In Spain, children over six are being asked to wear masks, while Denmark has issued a 10 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants in the capital. In parts of England, households have been banned from meeting as the government introduces tighter restrictions following a rise in cases. Israel has gone back into national lockdown.
Global statistics of Covid-19 as on September 19, 2020 (Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center)
Total Confirmed Cases: 30,513,096(
Total Deaths: 951,841
Total Recovered: 20,781,266
Nations hit with most cases: US (6,724,667), India (5,308,014), Brazil (4,495,183), Russia (1,086,955), and Colombia (750,471)
Kenya Airways CEO seeks $500 million from state to survive virus: The carrier, which is 49 per cent state-owned, must also be fully nationalised and restructured alongside Kenya Airports Authority, which runs the Nairobi hub.
Madrid orders 850,000 people in capital to stay in own areas: Under new rules that took effect on September 21, 2020, and will apply for an initial period of two weeks, people can only exit or enter the affected areas for work, education, health, or similar reasons.
Dublin under tighter Covid-19 restrictions: For at least three weeks after September 21, 2020, people have been discouraged from leaving the city and county unless for essential reasons. People are being asked to work from home where possible, while indoor gatherings and outdoor gatherings are to be limited to 15 people.
Australia’s Victoria logs fewest cases since June: Victoria, the center of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, reported only 21 cases as on September 18, 2020, putting it on course to relax a hard lockdown in the state capital of Melbourne by the end of September 2020.
Specials
Johnson’s Covid test ‘shambles’ risks UK economic revival Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to lock down the country in March 2020 because there was no testing program to keep track of the outbreak. Now, labs that are swamped again as the virus spreads cannot cope with the “colossal” surge in demand. Anxious government officials know that a second national lockdown could be disastrous to the economy of the nation. The government and companies need the test-and-trace system to work to get people safely back to offices but instead ministers are being forced to ration testing and focus resources on those who need them most.
For a vaccine to be widely available in coming months, a long list of exceptionally difficult goals has to be met: There are different views on when and how an effective vaccine against the coronavirus could be produced and made available to people. It is not likely that a vaccine will be ready until the end of 2020 and expanding access to the more than 300 million people living in the US will take longer.
Traders set to don virtual reality headsets in their home offices
UBS has experimented with issuing its London-based traders with Microsoft HoloLenses, which would allow staff to recreate the experience of working in a packed trading floor without leaving their homes. Banks have been desperate to bring workers back to the office, but surges in coronavirus infection rates have kept staff away from using public transport.
Does wearing glasses protect one from coronavirus?
In one hospital in Suizhou, China, 276 patients were admitted over a 47-day period, but only 16 patients—less than 6 per cent—had myopia or nearsightedness that required them to wear glasses for more than eight hours a day. By comparison, more than 30 per cent of similarly aged people in the region needed glasses for nearsightedness. As the rate of nearsightedness appeared to be so much higher in the general population than in the Covid ward, the scientists wonder: Could wearing glasses protect a person from becoming infected with coronavirus?