‘Decisive measures’ in Beijing as coronavirus cases spike: Live | News

 

• China has turned to mass testing and district lockdowns in Beijing after a jump in cases connected with a wholesale food market in the capital.
• Australia is looking to infrastructure spending to boost its economy – the country’s facing its first recession in 30 years as a result of the coronavirus.
• More than 7.9 million people around the world have been confirmed to have the coronavirus. Nearly 3.8 million have recovered, while at least 433,394 have died, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The US, Brazil and the UK have recorded the most deaths, while the US, Brazil and Russia have confirmed the most cases.

Here are the latest updates:

Monday, June 15

05:30 GMT – 

I’m handing the blog to my colleagues in Doha shortly. A quick recap of events over the past few hours.

Lockdowns are being imposed in parts of Beijing and mass testing is underway in the Chinese capital amid a continuing spike in cases centred around the city’s major wholesale food market. South Korea is also monitoring clusters emerging in Seoul.

Australia is hoping an infrastructure boom will help it recover from its coronavirus-induced recession – its first in 30 years, while countries in Europe continue to relax their lockdowns with shops and airlines resuming business. 

05:05 GMT – Coronavirus case updates

A number of countries have been updating their data.

Thailand has reported no new cases or deaths, and its 21st day without local transmission. All recent cases have been found in Thai people returning from overseas.

In Europe, the Czech Republic says total cases have now risen above 10,000. Germany, meanwhile, has reported 192 new cases bringing its total to 186,461. It also reported four more deaths.

04:15 GMT – England’s high street shops to reopen on Monday after 83-day closure

Shops in England are set to reopen on Monday after being forced to close for 83 days because of the coronavirus.

They will have to abide by social distancing rules that will limit the number of customers and make it more difficult for people to try on clothes, test out furniture and browse books.

From tomorrow, 15 June, all our Clothing & Home stores in England and Northern Ireland will be open. We look forward to welcoming you back, with some new measures in place to keep you well. Read more about how you can shop with confidence here: https://t.co/zIR8zTQ3kC pic.twitter.com/VuFqPJQoTO

— M&S (@marksandspencer) June 14, 2020

Shops in Scotland and Wales are still waiting to find out when they can resume trading. Only supermarkets and other ‘essential’ retailers were allowed to operate during the coronavirus lockdown.

Thank you from our Selfridges family. Discover personal notes of thanks from team members, displayed across our windows. From kind strangers, NHS workers & delivery drivers, our team has expressed their gratitude ahead of reopening on 15.06.20 https://t.co/ANKRHvmwIo pic.twitter.com/dOzG3aKCiw

— Selfridges (@Selfridges) June 11, 2020

04:00 GMT – Peasant brigades mete out rough justice in Peru coronavirus fight

The Peruvian peasant brigades who once battled leftist rebel groups, are now being deployed against people breaking coronavirus quarantines, according to Reuters.

The community militias were created in the 1970s in northern highland areas.

Aladino Fernandez, the president of a group in the region of Cajamarca, told the news agency rule-breakers risked being caned.

“A serious crime would be about 15 lashes,” he said.  

Peru has the second highest number of cases in South America after Brazil.

03:30 GMT – Hong Kong Disneyland to reopen on June 18

Disneyland in Hong Kong has announced it will reopen on June 18 nearly six months after it closed in late January.

The theme park, including its shops and restaurants, will open with “controlled capacity” and social distancing will be enforced.

The Disneyland in Shanghai reopened last month.

03:20 GMT – Areas around another Beijing market locked down after positive tests

State broadcaster CGTN has more on the areas of Beijing that have been locked down. It seems they are in the northwest of the city, around a market where some staff were diagnosed with coronavirus.

Ten communities around Yuquandong market in Beijing’s Haidian District were shut down after some market staffers tested positive for #coronavirus, with all of them having links to Xinfadi wholesale market that is at the center of new cases, local official told a briefing Monday. pic.twitter.com/EwrAbkQLUd

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) June 15, 2020

03:15 GMT – China seals off ten more Beijing neighbourhoods

Ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing have been sealed off as part of the city’s attempt to deal with a sudden spike of cases linked to a wholesale food market, according to AFP news agency.

02:45 GMT – South Korea checks cases, but keeps wary eye on Seoul

South Korea kept new cases below 40 for the second day in a row, according to Yonhap news agency, but is concerned about cluster infections and untraceable cases in the Seoul metropolitan area.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 37 new cases on Monday, 24 of them local infections and all but two of those in the Seoul area.

The new cases are clustered around a door-to-door business group, small churches and a table tennis centre.

But the number of cases where the origin is unknown is also growing, according to the KCDC, up 1.8 percentage points to 9.2 percent of cases over the first two weeks of June. 

02:15 GMT – Japan says hasn’t decided to ease entry ban

Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi says the government has made no decision to ease the entry ban imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus after local media reported it might lift it for people from certain countries.

Montegi told parliament the government was looking at ways to ease the ban and would do so in stages if it decided to do so.   

00:05 GMT – China ramps up testing in Beijing after spike in cases

China’s vice premier Sun Chunlan is calling for “decisive measures” in Beijing as the capital moves to mass coronavirus testing after a spike in cases connected to a major wholesale food market.

Late on Sunday, all companies were ordered to supervise a 14-day home quarantine for employees who’d visited the Xinfadi market or been in contact with anyone who had been there. The market has been closed and a number of residential estates around it sealed off. Schools and kindergartens in the area have been closed too.

“Beijing has entered an extraordinary period,” city spokesman Xu Hejian said.

According to state media, latest figures show 49 new cases in mainland China, ten imported and 39 acquired locally – 36 of them in Beijing. 

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who had led anti-#COVID19 fight in #Wuhan for months, urged authorities to take decisive measures in containing virus spread in #Beijing after latest infection clusters. The capital city is still facing high risks of further virus spreading: Sun pic.twitter.com/hjLl4IDj1b

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) June 15, 2020

 

00:00 GMT – Australia banking on infrastructure to escape coronavirus economic rout

Australia is expected to spend a further 1.5 billion Australian dollars ($1.03 billion) on infrastructure and fast-track approvals for a series of projects including the expansion of the Olympic Dam. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to speak later on Monday. 

“As we come out of the COVID crisis, infrastructure can give us the edge many countries don’t have,” he’s expected to say, according to extracts of the speech sent to Reuters by his office.

The government has already brought forward 3.8 billion Australian dollars in infrastructure funding with the country facing its first recession in 30 years.

23:00 GMT (Sunday) – EasyJet to resume some flights in UK

Britain’s EasyJet will resume operations on Monday with a limited number of domestic flights within the UK. The first will leave Gatwick Airport for Glasgow at 06:00 GMT.

All passengers will have to wear face masks, aircraft cleaning will be enhanced and no food services offered.

EasyJet plans to add more services as the months progress and expects to be flying about three-quarters of its routes by August, but at a much lower frequency.

22:05 GMT (Sunday): Ghana’s health minister confirmed with coronavirus

Ghana’s health minister Kwaku Agyeman Manu has been diagnosed with coronavirus and is a stable condition.

“Let us wish our hardworking minister for health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty,” President Nana Akufo-Addo said on television on Sunday.

Ghana has recorded nearly 12,000 cases of coronavirus, one of the highest in Africa, but has also tested far more people than most other countries. It has reported 54 deaths.

—-

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur.

Read all the updates from yesterday (June 14) here.