However, these reports give the misleading impression that Mother Earth stands to benefit from the restrictions on movement imposed on people around the world, especially in cities.
Unfortunately, outside urban areas, the situation is very different. In rural areas, there is less wealth and the main savings account for people is nature, with hunting, fishing and logging necessary to provide food and support livelihoods. People who moved to cities and have now lost their employment and income opportunities due to the quarantines are returning to their rural homes, further increasing the pressure on natural resources while also increasing the risk of COVID-19 transmission to rural areas.
At the same time, opportunistic actors and criminal groups involved in land-grabbing, deforestation, illegal mining and wildlife poaching are taking advantage of the fact that governments are focused on COVID-19 instead of on conservation. There are reports of increased deforestation in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Areas dependent on tourism to fund conservation such as community conservancies in Kenya and iconic natural World Heritage Sites like the Galpagos, Ecuador and the Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines are facing reduced resources as tourism has come to a halt. Meanwhile, illegal mining for gold and precious stones in Latin America and Africa is on the rise, as prices spike and protected areas are left unguarded.
There are reports of increased deforestation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Image: Haroldo Castro/Conservation International
These increased pressures on nature and rural areas are expected to persist until economies rebound and governments are able to refocus on conservation. This gives the false impression that the protection of nature is a secondary concern in controlling disease outbreaks like the current pandemic. However, the failure of protection may be the cause of this and future outbreaks. Land use change is a major driver of disease transmission from wildlife to people. Species threatened by exploitation and habitat loss are twice as likely to be sources of zoonotic disease compared to other threats. As the biologist Thomas Lovejoy noted, This pandemic is the consequence of our persistent and excessive intrusion in nature and the vast illegal wildlife trade.
Some governments have seen an uptick in illegal mining during the pandemic.
Image: Pete Oxford
Governments in countries experiencing upticks in deforestation, illegal mining and poaching urgently need to maintain enforcement efforts, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Equally important, countries must start planning for rebuilding their economies in a way that fosters green structural transformation, including through long-term commitments to public spending and pricing reforms. After restrictions are lifted, both governments and development financing institutions should prioritize stimulus efforts that have high economic multiplier effects and that reduce carbon emissions. A recent study based on input from central bankers and ministries of finance identified several priority policies: natural climate solutions and the protection of carbon-rich ecosystems like mangroves, tropical forests and peatlands, and rural support for ecosystem restoration. Such policies are especially beneficial for tropical countries, where land use change is often the major source of carbon emissions. Such investments would have additional benefits for biodiversity and reduce the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks, too, thereby addressing an important root cause of the current pandemic.
It is equally important that climate and biodiversity stay at the top of the agenda in 2020 and beyond, and that leaders leverage every opportunity to maintain the momentum. Every effort must be made to ensure that the global efforts under the United Nations (UN General Assembly Nature Summit, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN Convention on Biological Diversity) are not unduly delayed; meetings could take place online if necessary. Countries are stronger working together, and international cooperation is the best opportunity to resolve future existential threats.
The first global pandemic in more than 100 years, COVID-19 has spread throughout the world at an unprecedented speed. At the time of writing, 4.5 million cases have been confirmed and more than 300,000 people have died due to the virus.
As countries seek to recover, some of the more long-term economic, business, environmental, societal and technological challenges and opportunities are just beginning to become visible.
To help all stakeholders communities, governments, businesses and individuals understand the emerging risks and follow-on effects generated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Marsh and McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, has launched its COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications - a companion for decision-makers, building on the Forums annual Global Risks Report.
The report reveals that the economic impact of COVID-19 is dominating companies risks perceptions.
Companies are invited to join the Forums work to help manage the identified emerging risks of COVID-19 across industries to shape a better future. Read the full COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications report here, and our impact story with further information.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how much we depend on one another one humanity living on one planet for our health systems as well as for our food systems and supply chains. This is the moment to rise to the challenge of collaborative leadership and work together to emerge from this crisis with a global economic reset. People and nature must be at the center of this reset, for redistribution, regeneration and restoration.
Prosperity for people and the planet is possible only if we make bold decisions today, so that future generations can survive and thrive.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.
Written by
Sebastian Trong, Executive Vice President, Field Delivery, Conservation International, Bogot, Colombia
Edward Barbier, University Distinguished Professor, Department of Economics, Colorado State University
Carlos Manuel Rodrguez , Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) - KSNs Bret Buganski and Kansas Governor Laura Kelly discussed concerns from viewers in a special report Thursday where they covered a range of topics -- fromproblems filing for unemployment to whether kids will be in the classroom this fall.
Many Kansans feel the way the state is handling unemployment isn't good enough, to which Governor Kelly said, "everybody has to be held accountable."
Boris Johnsons insistence that the UK will be able to roll out a world-beating coronavirus test, track and trace regime by 1 June has inevitably drawn comparisons with countries around the world that have already set up effective Covid-19 tracing programmes.
It has also raised questions about timing, as some experts insist a system would have been more useful at the beginning of the pandemic.
Contact tracing is one of the most basic planks of public health responses to a pandemiclike the coronavirus. It means literally tracking down anyone that somebody with an infection may have had contact with in the days before they became ill. It was and always will be central to the fight against Ebola, for instance. In west Africa in 2014-15, there were large teams of people who would trace relatives and knock on the doors of neighbours and friends to find anyone who might have become infected by touching the sick person.
Most people who get Covid-19 will be infected by their friends, neighbours, family or work colleagues, so they will be first on the list. It is not likely anyone will get infected by someone they do not know, passing on the street.
It is still assumed there has to be reasonable exposure originally experts said people would need to be together for 15 minutes, less than 2 metres apart. So a contact tracer will want to know who the person testing positive met and talked to over the two or three days before they developed symptoms and went into isolation.
South Korea has large teams of contact tracers and notably chased down all the contacts of a religious group, many of whose members fell ill. That outbreak was efficiently stamped out by contact tracing and quarantine.
Singapore and Hong Kong have also espoused testing and contact tracing and so has Germany. All those countries have had relatively low death rates so far. TheWorld Health Organizationsays it should be the backbone of the response in every country.
Sarah BoseleyHealth editor
Since mid-March, the World Health Organization has urged countries to scale up the testing, isolation and contact tracing of Covid-19 patients in order to combat the pandemic. Countries that initiated test and trace regimes early including Germany, South Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Canada have fared better than those that did not.
One of the most striking success stories has been South Korea, which started its regime several weeks before the WHOs test, test, test appeal in March. The country was quickly able to test an average of 12,000 people a day and sometimes as many as 20,000 at hundreds of drive-through and walk-in testing centres, free of charge. Results were sent to peoples phones within 24 hours.
As some commentators have remarked, South Koreas regime was built on the base of well-funded public services and an effective infrastructure, including widespread digital surveillance.
Germany has emerged as another effective model. The country has carried out a rigorous test and trace programme since the first case of the virus was registered in late January. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the governments main advisory body on public health, has repeatedly referred to the programme as a basic epidemiological tool necessary for the viruss containment.
The system was hampered by a lack of staff at the overstretched local health authority offices responsible for enacting it, but over the weeks hundreds of containment scouts often medical students - have been trained by the RKI to help out. About 500 of them are operational around the country.
Typically when a new infection is registered, a hygiene inspector at the health office asks the infected person the following questions: how long have they had symptoms, where might they have been infected, have they been at work, with whom have they been in touch and in what way, and are school or nursery age children in the household?
Contacts are questioned and put into different categories by a team of at least a dozen staff, including doctors and containment scouts, and then quarantined. Contacts are not automatically tested, in order to avoid a negative result that could trigger a false sense of security,
Canada, with its experience of being the only country outside Asia to have deaths in the Sars outbreak of 2003, was also quick to conduct tests and contact tracing. As of mid-May more than a million people had been tested for Covid-19, using a centralised network of laboratories.
Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is among those to express scepticism about the framing of the UKs test and trace programme as world-beating.
World-beating, at the start of an outbreak, would been to have had a system large enough to be able to cope with number of tests needed, Whitworth said. Not just sending them out but doing them and reporting back so that you can take action and having the contact tracing to be able to identify people who might be incubating the disease.
If we come back to the situation now, there remains a question about [having a test and trace programme] large enough. The ONS [Office for National Statistics] data just released for England identifies 9,000 new cases a day.
Successful programmes like South Korea and Australia are doing 50 to 60 [contact] tests for every case. So we have got to have a system that can cope with that number of tests.
Whitworth also said countries that have been successful have deployed large amounts of human resources quickly and effectively, such as Germanys contact scouts and South Koreas rapid-reporting system.
The human element is central. If you have a web-based system or an app those are things that add value but they dont replace the human capital. They are good when tracing becomes difficult like if a confirmed case has got on a bus. Thats where an app can identify potential contacts.
The other thing very important is to make it convenient. And at the moment the systems here [in the UK] seem to be set up for convenience of the system and operators, not the users.
Before you book that next trip this summer, check out how United Airlines plans to keep travelers safe at the airport and in the air during a pandemic.
HOUSTON Earlier this month, a viral photo snapped by a doctor on a crowded United Airlines flight caused backlash against the airline. Now United has updated its social distancing policies and launched a new cleanliness initiative called United Clean Plus.
The airline gave KHOU 11 exclusive behind-the-scenes access to see the changes up close at Bush Intercontinental Airport, one of the airline's largest hubs.
"That's the only way we'll get them to fly, is if they feel comfortable," said Rodney Cox, vice president of Hub in Houston.
Right now the public still largely uneasy about flying again. On a typical day, United moves 55,000 people through Bush Airport. COVID-19 has tanked passenger traffic down to 4,500.
"It's a new way of life until we get a vaccine that can make sure COVID-19 doesn't come back," Cox said.
United's new partnership with Clorox and the Cleveland Clinic will implement new cleanliness and social distancing protocols across the airline's operations.
"We want to make sure the customer's journey from check-in to landing is sanitary, clean and safe," Cox said.
Among the new measures, all United employees must wear masks and receive temperature checks before starting work. At Bush Airport, you will find updated signage, new sneeze guards and a brand-new way to check in starting Friday.
"It's touchless check in," Cox said. "As a customer, I don't have to touch the screen at all."
At the gate, boarding will be different.
"Boarding may take a little longer, because we're very aware of social distancing," said Crystal Heckman, base director of Inflight Services.
Boarding will by row now from the back of the plane forward to minimize contact. And there will be constant cleaning of the gate waiting area.
"The agents will make continuous announcements regarding requirement of face masks," Heckman said.
If you don't have a face mask, United will provide you one free of charge, along with your own sanitizer wipe when boarding. Starting June 1, cleaning crews will conduct electrostatic spraying to disinfect every aircraft before every single flight.
"Electrostatic spraying that we're using is the same spraying hospitals use to disinfect their rooms," Heckman said.
There are special HEPA filters onboard every plane, too.
"This filter captures 99.97 percent of the particulates that are floating in the air," said Joe Condoleo, aircraft shift manager at IAH.
It circulates the air every 2 to 3 minutes. That's hospital-grade air filtration that United says keeps cabin air quality as clean as possible.
"Once our customers are on board they will absolutely see a change to our service," Heckman said.
You can expect only sealed beverage from now on. There's no more ice on the aircraft, and on flights longer than 2 hours and 20 minutes, you'll receive an all-in-one sealed snack kit with bottled water.
When you finally take your seat, United says it will socially distance passengers in the cabin as much as possible, but cannot guarantee the middle seat will always be empty.
But in response to the viral photo, the airline says it will give customers a heads up and a choice.
United has started notifying passengers 24 hours in advance if their flight is 70 percent full or more. The airline then plans to give travelers the option to re-book on a different flight to enhance social distancing and make sure every passenger is comfortable. This specific policy will be in place through June 30.
When Tyson Foods announced Wednesday night it had 570 positive cases of COVID-19 among its Wilkesboro workforce, the size of the outbreak rippled across the state.
However, its proving challenging to determine whether it is the largest single outbreak in North Carolina to date. An outbreak is defined as two or more cases at any single site.
Thats because meat-packaging operations, such as Tysons chicken-processing facilities that have a combined 2,244 employees, are not required to report infectious-disease cases to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
Instead, those operations are accountable to the N.C. and U.S. Agriculture departments, which have not posted specific outbreaks data on their websites.
State Agriculture officials could not be immediately reached for comment about how they are tracking and reporting outbreaks.
The most relevant COVID-19 related announcement on the state Agricultures website is geared toward reassuring consumers about the meat supply at retail.
Meanwhile, there doesnt appear to be an outbreak data clearinghouse either for non-agriculture employers, such as the 16 at Hanesbrands Inc.s distribution center in Rural Hall and up to 10 at Ashley Furnitures plant in Advance.
That was the case for the single COVID-19 case disclosed Tuesday by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. at its manufacturing plant in Tobaccoville. Reynolds also said March 30 it had two non-production employees to test positive.
N.C. Health News reported in early May there had been outbreaks at 15 meat and poultry processing plants in 11 counties: Bertie, Bladen, Chatham, Duplin, Lee, Lenoir, Robeson, Sampson, Wilkes, Union and Wilson. At that time, the combined case total was 604.
Since then, there has been an outbreak at a Wayne Farms chicken-processing plant in Dobson, along with the sharp increase at the Tyson plant in Wilkesboro.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, the states health secretary, said Thursday its evident that part of the surge in COVID-19 cases is coming from some of our critical infrastructure businesses by the nature of that business.
These meat-processing plants are heavily regulated by the Department of Agriculture.
As an industry, they are not required to report (outbreaks) to our department, but when it comes to our attention, our role from the Department of Public Health is to help them with various infection control methods.
Cohen said DHHS has tried to emphasize where major outbreaks are occurring by reporting cases by Zip code, along with those in nursing homes and residential care facilities.
Were also helping to facilitate on-site or close to the plant testing, with Tyson being a good example of that of working with local health departments and the state, Cohen said.
Where the tracking and contract tracing seems to have gaps in when employees work in one county, but live in another.
At least 70 cases of COVID-19 are Forsyth County residents who either work at the Tyson plant or have come into close contact with someone who works there, according to the Forsyth Department of Public Health.
Wayne Farms is one of Surrys largest private and manufacturing employers with at least 500 workers, according to the county Economic Development Partnership Inc.
Samantha Ange, Surrys health director, said Wayne Farms employees with confirmed cases are self-isolating.
We are working hand in hand with local health officials and in full conformance with CDC, OSHA and public health guidance, Wayne Farms spokesman Frank Singleton said in a statement.
With a very low percentage of our employee population testing positive for the virus, we believe these efforts have helped prevent the introduction and spread of the virus within our facility.
In the examples of the Ashley Furniture, Hanesbrands and Wayne Farms outbreaks, its unclear how wide the community spread may be since those facilities draw workers from several surrounding counties.
Hanesbrands said Wednesday that additional testing of employees at its Rural Hall distribution center found an additional 15 positive tests for a total of at least 16. Hanesbrands spokesman Matt Hall said the company had 164 distribution center employees tested.
Hall said of the 15 new cases, 10 were already in quarantine based on the first positive case that was disclosed May 15.
We have begun contact tracing on the other five and have suspended operations for all employees of this shift, Hall said. It is important to note that of the 15 positive cases, only two showed symptoms.
Ashley has more than 1,600 employees at its mammoth Advance facility. It has been actively recruiting for months to hire an additional 100, including holding several job fairs on site and participating in events in Forsyth.
Ashley Furniture spokesman Cole Bawek said Wednesday that we have no reported cases where transmission is believed to have occurred while working at our facility.
Out of caution, we have nonetheless asked associates who may have previously come in close contact with these associates to quarantine at home.
Suzanne Wright, Davie Countys health director, said Thursday that since Ashley Furniture employs individuals from multiple counties, I can only confirm the one associated case that resides in Davie.
A member of Ashley Furnitures leadership staff reported Thursday that a handful can be defined as less than 10 employees.
The staff member reported that there is no consistent pattern of cases in one particular department or area of Ashley, and all confirmed cases are associated with close contact transmission outside of Ashley.
Joshua Swift, Forsyths health director, said Thursday he doesnt know of any significant number of cases in the county related to Ashley.
Health directors for Davidson, Iredell, Rowan and Yadkin counties did not respond when asked about any potential Ashley case spillover into their counties.
The number of tests reported to the Indiana State Departmentof Health is now close to 203,000.
In Thursdays report from the Indiana State Department ofHealth, it states that 202,995 tests have been reported with 29,936 of thosebeing positive cases of COVID-19. Thesame report indicates that another 676 additional residents have been diagnosedwith COVID-19 through testing at the Indiana State Department of Health, theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention and private laboratories from May 2to May 20.
A total of 1,764 people have died from COVID-19 which is anincrease of 48 from Wednesdays report.Those new recorded deaths occurred between May 2 and May 20.
In Marshall County, 51 positive caseshave been reported and one death. Thereare 29 positive cases in Starke County with three deaths, and 37 cases in Pulaski County.These are cumulative numbers.Information on the number of recovered patients is not included in thereport.
The increase in the numbers is reflected in an increase intesting across the state.
The Indiana State Department of Health is holding drive-thrutesting clinics today through Saturday in four locations including the Kankakee Valley Middle Schoolin Wheatfield. Other testing locationsaround the state can be found online at www.coronavirus.in.govand click on the COVID-19 testing information link.
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Other key goals of the National Peoples Congress in Beijing include pushing back against growing international criticism over Chinas early missteps in Wuhan, and outlining plans to ramp up government spending.
Yet President Xi Jinpings government faces a new outbreak in Jilin, a northeastern province of 27 million people that sits near Chinas borders with Russia and North Korea. Jilin has been put under a Wuhan-style lockdown as it has reported an outbreak that is still small about 130 cases and two deaths but has the potential to become a big explosion, experts say.
At present, the epidemic has not yet come to an end, while the tasks we face in promoting development are immense, Premier Li Keqiang told lawmakers at the congress on Friday. We must redouble our efforts to minimize the losses resulting from the virus.
The virus which has resulted in more than five million infections worldwide, according to data compiled by The New York Times was also presenting logistical challenges for organizers of the congress. Delegates have been made to take nucleic acid tests for the virus before being allowed to travel to Beijing; windows were to be opened to improve ventilation; and most journalists must cover the event by video link.
Every morning before dawn for the past few weeks, Yasser al-Samak, a Bahraini man, has roamed the streets in his village outside Manama, the capital, waking his neighbors for the predawn suhoor meal that observant Muslims eat during the holy month of Ramadan before their daylong fast.
Stay home with your family, and blend your suhoor with hope, because those who rely on God, he will protect them, he sings, according to Agence France-Presse. Make yourself strong with prayer and wear the mask as a shield against the pandemic.
In villages and cities around the Middle East, some Ramadan drummers still keep alive a tradition that in recent years has given way to alarm clocks and smartphone alerts. But under the coronavirus cloud, almost everything else about Ramadan and the usually joyful holiday that marks its end, Eid al-Fitr, which begins this weekend has been new, and not in a good way.
As a nod to the holy month, and in part because Covid-19 caseloads seemed to be lightening, several Arab countries slightly relaxed restrictions on gathering and commerce only to clamp down again as cases suddenly mounted.
The Eid holiday will pose a sharp challenge to the authorities: Instead of taking part in communal prayer, feasts and parties, many people in the Middle East and across the Muslim world will be more confined than they have been in weeks.
Saudi Arabia has announced a 24-hour curfew from Saturday through Wednesday, covering the entire holiday period. Omani authorities have banned all Eid gatherings, saying that residents have still been meeting in groups in defiance of social-distancing orders. Qatar has suspended all but a few business activities during Eid. The United Arab Emirates is shifting its nightly curfew earlier.
Egypt, which never shut down its economy to the extent that other countries in the region did, is also tightening up for Eid. The national curfew will be moved up four hours to 5 p.m.; restaurants, cafes, beaches and parks will be closed.
As for prayers, the religious authorities in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have ruled that they should be performed at home.
The displacement comes weeks after Antnio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, called for a global cease-fire to focus attention on the pandemic and lower the risk for those caught up in conflicts. But instead, hundreds of thousands of people have been pushed from their homes since mid-March, often into overcrowded and unsanitary conditions where the coronavirus can spread more easily.
The highest number of displaced by far was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 480,000 people fled their homes in recent weeks during clashes between armed groups and the military.
Yemen has also experienced a surge in displacement despite the Saudi-led coalitions unilateral cease-fire, but it has not suspended airstrikes, and armed operations by other parties to the conflict have continued. At least 24,000 people in Yemen have fled their homes since mid-March.
In Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Syria, Somalia and Myanmar, more than 10,000 people were displaced in each nation in the same period.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, in a statement released with the report, called on world leaders to rise to the occasion and jointly push parties to cease their fire and unite in protecting all communities from Covid-19.
As schools in China slowly reopen, teachers have found novel ways to protect students from the coronavirus and enforce social distancing.
In one school, that meant giving the children wings. Photos showing fourth-graders in Taiyuan, in Chinas northern Shanxi province, wearing colorful wings on their backs, with the message, Because I love you, lets keep one-meter distance.
The wings were designed and created by students and their parents from recycled materials. One wore wings fashioned from green cardboard and decorated with heart-shaped notes, and another was adorned with fabric feathers.
We organized this activity as a tribute to the most beautiful people the angels in white, Zhao Gailing, the principle of Xinghualing District Foreign Language Primary School, told the Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily, referring to health care workers. She said it also helped students better understand social distancing as they adapt to their newfound wingspan.
The school has also arranged breathing classes, that allow children to take off the mandatory face masks and get fresh air outside the classroom. In late January, as the coronavirus outbreak spread in China, elementary schools were closed, but most reopened in April with strict measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
In a similar move, first graders in an elementary school in Hangzhou are wearing one-meter hats with plumes made of cardboard and even balloons to remind each other of social distancing.
Plans for a potential Nordic travel bubble that would see the neighboring nations open their borders to travel among their residents has one major sticking point: Sweden.
Allowing Swedish visitors to enter Finland could run the risk of undermining that countys coronavirus containment measures, Finlands top infectious disease expert said on Friday, arguing that the high numbers of cases and deaths in Sweden posed a greater threat than others.
But months into the pandemic, it has seen an extraordinary increase in deaths, throwing its strategy into question. With nearly 3,900 deaths as of Friday, Sweden has registered more than three times the number of deaths in Denmark, Norway, and Finland combined.
Mika Salminen, director of health security at Finlands National Institute for Health and Welfare, told the Swedish broadcaster SVT that it would be risky to receive Swedish tourists.
It is a political decision, but the actual difference in the spread of infection is a fact, said Mr. Salminen, one of the experts leading Finlands response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Salminens message echoed concerns of Finlands interior minister, Maria Ohisalo, who has said that a travel bubble encompassing Nordic countries may be difficult to enact because the situation was more worrying in Sweden than in the others.
The members of Malaysias Parliament, wearing face masks to match their crisp white uniforms, convened this week in the vast lower house chamber for the first time this year.
Malaysias king, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, sat on an ornate golden throne and spoke for half an hour. No questions were allowed. No votes were taken. Afterward, Parliament was adjourned until July.
Muhyiddin Yassin, the newly appointed prime minister, and his allies have benefited from restrictions intended to slow the spread of the virus, but that have also limited the ability of opponents to organize and challenge them. Mr. Muhyiddins government imposed social distancing measures that slowed the viruss spread but also, conveniently, minimized opportunities for his opponents to mobilize.
He canceled Parliaments March session because of the pandemic, and limits on public gatherings have prevented the kind of protests seen in the Najib era, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets demanding his resignation.
Mr. Muhyiddins office announced that he had entered quarantine at home on Friday after attending a meeting on Wednesday with an official who later tested positive for the coronavirus, but he has so far tested negative for the virus.
None of the others who attended the postcabinet meeting were identified, but all were ordered to go undergo preliminary testing and 14-day quarantines.
Were stuck, said Daniela Vassallo, 52, as she walked the field and steered clear of Giulio, the escaped camel.
A former contortionist-turned-administrator, Ms. Vassallo is a member of a family that has worked in the circus for at least six generations and has owned this particular show for 29 years. The last period has been perhaps the least eventful, as she and her relatives and assorted circus performers have passed the months here hunkered down in trailers next to peppermint-striped tents.
In reality, the Rony Rollers arent trapped so much as unwilling to go their separate ways. Like other dynasties in Italys vibrant, 60-circus strong big-top culture, the Vassallos own homes and property about an hour south in Latina, a town that is to circus people what Tampa, Fla., is to professional wrestlers.
At the end of Italys coronavirus lockdown, one of the camels broke free.
On a narrow field surrounded by low-rise apartments, bus stops and a tangled ribbon of highway ramps, the camel scampered past lions, which leapt against their cage. It distracted the acrobats practicing their flips on an aerial hoop and sauntered toward the languid, pregnant tiger, and stalls of horses and African Watusi bulls.
An animal tamer, wearing a welding helmet as he attended to repairs, quickly chased down the camel.
While the easing of travel restrictions has left circus members free to leave with menagerie and tents since early this month, Ms. Vassallo said that Latina was packed with other circus acts and animals, and that her performers dreaded the solitude of home isolation. She said the troupe had agreed it was preferable to keep renting this land across from a cornfield and pass the lockdown training together.
Better in the company, she said was the consensus, with my people.
The British government confirmed on Friday that it would quarantine everyone flying into the country, including citizens, to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
On arrival at an airport, travelers will have to provide an address where they will be staying. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told the broadcaster Sky News on Friday that international travelers would face spot checks by public health officials and fines of 1,000 pounds, or about $1,200, if they failed to self-isolate for 14 days.
Citizens of Ireland would be exempt, Sky reported, but not arrivals from France, as had been previously reported.
Britains move comes more than seven weeks after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a stay-at-home order that has since been shifted to stay alert and is in line with measures by other countries. The chief executive of the budget airline Ryanair, Michael OLeary, has described the new plans as hopelessly defective, idiotic and unimplementable, saying that Britain does not even have enough police officers to enforce the lockdown. Airlines UK has said the measure would effectively kill international travel to and from Britain.
But Jonathan Ashworth, the opposition Labour Partys shadow health secretary, told Sky that many people had asked why we did not do this sooner, adding, Not taking all the measures that we should be taking is the idiotic position.
More than 250,000 people have tested positive for the virus in Britain, with over 36,000 deaths.
Home Secretary Priti Patel was to set out more details about the new measures at a briefing later Friday, but they are not expected to come into effect until next month.
Concerns about coronavirus infections have added new dimensions to an already polarizing global debate over migration.
On Thursday in Guatemala, for example, President Alejandro Giammattei voiced frustration over U.S. deportations of people infected with the virus, saying it was causing serious problems for his nations health system.
Guatemala is an ally of the United States, but the United States is not Guatemalas ally, Mr. Giammattei said. They dont treat us like an ally.
There have been 119 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among people deported from the United States to Guatemala, The Associated Press reported. Some deportees have became a point of contention in Guatemala, where several community councils last month threatened to burn a government building where migrants were quarantined over concerns that they posed a health risk.
In Hungary, the government on Thursday shut down transit zones along the Serbian border where thousands of migrants have been stuck for a year or more. It freed about 300 refugees from the zones, Reuters reported, while also effectively barring future ones from applying for asylum.
Reuters quoted President Viktor Orbans chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, as saying that the zones were emptied after an E.U. court ruled that the practice of keeping migrants inside them was unlawful.
And in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government agreed to scrap a policy that requires staff from overseas in the countrys vaunted National Health Service to pay a surcharge nearly $500 per year for migrants who arent from the European Union to help fund the system in which they work.
Mr. Johnson had previously resisted calls to exempt the workers, saying on Wednesday that his government must look at the realities of funding the N.H.S.
But after public pressure mounted, Britains health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Thursday that the workers would be exempted as soon as possible. Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, called it a victory for common decency.
Correction: An earlier version of this briefing misidentified Matt Hancock, a British official. He is the health secretary, not the prime ministers spokesman.
For many, baking serves as a respite from chaos. One of the ways to interrupt anxiety is to let other senses take over, the British culinary author and television star Nigella Lawson told The Guardian.
For the Wessex Mill in Oxfordshire, that has meant an unprecedented boom in production. The family-owned mill found itself fielding nearly 600 calls a day in mid-March, and it has ramped up its output fourfold during the crisis.
Emily Munsey, who runs the business with her father, has hired more staff and added shifts to keep the mill running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the first time in its 125-year history.
Its been very challenging as a company. The amount of work weve all had to do has increased a huge amount, said Ms. Munsey, who has also had to scramble to source packaging to hold the flour. Demand remains consistently obscene.
Of course, the outbreak has also ignited demand for flour in other countries. In France, market research by Nielsen showed that demand doubled in March. In Italy, it reached its highest level since World War II.
As Britain begins to ease restrictions, Ms. Munsey hopes that new customers will continue to use the mills flour, find new skills and maybe take up more home baking.
The packages were opened by border officers in Sydney in early May. In the first, about two pounds of methamphetamines were hidden under boxes of face masks and bottles of hand sanitizer. In the second, the drugs were stashed inside sanitizer bottles.
It was no surprise that criminals were taking advantage of the pandemic to smuggle drugs into the country, officials said. We are continuing to detect and stop illicit substances coming into Australia, no matter how theyre being concealed, said John Fleming, a Border Force superintendent who oversees mail and cargo.
Two weeks ago, much of Australia kicked off a three-stage reopening plan, in which many schools are reopening and cafes, restaurants and pubs are allowed to seat limited numbers of patrons. Officials said today in New South Wales, the countrys most populous state, that the number will be increased to 50 by June 1.
Travel restrictions in the region will also be lifted on that date, they said earlier this week, for the first time in two months.
The call to prayer rang on a recent afternoon from Jamia Mosque, a landmark in downtown Nairobi with green and silver domes and multiple minarets. There should be worshipers converging there during this sacred month of Ramadan, but the mosques doors remained shut, its prayer halls empty since closing in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.
With no congregation to join, I sat in the car, rolled down the windows and listened to the muezzins voice, a mellifluous sound that instantly made me cry.
This is a Ramadan like no other. The pandemic, which in Kenya has infected at least 1,109 people and killed at least 50 others, has given us the gift of loneliness. Isolated under a partial lockdown in Nairobi and a nationwide curfew that stretches from dusk to dawn, millions of Muslims in Kenya and beyond have exchanged sprawling banquets for dining alone and observing the evening taraweeh prayers from home.
I chafe at the imposed restrictions sometimes because, with 21 siblings and 17 nephews and nieces, the iftar meal to break the daily fast has always for me been a bustling family affair. We would start with dates, then gorge on spicy samosas and chicken biryani, pass around my mothers legendary camel meat, and share cakes and sweet chai.
Many times, particularly when we were young, we would even watch an episode or two of the historical epics or weepy melodramas that are a mainstay of Arab television during Ramadan. But this year, we are getting more than enough drama from real life.
And so we stay physically apart but find unity in the rituals of fasting and feasting. Things might be falling apart, but I have come to find comfort and continuity in the small things: the paneer samosas sent by a friends mom, the afternoon runs at a nearby, almost-empty forest, the messages from loved ones checking in from all over the world and the sound of the azan, the call to prayer, broadcast from the tops of minarets.
President Trump, who has defiantly refused to wear a mask in public despite the recommendations of federal health officials, toured a Ford plant in Michigan on Thursday with his face uncovered. That was against the factorys guidelines and the direct urging of the states attorney general.
During his visit, Mr. Trump continued to press for the further easing of social-distancing restrictions. He blamed Democrats for keeping the economy closed and suggested voters would punish them in the presidential election and view it as a November question.
Heres what else happened on Thursday in the United States:
Reporting contributed by Elian Peltier, Megan Specia, Jason Horowitz, Bella Huang, Vivian Wang, Austin Ramzy, Yonette Joseph, Vivian Yee, Geneva Abdul, Evan Easterling, Isabella Kwai, Abdi Latif Dahir, Javier C. Hernndez, Keith Bradsher, Chris Buckley, Mike Ives, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, James Gorman, Cade Metz and Erin Griffith.
Texas health officials made a key change Thursday to how they report data about the coronavirus, distinguishing antibody tests from standard viral tests and prompting slight increases in the states oft-cited daily statistic known as the positivity rate.
The positivity rate is the ratio of the confirmed cases to total tests, presented by the state as a seven-day rolling average. The Texas Department State of Health Services disclosed for the first time Thursday that as of a day earlier, it had counted 49,313 antibody tests as as part of its "total tests" tally. That represents 6.4% of the 770,241 total tests that the state had reported through Wednesday.
Health experts have warned against conflating the tests because they are distinctly different. Antibody tests detect whether someone was previously infected, while standard viral tests determine whether someone currently has the virus.
Now that DSHS is reporting the number of antibody tests, it has recalculated its daily positivity rates starting Tuesday to exclude such tests. That led to a 0.41 percentage-point increase in Tuesday's rate and a 0.55 point increase in Wednesday's rate, according to DSHS calculations.
DSHS acknowledged last week that it was reporting an unknown quantity of antibody tests as part of the "total tests" figure. Despite that, Gov. Greg Abbott incorrectly claimed Monday that the state was not "commingling" the numbers while promising the state would soon break out the antibody test count.
During a TV interview Thursday evening, Abbott attributed the lag in disclosing antibody tests as their own category to "about a 10-day period or so during which some antibody tests were coming it could have been a bit longer than that [when] there was the inability for the counties to separate that out as it was received by" DSHS. The new data provided by the state Thursday gives a daily breakdown of antibody and viral tests going back to May 13.
Of the 49,313 antibody tests, 2,114 or 4.3% have come back positive, according to the new data.
Abbott emphasized the relative smallness of the changes in the positivity rates as he argued in the TV interview that Texas is still seeing an overall downward trajectory in its positivity rate.
"The trends are exactly the same with or without the antibody tests," Abbott said.
Still, the preciseness of the positivity rate is important, especially when it comes to understanding Abbott's decisions to reopen the economy. As the raw number of cases has continued to climb each day, Abbott has said he is far more concerned with the positivity rate which takes into account increases in testing as well as hospitalizations.
Texas is not the only state that has come under scrutiny recently for mixing together the two types of tests in its data. Pennsylvania, Georgia and Vermont have also been conflating the tests, according to The Atlantic.
When public health agencies combine antibody testing figures with viral testing figures, "I want to scream," said Seema Yasmin, an epidemiologist and director of the Stanford Health Communications Initiative.
Viral tests, usually taken from nasal swabs, can detect an active coronavirus infection. If a person's biological sample is found to have traces of the virus's genetic material, public health workers can order them to self-isolate and track down any of their contacts who may have been exposed.
Antibody tests "are like looking in the rearview mirror," Yasmin said, because they may show if a person has recovered from a coronavirus infection. That can be useful for public health surveillance, but it does not offer much insight about where the virus is currently spreading. Another issue is that many antibody tests have been shown to have high rates of inaccuracy, she said.
"As an epidemiologist, this level of messiness in the data makes your job so much more difficult, and it misleads the public about whats really happening," Yasmin said. "Weve been talking about the capacity for testing increasing over the last few weeks, but now we might have to tell the public that might not be true."
And dumping antibody testing data into the pool of viral testing data brings the overall positivity rate down, reflecting "a deceptive misuse of the data," analysts for the COVID Tracking Project wrote last week. That's because the numbers may make it seem like the state has grown its testing capacity even if a state's viral testing capacity remains flat.
"This is crucial as we need increased capacity for viral testing before reopening to identify active infections even in the pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic stages," the analysts wrote.
The mixing of the two testing numbers first came to light last week, days before Abbott announced the latest business reopenings. Democrats said the revelation continued to show that Abbott is moving too carelessly in allowing businesses to reopen.
"We all want life to get back to normal," Texas Democratic Party spokesman Abhi Rahman said in a statement Tuesday. "However, Texans dont feel safe, and manipulating the data isnt going to help Texans feel comfortable going outside."
Robert F. Bukaty | AP
Robert F. Bukaty | AP
The rocky coast attracts visitors to a scenic overlook in South Portland on Monday.
Today is Friday. There have now been 1,877 confirmed and likely cases of the new coronavirus in all of Maines counties since the outbreak began here in March, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
No new deaths were reported Thursday, leaving the statewide death toll at 73. The Maine CDC has not confirmed any deaths since Tuesday.
So far, 235 Mainers have been hospitalized with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, while 1,145 people have fully recovered from the virus, meaning there are 659 active and likely cases in the state, according to the Maine CDC. Thats up from 636 on Wednesday.
Heres a roundup of the latest news about the coronavirus and its impact in Maine.
The Maine CDC will provide an update on the coronavirus this afternoon. The BDN will livestream the briefing.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday evening that 57 cases of coronavirus were confirmed at Cape Memory Center, a residential care facility for individuals with Alzheimers disease or dementia. As of Thursday evening, 45 residents and 12 staff at the facility had tested positive for the virus, with additional results pending. Jessica Piper, BDN
Memorial Day weekend traditionally marks the beginning of Maines summer tourist season, which typically draws millions of visitors to Acadia National Park annually from late May through mid-October. Visitors to Mount Desert Island who expect to hike or play on Sand Beach this weekend face unprecedented restrictions because of precautions aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19. Access to much of the parks facilities is expected to remain closed for the next couple of weeks if not longer. But the parks semi-closure is not stopping visitors from showing up. Bill Trotter, BDN
Sunny weather and looser business restrictions might lead Mainers to head out over Memorial Day weekend, which typically starts the tourist season. But everyday activities are going to look different as the state cautiously moves forward in its economic reopening. Here is your guide to planning your day, night or weekend out while abiding by current coronavirus-related public health precautions. Jessica Piper, BDN
Aaron Harris sighs as he talks about the changes afoot at the 84-year-old A1 Diner located inside a historic Worcester Lunch Car next to the bridge over the Cobbosseecontee Stream in Gardiner. Before the coronavirus hit, regular customers huddled into the tiny, renowned diner, which can seat 45 people at six booths and 16 counter stools, to enjoy cheeseburgers with local beef and more eclectic fare, including Korean barbecue sliders. Even with takeout, revenue is down 75 percent since the coronavirus restrictions were put into place. But what worries Harris almost as much are the lost connections between customers and staff. Lori Valigra, BDN
The federal government has awarded Maine $52.7 million to help it control the coronavirus pandemic by completing an expansion of its public health laboratory in Augusta, boosting laboratory capacity in the states rural hospitals and opening more satellite testing sites, according to the office of Gov. Janet Mills. The funds will help the state to expand its staffing and testing capacity at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory in Augusta, as well as to accelerate the construction of a new lab at the Greenlaw building of the former Augusta Mental Health Institute campus. Charles Eichacker, BDN
After record sales last year that continued into early this year, Maine home sales are feeling the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, declining 15.41 percent in April compared to the previous April, according to figures released Thursday by Maine Listings. Lori Valigra, BDN
Both of Maines U.S. senators rolled out different bipartisan bills on Thursday aiming to reform the Paycheck Protection Program, which has given forgivable loans to small businesses to keep workers on payroll but has been criticized by some as inflexible. The massive program, which was originally created as part of a $2.2 trillion stimulus package at the end of March and was later renewed, has sent more than $2.5 billion in loans to Maine businesses. But many business owners have expressed concerns about the terms. Jessica Piper and Michael Shepherd, BDN
Reconsideration of jobless aid is fast becoming the focus of congressional debate over the next virus aid package After the Senate decided to take a pause on new pandemic proposals, senators faced mounting pressure to act before leaving town for a weeklong Memorial Day break. Republicans are staking out plans to phase out coronavirus-related unemployment benefits to encourage Americans to go back to work. The Senate also began efforts to fast-track an extension of a popular small business lending program. Lisa Mascaro, The Associated Press
As of early Friday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 1,577,758 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 94,729 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Elsewhere in New England, there have been 6,148 coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts, 3,583 in Connecticut, 556 in Rhode Island, 199 in New Hampshire and 54 in Vermont.
It tires me to talk to rich men, said Teddy Roosevelt, himself a product of wealth. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worth hearing. But as a rule, they dont know anything outside their own businesses.
Had T.R. spent time with Bill Gates, the polymath who predicted the pandemic in a TED Talk, he likely would have made an exception.
Gates is everywhere these days, a lavender-sweatered Mister Rogers for the curious and quarantined. With the United States surrendering in the global war against a disease without borders, Gates has filled the void. The U.S. is isolated, pitied, scorned. Gates, by one measure, is the most admired man in the world.
Beyond the $300 million that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given to blunt the spread of the virus, Gates has made himself a spokesman for science. It needs one. While President Trump spouts life-threatening nonsense, Gates calmly explains how a spike protein of coronavirus fits into the urgent hunt for a vaccine.
Hes the prophet who warned in 2015 that a pandemic was a greater risk to humankind than nuclear war. Five years before that, he challenged the world health community to commit to a decade of vaccines, and anted up $10 billion to get it started.
In 2018, he took the stage in Beijing with a jar of human poop. This, at the Reinvented Toilet Expo, was his way of stressing that about 500,000 young children die every year from diseases linked to poor sanitation a problem his foundation has tackled.
He appears on both Fox News and MSNBC. He talks regularly with Dr. Anthony Fauci and peddles pandemic notes to Stephen Colbert. He recommends A Gentleman in Moscow, the Amor Towles novel about a hotel prisoner in Soviet Russia, on his personal blog, where he also praises the honesty of These Truths, Jill Lepores magisterial telling of our nations history.
Do I need to know that he and Melinda enjoy This is Us, the sap-heavy television series? No. But as theyve already given away more than $50 billion as self-described impatient optimists working to reduce inequality, Ill take their gloss on pop culture over an update on Kim Kardashians lip gloss.
Big Philanthropy can be about diplomatic power and muscle under the guise of charity. But theres an inescapable truth about the worlds second-richest mans decision to give away his fortune: The Gates Foundation has helped save millions of lives.
With the coronavirus, which Gates has called the most dramatic thing ever in my lifetime by a lot, his approach is to inject a turbocharger of money at many different levels. The foundation calls it catalytic philanthropy. To speed up the steps needed to get a vaccine to the world, for example, hes funding the construction of factories to manufacture seven possible coronavirus vaccines, even if most of them fail.
Many tycoons tend to get miserly and coldhearted as they age. Gates has evolved in the opposite direction. Early on, the co-founder of Microsoft was arrogant, insufferable, whiny and socially distant when that was considered offensive a monopoly capitalist without the imagination of his rival and friend Steve Jobs.
His initial efforts at philanthropy giving computers away to underserved libraries and schools opened him up to criticism (largely unfair) that the donations were part of a scheme to expand the market for Microsoft products. Gates soldiered on, making himself an expert in infectious diseases. He helped to create a market for lifesaving drugs that are often ignored by Big Pharma.
Its uncanny how spot on he was in that 2015 speech. The greatest threat to the world was not missiles but microbes, he said. You have a virus where people feel well enough while theyre infected so they get on a plane, he said.
The first major American outbreak, in a nursing home just 11 miles from Gatess house near Seattle, made him regret that he had not spoken out even more. He had warned Trump, just before he took office, of the seismic dangers of a pandemic.
Now, of course, Gates is the boogeyman in the fevered minds of many a delusional Trumper. The global lunacy community anti-vaxxers, science-deniers, Russian agents has spread so many conspiracy theories regarding Gates that misinformation about him is now among the most widespread of all coronavirus falsehoods.
The world needs a strong American response precisely because the disease has become a huge American problem. With less than 5 percent of the worlds population, the United States accounts for more than 30 percent of the planets coronavirus cases. When Trump snubs the World Health Organization, he hurts American citizens.
The safer route for a billionaire trying to avoid social media predators is idle-rich vacuity. But Gates, who had urged nations to simulate germ games not war games, will not sit this one out from the safety of a yacht. Hes smart enough to see that this virus does not pick sides.
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Timothy Egan (@nytegan) is a contributing opinion writer who covers the environment, the American West and politics. He is a winner of the National Book Award and author, most recently, of A Pilgrimage to Eternity.
