Trump: High number of cases “good thing”; More than 1,100 deaths in one day in Brazil

Virologist Norbert Nowotny sees the corona virus weakening further in the summer. He already thought a pandemic was possible in February and now assesses the situation more calmly: “I am not a clairvoyant, but all the existing facts suggest to me that we will not experience a second wave in Austria.”

The waiver of attendance in the last year of kindergarten expired at the end of last week. This means that the children of the appropriate age would actually have to go back to kindergarten – but analogous to the rules for schools, they can be excused, for example with reference to a fear of Covid 19 infection, according to an APA request from the Ministry of Education or the City vienna.

The resurgence was not widely communicated – in the past few days, however, some kindergarten operators have informed parents that the last extension expired on May 15. This would fundamentally revive the obligation to send children to kindergarten for 20 hours a week in the last year of the visit.

World Medical President Frank Ulrich Montgomery has called for a general vaccination requirement to protect against the novel corona virus. Montgomery warned that if a serum against the virus became available in the future and some citizens refused to be vaccinated, they would pose a high risk to their fellow citizens who could not be vaccinated for health reasons.

“We therefore have to vaccinate as many people as possible,” said the President of the World Medical Association in several newspapers (Wednesday editions). Montgomery now warned against leaving the global distribution of the vaccine to the free market. To protect the world population, seven billion vaccine doses would be needed: “The free market must not regulate that. We need an international regulation for this.”

In Brazil, more than a thousand corona pandemic casualties have been recorded within 24 hours for the first time. As the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday, 1,179 deaths have been recorded since the previous day. The total number of officially counted deaths in Brazil rose to 17,971. However, experts estimate that the number of infections in Brazil could be 15 times higher than officially recorded. In the most populous Latin American country, an enormous number of unreported cases is suspected, since there are only relatively few corona tests. Experts also expect that the peak of the spread of the virus in Brazil will not be reached until June.

The US has indefinitely extended stricter regulations on Mexico and Canada borders for undocumented migrants in the Corona crisis. Border guards have been able to send migrants back to their home countries two months after an illegal border crossing.

The CDC health agency announced on Wednesday that the regulation would remain in effect until the introduction of the coronavirus into the United States was no longer a “serious danger” to public health. The Washington government argues that migrants could pass the virus on to others, infect border guards, and accelerate the spread of the American population.

The World Bank has warned of a significant increase in extreme poverty around the world as a result of the corona pandemic. The World Bank estimates that the pandemic could cause up to 60 million people to die in dire straits, David Malpass, director of the financial development agency, said on Tuesday in a conference call.

The World Bank claims that the global economy will shrink by five percent this year. This affects the poorest countries particularly hard.

Chile has seen the highest number of corona deaths and new infections since the virus spread to the country within 24 hours. 3,520 people were infected, 31 people died, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday. Since the first appearance of the novel virus in the South American country in early March, there have been almost 50,000 infections and more than 500 deaths, according to official statistics.

A strict curfew has been in force in the capital Santiago de Chile since Friday in order to curb the rapid spread of the new corona virus. Against this there are increasing protests: “We are hungry” or “We have to work, we need support” were some of the protests that were heard in the poorest areas of Santiago. There was also looting. In view of the situation, the army was sent to the poor areas affected on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump can detect a variety of corona infections in the United States – more than 1.5 million – win something positive. He doesn’t consider it a “bad thing” that there are so many detected infections in the country.

“I consider it a good thing in some ways because it means that our tests are much better,” said Trump Tuesday (local time) at the White House. “I consider it an award, really, it’s an award.” If you test nearly 14 million people like in the United States, you can find more cases, he said.

… the early team Valerie Krb and I wish you. What happened overnight, what is on the plan today? We look forward to keeping you posted here today.

We are ending our ticker for the corona virus for today and look forward to welcoming you again tomorrow.

Good night and stay healthy!

The independent budget office of the US Congress (CBO) is expecting a dramatic economic downturn in the second quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic. Compared to the previous quarter, a decline of 11.2 percent is expected from April to June, the CBO said on Tuesday. Extrapolated to the whole year, the quarter shrank by almost 40 percent, it said.

The French health authorities have slightly reduced the number of deaths as a result of a coronavirus infection. 28,022 people have died so far, the health agency said on Tuesday evening on its website. The Ministry of Health reported 28,108 deaths on Sunday.

A debate has flared up in the EU over the Franco-German proposals for a 500 billion euro reconstruction fund. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) wants to present an alternative draft together with three other EU countries. Criticism also came in Germany on Tuesday. There, the planned permission for the EU Commission to take out debts is viewed critically.

Family Minister Christine Aschbacher (ÖVP) said on Tuesday afternoon in the Family and Youth Committee that there will be childcare offers in the summer. However, it was important to monitor the development of the corona case numbers before taking concrete steps in agreement with the Ministry of Health, she asked for patience, according to the parliamentary correspondence.

In the state of Salzburg, the health authorities reported another death on Tuesday afternoon in connection with Covid-19. It is an 81-year-old man, the number of deceased in the state increases to 38 people.

An assignment error occurred during the results of tests for coronavirus infections at the Post logistics center in Hagenbrunn. According to a laboratory in Wiener Neustadt, there are two specific cases that were originally reported as negative and have now been corrected to positive. Two initially positively assigned cases were set to negative.

After the first confirmed infections in Hagenbrunn, according to the laboratory, several test series have been carried out to check all employees. The assignment error concerned a series of tests that had been carried out in the logistics center about two weeks after the first cases. “The error occurred when the test results were entered in the work list”, the laboratory informed the authorities of the state of Lower Austria and the city of Vienna. In the past few weeks, the employees had carried out thousands of tests without errors. “In this absolute exceptional case,” the team made a mistake, “which we deeply regret”. Due to the ongoing evaluations, the human error was discovered on Tuesday and reported immediately.

The AUA mother Lufthansa and its works councils are calling for quick decisions on billions in government aid. The employee representatives issued an open letter on Tuesday warning of bankruptcy or a protective shield procedure for the Dax group. Both of these involve incalculable risks and would send the wrong signal, economically and politically, according to the works council.

In a message to the employees, the Lufthansa board around Carsten Spohr stated that “a financing concept is expected” these days “that the planned economic stabilization fund and the federal government have agreed. “As our liquidity will continue to decrease in the foreseeable future, we hope that political decision-making will soon be concluded and a forward-looking compromise will be reached in Berlin that also takes our future viability into account in global competition,” the letter to the employees said.

After Italy eased several Corona restrictions on Monday, the number of Covid 19 fatalities rose again on Tuesday. The number of deceased climbed to 162 in 24 hours, and 99 fatalities were reported on Monday, the Italian civil defense said. The number of people who have died since the pandemic started in Italy on February 20 increased to 32,169.

The aid package for cities and municipalities in the corona crisis announced by Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) last Friday could total around one billion euros. They reported Tyrolean daily newspaper and the Upper Austrian news. There was initially no official confirmation of this. The package should be put together “in a few days,” said Kurz.

Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE) and the conservative-liberal Ciudadanos agreed on a further 15 days extension of the corona alert on Tuesday. Government spokeswoman María Jesús Montero announced this afternoon at a press conference in Madrid’s Moncloa government palace.