the times | Monday August 3 2020 2GM 11
News
Masks in the
home next,
White House
doctor warns
Ben Hoyle Los AngelesSome Americans may need to wear
masks at home to protect their house-
holds as the nation enters uncharted
territory in its battle against the coro-
navirus, the White House said.
Deborah Birx, the US coronavirus
task force co-ordinator, warned that
steeply rising infections in urban and
rural America marked a “new phase” of
the pandemic, which is more broadly
entrenched than when it took hold in a
few large cities in the spring.
“What we are seeing today is differ-
ent from March and April. It is extraor-
dinarily widespread,” Dr Birx told
CNN’s State of the Union. Rural areas
were as much at risk as cities. The virus
has killed more than 150,000 Ameri-
cans and infected 4.6 million, over a
quarter of the reported global caseload.
Americans “definitely need to take
more precautions” to slow the spread,
she said. “If you’re in multi-generation
households and there’s an outbreak in
your rural area or in your city, you need
to really consider wearing a mask at
home, assuming... you have individu-
als in your house with comorbidities.”
A new composite forecast from the
US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention projected that deaths could
reach up to 182,000 over the next three
weeks, climbing at a rate of more than
1,000 per day.
There were almost two million new
American cases last month, more than
double the number of any previous
month. California, which lost control of
its reopening procedure after suppress-
ing the virus early on, has since become
the first state to pass 500,000 infections
and is still straining to flatten its infec-
tion curve. Other serious outbreaks
were concentrated in the southern
“Sun Belt” states of Florida, Texas and
Arizona. Officials warn of imminent
surges in parts of the Midwest, such as
Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois, and,
potentially, a resurgence of infections
in some of the eastern areas, such as
New Jersey and New York, that were hit
hardest early on but had driven infec-
tions down by mid summer.
Alaska and Hawaii, the furthest flung
states, are among those with the fastest
rising rates of infection.
Amid mounting evidence that Presi-
dent Trump’s inconsistent leadership
has failed to check the pandemic’s ad-
vance, a growing number of medical ex-
perts have urged the administration to
change tack. Johns Hopkins University,
which has been at the forefront of com-
piling data on the virus, said in a report
last week: “Unlike many countries in
the world, the United States is not cur-
rently on course to get control of this
epidemic. It’s time to reset.”
The Association of American Medi-
cal Colleges offered an equally blunt
message in a separate report: “If the
nation does not change course, deaths
in the United States could be well into
the multiple hundreds of thousands.”
A third study, from the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology argued for
a national strategy, whether one ad-
vanced by the federal government or by
states working in concert.
The continuing failures are deepen-
ing the country’s economic problems.
About 25 million Americans lost the
$600-per-week emergency unemploy-
ment benefit that had supported them
for four months when it lapsed last Fri-
day without Democrats and Republi-
cans in Congress and the White House
agreeing on terms for a replacement.News
Paola De Micheli, the transport
minister, and Roberto Speranza, the
health minister, who signed an order
on Saturday reinstating the original
restrictions.
The relaxation of the rules was
revoked by the health minister on
advice from scientists after new
infections rose to 379 on Friday. Mr
Speranza said that the decision was
also based on the international
situation, with worrying levels of
infection in other European
countries.
Gianbattista La Rocca, chief
executive of Italo, one of Italy’s
two high-speed train operators, said
that his company had been
surprised by the change after
spending two weeks preparing for
the new rules.
He said that train travel was being
discriminated against relative to
aircraft, which are allowed to
operate at full capacity under
international airline regulations.brazil
Beachgoers in Rio de Janeiro were
allowed to swim in the ocean at the
weekend for the first time since
March as the last of the city’s
lockdown restrictions were lifted. Inthe past week Brazil registered one
of its worst daily rates of
coronavirus infection. There have
been more than 2.6 million official
cases and 92,475 deaths, second
only to the United States,
according to World Health
Organisation figures.
Michelle Bolsonaro, 38, the first
lady, tested positive for the virus
last week, days after her husband
said that he had recovered.
Despite the sobering numbers,
President Bolsonaro, 65,
announced the lifting of an
international air travel ban on
foreign tourists that had been in
place since March.
Predictions that the disease in
Brazil would peak this month and
that numbers would start to come
down have been misplaced,
experts say.
There are growing concerns
about case numbers towards the
south of the country, in the
throes of the southern hemisphere
winter, and where a greater
proportion of the population is
elderly.ireland
Stephen Donnelly, the minister for
health, said that Dublin would
introduce random testing for
coronavirus at airports.
“We’re introducing an increased
public health presence and we are
examining other options for
further restrictions on non-
essential travel,” he told RTÉ
radio.“The international
situation is becoming more
volatile. We’re looking at
what has been happening in the
United States and Latin America
and even closer to home — Spain,
Germany, France and parts of
England and Australia. We’re
continuing to take a cautious
approach.”
The number of cases in
Ireland has risen in the past
month, with an average of 44
cases reported daily.india
The Bollywood superstar Amitabh
Bachchan, 77, was discharged from
a Mumbai hospital after
undergoing three weeks of
treatment.
His son, the actor Abhishek
Bachchan, 44, who is still in the
Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital
with the virus, said in a tweet that
his father has tested negative and
would rest at home. Both were
hospitalised on July 11.
Abhishek Bachchan’s wife, the
former model and actress
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, 46, and
their eight-year-old daughter,
Aaradhya, who also contracted the
virus, left the hospital last week
after recovering.
The elder Bachchan has acted in
more than 200 Indian films over
the past five decades. He is also a
former politician and television
host. His wife, Jaya, 72, is also an
actress and a former member of
parliament. She has not been
infected by coronavirus.
The Bachchans are often called
Bollywood’s first family.a virtual fashion show of personal protective equipment in Indonesia, where 5,193 people are reported to have died of Covid-
Global cases 17,660,
Global deaths 680,World update
Countries reporting
most deathsSource: WHOUS 4,523,888 152,630 461
Brazil 2,662,485 92,475 435
Mexico 424,637 46,688 362
UK 304,695 46,201 681
India 1,750,723 37,364 27
Italy 247,832 35,146 581
France 175,920 30,147 462
Spain 288,522 28,445 608
Peru 407,492 19,021 577
Iran 306,752 16,982 202
Russia 850,870 14,128 97
Colombia 295,508 10,105 199
Belgium 69,309 9,845 849
Chile 357,658 9,533 499
Germany 209,893 9,141 109
Canada 116,312 8,935 237
South Africa 503,290 8,153 137
Netherlands 54,732 6,148 359
Pakistan 278,305 5,951 27
Sweden 80,422 5,743 569
Ecuador 86,232 5,736 325
Turkey 231,869 5,710 68
Indonesia 109,936 5,193 19
Egypt 94,316 4,834 47
Iraq 126,704 4,805 119
China 88,302 4,674 3
Argentina 191,302 3,543 78
Bangladesh 239,860 3,132 19
Bolivia 76,789 2,977 255Cases DeathsDeaths/
1m popMost new cases
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910
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14
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India
Brazil
South Africa
Colombia
Mexico
Argentina
Russia
Philippines
Iran
Bangladesh
Iraq
Chile
D. Republic
Saudi Arabia
Indonesia
Bolivia
Kazakhstan
UK
China Reported new cases67,
54,
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1766
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