A public health professor said Friday the British government responded too slowly to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the nation could see as many as 40,000 deaths before the pandemic is over.Speaking remotely, University College London Global Health Professor Anthony Costello told a parliamentary committee the government needs to identify the “system errors” that slowed Britain’s response.Britain imposed a lockdown on business and daily life March 23, about a week after other European countries, and Thursday announced a three-week extension on those measures.Costello told the committee he expects a second wave of the virus to hit the country and urged the government to have a system in place to rapidly test people in the community and get the results back quickly.Costello did say that an Oxford University researcher is 80 percent certain she could have a vaccine to treat the virus as early as September.As of Thursday, Britain reported 13,729 people had died from the virus.
 
 
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Forty-four Guatemalans deported on one flight from the United States this week have tested positive for COVID-19, a Guatemalan government official with knowledge of the situation said, amid rising rejection of deportees due to virus fears.
Later Thursday, Guatemala Foreign Affairs Minister Pedro Brolo told The Associated Press the government had again suspended deportation flights. He did not explain why, but said the move was temporary.  
“We’re working on the details,” Brolo said, adding that he did not know when the flights would resume.  
Presidential spokesman Carlos Sandoval said that “Guatemala is working with United States authorities to revalidate the health of Guatemalans returned in recent days.” He said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Guatemala’s national laboratory would retest all those who were found positive and negative.  
Asked for a response, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the CDC had representatives in Guatemala reviewing the COVID-19 tests and attempting to confirm the results. Once results are available, the immigration agency said it would determine whether it needed to work with the CDC to re-evaluate its medical procedures.  
“The health and welfare of detainees in ICE custody is of the highest priority to the agency,” ICE said in a statement to the AP.  
The flight with the infected deportees arrived in Guatemala’s capital Monday carrying 76 Guatemalans. Three deportees displaying coronavirus symptoms were immediately taken for testing. When one of those tests came back positive others who had been quarantined at the airport were tested and 43 more resulted positive, said the official with knowledge of the situation who had not been authorized to share the information publicly and requested anonymity.
There was confusion over where the flight originated.  
On Monday, Alejandra Mena, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s National Immigration Institute, told reporters two flights of deportees had arrived. Initially, she said they came from Alexandria, Louisiana and El Paso, Texas, then immediately corrected herself to say they came from Brownsville, Texas and El Paso. She reconfirmed that information Thursday, saying that is what the agency has officially recorded.
But according to the flight tracking site FlightAware, two flights from a U.S. government contractor that operates deportation flights arrived in Guatemala City Monday. One came from Alexandria, Louisiana and the other came from El Paso, Texas, which departed shortly after another flight by the contractor arrived in El Paso from Brownsville. It’s not unusual for the deportation flights to stop in multiple U.S. cities.
The unreconciled number of infected deportees was the latest sign that the president’s office and health authorities might not be on the same page.
On Tuesday, the government’s accounting of deportees with COVID-19 was drawn into question when Health Minister Hugo Monroy said that on a March deportation flight from the U.S., more than 50% of the deportees had later tested positive for the new coronavirus. The president’s office later confirmed that Monroy was talking about a March 26 flight from Mesa, Arizona with 41 passengers, but said the official number of infected deportees had still not been adjusted.  
Ursula Roldán, an immigration expert at Rafael Landívar University, said Guatemala was under great pressure to continue receiving deportees at the same time deportees were becoming a flashpoint in the country.
“It’s very clear there is pressure from Washington,” she said. “If before there was an immigrant problem, now it’s a triple problem. They don’t want them.”
She said Guatemala needed to start quarantining all deportees in government facilities with proper medical attention rather then telling them to self-isolate in their homes with their families.
“If we want containment, this is the point of containment,” Roldán said.
Monday’s flight arrived after Guatemala lifted a one-week suspension on deportation flights from the U.S., imposed because three other deportees had earlier tested positive.
Monroy has said the deportees are a worrisome factor driving up the country’s COVID-19 caseload. The government said Wednesday that this week it had started testing all deportees, regardless of whether they showed symptoms, when anyone on a flight tested positive.
ICE has said that 100 detainees in its custody have tested positive for the virus, including 17 at a detention facility in San Diego and 12 at one in Batavia, New York. It said 25 employees at detention centers have tested positive for the virus, including 13 at a removal staging facility at the airport in Alexandria, Louisiana.
Deportees and their potential to carry the virus into Guatemala are a sensitive topic. The U.S. government has continued deportations through the pandemic. But some Guatemalan communities are beginning to reject deportees returning home out of fear that they could carry the virus.
On Wednesday evening, President Alejandro Giammattei referenced an incident in which townspeople fearing the virus had allegedly organized to burn deportees.  
Videos circulated on social media showed hundreds of angry residents gathered in a community in Quetzaltenango west of the capital. They accused deportees who were staying in quarantine in a government facility of leaving it in a threat to the community.  
Giammattei said five community councils had organized “to try to go burn the center, because they want to burn the people.” In a televised address, he said those 80 deportees had arrived earlier in the week and all had been tested. So far, none had come back positive.  
“It’s already guaranteed they don’t pose a risk to anyone,” he said.
Tekandi Paniagua, Guatemala’s consul in Del Rio, Texas, said Guatemalans who are stopped by Border Patrol agents are returned to Mexico within a half-hour without any medical exam and often without having their photos or fingerprints taken under rules that took effect March 21 to combat the virus’ spread.  
“They aren’t registered or anything,” Paniagua said.
Byron Milian, a 25-year-old deportee who returned to Guatemala earlier this month, said he tried to quietly come home without neighbors noticing because he was worried about their reaction amid the pandemic.
Under orders from the health ministry he has self-quarantined for two weeks. He said health officials check on him every other day.
Milian was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona in early March.
He and a few other migrants were briefly held, during which time they took his temperature. Then they were loaded back into a truck, driven to the border and handed over to Mexican authorities.
Within a week Mexico had delivered him back to Guatemala. In Guatemala, authorities took his temperature, listened to his lungs and stuck a tongue depressor in his mouth.  
“On Sunday my quarantine ends,” he said. “Thank God everything is normal.”
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On a national discrimination hotline that she helps manage, Rafaelle Parlier hears troubling reports: a veiled woman fined by police for using her veil as a face mask, and a man of North African descent similarly sanctioned for picking up his wife, a nurse, from her hospital shift — although both had appropriate justifications.“These are practices we usually denounce,” said Parlier, who works for anti-discrimination group Stop le Contrôle au Faciès (Stop Racial Profiling). “The confinement just makes it easier.”A woman walks in front of a hotel of the Accor group in Paris, April 16, 2020, during a nationwide confinement to counter the coronavirus. The Accor facilities are taking in people with COVID-19 who show no symptoms but risk infecting others.If COVID-19 touches all of France, its effects are not being felt equally. Poor, ethnically diverse residents are suffering disproportionately, rights activists and local officials say. The fallout varies, from reports of police intimidation and violence to more arduous conditions under lockdown and potentially more coronavirus cases than elsewhere in the country.“The problem with this epidemic is that it underscores all the other pre-existing inequalities,” said Laurent Russier, mayor of Saint-Denis, a working-class Paris suburb with a large immigrant population. “And Saint-Denis is marked by sharp inequalities.”Few areas manifest the national disparities more sharply than the broader Seine-Saint-Denis department, France’s poorest region, where Russier’s town is located. A recent government report found a sharp spike in deaths during the last half of March, when the COVID-19 lockdown began — higher than in neighboring departments.While the government has not linked the uptick to coronavirus, local officials list a raft of underlying weaknesses in the banlieues, as the gritty, working-class suburbs are called.Disparities ‘that kill’In an op-ed piece, Russier joined a half-dozen mayors and elected officials in outlining several disparities “that kill” in the Seine-Saint-Denis department — in justice, security, health, education and jobs.While some Parisians headed to country houses to wait out the pandemic, and a number are telecommuting for work, many of Russier’s residents have “front-line” jobs as health aides, supermarket cashiers and delivery workers, sometimes without protective masks.  Peeling housing projects sometimes pack large, intergenerational families into tiny, unhealthy spaces, creating coronavirus clusters in some cases.“So if someone catches COVID-19 in an apartment that’s multigenerational, the contagion is more rapid,” Russier said, “and the confinement is harder.”Some banlieue graveyards report they are close to saturation, a situation that has not been helped by the recent uptick in deaths.“Usually, I sign three or four burial certificates a week. But over the last few weeks, I’m signing three or four a day,” Sylvine Thomassin, mayor of another working-class suburb, told Le Monde newspaper.FILE – A family watches French President Emmanuel Macron’s televised speech, April 13, 2020, in Lyon, central France. Macron announced an extension of France’s nationwide lockdown until May 11.The message seems to have hit home with the French government. Addressing the nation Monday, President Emmanuel Macron — who has earned underwhelming marks for addressing banlieue grievances — promised nearly $1 billion more in financial aid for poor families.France’s banlieues have long been considered flashpoints for unresolved social and economic grievances. In 2005, they exploded into rioting — a theme of the recent hit movie “Les Miserables” — revealing the tense and violent relationship between police and banlieue youngsters.Old story, new context Today, the coronavirus simply offers a new context for discriminatory treatment, some activists say. Several videos posted on social media show police slapping and otherwise harassing youngsters for allegedly violating tough lockdown measures. In some cases, the young people have filed legal complaints.“The issue of police violence is not new.  It’s the usual targets, this time with the pretext of enforcing the confinement,” said Lanna Hollo, senior legal officer with the Open Society Justice Initiative in Paris.”There are young people terrified to go out,” she added. “They may be the ones charged with the shopping or who have to go to work, and they’re afraid of being abused.”In the Seine-Saint-Denis department, mayors and other officials say residents are largely following lockdown measures. Russier is among them.But he denies excessive police behavior — at least in his town.”There are some youngsters who don’t respect confinement, in some cases, defiantly,” he said. “But police are being careful. The idea is to avoid confrontation. They are very, very vigilant not to pour oil into the fire.”
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A new Panama City, Panama, hospital will solely treat COVID-19 patients.President Laurentino Cortizo on Thursday inaugurated the $6 million Panama Solidario hospital, which has 100 intensive care beds and a camera system to allow doctors and nurses to monitor patients while minimizing exposure.  It is unclear when the facility will begin accepting patients.Cortizo said the new hospital is part of a broader strategy, which includes an aggressive testing program that helps authorities identify people with the virus and devise a plan to begin treating them.Panama has so far confirmed more than 4,000 infections and reported 109 deaths. 
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The United Nations, the European Union and the United States welcomed the release and exchange of prisoners in eastern Ukraine, which has been torn by a 6-year-old armed conflict.The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he remained hopeful this “humanitarian action” ahead of Orthodox Easter “will serve as a positive step toward more progress, including a permanent cease-fire,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.“Further disengagement of forces and unimpeded humanitarian access across the contact line is expected as part of ongoing peace efforts of international actors,” added Dujarric.Guterres urged all parties engaged in the conflict “to take further measures in order to enable progress” in the implementation of peace agreements.“Full implementation of the Minsk agreements is the only way to reach a sustainable and peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine,” said Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU.“Russia and the armed formations that it backs must also ensure freedom of movement across the contact line for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission” and other humanitarian actors, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to reach all those still in detention, the statement reads.The EU also reaffirmed its strong support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.Foreign ministers of France and Germany said in a joint statement that the release and exchange of prisoners related to the conflict in eastern Ukraine “represents significant progress” for the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and the conclusions of the summit in Paris on December 9, 2019, “with respect to upholding the cease-fire, mine clearance, the opening of new crossing points and the identification of new disengagement zones.”In a Twitter message, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine welcomed the move and commended the country’s government on its “continued efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution to the Russia-instigated conflict in Ukraine.”It is also called on Russia “to immediately release all other Ukrainians who remain unjustly imprisoned and fully withdraw its forces from Ukrainian territory.”Thursday’s prisoner exchange was the third since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was elected in a landslide last year on promises to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which began in 2014. More than 14,000 people have been killed, and it has heightened tensions between Russia and the West.
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday fired Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta over disagreements about how to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.Bolsonaro has argued that lockdowns and putting restrictions on business would harm the economy.Mandetta’s dismissal follows a statement by a Brazilian governor, São Paulo Governor João Dori, that he had increased security for his wife and moved his children after receiving threats he said are tied to his criticism of Bolsonaro’s handling of the  outbreak.Nelson Teich, a leading Brazilian cancer specialist who has a working relationship with Bolsonaro, replaces orthopedist Mandetta, who clashed with the president over issues such as social isolation.Teich, however, like Mandetta, supports social isolation as a means of containing the spread of the virus. But Bolsonaro has repeatedly said social isolation measures are bad for the economy.Bolsonaro played down Mandetta’s departure, reportedly saying it was a mutual decision.Mandetta’s dismissal ends weeks of bitterness between the two over the national response to the outbreak, which world experts believe is weeks away from peaking.During a news conference Thursday, Mandetta told his former coworkers they had put forth a good effort up until this point.On Thursday, Bolsanaro attempted to remind citizens he is sensitive to the crisis, saying life is priceless, but he went on to repeat his mantra that the economy and employment need to get back to some form of normal.Medical experts in Brazil and abroad have criticized Bolsonaro for not taking a serious approach to dealing with the nation’s coronavirus outbreak, which as of Thursday had more than 30,000 people infected and just shy of 2,000 dead.
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The International Monetary Fund on Thursday said the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, combined with other problems in recent years, meant Latin America and the Caribbean would likely see “no growth” in from 2015 to 2025.Alejandro Werner, who heads the IMF’s Western Hemisphere department, said the global lender was racing to process 16 requests for emergency assistance, about half of which were from Caribbean nations devastated by a halt in tourism.Other countries, including Barbados and Honduras, had asked about traditional IMF programs or extensions of existing financing arrangements, he said.Likely to contract 5.2 percentIn its 2020 World Economic Outlook, the IMF this week forecast the economy of Latin America, where outbreaks have continued to rise, was likely to contract 5.2 percent.Werner told reporters in a videoconference briefing that countries in the region were facing the worst economic recession since they started producing national accounts statistics in the 1950s.Given the dramatic contraction forecast for this year, and the impact of policies aimed at containing the pandemic, a sharp recovery was expected in 2021, as long as the pandemic could be contained, he said.But that would not be sufficient to compensate for the current crisis, coupled with other events and problems in recent years.“It’s not only this shock; it’s the cumulative negative shock that the region will have gone through in the decade going from 2015 and 2025,” Werner said. “On average, our expectation is that it is highly likely that in the decade from 2015 to 2025 there will be no growth.”While individual countries would see some growth over the decade, the region as a whole would not, he added.Social unrest possibleWerner said the Fund would analyze a $70 billion debt restructuring proposal unveiled by Argentina on Thursday and was working with Argentine authorities to schedule an Article IV consultation.The Fund was processing Ecuador’s request for emergency aid and would send it to the executive board for approval as soon as possible, he said.Werner said the IMF was concerned about the possibility that the pandemic could spark social unrest in Latin America, which had already seen some protests last year.To guard against potential disruptions, Latin American countries should be attentive to societal fault lines in structuring their responses to the pandemic, he said. 
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Canada’s border restrictions with the United States will remain in place “for a significant time” as the two nations fight the coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday. Washington and Ottawa agreed last month to clamp down on non-essential travel while allowing massive trade flows to continue across their long shared frontier. “There’s a recognition that as we move forward there will be special thought given to this relationship. But at the same time we know that there is a significant amount of time, still, before we can talk about loosening such restrictions,” Trudeau told a daily briefing. FILE – Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, speaks at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 14, 2020.U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday told reporters the two nations were “doing well” and said, “It will be one of the early borders to be released.” The two nations’ economies are highly integrated, and allowing trade to continue avoided major problems for the auto sector as well as the transportation of food and medicines. Although Trudeau’s government has enjoyed good relations with the Trump administration over the last 18 months, tensions still remain. Last month, Ottawa slammed a U.S. proposal to deploy troops along the border to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus, prompting Washington to drop the plan. A total of 1,048 people in Canada had died from the coronavirus by 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), slightly less than 10% higher than the death toll a day ago, official data posted by the public health agency showed. The total number of those diagnosed with the coronavirus had climbed to 28,899. The respective figures at the same time on Wednesday were 954 deaths and 27,540 positive diagnoses. FILE – A woman walks past the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, March 24, 2020.Medical officials now expect the death toll to be between 1,200 and 1,620 by April 21, Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer, told a briefing. She repeated comments she made Wednesday about being cautiously optimistic the outbreak could be slowing down. The Canadian government has already announced more than C$110 billion in direct spending on measures to help people and businesses deal with the economic damage from the outbreak. Trudeau said Ottawa would expand loans to firms that paid between C$20,000 and C$1.5 million in total payroll in 2019, and also planned to help commercial property owners cut or even forgive rent to small businesses. The Pacific province of British Columbia said it would reduce property taxes by 25% and allow municipalities greater flexibility in taking on debt. 
 
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday the border between Canada and the United States isn’t opening any time soon for nonessential travel.Trudeau said it will still be a “significant amount of time” before Canada can loosen such a restriction.The U.S. and Canada agreed last month to limit border crossings to essential travel amid the pandemic but that agreement is due to expire April 19.U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday the U.S. and Canada are “doing well” amid the pandemic and said the U.S. Canada border will be among the first borders to open.”It will be one of the early borders to be released,” Trump said.Nearly 200,000 people cross that border everyday in normal times. Canada sends 75% of its exports to the U.S. and about 18% of American exports go to Canada.Truck drivers and Canadians who live in the U.S. for part of the year and are returning to Canada are among those who are exempted from the current travel ban.Canada has more than 29,826 confirmed cases, including 1,048 deaths. Almost half of the deaths are linked to nursing homes.The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any country in the world.
 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the postponement of May 9 celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany in World War II, citing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Speaking at a security meeting on Thursday, Putin said events including a massive military parade in Red Square would be postponed until a later date. “In order for the parade to be held on May 9, the preparations need to begin right now, but the risks associated with the epidemic, whose peak has not been passed yet, are still extremely high and that does not give me the right to start preparations for the parade and other mass events now,” the president said. Events marking Victory Day in other regions of the country were also postponed. Russia has implemented a partial lockdown across the country until April 30 as coronavirus infections continue to rise. There have been some 28,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 232 deaths, according to official data. Critics say the number of infections and deaths is likely much higher.  
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The British government Thursday said it will extend for three weeks its nationwide lockdown intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Speaking at a remote news briefing in London, Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies warned that relaxing any of the safety measures currently in place would risk damage to both public health and the British economy. Raab reported 13,729 people in Britain have now died from the virus, with 103,093 confirmed cases.The foreign minister continues to lead the government response to the pandemic while British Prime Minster Boris Johnson continues to recover from his bout with coronavirus. Britain’s lockdown has been in place since March 23. 
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Elvis Francois, the orthopedic surgery resident who has gone viral with his top-notch live performances at hospitals, knew from adolescence he wanted to help heal the world through medicine.But through music? Not so much.Two years after becoming an unlikely singing sensation, the 34-year-old doctor with a golden voice is releasing his first-ever EP on Friday and all the proceeds will be donated to The Center of Disaster Philanthropy COVID-19 Response Fund.
“It’s been such a unique time in all of our lives. I’m just honored to be able to share a bit of music with people, especially during these trying times,” Francois said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday. “What we do as surgeons, what we do as physicians goes a very long way, but music moves people in a way that medicine can’t.”
Francois has appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” CNN, “Good Morning America” and more programs after becoming popular for singing booming covers of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me,” but just weeks ago he got a call from two executives from the Nashville-based Big Machine Label Group, asking how they could help him spread his message of hope and joy through music.
Jake Basden and Allison Jones pulled their resources together, helping Francois get into a recording studio to record the four-song EP called “Music Is Medicine,” which is being independently released on the newly formed Doctor Elvis Records. Fellow resident William Robinson, who usually accompanies Francois on piano during his performances, joined in for the recording sessions of “Imagine,” “Lean on Me,” Andra Day’s “Rise Up” and Mike Yung’s “Alright.”
“It’s just been a group of people trying to use music to help people,” Francois said of all the help he’s received to make the EP. “I think that’s probably the most special thing about it.”
Francois also knew the EP could be a good way to help raise funds to fight the spreading coronavirus and honor the health care workers on the frontlines.
“We see health care providers who are getting impacted. We see our colleagues who are in the ICUs. We see our colleagues who are in the emergency department. We see how much need there is on the side of patients and on the side of providers. … I felt like the one thing we could do, if anything, was to use this momentum and use this energy to give,” he said.
Francois, who is in his last year of residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, began singing in high school and in church but he never took it seriously. Medicine, however, was always on his mind.
He grew up in Miami and New York and said trips to Haiti, where his family is from, really helped him find his life goal.
“I just always remember seeing long lines of people and how grateful they were to get Tylenol for free, or how grateful they were being able to just literally speak to a doctor and get their advice,” he recalled. “Since then, maybe when I was like 7 or 8, I’ve always looked at that as being something that I’d want to give the rest of my life to.”
But singing has helped him to connect to patients, and fans around the world, in a different way. He remembers going viral after posting a cover of “Imagine,” surprised that people outside of the U.S. saw and enjoyed the clip.
“My dad got a phone call from a relative in France who came across the video and that’s when I was like, ‘Oh wow!’ It hadn’t even been 24 hours,” he recalled. “I’ll get messages from nurses in Italy or messages from other residents and other health care providers or patients … A little bit of good can literally cross oceans and move people across the world.”
Once Francois finishes his residency, he’s heading to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, to complete a fellowship in spine surgery. Still, it feels surreal that he will have an album out on digital platforms next to releases from pop, rap and rock stars.
“Spotify, iTunes, Amazon? That’s just crazy. Literally if you asked me a month ago, I would probably laugh at you. Like, I’ve never even recorded a song,” Francois said.
“I’ve had to pinch myself, ‘Is this actually real?’ Seeing it all come together, it just feels like a dream,” he added. “I think the coolest thing about it is it’s a dream where we are all able to give our small parts to make the world better.”
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Amsterdam, in the midst of an unprecedented tourism slump caused by restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, announced Thursday that it is planning to ban people from renting out homes to visitors in three historic downtown neighborhoods.
The move, which is set to come into force July 1, is the Dutch capital’s latest attempt to rein in people renting their homes out on platforms like Airbnb amid complaints from residents that tourists are spoiling their quality of life.
It goes hand-in-hand with a system coming into force July 1 in Amsterdam that will mean anybody renting out their home in the city will have to have a permit. City Hall will not be issuing permits for the three neighborhoods covered by the ban.
In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, Airbnb said 95% of its listings in Amsterdam are outside the areas covered by the ban, and added that the company already has introduced tools to tackle noise and nuisance.
“We remain eager to work with Amsterdam to support long-term solutions on home sharing — rather than short-term fixes that are confusing and damaging for residents and small businesses in these challenging times,” Airbnb said.  
Amsterdam has, in recent years, tightened rules for people renting out their homes, including limiting owners to a maximum of 30 nights a year and to a maximum of four guests on any given night.
The city’s district of picturesque canals and cobbled lanes is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has been swamped by tourists in recent years, leading to a rising chorus of complaints from local residents.
However, coronavirus restrictions have seen an unusual quiet descend on the city in recent weeks. Streets often choked with tourists are now largely deserted.
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Among the rolling vineyards of France’s southwestern Gironde region, osteopath Chloe Chancelier has found a new calling as she organizes a small volunteer army to sew cotton masks for health workers. Outside Paris, Anthony Seddiki has organized a network to churn out thousands of hospital visors using 3D printers. And in the Loire Valley, a luxury fabric maker is redirecting supplies normally heading to upscale stores to create a more prosaic, if vital, accessory to help slow COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. In France and elsewhere, the widening pandemic has catapulted even ordinary cloth face masks into prized objects, while surgical ones have incited fraud,Preparing an order of face masks in France’s southwestern Gironde region.hoarding, panic buying and political squabbling. But today, soaring demand for masks is generating a new vocation for locked-down populations and businesses — along with a spirit of solidarity and enterprise some hope will continue post-crisis.“I’m very happy to see what’s happening,” Chancelier said of her pro bono startup that uses locally sourced, recycled materials. “For me, it’s the beginning of other things.”A community effortNot so long ago, masks were barely seen on French and other European streets. Today, they are increasingly coveted, sometimes even worn as fashion statements, despite conflicting government signals about their usefulness. In France, at least, a pro-mask consensus is developing. Earlier this week, President Emmanuel Macron pledged that every citizen could access one by May 11 — when authorities hope to start easing France’s lockdown. A BFMTV poll out Wednesday found 94 percent of French respondents now support mask-wearing. A growing number of municipalities are now launching mandatory mask measures — sparking an increase in local production efforts. Chancelier’s initiative began last month, after the lockdown shuttered her health clinic. “I was getting calls from clients and friends who are midwives and nurses and who only had a few days of face mask stocks,” she recalled.Chancelier said she searched online for homemade alternatives, finding a YouTube tutorial for a design fitting government-recommended standards. She launched a Facebook group looking for volunteers and material.Face masks drying in the sun in Gironde, France.So far, Chancelier’s network of roughly 50 sewers has supplied the community hospital and local agencies with hundreds of free masks. She now has orders to make hospital gowns. Residents are donating old sheets and even diapers as material. Local vineyards and municipalities are offering spools of inexpensive elastic normally used to tie up vines.“It’s a real human network,” Chancelier said.Each mask comes with instructions on proper use, she said, and space for wearers to add an extra layer of protection.Putting out the fireSimilar pro-bono efforts are spreading across France. In the Essonne region outside Paris, packaging technician Seddiki also launched a Facebook volunteer drive to make visors for area health workers.“I’m surprised at how big it’s grown,” Seddiki told Le Parisien newspaper of his network, which has distributed more than 100,000 visors free of charge.In the Loire Valley, high-end fabric maker Le Tissus d’Avesnieres is offering material at factory prices, while 200 tailors have formed a nonprofit to meet local needs.The initiatives contrast with less uplifting reports of theft, hoarding and unseemly international free-for-alls to secure scarce supplies. Earlier this month, French and German officials accused the United States of diverting masks and other equipment meant for their own countries — accusations U.S. officials denied. France, too, has been accused of seizing masks bound for Spain and Italy.A woman wearing a face mask in Paris. Many Parisians opt for homemade cloth varieties.Meanwhile, European police announced Tuesday they had foiled a multimillion-dollar scam to sell non-existent masks to Germany, one of many reported in recent weeks.In Gironde, Chancelier is mulling how to keep her pro bono movement alive after she heads back to work next month.She likens grassroots initiatives like hers to an ancient Quechua culture legend of a hummingbird trying to put out a forest fire with tiny beakfuls of water.“Even after this crisis is over,” she said, “I hope people remember they participated in the response. They put in their own drops of water into the fire.” 
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The coronavirus pandemic has brought creativity to the many people around the world under lockdown in their respective nations, as well as an outpouring of support for the health care workers who are caring for those infected with COVID-19.In Britain on Thursday, a war veteran completed his mission of walking 100 lengths of his 25-meter back garden ahead of his 100th birthday to raise money for the country’s National Health Service.An online fundraising campaign initially aimed to get donations of about $624,000.  By the time Tom Moore finished his final trip down the course, an event broadcast on live television, the initiative had brought in more than $15 million.He said he was inspired to take on the challenge by the care he received when he underwent treatment for a broken hip and for cancer.”You’ve all got to remember that we will get through it in the end, it will all be right, it might take time,” Moore said. “At the end of the day, we shall all be OK again.”When and how people will emerge from stay-at-home orders, as well as the restarting of businesses around the world, is a huge question facing governments.Getting economies moving againLeaders have expressed a desire to get their economies moving again, and along with health experts they have cautioned there is a need to not move too early and risk a spike in infections in places that have started to bring the virus under control.German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to allow some schools to reopen beginning May 4, following similar plans in other European countries. She said some shops could reopen next week.In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country is not yet ready to loosen restrictions. He urged Canadians to be patient, saying they still “a number of weeks away.”U.S. President Donald Trump is among those who have been most vocal in pushing to restart the country’s economy, which is the largest in the world. He is expected to announce new guidelines Thursday, though health officials have said dropping restrictions in early May would be too soon and ultimately those decisions will be up to individual state governors.Trump is also set to take part Thursday in a video conference with other G-7 leaders to discuss a coordinated response to the pandemic.He drew fresh criticism Wednesday from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and U.S. billionaire Bill Gates about his decision to suspend funding for the World Health Organization.Carter issued a statement saying the WHO “is the only international organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus.” Gates, a major funder of the WHO, said the decision was “as dangerous as it sounds.”The United States is the world’s largest contributor to the WHO, with its more than $400 million contribution in 2019 amounting to about 15 percent of the organization’s budget.Trump accused the Geneva-based organization of failing to obtain independent reports about the coronavirus originating from China’s central city of Wuhan and relying instead on China’s official reports. Beijing officials initially tried to downplay the dangers of the new strain of coronavirus. Trump said the funding will be suspended pending an investigation into the WHO’s handling of the outbreak.The United States is now the worst-hit country with nearly 640,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Thursday, out of more than 2 million infected people worldwide. 
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One Brazilian governor said he has increased security for his wife and relocated his children after receiving threats he says are tied to his criticism of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.São Paulo Governor João Doria told the Associated Press he is continuing to battle both the coronavirus in his state and Bolsonaro policies while other governors are backing away from criticizing the president out of concern that federal funding to help them counter the virus in their respective states could be diverted.Doria’s advocacy for strong restrictions is likely tied to São Paulo reporting 11,000 COVID-19 cases and almost 800 deaths, the highest in the country.Bolsanaro has argued that imposing lockdowns and placing restrictions on businesses would adversely affacet the economy.Meanwhile, The Guardian newspaper said Brazil’s Congress is demanding that Bolsonaro release the results of his own coronavirus test within 30 days.There is rampant speculation the president could be infected with the virus after 23 people who accompanied Bolsonaro to the United States last month tested positive for the virus, including the press secretary who accompanied Bolsonaro to a dinner with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. 
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Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega appeared on Wednesday in a live broadcast on national television after being absent from public life for a month, raising questions about his health and whereabouts as the world reels from the novel coronavirus.Ortega, a 74-year-old former leftist guerrilla with chronic illnesses, gave no explanation for his 33-day absence but said that the Central American country is dealing with the coronavirus outbreak responsibly.”We have not stopped working, because if the people do not work, they die,” said Ortega. “We are a country of working people, people that will not die of hunger.”Ortega’s health has been a closely guarded secret and his absence from public life led to speculation about it.Over the years, Ortega has suffered two heart attacks and developed high cholesterol and other ailments, an official told Reuters last week. Since then, the president has been increasingly protective of his health, the official said.Now in his second stint as president after orchestrating a constitutional change to allow for reelections, Ortega said that Nicaragua has the lowest number of coronavirus infections, registering only nine cases and one fatality.”We have the capacity to attend to coronavirus patients,” Ortega said.Public health experts have questioned the accuracy of the official figures and urged the government to report how many people have been tested for the coronavirus.Nicaragua is one of the few countries that does not have social distancing measures, does not prohibit mass gatherings and has not canceled school and university classes as recommended by the World Health Organization. 
  
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After more than two weeks of forced quarantine, hundreds of refugees in Turkey have been released haphazardly in recent days, with many being left on the streets in locked down coastal areas.Thousands more are expected to be let go in the coming days and weeks.”A bus dropped us off near the coast,” said Samer Alahmad, 45, a Syrian refugee and father of four. “The driver told us to go find a boat to Greece.”Samer Alahmad sold his furniture to get to the border to try to enter Greece, pictured April 15, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Alahmad)But what Alahmad found was more refugees. They were sleeping outdoors in the middle of a 48-hour coronavirus lockdown.The families could neither find nor afford boats. Even if they could, Greece has been aggressively repelling refugees from its borders since late February, when Turkey announced plans to open the border to refugees trying to get to Europe.After that announcement, as many as 12,000 refugees flocked to Turkey’s land border with Greece hoping to cross. Greece never said it would open its side of the border, and never did. And when refugees tried to cross the small river separating the countries on boats or by swimming, Greek soldiers pushed them back with tear gas, batons and paddy wagons.”I left Syria because of the bombings,” Alahmad said. “Then I sold all my furniture in Turkey to get to the border.”Evacuation and quarantineAlahmad stayed in a squalid camp by the border for 27 days. In the camp, everyone lined up for hours each day, just to get a single serving of soup and bread.By the end of March, the coronavirus was beginning to spread in Turkey, and Turkish authorities sent buses to evacuate the camp.In late March, Turkish authorities evacuated thousands of people from a make-shift camp along the Greek border, as the coronavirus began to spread in Turkey. (Photo courtesy of refugees)Alahmad was brought to a quarantine center, where he was photographed and fingerprinted before surrendering his phone and other belongings. He was crowded into a room that was built for 20 people and holding 25. They were given cleaning materials to try to protect themselves from the virus.Fourteen days later, he was bused to a coastal town where he and hundreds of others walked for five hours before they were arrested for violating lockdown orders, Alahmad said. Later, he was permitted to travel to Istanbul. Now, Alahmad is trying to raise the money to shelter in a family home.”I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a month-and-a-half,” he said, adding, “I will try again to get to Europe.” Caught in the middleCrossing into Greece from Turkey nowadays is almost impossible, according to Mohammad, a volunteer in Izmir, a city long known for being a starting point for refugees trying to cross to Europe on smugglers’ boats.Since the beginning of the year, Greece has said clearly and often that it will not tolerate new refugees, sending military forces to back up the statements.Children sleep in the streets after being released from quarantine in Izmir, Turkey, April 13, 2020. (Photo courtesy of refugees)”I think everyone knows it. Greece won’t let them in,” said Mohammad. “But they will not stop trying.”Greece accuses Turkey of trying to flood Europe with refugees, contradicting a 2016 statement in which Ankara said it would block refugees from Europe in exchange for aid for the roughly 3.5 million Syrian refugees in the country.Turkey maintains that Europe has never fully delivered on the 2016 promises and accuses Greece of human rights abuses against tens of thousands of refugees detained in overcrowded and dangerous camps.As the international community squabbles, refugees continuously risk their lives for even the hope of getting to Europe, according to Mohammad.On Sunday night, he met about 120 refugees near the bus station in Izmir. They were sleeping on the streets after being released from quarantine.”All of them were hungry,” he said. “Women and children were lying on the sidewalks.” Desperation and deceptionBut it’s not always desperation alone that makes families continue to try to get into Europe, according to Abdo Alsad, 37, a refugee from Damascus. He and about 20 other people swam across the river to Greece last month, only to be beaten, robbed and deported the following day.Families crowd together in the streets despite coronavirus fears, in Izmir, Turkey, April 13, 2020. (Photo courtesy of refugees)In the quarantine camp, when officials told the refugees they could go to Europe or stay put, they all said, “Europe,” thinking it could be possible, Alsad said.”We thought maybe Turkey and the European Union made a deal,” he added. “And we didn’t have phones, so we had to believe them.”Now he’s hiding out in a relative’s home, afraid he will be deported if police see him. Like most people in Turkey, Alsad wears a mask if he steps out to buy something, but he said he is not concerned about the coronavirus.”I’m not worried because I’ve nothing to lose anymore,” he said.  
 
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A 106-year-old British woman who believed to be the United Kingdom’s oldest person to survive COVID-19 was released from the hospital Tuesday.Connie Titchen was discharged the Birmingham City Hospital as the staff applauded her.Titchen, who lived through two world wars, was admitted to the hospital in mid-March with suspected pneumonia and was diagnosed with COVID-19 soon afterward.As she departed the hospital, she told a nurse she felt lucky to survive, and that she was looking forward to seeing her grandchildren.
 
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Nations around the world reacted with alarm Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a halt to the sizable funding the United States sends to the World Health Organization. Health experts warned the move could jeopardize global efforts to stop the coronavirus pandemic.  At a briefing in Washington, Trump said he was instructing his administration to halt funding for WHO pending a review of its role “in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” The United States is WHO’s largest single donor, contributing between $400 million and $500 million annually to the Geneva-based agency in recent years.Trump has repeatedly labelled COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and criticized the U.N. health agency for being too lenient on China, where the novel virus first emerged late last year.Outside experts have questioned China’s reported infections and deaths from the virus, calling them way too low and unreliable. And an investigation by The Associated Press has found that s ix days of delays between when Chinese officials k new about the virus and when they warned the public allowed the pandemic to bloom into an enormous public health disaster.The European Union on Wednesday said Trump has “no reason” to freeze WHO funding at this critical stage and called for measures to promote unity instead of division. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the 27-nation bloc “deeply” regrets the suspension of funds and added that the U.N. health agency is now “needed more than ever” to combat the pandemic.Borrell said “only by joining forces can we overcome this crisis that knows no borders.”Even though they have been traditional allies for decades, the EU has increasingly been critical of the Trump administration over the past years.Worldwide, the pandemic has infected nearly 2 million people and killed over 127,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. The virus is spread by microscopic droplets expelled into the air or left on surfaces when people sneeze or cough.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he sympathized with some of Trump’s criticisms of WHO and China but that Australia would continue to fund the U.N. health agency.  “We work closely with them so that we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here,” Morrison told Perth Radio 6PR. “But they’re also not immune from criticism.”Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, pushed back at Trump’s announcement.  “Placing blame doesn’t help,” he wrote on Twitter. “The virus knows no borders. We must work closely against COVID-19. Strengthening the U.N., in particular the underfunded WHO, is a better investment, for example, to develop and distribute tests and vaccines.”Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, called Trump’s decision “extremely problematic,” noting that the chronically-underfunded WHO is leading efforts to help developing countries fight the spread of COVID-19.  “This is the agency that’s looking out for other countries and leading efforts to stop the pandemic,” Sridhar said. “This is exactly the time when they need more funding, not less.”  Sridhar said Trump’s move was a short-sighted political decision that would likely have lasting consequences.  “Trump is angry, but his anger is being directed in a way that is going to ultimately hurt U.S. interests,” she said.  In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian says the country is “seriously concerned” about the U.S. government’s decision to suspend funding.  “As the most authoritative and professional international institution in the field of global public health security, the WHO plays an irreplaceable role in responding to the global public health crisis,” he told reporters Wednesday.The WHO did not respond to repeated requests from The Associated Press for comment, but its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other top WHO officials were expected to attend a news conference on the pandemic later Wednesday.  Many analysts have praised the initial response to the pandemic by WHO, which is being challenged as national interests collide with the international cooperation that U.N. agencies must rely on.  But recently, many governments have split with its advice on issues of public health policy, notably on travel restrictions and whether the public should wear masks. 
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