April 22 coronavirus news

The Spanish government has made a U-turn on its updated restrictions for children and will now allow them out for walks after six weeks of confinement, starting this Sunday.

Speaking in Parliament Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the change in the relaxation of restrictions for children. Sanchez made the statement less than a day after his government insisted that kids would only be allowed limited outings to places like supermarkets, pharmacies and banks, accompanied by an adult.

The negative response to the initial decision was immediate and loud, with people across Spain showing disapproval by banging pots and pans from windows and balconies on Tuesday evening. 

Many politicians and health professionals also swiftly criticized the rules set out on Tuesday, forcing a response from the government within hours, with Spain’s Health Minister Salvador Illa saying those rules would be adjusted to allow “walks under specific conditions.”

In an apparent effort to control the damage, Spain’s Prime Minister said “this is a government that listens” and recognizes the “tremendous effort that the confinement has been for the young ones, as well as mothers and fathers, and families.” But he added that the “exception to this small relief, which allows the young ones to go out, does not change the most important thing – the rule of general confinement that continues in place.”

Spain has the strictest confinement measures in Europe, and the world’s second-highest number of coronavirus cases, after the United States.

The Socialist Party Prime Minister was accused of mishandling the coronavirus crisis in a fiery speech in Parliament by the conservative opposition leader, Pablo Casado, head of the Popular Party.

"You are sinning from incompetence," Casado said. “You do not mess with our children. And you do not mess with the health of Spaniards."

Sanchez made his announcement ahead of a vote in Parliament to extend Spain’s state of alarm for the third time, until May 9. Parliament is expected to approve the extension, which would make the lockdown order a total of eight weeks.

The Spanish Prime Minister said “this extension is different than the others. It is one that will begin to de-escalate the rules of confinement.”

As Spain looks ahead to a return to normality with the number of coronavirus cases decreasing, Sanchez warned “the return to normality will be slow and gradual, because it has to be secure.” The country has been hard hit economically by the pandemic.

Sanchez also emphasized the so-called new normality demands that “we must talk about the health system, revitalize the pulse of our economy, and take social protection measures. It is essential to prioritize being in line with Europe. The pacts in Spain will be the pacts in Europe. This is the new politics.”

The first clinical trial for a Covid-19 vaccine has been approved in Germany, the country's Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedical Drugs has said.

The potential vaccine is being developed by biotech company BioNTech in Mainz, Germany.

The Paul Ehrlich Institute, the Federal Agency, says it was able to complete the approval process in four days.

Another human vaccine trial is set to get underway at Oxford University in the UK on Thursday, the British health secretary confirmed this week.

And a separate trial at London's Imperial College is also in the pipeline for June, with researchers asking for volunteers.

At least 825,306 people in the United States have been diagnosed with coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases. The total includes 45,075 deaths.

As states begin to include “probable deaths” in their counts, so will John Hopkins. In the upcoming days, these reporting changes may look like surges of deaths in the United States.

CNN is tracking US coronavirus cases here: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/

The world is facing multiple famines of "biblical proportions" in just a matter of months, the UN has said, warning that the coronavirus pandemic will push an additional 130 million people to the brink of starvation.

Famines could take hold in "about three dozen countries" in a worst-case scenario, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a stark address on Tuesday. Ten of those countries already have more than 1 million people on the verge of starvation, he said.

He cited conflict, an economic recession, a decline in aid and a collapse in oil prices as factors likely to lead to vast food shortages, and urged swift action to avert disaster.

"While dealing with a Covid-19 pandemic, we are also on the brink of a hunger pandemic," David Beasley told the UN's security council. "There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of Covid-19 than from the virus itself."

The WFP had already warned that 2020 would be a devastating year for numerous countries ravaged by poverty or war, with 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. Their updated projections nearly double that number.

Read more here.

A remote Northern California hamlet became one of the first places in the world Monday to attempt to comprehensively test all of its residents for Covid-19 and the antibodies believed to make one immune from infection.

The community-wide free testing effort in Bolinas, California, is voluntary. The town is one of two communities taking part in the new study launched by the University of California, San Francisco with the aim of gaining a more complete understanding of how the virus invisibly spread during the initial shortfall of comprehensive nationwide testing.

Bolinas, with a population of fewer than 2,000 people, sits idyllically on the Pacific Ocean in rural Marin County, just north of San Francisco. Starting this past Monday, residents of this picturesque town have four days to visit a pop-up testing site to receive nasal swabs for Covid-19 infection, as well as submit for a finger prick to test for antibodies.

Five days later, beginning on April 25, and in an entirely different location, nearly 6,000 residents of a section of the densely inhabited Mission District in San Francisco will have four days of their own in which to take advantage of the testing.

Read more here.

The Turkish Ambassador to the UK has said his government did everything it could to organize the delivery of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the UK.

An RAF plane carrying some of the PPE landed in England on Wednesday – several days after it was due to arrive.

Ümit Yalçın said the Turkish government was only approached by the UK on Sunday to help facilitate the export of PPE, which was acquired through a commercial contract.

When Fatema Akther arrived for work at the Alif Casual Wear garment factory in Dhaka in late March, she had no idea it would be her last day.

"My line chief came and told me that I didn't have to work anymore," said Akther, 25, who had been employed there for five years. She said the company, which could not be reached for comment, decided to close the factory, leaving her without a source of income past March.

The coronavirus pandemic has led factories to furlough or lay off more than half of the country's nearly 4.1 million garment workers, according to estimates from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). Like Akther, most of them are women, and the roughly $110 they earn every month is often their families' only source of money.

"My family runs on my single income," said Akther, who said she provides for her husband and child. "I don't know how my family will survive."

Global lockdowns and unprecedented job losses have caused demand for just about anything that isn't food to evaporate, including clothing. That's led the international apparel brands and retailers who rely on the cheap labor that Bangladesh provides to cancel or suspend an estimated $3.17 billion worth of orders in the country, according to BGMEA.

Read more:

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Coronavirus vaccine researchers in London are asking for volunteers to take part in human trials in June.

A team at Imperial College London has been carrying out tests on animals since February and has secured government funding to fast-track its work.

The college said early findings show that in animals, the vaccine does have a positive effect.

Shattock said the coronavirus is not as difficult a target compared with other diseases.

“It’s very different from influenza, which changes every year,” he said. “Scientifically there’s a very high chance of success of getting a vaccine.”

More than 10,000 people in Singapore have contracted the novel coronavirus, authorities in the city-state said Wednesday.

Singapore confirmed another 1,016 new cases as of 12 p.m. today local time, pushing the the total number of infections to 10,141, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

The vast majority of those newly diagnosed are work permit holders who reside in dormitories for foreign workers, which are cramped. Fifteen of those diagnosed are Singaporean nationals or permanent residents.

Read more about why cases have been spiking in Singapore here:

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