Where did it go wrong for the UK on coronavirus?
Updated 1108 GMT (1908 HKT) April 30, 2020
The British government is on the brink of missing a crucial target in its fight against coronavirus.
A headline-grabbing aim of conducting 100,000 daily Covid-19 tests by the end of April is unlikely to be achieved, with the government saying that only 52,429 had been carried out on Tuesday, two days before the deadline. Capacity is available for about 73,000, Downing Street says. Government sources argue, with some justification, that the target -- up from about 10,000 a day at the beginning of the month -- was always incredibly ambitious, and the fact that capacity has been expanded so quickly is a huge achievement.
But, critics say, that only serves to illustrate the inadequacies of Britain's testing regime in the first place.
Revealed: 100,000 crew never made it off cruise ships amid coronavirus crisis
Guardian investigation finds workers stranded on at least 50 ships with Covid-19 outbreaks, limited medical equipment, some without pay, and no end in sight
While most cruise ship passengers have now made it back to land, another crisis has been growing – with no safe haven in sight.
Around the world, more than 100,000 crew workers are still trapped on cruise ships, at least 50 of which have Covid-19 infections, a Guardian investigation has found. They are shut out of ports and banned from air travel that would allow them to return to their homes.
Many of these crew are quarantined in tiny cabins, and some have had their pay cut off. They have effectively become a nation of floating castaways, marooned on boats from the Galapagos Islands to the port of Dubai.
President rages at TV news anchors as coronavirus death toll tops 60,000 after denying testing pledge he made just 24 hours earlier
Donald Trump was up late on Twitter again on Wednesday night continuing to stew over negative press coverage of his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, attacking TV news anchors Brian Williams, Don Lemon and Joe Scarborough, saying of the former he “wouldn’t know the truth if it was nailed to his wooden forehead”.
With the US death toll from the outbreak now soaring beyond 60,000, the president’s latest briefing at the White House on Wednesday saw him refuting a claim he himself had made just a day earlier that the country would “soon” be hitting 5m tests for Covid-19 per day.
Keen to resume 2020 campaign rally rallies, Trump also said the government would not be extending its social distancing guidelines expiring on Thursday while his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, predicted the country would be “really rocking again” by July in a Fox News interview in which he also pronounced the rate of American fatalities ”a great success story”.
How deforestation can lead to more infectious diseases
The world's forests act as shields, keeping humans safe from coronaviruses and other diseases. Their destruction can unleash devastating consequences for global public health.
Scientists have been repeating the warning for at least two decades: As humans encroach upon forests, their risk of contracting viruses circulating among wild animals increases.
That's why Ana Lucia Tourinho wasn't surprised when she heard about the novel coronavirus, which was first detected in China in December and has since spread around the world. An ecologist at the Federal University of Mato Grosso in Brazil, Tourinho studies how an environmental imbalance can cause forests and societies to become sick.
Women on the front line (3/3): For those teaching remotely, much of the job is reassuring parents
Schools have been closed in France since a nationwide lockdown began in mid-March. Almost 70 percent of primary and secondary teachers are women, and FRANCE 24 spoke to a group who are determined to keep teaching – even if they are not in the classroom.
For Émilie Bocqueho, a teacher in the Paris suburb of Châtillon, the first week of lockdown was "chaotic". With 2-year-old twins at home, she had to work out a tight schedule.
"There is so much anxiety associated with this way of teaching. I had to imagine how it would work so that it would be fair to my partner," she explained. So she organised online lessons during her children's naps and late at night for her class of 24 primary school students.
Kim health rumours spotlight succession in secretive North Korea
Kim Jong Un has ruled over North Korea with an iron fist, eliminating those who could threaten his position.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was last pictured centre stage at a key political meeting on April 11, but has been out of the country’s state media ever since. Now, after failing to appear at one of the secretive nation’s most important annual events, there is mounting speculation about his health.
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