coronavirus-related stories from the past few hours:New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is cutting a further 353 staff as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll on museums around the world due to restrictions on movement and concerns about public gatherings.The reduction will come through a combination of the elimination of positions, voluntary retirements and furloughs, a spokeswoman for the museum said.The museum is projecting a $150m loss in revenue due to the pandemic, the spokeswoman said. Its annual budget is $320m.The Met laid off over 80 people in April after closing in March as the pandemic spread across New York. The latest cuts will take its employee count to about 1,600, down from about 2,000 in March. cited a memo sent to the museum’s staff on Wednesday, specifying 79 staff members had been laid off, 181 were furloughed and 93 took voluntary retirement.Chief executive Dan Weiss said: We recognize that the Museum that we will return to - whenever that may be - will be very different from what we left behind only six months ago.We have worked to ensure that these painful staff reductions are distributed across the entire Museum so that no one area or group is taking on an outsized burden.Florida has surpassed 500,000 coronavirus cases as testing ramps up following a temporary shutdown of some sites because of Tropical Storm Isaias.A long line of cars waited outside Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens on Wednesday morning for a coronavirus testing site to reopen after being closed because of the storm.Florida reported 225 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing its seven-day average of daily reported deaths to a high of 185, behind Texas with 197. Florida’s rate is approaching a quarter of that seen in New York at its peak in mid-April.The number of people treated in hospitals statewide for the coronavirus continued a two-week decline, with 7,622 patients late Wednesday morning, a decrease of 175 from the previous day and down from highs of 9,500 two weeks ago.The Florida Department of Health reported 5,409 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday. Overall, Florida’s reported 502,739 cases ranks second to California, with more than 527,000 cases, and above Texas with more than 466,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.The Hard Rock site briefly shut down on Wednesday because of lightning in the area. Testing resumed once the weather cleared.Florida governor Ron DeSantis this week announced that quicker testing, with results in about 15 minutes, would be offered at the stadium and at Marlins Park.“Obviously if you are somebody that is symptomatic and you don’t get your result back for seven days that is not helpful. For asymptomatic test takers, if it takes seven days then the test is basically useless at that time,” DeSantis said.Brazil has reported 57,152 new cases of Covid-19 and 1,437 deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours.The country has registered 2,859,073 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 97,256, according to ministry data, in the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak after the United States. Turkey has expressed concern over the rising number of coronavirus cases as the daily infection toll exceeded 1,000 for the second day in a row on Wednesday.Ankara has eased most of the restrictions that were in place since the first case was recorded in March, rising to a peak of more than 5,000 daily infections in April.But after nearly a month of daily cases numbering around 900, Turkish health minister Fahrettin Koca said 1,178 infections were recorded in the past 24 hours.Koca urged citizens on Wednesday to take precautions to avoid further increases.“We’re concerned about the increase in the number of cases, previously limited to some provinces, spreading in the coming days throughout the country,” he said on Monday, which saw 995 confirmed cases.The next day Turkey recorded 1,083 infections.The total number of deaths now stands at 5,784 and infections at 236,112.Koca said at the weekend that the “first wave reached the beaches” as Turks and foreign tourists take to the country’s famous turquoise coast, especially during the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday last week.The outbreak appeared to have worsened in the capital Ankara, the second most populous city in Turkey after Istanbul.The Ankara Medical Chamber on Tuesday said “pandemic hospitals and their intensive care units in Ankara were 100% full” and unable to take in new Covid-19 patients.But the Ankara provincial health directorate contradicted the statement, saying intensive care units were 63% full in the city and insisting the pandemic remained under control.One of the most affected regions is the southeast, especially the provinces of Diyarbakir, Mardin and Sanliurfa, according to the Turkish Medical Association.Canadian finance minister Bill Morneau said he is hosting a call with his counterparts from the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand to discuss the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.Morneau tweeted that the participants were also looking at “how we can work together to ensure a successful recovery”. Italy’s national civil aviation authority ENAC has threatened to suspend Ryanair’s permit to fly in the country over alleged non-compliance with coronavirus safety rules, but the low-cost carrier denied flouting them.The authority accused the Irish airline of “repeated violations of the Covid-19 health regulations currently in force and imposed by the Italian government to protect the health of passengers”.“Not only is the obligation to distance passengers not respected, but the conditions for making an exception to that rule are also being ignored”, it said in a statement.If Ryanair continued to break the rules ENAC would “suspend all air transport activities at national airports, requiring the carrier to re-route all passengers already in possession of tickets,” it said.“The claims made in ENAC’s press release today are factually incorrect,” Ryanair responded.“Ryanair complies fully with the measures set out by the Italian government and our customers can rest assured that we are doing everything to reduce interaction on both our aircraft and at airports to protect the health of our passengers.”Italy was the first European Union country to be seriously affected by the pandemic, which has officially killed over 35,000, but its contagion rate is currently far below levels seen in other parts of the bloc.Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US government official on infectious diseases, expects drug manufacturers will have tens of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses at the start of 2021. Speaking in a Reuters interview, he said production would likely ramp up so that it hits a billion doses by the end of 2021.Fauci said he has not seen any pressure from the White House to announce a vaccine close to the 3 November election, in the hopes of boosting President Donald Trump’s re-election chances. He added that regulators have promised “they are not going to let political considerations interfere” with the approval of a Covid-19 vaccine and “safety and efficacy” will be primary considerations. Colombia’s former president Álvaro Uribe has tested positive for Covid-19, just a day after he was placed under house arrest as part of a witness tampering probe. Uribe, a highly controversial figure, at 68 years old is considered to be among the at-risk population. Owing to his detention, he will already be isolated in his estate near the country’s Caribbean coast. Rumours began circulating early on Wednesday that the embattled statesman may be in ill health, after reporters camped outside his grounds spotted an ambulance arrive.He later announced that he had tested positive, although he was reportedly not displaying any symptoms other than a sore throat. The announcement came less than 24 hours after Colombia was . He served as Colombia’s president from 2002 to 2010, during which he led a brutal campaign against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), a Marxist rebel group that took up arms against the Colombian government in 1964.Yet despite leaving office a decade ago, he remains as divisive and influential as he did when he led the country. His supporters say he neutered a violent leftist group that had terrorized the country since the 1960s. His critics say he did so at an inexcusable cost to human rights. During his tenure, right-wing paramilitary groups flourished, often terrorizing civilians suspected of collaborating with rebels.Since leaving office, he has twice proved himself a kingmaker. In 2016, he led the campaign to vote down a referendum on a peace deal with the Farc. That deal was later ratified in congress. In 2018, his protege, current president Iván Duque, won office with his crucial backing.Colombia is currently rattled by the coronavirus pandemic, with over 335,000 confirmed cases on Tuesday evening and 11,315 deaths. New daily now regularly rise by over 10,000. The country has been under quarantine since late March. British American Tobacco South Africa (BATSA) has been court for the first day of hearings in a case against a government-imposed ban on tobacco sales to limit the spread of coronavirus.South Africans have been unable to legally purchase cigarettes since the country went into a strict nationwide lockdown on 27 March.While confinement measures are being gradually lifted, tobacco products have remained banned for the time being due to “health risks” associated to smoking.BATSA, which covers 78% of the legal cigarette market in South Africa, decided to sue the state in May after talks with the government fell through.Speaking before the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday, BATSA advocate Alfred Cockrell argued the ban was “unconstitutional” and “unscientific”.Cockrell said the measure had “devastated” the tobacco industry in an already ailing economy and was costing the state around 38m rand ($2.2m) per day in excise taxes.Government representative Andrew Breitenbach argued the case was about “lives and livelihoods” but said the minister behind the ban had “taken steps” to allow trade between tobacco producers and cigarette manufacturers.“The ban deals with prohibiting sales,” Breitenbach added. “So infringements on rights are just incidental.”BATSA estimates that South Africa has around 8 million smokers.Its legal action has been backed by Japan Tobacco International and by groups and organisations representing consumers, retailers and tobacco farmers, who agree that the ban is fuelling an illicit cigarette market.The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) legally challenged the “irrational” ban last month, claiming it has diverted revenue away from a multi-million dollar business and into the black market.The court has since ruled in favour of the government but granted FITA leave to appeal.BATSA’s case is scheduled to resume on Thursday.South Africa was already in recession before the coronavirus struck in March and the economy is now forecast to contract by more than six percent this year as a result of the pandemic.The country is the hardest-hit in Africa with at least 521,318 infections diagnosed so far, accounting for more than half the continent’s cases.Its mortality rate has remained low however, with just over 8,800 deaths reported to date.Customers stream into a central Wellington cafe, past a QR code posted on the door that allows people to check in on the New Zealand government’s Covid-19 tracing app.None pause to pull out their phones. Down the footpath outside, crosses of tape – denoting physical distancing measures for shoppers that ended months ago – feel like a reminder of a bad dream.New Zealand has attained the status of one of the world’s safest countries when it comes to the coronavirus; there is no known community transmission in the country and life has largely returned to normal. But with one eye on nations where the before spiralling out of control again, officials and the government have changed their language in recent days in order to fight a new battle – this time against complacency.“We have to be absolutely on our toes,” Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s top health official, said in a on Wednesday. “That’s not just the health system … it’s everybody.”It has been 96 days since the last domestic case of Covid-19 was transmitted from an unknown source in New Zealand; all 24 diagnosed instances of the virus are among travellers returning to the country who are in quarantine at government-managed isolation hotels. But it was inevitable, Bloomfield said on Wednesday, that New Zealand would have an outbreak beyond the isolation facilities.“It’s a matter of when, not if,” he said. “We’re working on the basis that it could be any time.”A group of Senate Republicans have backed extending a $25bn payroll assistance programme for US airlines after warnings carriers may be forced to cut tens of thousands of jobs without government action, according to a letter seen by Reuters.Airline stocks moved sharply higher on the news. Shares of American Airlines were up 8.9% in afternoon trading while shares of United Airlines rose 6.3%.The letter was the first public disclosure of significant support in the Republican-led Senate for additional emergency funding for US airlines.The senators who signed the letter said they backed a new six-month extension of the $25bn payroll support program “to avoid furloughs and further support those workers”.Airline officials and unions have been urging US lawmakers to extend new assistance in the face of the coronavirus epidemic’s devastating impact on airline travel. The letter said:With air travel anticipated to remain low in the near future, Congress should also consider provisions to support and provide flexibility for businesses across the aviation industry similarly impacted, such as airport concessionaires and aviation manufacturing.On 27 July, a majority of the Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives signed a letter also calling for a six-month extension for the payroll aid programme that they argue is crucial to keeping hundreds of thousands of aviation workers employed through 31 March. That letter was signed by 195 Democrats and 28 Republicans.Congress awarded $25bn in payroll assistance to US passenger airlines in March, along with $4bn for cargo carriers and $3bn for airport contractors. Most of the bailout funds do not have to be paid back.Airlines and unions have warned that mass layoffs could take place after the existing $25bn in aid expires on 30 September, just over a month before the 3 November US elections.Between American Airlines and United Airlines, more than 60,000 frontline workers have received warnings that their jobs are on the line.

This article is more than 2 years oldThis article is more than 2 years oldFrance reports , Spain reports ; Greek health officials since 22 April. This blog is now closedWe’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest: Hi, joining you now. I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next few hours. Get in touch on Twitter or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com. Here are the latest coronavirus-related stories from the past few hours:New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is cutting a further 353 staff as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll on museums around the...

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Turkey sees over 1,000 new cases for second day in a row – as it happened

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