Costa Rica will extend the closure of its borders until June 30, Health Minister Daniel Salas said on Friday, prolonging one measure in its effort to contain the novel coronavirus.

The border closure was due to expire June 15.

However, the Central American country will begin reopening its tourism industry for domestic travelers. Starting on Monday, tourist buses will be able to circulate in Costa Rica, and hotels will be able to reopen at 50% capacity, Mr Salas said.

Costa Rica on Friday reported 22 new cases of the coronavirus, bringing the total to 1,022. Ten people have died.

There is no logic in the US terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO), a British expert has said.

President Donald Trump said the WHO had failed to adequately respond to coronavirus because China has “total control” over the global organisation.

But Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, said there was “no logic” in severing links during the middle of a global pandemic.

He added: “There is no logic to the move by President Trump to sever links with the WHO.

“Pandemics are, by definition, a global crisis. To not face Covid-19 with a united front seems futile.

“Given the scale of the outbreak in the US, this action appears nothing short of an attempt to refocus attention away from how this has been handled.”

Sir Jeremy also said the newly-introduced NHS test and trace system needed to be “fully working” before measures were eased.

He wrote: “Covid-19 spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England. Agree with John & clear science advice.

“TTI (test, trace and isolate) has to be in place, fully working, capable dealing any surge immediately, locally responsive, rapid results & infection rates have to be lower. And trusted.”

New Orleans will likely ease restrictions on gatherings and businesses more slowly than the rest of Louisiana, a city health official said Friday.

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards is expected to announce Monday whether Louisiana will further ease restrictions when current emergency orders expire June 5.

But New Orleans — where huge Mardi Gras crowds in late February are suspected of contributing to a deadly Covid-19 outbreak — will likely move more slowly than the state, city health department director Jennifer Avegno said.

“New Orleans has to be more careful,” Ms Avegno said during a live-streamed news conference. “Because what happens regionally affects us more than it does a lot of other places. Not just regionally within Louisiana but regionally within the Gulf South.”

Italy’s health ministry has reported no critical coronavirus infection spikes in any region, giving a positive go-ahead for the planned June 3 reopening of Italy to inter-regional travel by Italians and Europeans alike.

The ministry issued a region-by-region breakdown of infection rates over the past week. The weekly report is part of Italy’s post-lockdown strategy to keep a close eye on infection rates and the ability of the national health system to respond to any new COVID-19 clusters in the onetime European epicenter of the pandemic.

The report said regions such as hard-hit Lombardy still showed a complex, high level of virus circulation, but said the situation was coming under control. The ministry recommended “caution, especially in the moment in which the frequency of movement of people across the national territory increases.”

A United Nations aviation-led task force is urging airlines, airports and countries to come up with a uniform approach to flying safely during the coronavirus pandemic, although it stopped short of providing specific requirements for the hard hit industry’s recovery.

“States and industry need to work together to put in place harmonized or mutually accepted risk-based measures to protect passengers, crew, and other staff throughout the travel experience,” said the report seen by Reuters.

The report, which gives guidelines for regulators and airlines to restart the air transport system globally, is to be reviewed by the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) governing council on Monday.

Travelers, airlines and airports are grappling with a hodgepodge of rules put in place during the pandemic that make flying different in almost every country.

Donald Trump said the United States is severing all ties with the World Health Organisation and announced other steps intended to punish that group and China for what he dubbed a “cover up” of the coronavirus outbreak on Chinese soil – but he abruptly ended what he dubbed a press conference before he could face questions about the killing of a black man in Minnesota by a white police officer.

“The world deserves answers,” the president said about WHO and Chinese officials’ actions when the Covid-19 virus went public in China – then infected millions across the world.

He blamed Chinese officials for, in his words, having “pressured the World Health Organisation to mislead the world” about the virus.

She added: “What this matter has shown is that there was a discrepancy between the simple messages given by the Government and the details of the legislation passed by Parliament.

“In these circumstances I do not feel that Mr Cummings followed the spirit of the guidance.

“I can well understand the anger of those who have been abiding by the spirit of the guidance given by the Government and expect others to do so.”

But Mrs May said the focus on Mr Cummings was “detracting from the most important task” of dealing with coronavirus.

Canada’s opioid-related deaths have been rising since the coronavirus pandemic began, the country’s chief public health officer said on Friday.

Theresa Tam highlighted British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province and the epicenter of the country’s overdose crisis, which had over 100 deaths from illicit drugs in March and April.

“These data indicate a very worrying trend,” Ms Tam said. “It has been over a year since British Columbia observed numbers this high sustained over a two-month period.”

The trend is nationwide, Tam added, pointing to Toronto, whose paramedic service reported that April had the highest number of opioid-related deaths in a month since September 2017.

In Calgary, overdose interventions spiked, with safe injection sites treating 40 overdoses in both March and April, up sharply from 11 in February.

The World Health Organization and 30 countries and partners are starting an initiative aimed at making diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for the new coronavirus available to everyone who needs them.

In a press briefing on Friday, WHO and partners, including President Carlos Alvarado of Costa Rica, said they were officially launching the COVID-19 “Technology Access Pool,” an information-sharing platform.

Among other goals, the initiative is intended to encourage countries to freely share genetic sequences of the virus and to license any potential treatment or vaccine to the Medicines Patent Pool, a U.N. backed body that works to increase access to and develop medicines for people in low and middle income countries.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, science has been at the heart of WHO’s efforts to suppress transmission and save lives,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, calling for more countries and organizations to commit to making tests, drugs and vaccines available globally.

Some pharmaceutical executives have questioned whether drugmakers will be willing to sign up to the project, since many of their profits hinge on patents.

The civil protection agency reported 345 confirmed new infections in the region on Friday. That brings Lombardy’s total cases to 88,500, nearly 40% of Italy’s total.

Nearly half of Italy population of known positives are in Lombardy, and 80% of those in isolation at home, not requiring hospital care.

The Italian government had announced internal borders would open on June 3, but the stubborn infection rate in Lombardy has put that in question. Officials are considering whether delay the regional border opening by a week — a decision that is meant also to help Italy’s moribund tourist industry.

Italy’s total cases of confirmed Covid-19 rose by 516 to 232,248 on Friday, and deaths increased by 87 to 33,229. Only five other regions showed double-digit increases.
 

Spain’s health emergency response chief says 51,482 Spanish health workers have been infected by the new coronavirus since the outbreak began, and 63 have died.

Fernando Simon said Friday that almost 7,800 health staff are still off work due to the infection. He said 631 had to be admitted to intensive-care units.

Mr Simon said it is hard to tell whether the employees were infected at work or elsewhere.

Care home residents account for more than half of all coronavirus-related deaths in Northern Ireland, official statistics show.

Of the 380 deaths of care home residents involving Covid-19 in the year to May 22, 84% (318) occurred in the home, with the remaining 62 taking place in hospital.

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) publishes a weekly bulletin on the toll caused by the infection.

It said: “Deaths of care home residents account for 53.1% of all Covid-19 related deaths.” Its latest statistics cover the week ending May 22.

 Portugal gave the green light on Friday to the third phase of its lockdown exit, but some restrictions will remain in Lisbon due to localised outbreaks in industrial hubs and outskirts.

From 1 June, shopping malls, childcare centres, gyms, cinemas, theatres and other cultural venues can reopen across most of the country but with capacity restrictions.

Gatherings of up to 20 people will be allowed, and the 50% capacity rule on restaurants in place since their reopening on May 18 will be lifted.

But in Greater Lisbon, where most recently reported cases were located, gatherings remain limited to ten people, and shopping malls stay closed until at least Thursday.

“Unfortunately, the evolution in Lisbon is significantly different from the rest of the country,” Prime Minister Antonio Costa said. “But as I said at the beginning, I have no shame in taking a step back if necessary.”

New York City is “on track” to enter phase one of reopening on 8 June, New York Governor Cuomo said on Friday as he announced that five upstate regions will now transition to phase two which includes businesses like barber shops and hair salons.

The most populous US city, which has become the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus pandemic, was on track to meet the metrics for a safe reopening, Mr Cuomo said.

“We are on track to open on June 8,” Cuomo told a daily briefing but warned that “reopening does not mean we’re going back to the way things were.”

The first phase of reopening would allow non-essential construction and manufacturing to resume, and non-essential retail stores to offer curbside pick-up.

Cuomo said he expected some 400,000 New Yorkers to be able to return to their workplaces, and said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was working on a plan to make the city’s mass transit system safe for commuters.

The Government’s decision to extend the scheme to help the self-employed still leaves the “most vulnerable” workers at risk, according to a trade body for the creative sector.

Caroline Norbury, Creative Industries Federation CEO, said that the Government must avoid a “cliff-edge” end to support, adding that many workers in the creative industries will not be able to work anytime soon.

“A third of the creative workforce is freelance, including those working in music, performing arts, film, festivals and live events, who will be unable to return to work for quite some time,” she said.

“However, the most vulnerable are still at risk, and this is a missed opportunity to catch those freelancers who continue to fall through the gaps, such as PAYE freelancers, limited company contractors and the newly self-employed.”

She added that there remains a “worrying inequity between those on payroll, who have 80% of their income secured until the end of October, and the self-employed, who will see support cut off in August.”

North somerset schools advised to delay reopening

“We think it is sensible [to] wait until we have a clearer picture of how the virus might be spreading in our community before they open their doors to a wider group of pupils and parents.

“There is currently no evidence to suggest any increased risk of infection in the community as a result of the outbreak at the hospital, however we need to have sight of all the data from the hospital alongside community indicators so that our public health team and colleagues in Public Health England can review the full implications of the outbreak.

“This is purely a precautionary measure but we want to be satisfied that the work is complete before we advise schools to reopen more widely.”

 Air Canada’s special Airbus A319 is part of a fleet that normally charters out to sports teams, touring rock artistes and industry.

Iraq’s Health Ministry has reported the country’s highest single-day spike in confirmed coronavirus cases since late February, when the government began recording cases.

The ministry said at least 416 new cases were reported on Friday. The country had given Iraqis a week’s holiday to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Curfew hours had been relaxed during the month of fasting, which contributed to higher daily rates of infection.

According to ministry figures, more than 5,873 people have tested positive for the virus in Iraq. At least 185 people have died.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi ordered a return to full daylong curfews following the end of Ramadan.