Saudi minister says number of pilgrims limited to around 1,000

Saudi considers limiting hajj pilgrims amid COVID-19 fears

Saudi considers limiting hajj pilgrims amid COVID-19 fears

Laylat al-Qadr during global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Grand Mosque in Mecca on 19 May 2020.

Saudi Arabia could drastically limit numbers at the annual hajj pilgrimage to prevent a further outbreak of coronavirus after cases in the country topped 100,000, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday. Some 2.5 million pilgrims visit the holiest sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina for the week-long hajj, an once-in-a-lifetime duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it. Official data show hajj and the lesser, year-round umrah pilgrimage earn the kingdom about $12 billion a year. Saudi Arabia asked Muslims in March to put hajj plans on hold and suspended umrah until further notice. Two sources familiar with the matter said authorities are now considering allowing "only symbolic numbers" this year, with restrictions including a ban on older pilgrims and additional health checks. With strict procedures, authorities think it may be possible to allow in up to 20 per cent of each country's regular quota of pilgrims, another source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Some officials are still pushing for a cancellation of the hajj, expected to start in late July, the three sources said. The government media office and a spokesman for the hajj and umrah ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Limiting or cancelling hajj will further pressure government finances hit by the plunge in oil prices and the pandemic. Analysts predict a severe economic contraction this year. The kingdom halted international passenger flights in March, and on Friday it reimposed a curfew in Jeddah, where hajj flights land, after a spike in infections in the city. In 2019, around 19 million pilgrims attended umrah while hajj drew 2.6 million. An economic reform plan of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aims to increase umrah and hajj capacity to 30 million pilgrims annually and generate 50 billion riyals ($13.32 billion) of revenues by 2030.($1 = 3.7530 riyals)

One killed, 11 injured in shooting at the epicentre of US anti-racism protests

One killed, 11 injured in shooting at the epicenter of US anti-racism protests

Police vehicles block the road after a shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, on 21 June 2020, in this picture obtained from social media video.

One person was killed and 11 were injured in a shooting in the early hours of Sunday in Minneapolis, police said.

"One adult male died and 11 have no-life-threatening wounds," Minneapolis police tweeted, adding in a separate tweet that people who suffered gunshot wounds had been taken to area hospitals. The city has been at the heart of a wave of anti-racism protests in the United States and around the world over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis police custody last month. There was no indication that Saturday's shooting was related to this. As of 4:00am, no one was in custody in connection with the shooting, the Associated Press reported.

General holiday announced for red zones in 10 districts

General holiday announced for red zones in 10 districts

Police guard the entrance to East Rajabazar in Dhaka as the area was marked as red zone due to intense coronavirus infection on 10 June 2020

The government on Sunday announced general holidays in some areas that were marked as red zone by the health authorities in 10 districts, due to high coronavirus infection risk, reports UNB.

The districts are Chattogram, Bogura, Moulvibazar, Chuadanga, Jashore, Madaripur, Narayanganj, Habiganj, Munshiganj and Cumilla.

The public administration ministry issued a gazette notification in this regard, saying the announcement will come into effect from Sunday.The notification stated the decision was taken to control public movement strictly considering the risk of infection in the areas. The holidays will be effective only in the red zones.

All job-holders of any sector residing in the red zones will enjoy the holidays. In Chattogram, Uttar Kattali area of ward no. 10 (except the BSCIC industrial area) under Chattogram city corporation will be under the purview of the announcement. Here, the holidays will continue until 8 July.The holidays will be effective in Chelopara, Nataipara, Naruli, Jaleswaritala, Sutrapur, Maltinagar, Thanthania, Haripari and Colony areas of Bogura until 5 July.

In Chuadanga, wards 5 and 7 of Darshana municipality of Damurhuda upazila will be under the announcement until 8 July.

General holidays will be effective in some areas of Sreemangal sadar, Baramchal, Kadipur unions and Kulaura municipality of Moulvibazar until 5 July.Besides, the holiday will be effective for some areas of Rupganj sadar union in Narayanganj until 2 July.

In Habiganj, ward 6 and 9 of Habiganj municipality, Deorgach, Ubahata, Ranigaon and sadar municipality of Chunarughat, Ajmiriganj sadar union and Madhabpur municipality area will be under the holidays until 9 July.

The holidays will be effective for Mathpara area of ward no. 1 in Munshiganj municipality until 9 July.

Residents of areas falling under wards 3, 10, 12 and 13 of Cumilla city corporation will enjoy the holiday till 3 July.

Vast areas of Jashore and Madaripur will also face the red zones’ strict lockdown until different dates.

No new COVID-19 patient detected in Bangladesh in last 24 hours: IEDCR

 

No new COVID-19 patient detected in Bangladesh in last 24 hours: IEDCR

IEDCR direcotr professor Meerjady Sabrina Flora

No one has been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Bangladesh in the last 24 hours, said the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) on Saturday.

No patient died of the deadly virus in the last 24 hours while four infected patients recovered, said Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) director professor Meerjady Sabrina Flora at an online media briefing, reports UNB.

The death toll from novel coronavirus (COVID-19) reached 27,359 globally on Saturday morning.

It has so far infected 597,185 people around the world, according to worldometers.info.

Of the infected, 436,466 are currently undergoing treatment while 23,523 of them are in critical condition.

So far, 160,719 cases had outcomes. Of them, 133,360 (83 per cent) recovered and 17 per cent died.

Over 600,000 Cases Worldwide; $2 Trillion Aid Bill Enters Law

President Trump signed into law the largest economic stimulus package in modern American history and said the government would buy thousands of ventilators. The virus’s death toll has surged in Spain and Italy.

Earlier this week, the country surpassed the case totals in China and Italy. The number of known cases has risen rapidly in recent days, as testing ramped up after weeks of widespread shortages and delays. Over 600,000 cases have now been confirmed worldwide, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

 

On Friday, President Trump signed into law a $2 trillion measure designed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. In the largest economic stimulus package in modern American history, the government will deliver direct payments and jobless benefits for individuals, money for states and a huge bailout fund for businesses battered by the crisis.

 

Mr. Trump signed the measure in the Oval Office hours after the House approved it by voice vote, and less than two days after the Senate unanimously passed it. Mr. Trump thanked “Democrats and Republicans for coming together and putting America first.”

The legislation will send direct payments of $1,200 to millions of Americans, including those earning up to $75,000, and an additional $500 per child. It will substantially expand jobless aid, providing an additional 13 weeks and a four-month enhancement of benefits, and for the first time will extend the payments to freelancers and gig workers.

The measure will also offer $377 billion in federally guaranteed loans to small businesses and establish a $500 billion government lending program for distressed companies reeling from the crisis. It will also send $100 billion to hospitals.

Faced with a torrent of criticism from cities and states that have been pleading for help to deal with the most critically ill coronavirus victims, Mr. Trump also announced on Friday that the federal government would buy thousands of ventilators from a variety of makers, though it appeared doubtful they could be produced in time to help hospitals that are now overwhelmed.

Also on Friday, the Trump administration cut off tens of millions of dollars for health care programs and other aid in Yemen, rejecting pleas by humanitarian groups and some members of Congress to delay the decision as the country’s packed refugee camps prepare to face the pandemic.

American officials said the move was a necessary response to longstanding interference by Houthi rebels who control the northern part of Yemen, and who have imposed harsh restrictions on organizations trying to deliver aid.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York warned at a news conference that officials would decide this weekend whether to impose a $500 fine on residents flouting social-distancing rules during the coronavirus outbreak by gathering in large groups at parks and ignoring police orders to disperse.

The vast majority of New Yorkers have been respecting the rules, the mayor said, but officials have observed some violations in the past day.

Mr. de Blasio also said that a few houses of worship were continuing to hold religious services and that they risked fines or having their buildings permanently closed if the police found congregations in them this weekend.

Officials said late Friday that the number of coronavirus cases in New York City had climbed above 26,000. The city’s death toll was 450.

In New Rochelle, N.Y., meanwhile, the state’s drastic measures to contain a cluster of coronavirus cases may be starting to work, according to the latest data for Westchester County.

Spain and Italy, the two countries with the world’s largest coronavirus death tolls, have each recorded a grim new daily record: 832 dead in the past 24 hours in Spain, bringing the total to 5,690 on Saturday; 969 in the most recent figures in Italy, for a total of 9,134.

As of Saturday, 12,248 people were reported to have recovered from the virus in Spain, about double the number of victims.

“A lot remains to be done, but the figures bit by bit indicate that we are reaching this peak,” said Fernando Simón, the director of Spain’s national health emergency center.

The spike in deaths was particularly shocking in Italy, where until Friday’s figures were released deaths appeared to have been slowing.

But both countries have seen recent falls in the number of confirmed new infections, though that figure rose again slightly in Spain on Saturday. Dr. Simón told a news conference on Friday that it was good news that the pace of recovery was accelerating significantly.

Hopes were more muted in Italy, where the head of the national health institute, Silvio Brusaferro, suggested the outbreak “could peak in the next few days.”

Even so, he said, “We can’t delude ourselves that a slowing down of the diffusion will allow us to slow down social distancing.”

Franco Locatelli, the president of Italy’s Higher Health Council, a government advisory board, said that while there were “clear signs” that the restrictive measures enacted three weeks ago were working, it was important that they be maintained. Should they be loosened, “all the work we’ve done until now will have been for nothing,” he said.

 As countries throughout Europe grappled with a shortage of protective equipment for health workers, Spain received four million masks delivered from China on Saturday, delivered by an Airbus aircraft, according to the company. The shortage has been particularly acute in Spain, where health workers represent 15 percent of confirmed cases.

As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, experts have started to question official guidance about whether ordinary, healthy people should protect themselves with a regular surgical mask, or even a scarf.

The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to state that masks don’t necessarily protect healthy individuals from getting infected as they go about their daily lives.

The official guidance continues to recommend that masks be reserved for people who are already sick, as well as for the health workers and caregivers who must interact with infected individuals on a regular basis. Everyone else, they say, should stick to frequent hand-washing and maintaining a distance of at least six feet from other people to protect themselves.

But the recent surge in infections in the United States, which has put the country at the center of the epidemic, means that more Americans are now at risk of getting sick. And healthy individuals, especially those with essential jobs who cannot avoid public transportation or close interaction with others, may need to start wearing masks more regularly.

While wearing a mask may not necessarily prevent healthy people from getting sick, and certainly doesn’t replace important measures such as hand-washing or social distancing, it may be better than nothing, said Dr. Robert Atmar, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine.

But studies of influenza pandemics have shown that when high-grade N95 masks are not available, surgical masks do protect people a bit more than not wearing masks at all. And when masks are combined with hand hygiene, they help reduce the transmission of infections.

Singapore and Hong Kong, which kept their infection numbers low in the first weeks of the outbreak, have stepped up measures to enforce social distancing in public, as imported cases continue to drive the spread in both places.

Through the end of April, anyone in Singapore who fails to maintain a one-meter distance from others while standing in line, or while sitting in a chair that isn’t attached to the floor, can be jailed for up to six months, fined up to $7,000 or both, the Ministry of Health said. Proprietors of cinemas and other places with fixed seating are required to ensure that people don’t sit next to each other.

In Hong Kong, public gatherings of more than four people will be banned for two weeks starting Sunday, with some exceptions, including funerals. Wedding ceremonies will be limited to 20 people. Restaurants must be no more than half-full, and cinemas, fitness centers and other recreations sites will be temporarily closed.

Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, who announced the new restrictions on Friday, backed off from an earlier plan to ban the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants, after the industry pushed back against it. Like Singapore’s new restrictions, Hong Kong’s are punishable by fines and jail terms of up to six months.

Hong Kong reported 65 new coronavirus cases on Friday, its largest single-day total yet, bringing its total past 500. Singapore reported 49 new cases. Many of the new cases in both cities involved people who had recently returned from abroad.

“For weeks now it has been evening,” Pope Francis said Friday on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. “Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives.”

The pope spoke alone, before a vast and empty square, its rain-slicked cobblestones reflecting the blue lights of the police locking down Rome. “We find ourselves afraid,” he said. “And lost.”

A new anxiety has seized Vatican City, which has about 600 citizens and a population of about 246 people behind the Vatican walls. About 100 of the residents are young Swiss Guards, but the others include the pope, a handful of older cardinals, the people who work in their households, and some laymen, making it in some ways as vulnerable as a nursing home to a virus that can be devastating to the old.

This week, the Vatican confirmed cases of the coronavirus inside its walls, and on Wednesday reports emerged that an official who lives in the pope’s residence had tested positive and required hospitalization. Now the Vatican, which has also essentially canceled all public participation in Easter ceremonies, is testing scores of people and considering isolating measures for the 83-year-old pope, who had part of a lung removed during an illness in his youth.

Top Vatican officials said Francis has had negative results to two separate tests and has said privately he doesn’t have the virus.

Ireland became the latest European country living under tight movement restrictions on Saturday, imposing a lockdown nearly a week later than its harder-hit neighbor, Britain, but with conditions that were in some respects stricter.

“Freedom was hard-won in our country, and it jars with us to restrict and limit individual liberties, even temporarily,” Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said in an address on Friday. He described the new rules as “restricting our lives so that others might live.”

As of early Saturday, Ireland had reported 2,121 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and 22 deaths.

From midnight until at least Easter Sunday, Irish people are being ordered to stay home except to travel to essential jobs, medical appointments, family care or “brief” exercise within 2 kilometers — about a mile and a quarter — of home. All but a few shops are shut, and public transport is restricted to essential workers.

The exercise restrictions attracted particular interest in Britain, after a series of public controversies over what was appropriate under lockdown.

Several London boroughs have closed local parks and play areas; one of London’s largest parks has temporarily banned cyclists; and the police in Derbyshire, England, have published drone footage of people parking cars and walking in the Peak District, a popular national park, labeled “This Is Not Essential Travel.”

On Saturday, the British government published new guidance to exercise “near your home where possible.”

Britain is also converting large convention centers in Birmingham and Manchester into coronavirus hospitals, the head of its National Health Service said on Saturday, a measure it has already taken in London.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan warned on Saturday that the country was at risk of an explosion of coronavirus infections, but announced no specific new measures to control the spread.

“At this point, we are not going to declare a state of emergency, but we are barely holding on,” Mr. Abe said at a news conference Saturday evening in Tokyo. “And we believe that we are still on the brink.”

The Japanese leader, who last week asked the International Olympic Committee to delay the Tokyo summer Olympics by one year because of the coronavirus pandemic, said the government would draft a supplementary budget with economic measures “of a scale that would exceed those after the Lehman crisis.” It would include cash payouts to households and small firms.

Although Japan has not been put on a full lockdown, many businesses have suffered as large sports and cultural events have been canceled and tourism has all but collapsed.

Mr. Abe said that Japan’s current policy in dealing with the coronavirus was to “identify early chains of infections in so-called clusters.”

But he acknowledged that if “an explosive spread of infections breaks out,” particularly in big cities like Tokyo or Osaka, that strategy would “collapse immediately.”

Tokyo has recorded double-digit increases in cases for the past three days. Last week, Tokyo’s governor, Yuriko Koike, asked residents not to venture outside this weekend unless it was essential

On Saturday, the governor of Chiba announced 57 new cases — 31 workers and 26 visitors — at a welfare facility for the disabled.

Here is how some other countries are responding to the virus:

• Poland’s Parliament passed a law early on Saturday allowing voting by mail for older citizens and those in quarantine or self-isolating. Opposition parties have called for presidential elections, scheduled in May, to be postponed.

• Turkey halted all intercity trains and limited domestic flights on Saturday. Its number of coronavirus cases jumped by a third in a day to 5,698, with 92 dead.

• Australia stepped up enforcement of social distancing rules on Saturday. It also closed more beaches and threatened fines if people defy pleas to stay at home. The country’s number of confirmed cases rose by 469 to 3,635 on Saturday, the federal health ministry said, from fewer than 100 earlier this March.

• Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, continues to cast doubt on São Paulo’s death toll from the outbreak, accusing the state governor, without evidence, of manipulating the numbers for political ends. “I’m sorry, some people will die, they will die, that’s life,” Mr. Bolsonaro said in a television interview Friday night. He said that in São Paulo State, Brazil’s economic powerhouse — which has the most cases and deaths so far of coronavirus in Brazil, at 1,223 cases and 68 death — the death toll seemed “too large.”

In some respects, a pandemic is an equalizer: It can afflict princes and paupers alike, and no one who hopes to stay healthy is exempt from the strictures of social distancing. But the American response to the virus is laying bare class divides that are often camouflaged — in access to health care, child care, education, living space, even internet bandwidth.

In New York, well-off city dwellers have abandoned cramped apartments for spacious second homes. In Texas, the rich are shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to build safe rooms and bunkers.

And across the country, there is a creeping consciousness that despite talk of national unity, not everyone is equal in times of emergency.

“This is a white-collar quarantine,” said Howard Barbanel, a Miami-based entrepreneur who owns a wine company. “Average working people are bagging and delivering goods, driving trucks, working for local government.”

Some of those catering to the well-off stress that they are trying to be good citizens. Mr. Michelson emphasized that he had obtained coronavirus tests only for patients who met guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rather than the so-called worried well.

Still, a kind of pandemic caste system is rapidly developing: the rich holed up in vacation properties; the middle class marooned at home with restless children; the working class on the front lines of the economy, stretched to the limit by the demands of work and parenting, if there is even work to be had.

For the millions of Americans who found themselves without a job in recent weeks, the sharp and painful change brought a profound sense of disorientation. They were going about their lives, bartending, cleaning, managing events, waiting tables, loading luggage and teaching yoga. And then suddenly they were in free fall, grabbing at any financial help they could find, which in many states this week remained locked away behind crashing websites and overloaded phone lines.

In 17 interviews with people in eight states, Americans who lost their jobs said they were in shock and struggling to grasp the magnitude of the economy’s shutdown, an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. Unlike the last economic earthquake, the financial crisis of 2008, this time there was no getting back out there to look for work, not when people were being told to stay inside. What is more, the layoffs affected not just them, but their spouses, their parents, their siblings and their roommates — even their bosses.

“I don’t think anyone expected it to be like this,” said Mark Kasanic, 48, a server at a brasserie in Cleveland who was one of roughly 300 workers that a locally owned restaurant company laid off last week. Now he is home schooling his children, ages 5 and 7, one with special needs.

Julian Bruell was one of those who had to deliver the bad news to hourly employees like Mr. Kasanic. Mr. Bruell, 30, who helps run the company with his father, said that only about 30 employees were left running takeout and delivery at two of its five restaurants. He has not been earning a salary, his goal being to keep the business afloat through the crisis.

On Thursday, he was planning to file for unemployment himself.

For months, President Trump has downplayed the severity of the pandemic, overstated the impact of his policies and potential treatments, blamed others and tried to rewrite the history of his response.

Hours after the United States became the nation with the most reported coronavirus cases on Thursday, Mr. Trump appeared on Fox News and expressed doubt about shortages of medical supplies, boasted about the country’s testing capacity, and criticized his predecessor’s response to an earlier outbreak of a different disease.

“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” he said, alluding to a request by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. The president made the statement in spite of government reports about potential shortages — and he reversed course on Friday morning, calling for urgent steps to produce more ventilators.

Speaking on Fox on Thursday, Mr. Trump suggested wrongly that because of his early travel restrictions on China, “a lot of the people decided to go to Italy instead” — though Italy had issued a more wide-ranging ban on travel from China, earlier than the United States. And at a White House briefing on Friday, he wrongly said he was the “first one” to impose restrictions on China.

He misleadingly claimed again on Friday that “we’ve tested now more than anybody.” In terms of raw numbers, the United States has tested more people for the coronavirus than Italy and South Korea, but it lags behind in tests per capita.

And he continued to falsely claim that the Obama administration “acted very, very late” during the H1N1 epidemic in 2009 and 2010.

To stay resilient in frightening times, it’s critical to remember that gleams of hope do exist. “Whenever I’ve asked people what thing they’re most proud of in their lives, it’s always connected to times of pain or strife or struggle and how they got through it,” said Jeremy Ortman, a mental health counselor in New York.

So what bright spots are there to keep in mind during this pandemic?

Kindness is in the news. Maybe people are being better to each other, or maybe we’re just noticing it more. People are serenading each other across windowsills. Animal shelters are reporting upticks in foster applications. Volunteers are buying groceries for their neighbors.

Research is moving at breakneck speed. Doctors are scrambling to improve testing and find anti-viral treatments. The mobilization in the medical field recalls organizing efforts during World War II, said Robert Citino, executive director of the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

“I don’t think there has ever been more human ingenuity devoted to a single scientific problem than the one we’re facing right now,” he said.

We could be learning crucial lessons. Years from now, if a deadlier virus emerges, we may find that today’s innovations and procedures have prepared us for it. “What we’re facing is unprecedented, and I don’t want to downplay its seriousness, but it’s not the worst-case scenario,” said Malia Jones, a researcher who studies infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

“I hope the takeaway here is that we’ll be better prepared to deal with the next pandemic,” Dr. Jones said. “This is a good practice run for a novel influenza pandemic. That’s the real scary scenario.”

Spain counts 832 deaths in 24 hours

 

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The death toll from coronavirus in Spain surged over 5,600 on Saturday after a record 832 people died in 24 hours, and the number of infections soared over 72,000, the government said.

Spain has the world's second-highest coronavirus death toll after Italy with 5,690 fatalities. The number of confirmed cases has jumped to 72,248 as the country moves to significantly increase testing.

Although Spain's latest figures showed a daily increase of more than 8,000 cases, the rate of new infections appears to be slowing, with officials saying the epidemic appeared to be nearing its peak.

Madrid remains the worst-hit region, with 2,757 deaths and 21,520 infections, leaving hospitals and mortuaries overwhelmed, and the regional authorities working to open a second temporary morgue in an unused public building near the airport to house the dead.

An initial site was opened last week at the ice skating rink at the Palacio de Hielo (Ice Palace) shopping centre.

With undertakers also overwhelmed, the government has authorised the army's involvement in the collection and transport of bodies for the duration of the state of emergency.

The latest figures came as Spain marked two weeks since the imposition of an unprecedented national lockdown which will remain in place until at least 11 April.

Earlier on Saturday, Spain received a delivery of 1.2 million masks from China for health workers and those in the transport sector, the government said.

The delivery, which arrived at Madrid's Barajas airport, includes some 387,000 surgical masks for healthcare personnel, 75,000 masks for the security forces and more than 725,000 for those in the transport sector, from bus drivers to port and airport staff as well as those working for the postal service.