Even if you were allowed to go. Don’t go
Getting on a plane right now is madness.
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Polycule with your ex or no deal.
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First we had BBC dad.
Now we have, Philippines Cat Lady.
I’m claiming relevancy as they are talking about the shut down.
They always wait till the last second to officially cancel their flights with this Covid situation, it is very annoying. Every single flight that’s been scheduled from Nicaragua to the US they tell people it’s going up until 24 hrs prior, and then lol nope.
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So you’re saying the sign needs some arrows to direct the eye to read it correctly now?
I AM NOT A FREE MAN
I AM A NUMBER
is now more accurate.
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On being told he had cancer, Dennis Potter, the much loved TV playwright, named his tumour Rupert.
Unfortunately Rupert got the better of him.
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Whats he rubbing in? That we haven’t had a nuclear war or millions of dead Americans yet?
My line has always been “this is going to be bad, very bad, or very very bad but there’s no need yet to assume the worst so stop panicking and getting everyone unduly stressed.”
I was one of the first if not the first to say that western governments had to be ready to institute fast and decisive lockdowns once cases started to appear. That was back in January when your boy was still whining about not going on a cruise.
Please cite and if wrong it’s really no big deal for me to lol and admit it.
That’s why he was arrested - we take our sign making very seriously here.
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Spain has recorded its lowest single-day death toll in two months.
According to the latest figures from the health ministry, 87 people have died from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, down from 102 the day before. The country has confirmed 231,350 cases of the virus using PCR tests, and reported 27,650 deaths.
On Saturday the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced that his Socialist-led coalition would be seeking a final, month-long extension of the state of emergency that underpins one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe.
“The path that we are taking is the only one possible,” said Sanchez. The government secured the current extension, which expires on 24 May, despite fierce opposition from the conservative People’s party and the far-right Vox party.
Both parties claim the state of emergency is excessive and no longer necessary, but the government says Spain’s hard-won gains against the virus must be safeguarded. Sánchez is likely to face another uphill struggle as he prepares to ask MPs to back the final extension in congress later this week.
Around 70% of the country will be in the second phase of de-escalation by Monday, meaning people can shop in small stores without an appointment, meet in groups of up to 10, and eat or drink in cafe and restaurant terraces, which are operating at 50% capacity.
Despite some loosening of restrictions, the Madrid region and the Barcelona metropolitan area - two of the hardest-hit parts of Spain - remain in the first phase of the de-escalation.
Brazil’s health ministry announced 14,919 new cases, taking the country’s total to 233,142, ahead of Spain and Italy, making theirs the fourth largest outbreak in the world . . Brazil has done just a fraction of the testing seen in those three countries.
The global distinction is likely to pile pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro, who lost his second health minister in a month on Friday as he defies public health experts and calls for widespread use of unproven drugs.
Mainland China reported five new confirmed Covid-19 cases for May 16, down from eight the previous day, the National Health Commission has said in a statement. Two of the five confirmed cases were so-called imported infections, while three were locally transmitted in northeastern Chinese city of Jilin. Japan also confirmed five new cases.
The Greek government is poised to announce that restaurants and other eateries can now open on 25 May , one week ahead of schedule. Shopping malls and department stores will also be allowed to open tomorrow, two weeks ahead of schedule. By law staff and customers will be obliged to wear face coverings.
Shopping malls have reopened in Thailand for the first time since their lockdown.
Four out of five merchants at a major fruit market in Peru have tested positive for coronavirus, revealing shocking levels of infection – and prompting fears that L atin America’s traditional trading centres may have helped spread Covid-19 across the region . Seventy-nine per cent of stall-holders in Lima’s wholesale fruit market tested positive for Covid-19, while spot tests at five other large fresh food markets in the city revealed at least half were carrying the virus.
China has asked trading firms and food processors to boost inventories of grains and oilseeds as a possible second wave of coronavirus cases and worsening infection rates elsewhere raise concerns about global supply lines. Both state-run and private grain traders as well as food producers were urged to procure higher volumes of soybeans, soyoil and corn during calls with China’s Ministry of Commerce in recent days, three trade sources told Reuters.
Barack Obama attacked the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic during a speech on Saturday. The comments are a rare rebuke of a sitting president from one of his predecessors, and come in the midst of a pandemic that has had devastating and disproportionate effects on communities of color in the United States.
The Philippine government has called for vigilance against the coronavirus, a day after hordes of people trooped to shopping malls and ignored safety protocols, as authorities began loosening a two-month lockdown.
In Indonesia there have been 489 new confirmed cases and 59 deaths. They have had 17,514 confirmed cases and 1,148 deaths overall.
Malaysia’s health ministry reported 22 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the cumulative total to 6,894. The country reported no new deaths, with total fatalities remaining at 113.
Japan has confirmed five new cases today.
Russia has reported 9,709 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus today, a rise from 9,200 new cases reported on Saturday. Russia’s coronavirus taskforce said the overall number of cases nationwide stood at 281,752. It added that 94 people had died over the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll from the virus to 2,631.
An update from Singapore , where 682 new infections of the new coronavirus have been registered, its health ministry said on Sunday, taking the city-state’s total to 28,038 cases. The vast majority of the newly infected people are migrant workers living in dormitories, the ministry said in a statement. Four are permanent residents.
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Ministers and officials from every nation will meet via video link on Monday for the annual world health assembly, which is expected to be dominated by efforts to stop rich countries monopolising drugs and future vaccines against Covid-19.
As some countries buy up drugs thought to be useful against the coronavirus, causing global shortages, and the Trump administration does deals with vaccine companies to supply America first, there is dismay among public health experts and campaigners who believe it is vital to pull together to end the pandemic.
While the US and China face off, the EU has taken the lead. The leaders of Italy, France, Germany and Norway, together with the European commission and council, called earlier this month for any innovative tools, therapeutics or vaccines to be shared equally and fairly.
“If we can develop a vaccine that is produced by the world, for the whole world, this will be a unique global public good of the 21st century,” they said in a statement.
The sole resolution before the assembly this year is an EU proposal for a voluntary patent pool. Drug and vaccine companies would then be under pressure to give up the monopoly that patents allow them on their inventions, which means they can charge high prices, so that all countries can make or buy affordable versions.
In the weeks of negotiations leading up to the meeting, which is scheduled to last for less than a day, there has been a dispute over the language of the resolution. Countries with major pharmaceutical companies argue they need patents to guarantee sufficiently high prices in wealthy nations to recoup their research and development costs.
Even more fraught have been attempts to reinforce countries’ existing rights to break drug and vaccine company patent monopolies if they need to for the sake of public health. A hard-fought battle over Aids drugs 20 years ago led to the World Trade Organisation’s Doha declaration on trade-related intellectual property (Trips) in favour of access to medicines for all, but the US, which has some of the world’s biggest drug companies, has strongly opposed wording that would encourage the use of Trips.
Campaigners say the resolution expected to be passed by the world health assembly’s 198 member states is along the right lines, but too weakly worded.
“In general, it is a disappointment, appalling really. There was better text that was rejected,” said Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International. “The US, UK, Swiss and some others, pushed against the WHO taking the lead in pushing for open licensing of patents and knowhow for drugs and vaccines.
“In a global crisis like this, that has such a massive impact on everyone, you would expect the WHO governing body to have the backbone to say no monopolies in this pandemic. It’s one thing for a country to use its economic clout to buy preferential access to drugs or vaccines. It’s another to prevent others from manufacturing and expanding global supply.”
Oxfam’s health policy manager, Anna Marriott, said: “This week’s letter calling for a people’s vaccine, which was signed by more than 140 world leaders and experts, sets the bar for the scale ambition we need to meet the challenge before us.
“As we approach the final stages of this resolution, we need to see health ministers raise their game to match this ambition. Any government that tries to block or dilute this resolution is risking lives and standing on the wrong side of history.”
Costa Rica will launch a voluntary patent pool later this month. Its president, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, said at the World Health Organization last week: “The pandemic attacks the same in each country regardless of whether you have the resources or not. It attacks people around the world in the same way,.
“Only together with multilateralism, with that sort of leadership, can we defeat coronavirus, not with nationalism and being selfish. It is the time for solidarity. It is the time to work together to show humanity the best that we are made of, the opportunity to show our brotherhood as a whole.”
Wellcome published a poll on Sunday of 2,000 people in the UK which found 96% supported the idea that national governments should work together to ensure that treatments and vaccines can be manufactured in as many countries as possible and distributed globally to everyone who needs them.
“We need vaccines and treatments that will work for the world, and any advances must be available to all countries equally, without exception,” said Alex Harris, the head of global policy at Wellcome. “No country should consider reserving possible future vaccines and treatments for their use only.”
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA), the industry trade body, says companies already share their intellectual property with low-income countries. “We have not been included in these discussions and have limited understanding of what exactly is being proposed, and how it is different from the various institutions already facilitating sharing of data, know-how” and intellectual property, it said in a statement.
“Voluntary patent pools already exist and many companies are already exploring collaborations and voluntary licenses.”
The IFPMA also pointed out that was already a founding partner in the ACT Accelerator, a global partnership designed to speed up research and development of promising and affordable interventions.
“The creation of yet another new platform appears unneeded and would direct resources and energy away from key objectives. We have never needed innovation so much as now and this is probably the worst possible time to weaken intellectual property,” it said.
The invitation of Taiwan to the assembly, which has been blocked in recent years by China, has also triggered a dispute. Taiwan has a lot of support from countries including the US that say its handling of Covid-19 has been exemplary and it could teach the world a lot. Beijing, however, is pressurising other countries to block Taiwan, arguing that it can only be represented if it accepts it is part of China.
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France is open and ready to get back to church!
(I think this is the extent of the service, they just love mass that much.)
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Like six cases among firefighters or firefighters are doing the testing where you are?
Best-selling author Neil Gaiman has caused outrage after admitting on his personal blog that he travelled 11,000 miles from New Zealand to his holiday home on Skye to isolate, after finding lockdown with his wife and son “rough”.
After weeks of entreaties from Scotland’s politicians that people should not travel to Highland or island boltholes, as they underlined the risks this causes to local communities, local MP and the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “To come from the other end of the planet is gobsmacking. We will welcome all to the Highlands when it is safe to do so. For now stay away.”
Gaiman wrote: “I needed to be somewhere I could talk to people in the UK while they and I were awake, not just before breakfast and after dinner. And I needed to be somewhere I could continue to isolate easily.” He went on to describe being “masked and gloved” on empty flights to London, and then the “surreal” drive north.
It’s fair to say that locals have found his arrival similarly surreal, with much online criticism of the author’s selfishness, and pleas that there should be no exemptions from lockdown guidance, while Gaiman insists that he has not put anyone at risk.
Who is that?
Australia? I thought we were overlanding Europe and Africa.
His wife also split with him after this and posted about it on her Patreon lol although she said the quarantine wasn’t the thing that caused the split and it was probably coming anyways
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https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid19
I have not looked at this closely and can’t for now. 0.3? Difference in R across seasons? Helpful and could certainly explain some of the southern us data.