Name: Austria says easing lockdown has not led to spike in infections – as it happened
Brand: theguardian.com
SKU: theguardian-com-749
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Austria says easing lockdown has not led to spike in infections – as it happened

preview

This article is more than 2 years oldThis article is more than 2 years oldThis blog is now closedWe’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest updates: The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is preparing to wind down the coronavirus wage-subsidy scheme for workers from July as part of government plans to gradually remove lockdown measures.In a sign of the mounting costs to the exchequer with almost a quarter of employees in Britain , the chancellor is expected to announce that the Covid-19 job retention scheme will be steadily scaled back as restrictions on business activity are lifted.The Treasury is understood to be examining several options for tapering the scheme, including cutting the 80% wage subsidy paid by the state to 60% and lowering the £2,500 cap on monthly payments. Another option promoted by employers’ groups to allow furloughed staff to work, but with a smaller state subsidy, is also under consideration.Sources indicated that a final decision has yet to be made, but the Treasury was working closely with No 10 as Boris Johnson to gradually lift lockdown restrictions. After more than a month of tight controls on social and business activity across Britain and in other countries around the world, the UK is on the brink of the deepest recession in living memory:Vice President Mike Pence insisted that “it really is all a reflection of the tremendous progress we’ve made as a country”, despite data on the continuing public health risk.Recently there has been some tension in messaging about the virus from key members of the group.Fauci has cautioned that the US needs to have to reopen safely, and is not yet at that stage. Fauci said the US will need to its current level of testing within several weeks.“I don’t think there’s a chance that this virus is just going to disappear,” he National Geographic. “It’s going to be around, and if given the opportunity, it will resurge.”But acknowledging that the US is still behind on testing .In recent days, Trump has started to amp up talk about reopening the economy, saying Tuesday morning that it is “going to happen pretty fast”.Here are the main developments from the last few hours: Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now. The pandemic has cost Walt Disney $1.4bn (£1.12bn) in the last three months as it shut down its theme parks around the world and halted film and TV productions, the company has announced.The world’s largest media company said its operating income for the three months ending 28 March had fallen 37% to $2.4bn after it was forced to close parks, cancel cruises and delay future productions.The French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi SA plans to enrol thousands of subjects globally for trials of an experimental vaccine it is developing with GlaxoSmithKline Plc, a senior executive has told Reuters.Sanofi, whose Pasteur division has an established track record in influenza vaccines, is working with the British firm GSK to come up with a candidate for trial it hopes will be ready next year.Sanofi Pasteur executives told Reuters the company hopes to start early-stage trials in September, with hundreds of subjects enrolled.While phase one vaccine trials typically involves a small number of healthy volunteers to test for safety, Sanofi said it had opted for higher numbers to secure stronger data sooner.“We envisioned phase one to actually have several hundreds of subjects, so it is really a phase one/two trial,” said John Shiver, head of Sanofi vaccine research.Ferguson is not the first high-profile figure to apparently fall foul of lockdown rules. Ministers, scientific advisers and footballers have all been criticised for their behaviour:Prof Neil Ferguson is the academic whose modelling evidence has been central to not just Boris Johnson’s coronavirus strategy, but for those strategies in France, Germany and the US too. His resignation is a huge blow to the government’s authority on the pandemic.It was his work that prompted a seismic shift in government policy in the UK response from essentially letting the virus spread through the population to the wholescale stay-at-home policy now in place.The evidence that changed the government’s policy came from the centre he founded with colleagues at Imperial College, the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, which collaborates with the .His decision to resign from the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), after allowing his lover to visit him at home during the lockdown while lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing, will leave a gaping hole for ministers to fill.Stormont’s health minister has accused Aer Lingus of operating like the pandemic has not occurred after images emerged of a packed flight.Robin Swann criticised the airline after pictures showed an almost full cabin with no apparent evidence of social distancing. Pictures shared of the Belfast to London Heathrow flight on Monday morning showed row after row filled with passengers.Aer Lingus carried out a review following the incident and has announced it is adding an extra flight to the route and making changes to boarding procedures.Speaking in Arizona, Trump said it’s time to reopen businesses.Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes.But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon. I’m viewing our great citizens of this country to a certain extent and to a large extent as warriors.Trump has said key advisers Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Birx will still be involved after the taskforce is dismantled, according to Reuters.He claimed the US is moving into a second phase, dealing with the aftermath of the outbreak and reopening services, even as the CDC announces another 823 deaths.Mike Pence and the taskforce have done a great job. But we’re now looking at a little bit of a different form and that form is safety and opening and we’ll have a different group probably set up for that.Asked if he was proclaiming “mission accomplished” in the fight against the pandemic, Trump said, “No, not at all. The mission accomplished is when it’s over.”, the US vice-president Mike Pence has said the White House is having preliminary talks about when to wind down its coronavirus taskforce and may start moving coordination of the US response on to federal agencies in late May.Speaking to reporters in his office with members of the task force, Pence said the president Donald Trump is starting to look at 25 May as the time to shift management of the response to the pandemic, which has killed more than 70,000 Americans.Trump placed Pence in charge of the taskforce, which has been meeting almost every day since it was formed in March.Mexico is winning the battle and has enough spare capacity to see off the peak of the pandemic this week, but the number of deaths linked to the disease is likely higher than official data reflects, a top health official has said.The deputy health minister Hugo López-Gatell, who has spearheaded Mexico’s response to the outbreak, has told Reuters the country is containing the virus, even as he cautioned that a second wave of seasonal illness could strike in October.We’re winning. The numbers are encouraging. We still have a very broad response capacity.Since closing schools and ramping up social distancing in late March, Mexico has urged its 126 million inhabitants to stay at home and ordered the suspension of non-essential business activities.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 19,138 new confirmed cases; taking the total to at least 1,171,510. The number of deaths has risen by 823 to 68,279, it added.The figures do not necessarily reflect those reported by individual states.A regional capital in Brazil has become the country’s first city to declare a total lockdown – in direct opposition to the president Jair Bolsonaro, who has railed against social isolation and .The lockdown in São Luís, capital of the north-estern state of Maranhão, and three neighbouring towns, was ordered by a judge after intensive care beds in state government hospitals filled up. States such as Rio de Janeiro are watching closely. But the move came as looser social isolation measures introduced by state governors crumble across Brazil and cases soar.Roadblocks have been set up, private cars banned, and only essential services such as pharmacies and supermarkets allowed to open. “People don’t understand how harmful it is to be on the street,” said Elvira de Araujo, 60, a public servant isolating in São José de Ribamar, one of the towns affected, who has lost relatives to the disease.Maranhão’s leftist governor Flávio Dino defended the lockdown in a television interview. “We trust in the good faith of people,” he said. Maranhão has reported 4,227 cases and 249 deaths but numbers across Brazil are believed to be much higher and the country has already surpassed with 7,321 deaths reported and 107,780 confirmed cases.Messages were blared from loudspeakers in the Coroadinho favela in São Luís, where shops closed this morning in contrast to recent weeks, said teacher Christiane Mendes, 36. Across São Luís streets were empty, said Daniel Barros, 32, whose restaurant is only doing deliveries.“I have already lost people close to me who got sick, who were intubated, who died. So I prefer it even though it costs me,” he said. “They should have done it sooner.”Airbnb is laying off 25% of its workforce due to the pandemic, impacting nearly 1,900 employees of the home rental startup, Reuters reports.Citing anonymous sources, it reports that the employees will receive a four-month pay package, accelerated equity vesting and health insurance for a year. The company is expected to update employees on Tuesday.In March, Airbnb suspended all its marketing activities to save $800m (£643m) in 2020 and told workers that its founders will take no salary for the next six months, while top executives will take a 50% cut.The Church of England is to allow clergy back into churches on a highly limited basis as part of a three-step plan to reopen its places of worship.The C of E’s House of Bishops decided at a Zoom meeting on Tuesday that a phased lifting of restrictions would be implemented “in time and in parallel with the government’s approach”.The first of the three steps is an immediate reopening of churches where local bishops agree, to allow clergy to stream services or to pray privately. The second phase will be access to churches for some rites and celebrations, such as funerals, “when allowed by law, observing appropriate physical distancing and hygiene precautions”.The final step will be the resumption of services with limited congregations “when government restrictions are eased to allow this”. Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, said:While it is clear there will be no imminent return to normality, the emphasis is now turning towards how and when aspects of social distancing can be eased, although we remain mindful of the potential risks of a second wave of the virus.Nevertheless, it now makes sense for us to start to look ahead to the potential easing of restrictions so that our clergy and churches can be prepared.

This article is more than 2 years oldThis article is more than 2 years oldThis blog is now closedWe’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest updates: The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is preparing to wind down the coronavirus wage-subsidy scheme for workers from July as part of government plans to gradually remove lockdown measures.In a sign of the mounting costs to the exchequer with almost a quarter of employees in Britain , the chancellor is expected to announce that the Covid-19 job retention scheme will be steadily scaled back as restrictions on business...

public

Helen Sullivan

Nick Ames

TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and Guardian Unlimited, is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers The Guardian and The Observer, as well as a substantial body of web-only work produced by its own staff, including a rolling news service.

Austria says easing lockdown has not led to spike in infections – as it happened

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS