Philippines

About 600,000 Chinese people have been locked down after new coronavirus infections were reported near Hubei province, where the outbreak began.

The discovery in a county in Henan province has further raised fears of a second wave of infections.

While in the Philippines, the president has ordered soldiers and the police to shoot anyone who breaches lockdown orders.

Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi reports.

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Soldiers and police patrol in Khayelitsha, South Africa, as authorities attempt to enforce a 21-day nationwide lockdown aimed at limiting the spread of the new coronavirus [Reuters/Mike Hutchings]

There is a sketch doing the rounds on Twitter: Two people standing in the centre of a hallway, back towards one another, each struggling to push a different door closed. On the right, a health worker in a hazmat suit closes the door on the coronavirus, while on the left a police officer in a medical mask pushes back a horde of people.

The romanticised implication is that in the space between COVID-19 and its potential victims, it is medics and security services who push back together to save lives.

A similar theory is at the root of the growing trend where the military and police enforce government lockdowns to contain the spread of coronavirus. But the reality in many

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Healthcare workers in the Philippines also suffer from low wages forcing many to work abroad [File: Rolex dela Pena/EPA]

Manila, Philippines – Joaquin Sapul, Jr started getting the frantic calls a few hours after the health department announced the first coronavirus case in Iloilo City in the central Philippines on March 21.

In response, The Medical City-Iloilo, the hospital where Sapul works and where the unnamed patient was confined, issued a statement to assure the public that stringent measures were in place to ensure the safety of the patient and their staff.

“At least six nurses were messaging and calling me, crying. Their landlords were evicting them. Some were being prevented from leaving their homes by their village captains,” said Sapul, a nurse and chief patient services officer at the hospital.

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It was evening by the time Sapul had finished arranging temporary sleeping arrangements for the displaced

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The number of people now diagnosed with the coronavirus is reaching one million, putting enormous strain on health services across the globe [Thomas Samson/Pool via Reuters]

Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States have all reported the highest number of deaths in a single day since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The US recorded 884 coronavirus deaths, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. It has also confirmed more than 213,000 cases of the disease.

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In the UK, a further 563 people died from COVID-19, in what Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as a “sad, sad day”.

In Spain, an additional 864 people died. 

Globally, about 938,000 have been diagnosed with the virus, and some 194,000 have recovered. Nearly 47,000 people have died from the disease, which originated in China late last year.

Here are the latest updates:

Thursday, April 2 05:30 GMT –

I’m handing over

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Filipino street dwellers rest in a restaurant that was turned into a makeshift evacuation centre in Quezon City, the Philippines [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned he would order the country’s police and military to shoot dead anyone “who creates trouble” during a month-long lockdown of the island of Luzon enforced to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

“Let this be a warning to all. Follow the government at this time because it is critical that we have order,” he said in a late-night televised national address on Wednesday.

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“And do not harm the health workers, the doctors … because that is a serious crime. My orders to the police and the military, if anyone creates trouble, and their lives are in danger: shoot them dead.”

Duterte’s warning came after residents of a slum in Manila’s Quezon City staged a protest along a highway near

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The United Nations chief has warned the coronavirus pandemic is the “worst crisis” to face the world since World War II, as the number of dead in the United States surpassed that in China and hard-hit countries in Europe reported their highest death tolls in a single day.

The US announced some 800 deaths on Tuesday – bringing the total to more than 3,700 – as Spain, the United Kingdom and France reported their largest single-day increase in deaths to date. China has reported 3,282 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

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Around the world, nearly 860,000 people have been diagnosed with the virus, and at least 178,000 have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 42,000 people have died.

Here are the latest updates.

Wednesday, April 1 09:05 GMT – Indonesia confirms 149 new coronavirus infections

Indonesia confirmed 149 new coronavirus infections, taking the total

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Right groups are urging Duterte to immediately stop the deadly ‘drug war’, and ensure that the coronavirus containment measures being implemented adhere to the standards set by the UN [Courtesy of Gabriel Bonjoc/CDRRMO]

This grim image has become all too familiar in the Philippines’s poorer neighbourhoods: the body of a barefoot, shirtless man, slumped against a wall with blood dripping from bullet wounds, the latest victim of President Rodrigo Duterte’s unrelenting anti-illegal drugs campaign that has killed thousands.

On the morning of Sunday, March 23, police and anti-narcotics enforcers from the central island of Cebu carried out an operation against a “high-value individual”. 

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The “buy-bust” mission resulted in an “armed confrontation” and the killing of the suspect, Buen Chiong, according to a Cebu provincial police report obtained by Al Jazeera. Police added that Chiong was on their “provincial-level watchlist”.

The Cebu radio station, DYSS, quoted authorities as saying

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/duterte-presses-drug-war-coronavirus-lockdown-200325073658942.html

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Spain has reported 849 new deaths from the coronavirus, the highest overnight jump since the start of the epidemic, bringing the total number of fatalities in the southern European country to 8,189. 

In the United States, further restrictions on movement are being considered to curb the spread of the virus, with the country now reporting twice the number of cases as China where the outbreak began late last year.

The US has nearly 163,500 confirmed cases, the highest number in the world. More than 3,000 people in the US have now died from COVID-19.

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Around the world, more than 784,000 people have been confirmed to have the virus, and nearly 165,000 have recovered. More than 37,500 people have died.

Here are the latest updates.

Tuesday, March 31 11:30 GMT – Philippines reports largest overnight increase in number of coronavirus cases, deaths 

The Philippines’ health ministry reported its single largest daily increase

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The Philippines’s most populous island, Luzon has been under quarantine for two weeks.

That has left many of its poor unable to go out and work.

And they have little in the way of a social safety net or savings to protect them.

Al Jazeera’s Jamela Alindogan reports from Manila.

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-restrictions-philippine-poor-suffer-closures-200331071923888.html

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As the Philippines reports more than 1,400 cases of coronavirus due to the pandemic sweeping the world, medical staff say frontline workers have died because of a lack of protective clothing.

The health department says it is doing its best to supply equipment, even as it struggles to cope with the rising number of infected patients.

Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo reports from Manila.

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US President Donald Trump has extended federal guidelines on social distancing until April 30 after a top health official warned more than 100,000 people could die from the coronavirus in the United States.

The announcement on Sunday evening came as the death toll in hard-hit New York state passed 1,000.

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The initial 15-day period had been due to expire on Monday.

The US has 139,000 confirmed infections from the coronavirus, more than any other country in the world, while more than 2,400 people have died from the respiratory illness caused by the pathogen.

Worldwide, the total number of infections recorded since the beginning of the outbreak has reached over 718,000.

Some 149,000 people have recovered.

More than 33,000 have died.

Here are all the latest updates:

Monday, March 30 08:34 GMT – Philippines reports seven new coronavirus deaths

The Philippines’ health ministry reported seven new coronavirus deaths and 128

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Debris of the Lion Air medical evacuation plane is seen on the runway of Manila International Airport in Pasay City, Philippines [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

A medical evacuation plane exploded in a ball of flames during the takeoff in the Philippine capital, Manila, on Sunday, killing all eight passengers and crew on board.

The Lion Air plane – bound from Manila to Haneda, Japan – burst into flames at the end of the runway at about 8pm (12:00 GMT), the capital’s main airport said.

Video footage showed a huge plume of smoke rising into the night sky as fire crews doused the fuselage with foam.

The twin-jet West Wind 24 was carrying three medical personnel, three flight crew, a patient and a companion, Richard Gordon, a senator and head of the Philippine Red Cross, said on Twitter.

Manila airport general manager Ed Monreal told a news conference two of the eight on board

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/manila-medevac-plane-explosion-kills-200329154642150.html

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Spain’s health ministry has announced 838 new coronavirus deaths, marking the country’s highest daily jump in fatalities and bringing its total to 6,528.

Elsewhere, US President Donald Trump backed away from imposing a quarantine in the New York area, instead directing that a “strong travel advisory” be issued for the region to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.

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The US now accounts for the highest number of coronavirus infections of any nation, recording more than 122,000 confirmed cases on Saturday. The death toll in the country surged past 2,000, more than double the figure two days ago. 

Worldwide, the number of cases has reached more than 660,000. Some 139,000 people have recovered, while more than 30,000 have died. 

Here are the latest updates:

Sunday, March 29 11:15 – Philippines reports 343 new cases, three deaths 

The Philippine health ministry announced 343 new coronavirus cases in what is the biggest

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/trump-weighs-coronavirus-lockdown-york-live-updates-200328234401911.html

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The number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in the United States hit more than 104,000 early on Saturday, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally, with the number of fatalities surpassing 1,700, pushing the global death toll up to 27,360.

Italy, meanwhile, announced 919 new deaths from the coronavirus, the highest number of fatalities any country has reported in the space of 24 hours since the outbreak began late last year.

The total number of people who have died as a result of COVID-19 in Italy now stands at 9,134. The number of cases also continues to rise, hitting more than 86,000.

Further dashing hopes that Europe is containing the pandemic, Spain recorded 769 new deaths in a day, bringing the total number to 4,858. As of early Saturday, the death toll has surpassed 5,000.

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In China, the number of cases coming from abroad continues to rise,

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In this episode of Studio B: Unscripted award-winning Filipino journalist Maria Ressa and Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie discuss the weaponisation of information and how social media threatens democracy around the world.

In 2012, Ressa set up the digital news platform, Rappler, now particularly known for its tough scrutiny of the Duterte administration and his controversial “war on drugs”. She is currently facing charges of fraud, tax evasion and cyber-liber, in what she says are politically motivated prosecutions.

Ressa was included in the Time’s 2018 Person of the Year as one of a collection of journalists combating fake news.

Wylie is a Canadian data scientist, who worked for Cambridge Analytica, the company that was caught harvesting data from millions of Facebook accounts and using it for political advertising purposes. His revelations led to the largest data crime investigation in history.

In July 2019, Facebook was fined a record $5bn for violating

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/studio-b-unscripted/2020/03/big-tech-empire-maria-ressa-christopher-wylie-200325183411775.html

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The United States now has more coronavirus cases than any other country with more than 85,500 infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, pushing the total numbers worldwide to more than 531,000, as the global death toll surged past 24,000 as of early Friday. 

There were more than 81,700 known cases in China and 80,500 in Italy.

More than 122,000 people worldwide have recovered from COVID-19, while more than 24,054 people have died, including 1,288 in the US.

Italy reported the highest death toll with more than 8,200 deaths.

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In India, where the country’s 1.3 billion people were under orders to stay home, legions of poor were suddenly thrown out of work and many families were left struggling for something to eat.

Here are the latest updates:

Friday, March 27 04:15 GMT – Thailand reports 91 new cases, one death 

Thailand reported 91 new coronavirus cases and one fatality, bringing

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The United States has registered more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths as the country confirmed more than 69,000 cases.

The US Senate passed a sweeping $2 trillion measure to aid workers, businesses, and the healthcare system. It has gone back to the lower house for approval.

Meanwhile, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has launched an appeal for $2bn in international humanitarian aid to help poorer countries tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

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More than 472,000 people around the world have been diagnosed with COVID-19, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. More than 114,000 have recovered, while more than 21,000 people have died.

Spain recorded more than 700 fatalities in 24 hours. It is now the second-worst affected country in the world after Italy.

Here are the latest updates:

Thursday, March 26 07:43 GMT – Nine doctors die from coronavirus in Philippines

Nine doctors have died in the Philippines from the coronavirus, the country’s top medical

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-threat-humanity-live-updates-200326000412411.html

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Workers from a charity foundation prepare boxes of disinfectant tablets to be donated to Iran in Beijing last week [File: Ng Han Guan/AP]

Chengdu, China – On March 18, China marked a milestone in its “people’s war” against the new coronavirus. For the first time in three months, there were no new local infections in the central province of Hubei, where more than 60 million people remain confined to their homes as part of a nationwide effort to control the deadly outbreak.

The respiratory illness caused by the new pathogen, first detected in late December in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, has spread rapidly across the world, infecting more than 465,000 people and killing more than 21,000 as of March 26. 

Europe has become the new epicentre of the disease, also known as COVID-19, with the death toll in Italy and Spain higher than China and the World

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/china-coronavirus-propaganda-push-ties-worsen-200325085419818.html

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USS McCampbell sailed north through the Taiwan Straits and was monitored by Taiwan’s armed forces, the island’s defence ministry said [File: Rob Griffith/AP]

A United States warship passed through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, the US and Taiwan‘s militaries said, following heightened tensions between China and Taiwan that has seen Taiwanese air force jets scramble to intercept Chinese fighters.

The ship sailed north through the waterway and was monitored by Taiwan’s armed forces, the island’s defence ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

It described the sailing as an “ordinary mission”, saying there was no cause for alarm, Reuters news agency reported.

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Anthony Junco, a spokesman for the US Seventh Fleet said the ship was the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell, which conducted “a routine Taiwan Strait transit March 25 (local time) in accordance with international law”.

“The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment

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As the United Kingdom prepares to enter the peak phase of the coronavirus cases curve – the point at which it expects the largest number of critically ill patients at the same time – the country’s National Health Service (NHS) is facing the greatest challenge in its 72-year history.

It is preparing to weather a perfect storm of lack of staff and critical care beds as emergency services and healthcare provision risk becoming overwhelmed by patients needing critical care because of the global pandemic. 

The UK has fewer doctors and nurses serving its population than many countries in the developed world.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UK has only 2.8 doctors and 7.8 nurses per 1,000 people in the population, ranking it lower than Costa Rica, Russia and Hungary, but slightly above the US and Canada.

The average across the OECD’s 36 countries was

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/uk-tax-foreign-nurses-scrapped-200325074532641.html

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Almost empty roads in Ahmedabad in India as the country began a three week lockdown [Amit Dave/Reuters]

India‘s 1.3 billion people have joined the global lockdown triggered by the coronavirus, as the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern at the acceleration of the pandemic in the United States and Italy recorded another large increase in deaths from COVID-19.

India’s “total lockdown” began at midnight (18:30 GMT on Tuesday) and will continue for 21 days. 

In Italy, where more people have died than anywhere else in the world, the death toll rose to 6,820.

The WHO has warned the United States, the country with the most cases after China and Italy, risked becoming the next epicentre of the outbreak as the country’s President Donald Trump, insisted the country could be back to work in three weeks.

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More than 18,600 people have died from COVID-19 since it first emerged

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A priest at Saint Joseph Church walks along the empty nave during Sunday mass after prayers were suspended over concerns about the spread of coronavirus in Dakar, Senegal [Sylvain Cherkaoui/ReutersM

For Samuel Heilman, a visit to his local synagogue – in New Rochelle, New York in the United States – has long been part of his daily routine.

As an Orthodox Jew, Heilman considers the synagogue more than just his place of worship. It’s also a house of assembly and a house of study.  

As nations across the world implement social distancing measures, ban large gatherings and close all non-essential businesses and places to slow the spread of the COVID-19 disease, Heilman is among the millions of worshippers who can no longer visit religious sites or participate in communal prayer. 

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A 73-year-old distinguished professor of sociology and Jewish studies at Queens College, City University of New York, Heilman spoke to

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/praying-pandemic-communal-worship-hard-resist-200324193745287.html

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With Spain in its second week of lockdown, the Palacio de Hielo ice skating centre and shopping mall in northeast Madrid has been converted into a makeshift morgue [Cheme Moya/EPA-EFE]

The first hearse arrived on Tuesday at Madrid’s ice rink, hastily transformed into a makeshift mortuary as Spanish authorities scrambled to deal with a rising death toll from the coronavirus.

Spain is Europe’s second-hardest hit country after Italy, with 2,696 deaths and nearly 40,000 confirmed cases after 6,600 cases and more than 500 deaths were reported overnight, the sharpest daily increase since the start of the crisis.

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Approximately 14 percent of infections are among health workers.

Authorities said on Monday facilities could not cope and agreed to transform the Palacio de Hielo mall, home to an Olympic-sized ice rink, into a morgue.

Footage from Reuters TV showed vehicles at the building cordoned off by police officers in masks.

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Faustina Tay, here seen on her way to Lebanon, was found dead on March 14 in southern Beirut [Courtesy of Demanya family]

Beirut, Lebanon – On the morning of March 13, Faustina Tay sent a final desperate message to an activist group she had contacted about the abuse she was suffering at the hands of her Lebanese employers.

“God please help me,” the 23-year-old Ghanaian domestic worker wrote.

About 18 hours later, she was found dead.

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Tay’s body was discovered in a car park under her employers’ fourth-storey home in Beirut’s southern suburbs, between 3 and 4am on March 14.

A forensic doctor who examined her body found that her death was caused by a head injury “as a result of falling from a high place and crashing into a solid body”.

The doctor found “no marks of physical assault”. A search of Tay’s employers’ home found

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/200323183606796.html

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A man sits in London’s Trafalgar Square before the government ordered everyone to stay at home and halt the spread of the coronavirus [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

The British government has announced strict controls on movement, telling people to stay at home in a lockdown that will be enforced by the police.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the plan in a rare televised address to the nation, after an additional 52 people in the country died from the virus.

“From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction, you must stay at home,” he said.

The British move follows the imposition of strict lockdowns in France, Spain, and Italy, and slightly looser restrictions elsewhere, as Europe reels from a pandemic that the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned is accelerating.

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WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday noted that while it took 67 days for cases to reach

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/uk-closes-warns-pandemic-accelerating-live-updates-200323234651419.html

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Army soldiers patrol the streets of Turin after the Italian government decided to deploy troops to enforce restrictions on movement [Alessandro Di Marco/EPA]

Italy has moved to stop all travel within the country, in a further escalation of its attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, as more than 5,400 people have died in the country from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Spain, the second-worst affected country in Europe, plans to extend a state of emergency until April 11, after recording more than 1,700 deaths.

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More than 14,500 people have died from COVID-19 globally. An estimated 98,000 of the 336,000 people who have been diagnosed with the disease across the world have recovered, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

I’m Mersiha Gadzo in Doha taking over the blog from my colleague Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur with Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the

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The Philippines has confirmed 307 coronavirus cases and 19 deaths so far [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

Manila, Philippines – Authorities are scrambling to trace the Filipinos who attended a religious event in Malaysia which has been linked to a spike in COVID-19 cases in several countries across Southeast Asia.

The Tablighi Jamaat congregation held from February 27 to March 1 at Kuala Lumpur’s Jamek Sri Petaling Mosquedrew an estimated 16,000 devotees from about 30 countries.

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On their Facebook page, the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) announced that 215 Filipinos attended the four-day religious gathering.

During the event, the attendees prayed together and slept alongside one another inside a mosque, with many spilling over into tents pitched outside.

Malaysia recorded its single biggest number of 190 COVID-19 cases on March 15, with a majority of those cases being the devotees who attended the Kuala Lumpur assembly.

200320225513796

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Italy is stepping up its lockdown, ordering all non-essential businesses to close [Riccardo Antimani/EPA]

Italy ordered all but the most essential of businesses to close until April 3, tightening a lockdown against the coronavirus, after nearly 800 people died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, on Saturday.

“It is the most difficult crisis in our post-war period,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in a video posted to Facebook. “Only production activities deemed vital for national production will be allowed.”

Conte did not go into detail on the proposals which are expected to come into force via an emergency decree on Sunday.

Italy recorded 793 deaths on Saturday, with France and Spain and Germany also reporting steep rises in confirmed cases and fatalities.

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Nearly 13,000 people around the world have now died from the disease, according to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University in the United States. More than

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/italy-tightens-lockdown-coronavirus-deaths-mount-live-updates-200321233509033.html

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Italy announced 627 more deaths on Friday, the biggest day-to-day increase in the country’s four-week epidemic [Piero Cruciatti/AFP]

The death toll from the new coronavirus has surpassed 5,000 in Europe, the new epicentre of the pandemic, with Italy, Spain and Germany reporting a steep rise in infections, and as worldwide fatalities surged past 11,000 on Saturday.

Italy announced 627 more deaths on Friday, the biggest day-to-day increase in the country’s four-week epidemic, a day after surpassing China’s death toll. The total number of deaths in Italy has now reached 4,032.

Spain’s death toll has also increased to more than 1,000, while in Iran, the number on fatalities hit another grim milestone of more than 1,400, as the country marks the beginning of the Persian New Year. 

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An estimated 235,000 people have been infected by the coronavirus globally and close to 10,000 have been confirmed dead, according to the World Health Organization.

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The Philippines has reported another death linked to the coronavirus as the country locks down to try to stop its further spread.

More than half the country’s population has been ordered to stay home and the capital has been blocked off.

But it is proving a challenge for frontline health workers.

Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo has this story from Manila.

Read More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/philippines-lockdown-health-workers-struggle-200320120028570.html

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