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Coronavirus live news: UK local and mayoral elections postponed to 2021, as WHO calls Europe 'centre of pandemic' Coronavirus live news: UK local and mayoral elections postponed to 2021, as WHO calls Europe 'centre of pandemic'
(30 minutes later)
Mount Everest calls off climbing season; Canadian prime minister self-isolates; London Underground driver tests positiveMount Everest calls off climbing season; Canadian prime minister self-isolates; London Underground driver tests positive
Trump also said the United States would take advantage of low oil prices and buy a large quantity of crude to fill the nation’s strategic reserves.
The US vice president, Mike Pence, says coronavirus is now present in 46 of the 50 states of the union.
He says the administration will be able to say when Google’s screening website will be available by Sunday.
Meanwhile, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democratic senator in Congress, released a statement welcoming Trump’s invocation of the Stafford Act. His response, blasted out before Trump’s presser ended, is below:
Trump has introduced representatives from partner organisations working with the White House to combat the coronavirus. They include representatives from Walmart, Walgreens, LHC Group, Signify Health.
Most of the business people gave brief remarks about how eager their respective companies are to help.
Trump then said as part of the coronavirus response “we’ll be changing a lot of the rules and regulations for future.” [SIC]
“I guess that’ll continue to an extent but we hope it never happens but we’ll be changing a lot of the wholes and speculations,” Trump said.
Trump added that “I’ve waived interest on all student loans held by government agencies.”
The president said he instructed secretary of energy Dan Brouillette to buy “large quantities” of gasoline “in the US strategic reserve.”
Trump has said:
Trump says the federal government is partnering with the private sector to accelerate production of test kits to make them more widely available to Americans.
Alongside Trump was Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health expert who is on Trump’s coronavirus task force. He says:
Dr Birx took a few minutes to explain a new coronavirus website for texting. She held up a chart to explain how the website would work (C-SPAN’s Craig Caplan snapped a picture).
Dr Birx also set out how the screening website will work – saying it will guide people through a series of yes or no questions and then, based on their responses, direct them to where they can get the type of health they need locally.
This will include whether or not a test is needed at all.
Here’s a little more detail on Trump’s comments. Flanked by aides including vice-president Mike Pence and Dr. Deborah Birx, has said the move will waive a number of other requirements meant to benefit doctors and fight the coronavirus pandemic.
There’s been an ongoing concern about the availability of tests for the coronavirus. Trump said his team expected “half a million additional tests will be available early next week”.
“Which will bring probably 1.4 million tests next week and five million in a month,” Trump said. “Our overriding goal is to stop the spread of the virus.”
Trump also refers to the sort of drive-through testing systems that have been seen in other countries and that are designed to minimise the exposure of medical staff.
He stresses that the US authorities do not want people to get tested if it’s not necessary. The president also thanks a series of private enterprises for their work in equipping the US with some of the tools with which to battle the spread of the virus; including Google, which he says will set up a screening website.
Trump claims as many as half a million coronavirus tests will be made available next week, while millions more will follow.
Trump says the order will give broad new authority to the US health secretary to waive a series of laws and regulations to give healthcare operators more flexibility as the battle the spread of the virus.
The US president says the step will “open up access to up to $50bn” and ordered all 50 states to set up centres to deal with the virus and activate contingency plans.The US president says the step will “open up access to up to $50bn” and ordered all 50 states to set up centres to deal with the virus and activate contingency plans.
Trump is speaking now. He opens by saying the US has made more progress than “other areas of the world”, attributing that to an “early” decision to “close the borders”.Trump is speaking now. He opens by saying the US has made more progress than “other areas of the world”, attributing that to an “early” decision to “close the borders”.
Denmark is shutting its borders to most foreign visitors for a month from Saturday, in a move unprecedented in peacetime as part of efforts to halt the spread of coronavirus.
The restrictions will come into force at 11am GMT on Saturday and continue until at least 13 April, the country’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen has said.
Danish citizens and foreigners working in Denmark will still be free to enter and leave the country. The transport of goods, including foods, medicine and industry supplies, will also not be affected, she said.
The country of 5.7 million people has reported 801 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far and no deaths.
Large swathes of Denmark have been in lockdown since Thursday after the government shut all schools and universities and sent home all public sector workers with non-critical jobs in an effort to curb the spread of the disease.
The government has notified neighbouring countries Germany, Norway and Sweden as well as the European Commission, Frederiksen said, adding that authorities would need a few days to fully establish the border controls.
What is a US national emergency?
Donald Trump, as US president, has the power to declare a national emergency, which gives power to the federal government to more freely redistribute funds to state and local governments in a time of the crisis.
The president is set to declare a national emergency because of the coronavirus outbreak under the Stafford Act, which was signed into law in 1988 and is designed to encourage local municipalities to design and run their own disaster mitigation efforts, with federal assistance.
The last time Trump declared a national emergency was in February 2019 when he declared a national emergency to divert funding for his border wall. That national emergency was declared under a different act, the 1976 National Emergencies Act.
Amid reports he’s preparing to declare a national emergency, the US president Donald Trump is due to speak soon. Our US politics live blog will be covering it and I’ll post those updates that are relevant to the pandemic here as well.
In addition to the measures we reported earlier, Poland says it will ban foreigners from entering the country from Sunday and impose a 14-day quarantine on its citizens returning home. Morawiecki has said:
Nadine Dorries, a junior health minister in the UK’s government who tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week, says her mother has now been confirmed as having contracted the virus.
Azerbaijan has banned wedding celebrations and other public events, the authorities have said the day after the country recorded its first death.
The measures, which come into force on Saturday, also include shuttering museums, cinemas and theatres. The authorities said the country’s border with Georgia will be closed for 10 days and that all large cultural and sporting events will be postponed by a month.
The former Soviet country said on Thursday that a woman who had been quarantined after returning from neighbouring Iran had died from the virus.
Schools and universities in the country have been closed since the beginning of March and the authorities extended the closure of the border with Iran for another two weeks on Thursday. Azerbaijan has so far recorded 19 cases.
Tunisia will immediately suspend prayers in mosques, close cafes at 4pm every day, and ban all cultural, sports and economic gatherings to combat the spread of the coronavirus, its prime minister Elyes Fakhfakh has said.
The government has also closed Tunisia’s maritime borders, suspended all flights to and from Italy, in addition to reducing flights with Egypt, Germany, Britain and France. Tunisia has confirmed 16 cases; mostly among recent arrivals from Europe. And the disease is expected to hit its crucial tourism sector hard.
In London, parliament is limiting visitor access from Monday and introducing restrictions on overseas travel. The Speakers of the Commons and the Lords, Sir Lindsay Hoyle and Lord Fowler, have said:
The number of people in Germany with coronavirus has climbed again – this time to 3,634. The eighth death in the country was announced on Friday and a German man died in Egypt last week.
In a brief press conference, the chancellor Angela Merkel pledged government support for the economy and for society “on all levels”. She described the widespread closure of schools, the announcement of a massive credit programme for businesses and a work reduction programme to support workers and employers as far-reaching measures that would help ease the burden. In contrast to the financial crisis of 2008/9, she said:
Merkel said she hoped all citizens would show solidarity by keeping their distance. She said it was an “apparent paradox” that the weakest, oldest and those with pre-existing conditions could be best helped if social contact was avoided
Meanwhile, Berlin’s senate has decided – along with 12 of Germany’s 16 other states – to close all schools and kindergartens. To its list of cultural institutions forced to close, which included theatres, opera houses museums and concert halls, it has now added nightclubs and bars.
The famous fish hall in the northern port city of Hamburg has closed for the first time in its 300-year history, authorities said.
India has reported its second coronavirus death. Its ministry of health and family welfare said the person lived in the capital, New Delhi.