Coronavirus live news: 6m Australians download tracing app as experts fear second wave in US summer

The festival of Eid al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, began at dawn today. It is a time of joy and celebration, but there are concerns in the Middle East that those festivities could bring about a surge in coronavirus cases – so they have been constrained in many places. Michael Safi, in Amman, and Harriet Sherwood have reported this story for us.

“It’s sad, it hurts,” said Mohammad, who runs a sugarcane juice stall. “Normally we’d wake up, take our kids to pray, and visit family and friends. It was cheerful, we felt joy.” This year? “We’ll eat, drink and sleep,” he said. “And we’ll hang around annoying our wives,” said his father, grinning behind him.

Contact with family and friends is part of the festival. “We’ll visit them,” said Abdul Kareem, queuing outside a bakery. “But it’ll be on WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook.”

The owner of a nearby shoe shop, Wissam, watched the bustle from his door. “This isn’t right,” he says of the busy scene. “There’s a virus out there.”

Full story:

Nick Ames

That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan for today. Thanks as always for following along.

Here are the most important developments from the last few hours:

• Wuhan lab had bat coronaviruses – but not Covid-19. The Chinese virology institute in Wuhan, the city in China at the heart of the coronavirus pandemic, has three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site, but none match the Covid-19 strain, its director has said. The director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology told state broadcaster CGTN that claims by US president Donald Trump that the virus could have leaked from the facility were “pure fabrication”. In an interview filmed on 13 May but broadcast on Saturday night, Wang Yanyi said the centre had “isolated and obtained some coronaviruses from bats. Now we have three strains of live viruses … But their highest similarity to Sars-CoV-2 only reaches 79.8%.”
• US opens up for summer. There are fears the US will suffer a second wave of coronavirus infections as it opens up for summer, just days away from the grim milestone of 100,000 Covid-19 deaths. Every state has relaxed restrictions to some extent, with many flocking to beaches and outdoor areas. The New York Times filled the entire front page of Sunday’s paper with the death notices of victims from across the country as the country recorded more than 97,000 deaths.
• Argentina extends lockdown. Argentina has extended the mandatory lockdown in Buenos Aires until 7 June and tightened some movement restrictions, after a steady increase in the city’s confirmed coronavirus cases in recent days. Officials will tighten traffic controls between the capital and Buenos Aires province, the area with the second highest concentration of cases. The country recorded 704 new infections on Saturday, one of the highest single-day increases since the pandemic began.
• Brazil cases near 350,000. Brazil registered 965 new coronavirus deaths on Saturday, taking the total number of fatalities to 22,013, the health ministry said. The country now has 347,398 confirmed cases, according to the ministry, up 16,508 from Friday, when it surpassed Russia to become the world’s virus hot spot behind the US. The actual number of cases and deaths is believed to be higher than the official figures disclosed by the government, as the testing capacity of Latin America’s largest country still lags.
• New Zealand reports no new cases. New Zealand’s health ministry has announced there were zero new coronavirus cases confirmed in the last 24 hours. According to NewsHub, there are now only 27 active cases left in New Zealand, with one more patient recovered, bringing the country’s total to 1,154, with 21 deaths.
• Australian states ease restrictions. In Australia, Victorian state premier, Daniel Andrews, has said Victorians will be allowed to have 20 people in their homes as well as overnight stays in hotels from 1 June. In New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, health minister Brad Hazzard announced that beauty, tanning, nail and waxing salons would all be open from 1 June.
• Pompeo threatens Australia over Belt and Road projects. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has implied information sharing with Australia may be at risk if the Victoria proceeds with any Belt and Road projects that jeopardise communications networks. Issuing the highly qualified warning during an interview with Sky News Australia, the News Corp-owned channel, Pompeo urged Victoria to scrutinise any proposals “incredibly closely” because Belt and Road projects could “build up the capacity of the Chinese Communist party to do harm”. Victoria has attracted domestic political criticism for signing an agreement that would allow for it be part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
• French churches to hold first masses since lockdown started. French churches were preparing to hold their first Sunday masses in more than two months after the government bowed to a ruling that they should be reopened. Nearly two weeks into the relaxation of its shutdown, the government finally allowed churches, mosques and synagogues to reopen. Worshippers will have to wear masks, there will have to be disinfectant gel on hand and the seating will need to be organised to ensure people keep a safe distance from each other.
• Boris Johnson’s chief adviser under pressure as second trip emerges. In the UK, prime minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, faces renewed pressure to resign after new witnesses reported seeing him making a fresh trip hundreds of miles to Durham.

In Australia, a Darwin pub has been fined more than AU$5,000 (US$3,270) for repeatedly failing to adhere to strict coronavirus laws.

Michael Savage

UK low-income households denied coronavirus support by benefit cap

Tens of thousands of poor households are being denied extra support designed to ease the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, after being hit by the government’s benefit cap.

The number of low-income households affected by the cap in London has doubled since the crisis started, according to analysis seen by the Observer. Households already at the cap when the crisis hit have been missing out on £320 a month in additional support. For private renters with children, this is £532 a month. A further 22,000 households are now at the cap and are missing out on an average of £185 a month.

It has led to an outcry that there is now a two-tier system, in which workers on the government’s furlough scheme have access to far more support than some of those reliant on welfare. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, is calling for the cap to be increased during the pandemic.

The government introduced new help for those claiming universal credit, however, the cap was not increased or suspended.

The virology lab in Wuhan, the city at the heart of the outbreak, was working on three live strains of bat coronavirus, but none of them match the one that has caused the Covid-19 pandemic, its director has said.

Wang Yanyi told Chinese state broadcaster CGTN that the closest genetic match to the virus spreading around the world was only 79.8%, adding that claims made by US president Donald Trump and others that the virus could have leaked from the facility were “pure fabrication”.

She said: “Our institute first received the clinical sample of the unknown pneumonia on December 30 last year … We didn’t have any knowledge before that, nor had we ever encountered, researched or kept the virus. In fact, like everyone else, we didn’t even know the virus existed. How could it have leaked from our lab when we never had it?”

The attempt by the laboratory to refute the claims is nevertheless likely to add more fuel to the conspiracy rumours.

The interview came amid fears the US will suffer a second wave of coronavirus infections as it opens up for summer, just days away from the grim milestone of 100,000 Covid-19 deaths.

The New York Times marked the looming threshold with a front page listing nearly 1,000 Covid-19 death notices, gleaned from hundreds of US papers. The headline spoke of an “incalculable loss”.

Mark Townsend

Charities call for new youth corps to tackle UK virus jobs crisis

A coalition of British youth charities is urging the government to back a “national youth corps” to create opportunities for school and university leavers facing the toughest labour market for decades. The alliance of 12 organisations argues that decisive intervention can “turn this looming disaster into an opportunity”.

The new youth corps would guarantee at least the minimum wage for 16- to 25-year-olds in a range of work and training opportunities until the end of 2021.

Lois Beckett

Verna Yu reports for the Guardian:

In Hong Kong, small groups of activists and pro-democracy politicians have begun marching to China’s liaison office, arranging themselves in groups of eight in order not to breach the government’s social distancing rules.

“A characteristic of a dictatorial country is that they use national security as a pretext to suppress freedom of speech,” Roy Tam, a district councillor shouted through a loud hailer.

Eight activists from another group, League of Social Democrats, arrived to demonstrate in front of the office minutes later.

“Hong Kong people defending our human rights,” they chanted. “Don’t forget the June 4 massacre! Human rights are higher than the regime! Down with Communist Party dictatorship!”

You can read the full report here:

Daniel Hurst

The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has dismissed calls for his treasurer to face questioning before a Senate inquiry over the AU$60bn (US$39bn) reduction in the estimated cost of the government’s jobkeeper wage subsidy program.

In a press conference, Morrison denied the revision – along with the new estimate only 3.5 million workers will be covered by the scheme, not 6.5 million – raised any issue with the government’s overall economic competence.

He said when the Treasury had calculated its original estimate that the program would cost $130bn over six months, they were very uncertain economic times, and the government had moved very quickly to launch the scheme.

“On the day it was a big gulp for the government to understand what we needed to do but we didn’t flinch. We knew this was necessary and we responded quickly. We made the estimates based on the best information we had available to us and that provided to be overly cautious.”

He said there had been no loss to the taxpayer – “in fact it’s been the reverse”.

Morrison said the move by Labor senator Katy Gallagher to call the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, to appear before the Senate Select Committee on Covid-19 was “a political stunt”.

A government spokesperson said the arrangements for the Covid-19 committee were for ministers who served in the lower house to be represented by their Senate representative ministers, akin to Senate estimates hearings.

Here are the most important developments in the pandemic in Australia so far today:

• Scott Morrison urges state leaders to justify economic damage from ongoing border restrictions. In Australia, Scott Morrison has urged several state leaders who are still maintaining domestic border restrictions to justify the potential economic damage. The prime minister did not go as far as some of his Coalition colleagues in calling for premiers such as Annastacia Palaszczuk in Queensland to swiftly lift border restrictions, but he emphasised that the national cabinet had never agreed to internal border closures and leaders should be accountable to their voters.
• Pompeo implies Belt and Road projects may threaten US info sharing with Australia. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has implied information sharing with Australia may be put at risk if the Australian state of Victoria proceeds with any Belt and Road projects that jeopardise communications networks. Issuing the highly qualified warning during an interview with Sky News Australia, the News Corp-owned channel, Pompeo urged Victoria to scrutinise any proposals “incredibly closely” because Belt and Road projects could “build up the capacity of the Chinese Communist party to do harm”.
• Beauty salons to reopen in New South Wales from 1 June. State health minister, Brad Hazzard, has announced that beauty, tanning, nail and waxing salons will all be open from 1 June. “Of all of the requests I’ve had as health minister in the last three months, this has been the one that I think has topped the barrel … I didn’t even know there was such a thing as acrylic nails, but I’m very pleased to say that they are now open,” Hazzard said. He said salon operators would have to have a Covid-safe plan and stick to physical distancing measures.
• Six million Australians download tracing app. Six million Australians have now downloaded the Covidsafe app, less than a month after it was launched to help health authorities trace coronavirus infections.
  
  
• In Australia, Victorian state premier, Daniel Andrews, has announced Victorians will be allowed to have 20 people in homes and outdoors as well as overnight stays in hotels from next month, AAP reports. Victoria will further ease restrictions by the end of May, as schools and some outdoor facilities go back to a new normal from Tuesday. The total number of coronavirus cases in Victoria is 1,603.