the times | Tuesday September 15 2020 1GM 13
News
New limits were placed on gatherings
in the Bordeaux and Marseilles regions
yesterday as the local authorities
attempted to stem the resurgent coro-
navirus in France’s two worst hotspots.
Ordered by President Macron to
tackle the epidemic with local meas-
ures, the state prefects of the two areas
reduced the maximum size of attend-
ance at sports and other events from
5,000 to 1,000.
In the Gironde département, which
includes Bordeaux, private gatherings
of more than ten in parks, gardens and
other public places were barred. Wed-
ding parties will need special permis-
sion, and standing at bars will no longer
be allowed in the city of 800,000 people.
The Bordeaux rate of infections per
100,000 people over the past week has
risen to 180, compared with 70 on aver-
age in France, while in the Bouches-du-
Rhône département, which includes
Marseilles, the rate is 280 per 100,000,
the highest in the country.
On Saturday France reported 10,
cases in 24 hours, the highest number
since large-scale testing began in July.
Nearly 31,000 people have died of
Covid-19 since March.Indian countryside ravaged
as virus hits 100,000 a day
Saurabh Sharma Lucknow
Amrit Dhillon DelhiBordeaux and
Marseilles
locked down
Indian villagers are bearing the brunt of Charles Bremner Paris
a rise in coronavirus cases as the
country’s lower-middle class faces
financial ruin.
The World Health Organisation
reported a daily record of global infec-
tions yesterday, with 307,930 new cases,
mostly in India, the United States and
Brazil.
India, with cases rising at nearly
100,000 a day, is on track to overtake
the US tally of six million in the next
few weeks.
The trajectory of the virus in India is
changing. It is running amok in the
countryside, where 65 per cent of the
1.4 billion population live. Previously it
had been concentrated in cities.
Between March and July, 15 per cent of
cases were from villages and 25 per cent
from semi-rural areas. The figures have
risen to 24 per cent and 43 per cent
respectively.
Cases are also rising in areas of the
country that had managed to subdue
the virus to manageable levels. Dharavi
slum in Mumbai had reduced its daily
new infections to single digits but on
Friday it recorded 30 new cases.
Millions of Indians are seeing their
incomes plunge and their dreams
crushed, most notably among the low-er-middle class, many of whom have
been plunged into poverty.
The Ansari family, from Maghar in
the northern state of Uttar Pradesh,
were among the victims of the first
wave. Out of the 33 members of the
family, 23 tested positive: six men, ten
women and seven children. All were
quarantined in a local school.
The ten who did not have the virus
were also taken to a separate quaran-
tine centre. “Only when we tested
negative four times were we allowed to
go home,” said Hakimullah, an uncle to
Asadullah, who was the first to test
positive.
The family — parents, four sons and
their wives and children, all live under
the same roof — but only the brothers
are breadwinners. One is a tailor,
another sells eggs, the third sells biryani
and the fourth is a daily wage labourer.
Even so, before the pandemic, they
managed. All this changed when their
lives were put on hold. “We had to bor-
row money from relatives to survive
our time in quarantine. It was very hard
on the children,” Mr Ansari said.
More than 20 million salaried jobs
were lost between April and August.
The figures for daily wage labourers,
who eat only on the days they earn, are
not known but given that the economy
has shrunk by a quarter, the figure is
almost certainly huge.The governor of Nevada said that an
indoor rally held by President Trump
could set back the state’s efforts to
combat the coronavirus after
thousands attended without social
distancing or wearing masks.
Mr Trump defied the state ban on
gatherings of more than 50, telling sup-
porters and organisers who risked a fine
that “if the governor comes after you,
which he shouldn’t be doing, I’ll be with
you all the way”.
An estimated 5,600 people packed
into a warehouse for the president’s first
indoor rally since June 20 in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, which drew fewer people
than expected but was later blamed for
a rise in infections in the area.
Since then Mr Trump, 74, has been
itching to get back behind the podium
and has held several speeches at re-
gional airports in open hangars. His
campaign defied Steve Sisolak, Neva-
da’s Democratic governor, to hold the
event in a Las Vegas suburb, where a
large overflow crowd watched on
screens outside.
Mr Trump made no mention of the
toll of the coronavirus and instead
vowed that the US would never be shut
down again whatever doctors advised,
in stark contrast to Joe Biden, his Dem-
ocratic rival.
“We are not shutting the country
again. A shutdown would destroy the
lives and dreams of millions of Ameri-
cans,” Mr Trump said. Those seated di-
rectly behind him who featured in TV
images were told to wear “Trump”
branded masks but many in the crowd
opted to go mask-free.
Mr Trump urged Mr Sisolak, 66, to
relax his restrictions. “You have got to
open up your state — it is all political,”
he told the rally.
Mr Sisolak tweeted that Mr Trump
was “taking reckless and selfish ac-tions” that endangered lives. “This is an
insult to every Nevadan who has fol-
lowed the directives, made sacrifices
and put their neighbours before them-
selves. It’s also a direct threat to all of
the recent progress we’ve made, and
could potentially set us back.”
Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign
spokesman, said: “If you can join tens of
thousands of people protesting in the
streets, gamble in a casino or burn
down small businesses in riots, you can
gather peacefully under the First
Amendment to hear from the president
of the United States.”
Michael Gwin, a spokesman for the
Biden campaign, said: “Every rally
turned super-spreader event Donald
Trump decides to hold serves as
another reminder to Americans that
Trump still refuses to take this pan-
demic seriously and still doesn’t have a
plan to stop it, even after nearly
200,000 deaths and untold economic
damage.”
White House appointees interferedwith weekly Covid-19 reports from the
Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention to water down negative points,
according to emails sent to health offi-
cials seen by Politico. The emails sent to
Robert Redfield, director of the public
health agency, and other senior offi-
cials, complained that the agency’s re-
ports would undermine Mr Trump’s
optimistic message, the news site re-
ported. Paul Alexander, an Oxford-ed-
ucated epidemiologist appointed by the
White House, accused the report’s au-
thors of trying to “hurt the president”.
Michael Caputo, the health depart-
ment spokesman and a former Trump
campaign official, defended Mr Alex-
ander, saying: “Like all scientists, his ad-
vice is heard and taken or rejected by
his peers.”
Mr Trump’s approval rating for his
handling of Covid-19 was put at 35 per
cent by ABC News/Ipsos, the fourth
consecutive poll showing the presi-
dent’s pandemic approval in the low-to-
mid 30s.News
Thousands pack indoor
rally for defiant Trump
David Charter Washington
President Trump told 5,600 supporters that the US would not shut down again
ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGESALAMY; AARON CURTIS/SWNSaccording to Nielsen, the market
research company. The problem for
cider apple growers is that about
two thirds of the cider market has
traditionally been in pubs, clubs
and restaurants. With the outlook
for hospitality business looking far
from rosy over the coming months,
cider makers need far fewer apples
than they originally thought.
Ali Capper, above, a cider apple
grower from Worcestershire who is
also the chairwoman of the
National Farmers Union
horticulture board, said farmers
were facing a “very, very difficult
year” with as many as half a billion
apples being surplus to
requirements.
She said: “Some cider makers are
asking growers to provide only a
proportion of the contracted
volume, and only want to pay for
that volume. Other cider makers
are asking growers to send their
apples to anaerobic digestion plants
so they are paying the growers for
food waste. And other cider makers
are paying the growers not to
harvest the crop at all but to leave
them to rot in the fields.
“I would estimate that about two
billion cider apples are grown in the
UK each year and about a quarter
of the national crop will go to waste
this year.” She says it is the same
situation for hop growers because
of the reduced demand for beer.
She said: “I haven’t heard of a
crop going into a drink that hasn’t
been hit in one way or another
because it all comes back to
consumer demand. I fear some
growers will be forced to leave the
industry.”
Mark Hopper, of the National
Association of Cider Makers, said
the problem has been exacerbated
because storage tanks are still
partially full from last year’s
harvest. Nonetheless, he remained
upbeat. He said: “Cider makers are
optimistic that this is a one year
issue only and we are actively
talking to local MPs and ministers
to try and find a solution.”