- Brazil on Tuesday recorded its highest daily jump in new coronavirus cases, with nearly 35 000 registered in 24 hours.
- Visitors meeting President Vladimir Putin at his residence must first pass through a walk-through device that sprays them with disinfectant.
- Peru’s health ministry said on Tuesday that the hard-hit nation’s coronavirus death toll had reached 7 056.
Putin has
‘disinfection tunnel’ to protect him from coronavirus
Visitors meeting
Russian President Vladimir Putin at his country residence must first pass
through a walk-through device that sprays them with disinfectant, to protect
him from the coronavirus, officials said.
Putin has been
self-isolating at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow under lockdown
although he made a public appearance without a mask at an outdoor event on the 12
June Russia Day holiday.
As part of
precautions to protect the president, visitors walk through the device and get
sprayed from above and the side, a video posted on Tuesday evening on Twitter
by Kremlin pool journalists from RIA Novosti state news agency showed.
The authorities in
Penza region east of Moscow where the device was made boasted that it
“ensured the safety of the head of government and all those who visit him”.
The Penza regional
government said the president’s staff got in touch with the manufacturing
company, which until the virus outbreak specialised in automatic cleaning
equipment for industrial use.
The device includes
facial recognition technology and can take people’s temperatures, according to
the manufacturers.
The Kremlin has
imposed a range of measures to protect Putin including regular virus testing of
the leader and all those who come into contact with him.
Visitors have to
take a virus test before meeting Putin, his spokesperson said.
AFP
Brazil reports highest daily jump in virus cases
Brazil on Tuesday recorded its highest daily jump in new coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, with nearly 35 000 registered in 24 hours, the health ministry said.
The country, which has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, after the United States, reported 34 918 new cases and 1 282 new deaths in the past 24 hours.
That brought Brazil’s total caseload to more than 923 000, and its death toll to 45 241.
Experts say under-testing in the country of 212 million people probably means the real figures are much higher.
The grim new record came as the World Health Organisation’s top official for the Americas again voiced concern over the situation in Brazil.
“Brazil has 23% of all cases and 21% of all deaths in our region. And we are not seeing transmission slowing down,” Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organisation, told a news conference.
AFP
Peru’s coronavirus deaths surge past 7 000
Peru’s health
ministry said on Tuesday that the hard-hit nation’s coronavirus death toll had
reached 7 056, the third-highest in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico.
Officials said the
number of confirmed cases is now beyond 237 000 in Peru, which has been under a
nationwide lockdown for three months.
With a population
of 33 million, Peru has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in Latin
America after Brazil.
Nevertheless,
Health Minister Victor Zamora told reporters that the number of new cases has begun
to decrease.
AFP
Sad day: ARIZONA has crossed the rubicon… its epidemic now exceeds Brazil and Peru to be one of the hardest hit regions in the world. Exceeding all European countries as well.
Today: Record cases, record positivity %, record ER, record hospitalizations, record ICU. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/czTCaSeOJ4
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) June 17, 2020
Nepal to deport five foreigners arrested at coronavirus
protest
Five foreigners
from Australia, China and the US will be deported from Nepal and barred from
returning for two years after protesting against the government’s handling of
the coronavirus crisis, officials said on Wednesday.
The five were among
seven foreigners detained on Saturday when hundreds of people defied a
nationwide lockdown to take part in the peaceful demonstration.
They demanded
better virus testing, quarantine facilities for returning migrant workers and
transparency from the government.
They were being
deported for joining a political rally in “a breach of tourist visa
rules”, Nepal’s immigration department chief Ramesh Kumar KC told AFP.
“They will be
sent to their respective countries when international flights resume. They have
also been banned from entering the country for two years,” he added.
Of the group, three
Chinese and an American were additionally fined US$81.79, while an Australian
was slapped with a 20 000-rupee penalty for also taking photos.
A Norwegian woman
arrested was fined 5 000 rupees but avoided being deported as she is married to
a Nepali.
A Canadian arrested
was let off after being found not to have taken part in the rally.
