The_Times__6_March_2020

the times | Friday March 6 2020 2GM 13

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LATVIA 1 (0)

LITHUANIA 1 (0)

BELARUS 6 (0)

RUSSIA 4 (0)

Moscow

HUNGARY 4 (0)

ROMANIA 6 (0)

UKRAINE 1 (0)

GREECE 31 (0)

POLAND
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FINLAND 12 (0)

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HUNGHUNUNNGARYNGN 4 (((0) 0 0)0) 00

ROMANIA 6 ( 0 )

GREECE 31 ( 0 )

BOSNIA- ERZEGOVINA 2 (0)

NORTHNN MACEDONACEDONIAEDONIA 11 (0)

Guests peer from a window at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel, which is under lockdown in Tenerife

Russia Draws up emergency plans for a curfew in Moscow, to be enforced by the National Guard

4-10 11 to 99 100+ cases

Cases around the world

Canan Emcan, chief nurse at Essen university clinic in Germany

China 80, South Korea 6, Italy 3, Iran 3, Diamond Princess 696 Germany 545 France 423 Japan 364 Spain 282 US 213 Switzerland 118 Singapore 117 UK 116 Hong Kong 105 Sweden 94 Norway 91 Netherlands 82 Australia 59 Kuwait 58 Bahrain 55 Malaysia 55

Belgium 50 Thailand 47 Taiwan 44 Austria 43 Canada 37 Iraq 36 Iceland 35 Greece 31 India 30 UAE 28 San Marino 21 Denmark 20 Algeria 17 Israel 17 Lebanon 16 Oman 16 Vietnam 16 Ecuador 13 Ireland 13 Czech Republic 12 Finland 12

Macao 10 Croatia 10 Georgia 9 Portugal 9 Brazil 8 Qatar 8 Palestinian territories 7 Azerbaijan 6 Belarus 6 Mexico 6 Romania 6 Slovenia 6 Estonia 5 Pakistan 5 Saudi Arabia 5 New Zealand 4 Russia 4 Senegal 4 Chile 4 Hungary 4

virus. “That number may significantly understate” how many are infected, said Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. Public health officials have told a medical team on board to test everyone on the ship before it will be allowed to dock. Testing kits were airlifted on to the ship by the US coast guard and will be returned to a laboratory by helicop- ter. The Grand Princess is owned by Princess Cruises, the same company whose Diamond Princess ship was quar- antined off the coast of Japan last month. There are 213 confirmed coronavirus cases in the US but the tally is rising fast as testing kits become more readily available around the country. Yesterday Congress approved more than $8 bil- lion of emergency funding to tackle the crisis. While those with suspected symptoms are being encouraged to self- isolate, the US has no mandatory paid sick leave. Around one in four Amer- ican workers has no entitlement to a salary while off sick and one in five people has gone to work at least once in the past year while sick with vomiting or diarrhoea, according to the US Cen-

tres for Disease Control and Preven- tion. President Trump said on Wednes- day that he had a “hunch” the World Health Organisation’s 3.4 per cent mortality rate was a “false number” and suggested that people with coronavirus can go to work and get better. “A lot of people will have this and it’s very mild,” he said in an interview on Fox News. “They’ll get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor.” Democrats seized on Mr Trump’s comments as evidence of failure to get a grip on the public health crisis. “Please. Don’t. Do. That.” tweeted Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii.

south africa A 38-year-old man who had flown home from a trip to Italy was confirmed as South Africa’s first case of the novel coronavirus. He had travelled with his wife as part of a party of ten and con- sulted a doctor on March 3 while suffer- ing from a fever, sore throat, headache and cough.

Reporting by Tom Kington, Marc Ben- netts, Richard Lloyd Parry, Didi Tang, Henry Zeffman and Jane Flannagan

the middle east

In Bethlehem the Church of the Nativi- ty has been closed indefinitely. Israel has 17 confirmed cases, including nine people who recently went to Italy. With 28 infections in the UAE residents, including expats, have been told not to travel. Kuwait, which has 58 cases, reported its first recovered patient.

united states California has declared a state of emergency after its first death amid fears in the US that a lack of paid sick leave will make the outbreak worse. A 71-year-old man died near Sacramento, the state capital, on Wednesday, the first outside Washington state, where 11 people have died. Officials said that the dead person suffered from underlying health conditions and was probably ex- posed to the virus last month on a cruise to Mexico. That same cruise liner, the Grand Princess, has now been held off the coast of San Francisco as it returns from a voyage to Hawaii. Some 140 of the 3,500 passengers and crew are British. Eleven passengers and ten crew mem- bers are displaying symptoms of the

British airlines are being forced to operate empty “ghost” flights during the coronavirus outbreak or risk losing airport landing slots, The Times has learnt. Carriers are flying some jets without any passengers at all because of contro- versial “use it or lose it” rules governing space at European airports. Last night Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, wrote to the independent airport slot co-ordinator urging it to relax the existing regulations because of concerns over the environmental impact of empty flights. Earlier this week Airlines UK, which represents carriers, wrote to Mr Shapps urging him to intervene. It wants the rule to be shelved until at least the autumn, when it is hoped that the slump in passenger numbers driven by coronavirus will be over. Operating empty flights burns thousands of tonnes of jet fuel unneces- sarily, pushing up greenhouse gas emissions and damaging airlines’ finances at a time when they are already under huge pressure. Under European Union laws, airlines must operate 80 per cent of their allocated airport slots under normal circumstances or risk losing them to a competitor — the so-called 80/20 rule. It still applies to the UK under the terms of the Brexit transition agreement. One UK airline told The Times that without a relaxation of the rules it would have to operate 32 flights over the next three weeks with an average of only 40 per cent of seats filled. In all, it would fly with more than 5,200 empty seats during that period.

News

Airlines run ghost

flights to keep slots

Mr Shapps said that some planes were being flown with no passengers at all to satisfy the rules. Yesterday he wrote to Airport Co-ordination Ltd (ACL), which has been appointed to handle slot alloca- tions independent from the govern- ment or airlines. He said that ACL was “best placed” to make slot decisions, but added: “I am particularly concerned that, in order to satisfy the 80/20 rule, airlines may be forced to fly aircraft at very low load factors, or even empty, in order to retain their slots. Such a scenario is not acceptable. It is not in the industry’s, the passengers’ or the environment’s inter- est and must be avoided.” Mr Shapps added: “I would be grate- ful if you could explicitly take into account the implications of flying empty planes on the UK’s environmental commitments in reaching your decisions on alleviation.” ACL has already waived the 80/ rule for flights to and from Hong Kong and mainland China — the centre of the coronavirus outbreak — in line with a recommendation from the Euro- pean Commission. Airlines including British Airways, Easyjet and Ryanair have already dropped several short-haul European flights because of coronavirus but all airlines are at present forced to remain within the 80 per cent threshold under the slot rules. Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, the airline trade body, said: “Temporary suspension will enable UK airlines to respond to market conditions with appropriate capacity and avoiding any need to run empty flights in order to maintain slot rights.”

Graeme Paton Transport Correspondent

coronavirus in brief

Warning for elderly peers Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, has advised elderly male peers to avoid attending parliament to reduce their risk of exposure to coronavirus. The parliamentary authorities, however, insisted they had “no immediate plans” to shut Westminster, though there remains the prospect of a suspension as a last resort if the outbreak worsens significantly.

Vietnam artist ‘not welcome’ A Vietnamese artist has been told that she is not welcome at the Affordable Art Fair in London by an exhibitor because “Asians are being seen as carriers” of the coronavirus. An Nguyen was told in an email by Raquelle Azran that she would cause “hesitation” for audiences. The fair said that it did not condone the email. Ms Azran apologised and dropped out of the fair.

Online frauds proliferate Scammers are posing as health workers to ask for sensitive information or credit card details, the World Health Organisation said. In a series of emails, fraudsters posed as WHO staff. The warning came as the Advertising Standards Authority banned adverts by two companies over false claims about face masks which could “cause fear without justifiable reason”.

Show must go on for musicians despite lack of a live audience has a capacity of 1,100, circumvented the ban by limiting audiences to 900 people. British concerts are still going ahead, with cultural institutions preparing for venue closures. James Williams, of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, said that in the present climate music was “needed more than ever to provide a little joy in the world”.

Even in the face of a global pandemic, for the world’s top musicians it’s business as usual. A string quartet at La Fenice opera house in Venice played to an empty theatre after the venue closed its doors to the public. In their absence, the concert was streamed online. Switzerland stopped all performances for more than 1, people but the Zurich Opera House, which

Singapore stops at nothing Singapore has mastered the art of “contact tracing”, the process by which those infected with the virus are identified and isolated and then interrogated to track down whoever else they may conceivably have infected. Every hour of a patient’s movements over the past 14 days is logged on an “activity map”, and efforts are made to trace everyone they had contact with.

The_Times__6_March_2020

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