BRAZILIAN President Jair Bolsonaro has said he wants social isolation policies to end nationwide this week despite commitments by many states to maintain them.

Bolsonaro stated this four days after firing his health minister amid the coronavirus pandemic.

He coughed repeatedly while speaking to supporters in Brasilia, saying the measures had been imposed against his will and wanted them to end by the end of the week, despite experts warning the peak is still a long time off.

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The president has described the virus, which has killed thousands around the world, as a ‘little cold’. Nearly all Brazilian states have stay-at-home measures in place, some slated to extend until the middle of May.

The country’s top court has already ruled governors and mayors can decide on social isolation measures regardless of the federal government’s position.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, wants a quick reopening to stop the deterioration of Brazil’s faltering economy.

GLOBAL coronavirus infections surpassed 2.5 million yesterday, according to a Reuters tally, with U.S. cases nearing 800,000.

The figure includes more than 170,000 deaths, two-thirds of which have been reported in Europe.

It took around 75 days for the first 500,000 cases to be reported, and just six days for the most recent half million to be registered.

The first 41 cases were confirmed on Jan. 10, just over three months ago, and new cases have accelerated to over 70,000 a day in April.

It compares to 3 million to 5 million cases of severe illness caused annually by seasonal influenza, according to World Health Organisation estimates.

While experts say actual cases of the new coronavirus are likely higher than current reports, the number still falls far short of the Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and infected an estimated 500 million people.

Despite the growing number of cases in the current pandemic, there are signs that the spread of the coronavirus is slowing with many countries exercising lockdown measures.

At the beginning of April, the total case figure grew at a rate of 8%-9% per day and this has since slowed to between 3%-4% per day in the past week.

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More than 1.1 million cases have been reported in Europe, including almost 400,000 cases in Italy and Spain, where over 10% of reported cases have been fatal.

North America accounts for a third of all cases, though so far the region has reported lower death rates. In both the United States and Canada, 5% of reported cases have been fatal.

Cases in Latin America continue to grow faster than other regions, and topped 100,000 in the past 24 hours.

In China, where the virus is thought to have originated, daily new cases have dwindled to less than 20 a day over the past three days and no new deaths have been reported this week.

However, last week China raised its official death toll by 40%, adding another 1,290 fatalities which health authorities said were not reported earlier.

Currently, many countries continue to experience a shortage of testing resources, artificially lowering case numbers and excluding infections in nursing homes.

 

 

BUCKINGHAM Palace has posted archive footage of the Queen as a child to mark her 94th birthday, which she is spending in lockdown.

The Royal Family Twitter account thanked the public for the birthday messages as it posted the family video.

“To those of you also celebrating your birthdays today at home, with or without your loved ones – we send you many happy returns,” it said.

The Queen is spending the day with Prince Philip at Windsor Castle.

The archive film shows the monarch as a young Princess Elizabeth playing with a pram as a toddler, on a seesaw and dancing on a yacht with her sister Princess Margaret.

The Palace said the Queen’s birthday would not be marked in any special way, adding that any phone or video calls she has with family would be kept private.

Like the rest of the UK, the royals are staying away from each other as they observe social distancing rules during the coronavirus pandemic.

But senior royals were toasting the monarch on social media.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, staying at Anmer Hall in Norfolk with their children, wished the Queen a “very happy” 94th birthday on Twitter.

They posted an image of Catherine and William with the monarch at the Chelsea Flower Show last year.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall also sent birthday wishes online, sharing photos of Charles with his mother from when he was a baby to more recently.

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Charles, who has recovered from coronavirus, is at Birkhall in Aberdeenshire with Camilla.

The Queen’s other children – the Princess Royal, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex – are in their own separate homes around the country.

On her birthday, the monarch also sent a message of condolence to the people of Nova Scotia after a gunman killed 18 people in 12-hour rampage starting on Saturday.

The bells of Westminster Abbey will stay silent on her birthday for the first time in more than a decade, because the central London church is closed during the lockdown.

And there will be no gun salute to mark her birthday for what is thought to be the first time in her reign.

The Queen decided that the celebratory display, which usually takes place at Hyde Park and the Tower of London, would not be “appropriate” because of the pandemic.

Trooping the Colour, which marks the Queen’s official birthday in June, has also been cancelled. No alternative is expected to be put in its place.

The Queen has already stressed the importance of maintaining the coronavirus lockdown, saying: “By keeping apart, we keep others safe”.

Prince Philip, 98, issued a rare public statement on Monday, thanking key workers for keeping essential services running during the coronavirus outbreak.

 

PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak took on a sharper political tone with his pledge to suspend immigration into the country, as Georgia and other U.S. states began lifting restrictions that stalled their economies.

Trump made the immigration announcement in a Twitter message late on Monday night, suggesting his action would prevent further contagion from outsiders while saving American jobs.

Trump, elected in 2016 in part on his vow to stamp out illegal immigration, had staked his re-election in November on the strength of a U.S. economy now sapped by the economic shutdown to stop the pandemic.

He has since been pressing for states to begin easing restrictions that have left a record 22 million people seeking unemployment benefits.

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“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy,” he tweeted, referring to the pandemic, “as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States.”

The White House declined to offer further details on the reasoning behind the decision, its timing or its legal basis.

Trump spoke before he was due to meet later in the Oval Office with Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, the state hardest hit by the outbreak. The Democratic governor has voiced strong opposition to Trump’s record on immigration and has clashed with the Republican president over a lack of testing and medical equipment to fight the outbreak.

Cuomo told reporters at his daily coronavirus briefing that his meeting with Trump would focus on testing and how the federal government could work in partnership with the states.

PRIME Minister Boris Johnson has spoken on the phone to U.S. President Donald Trump, as his recovery from coronavirus continues.

The prime minister, who is recuperating at his official country residence, is also expected to speak to the Queen by phone this week.

Downing Street said Johnson is currently not doing any formal government work but is receiving updates from senior colleagues.

No 10 said he had thanked Trump for his good wishes while he was unwell.

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A spokesperson added the pair had discussed UK-U.S. cooperation in the fight against the virus, and agreed on the importance of a “coordinated international response”.

Earlier No 10 said Johnson has spoken to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has been deputising for him for the past two weeks, and “senior members of his team”.

Downing Street also said Johnson – who spent nearly a week in hospital and three nights in intensive care – was “continuing his recovery” at Chequers, his country retreat in Buckinghamshire.

After he was discharged from hospital on 12 April, Johnson – who received oxygen treatment to help his breathing during his stay – praised NHS staff, saying it “could have gone either way”.