Six In The Morning Thursday 9 April 2020

Coronavirus live updates: Cases top 1.5 million globally

By Ben Westcott, Julia Hollingsworth, Adam Renton and Jack Guy, CNN

Updated 7:37 a.m. ET, April 9, 2020

What you need to know

• The numbers: The novel coronavirus has infected almost 1.5 million people and killed over 88,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.
• US cases top 432,000: America's death toll stands at more than 14,800 after the country recorded 1,922 deaths on Wednesday -- the most in a single day.
• UK's highest daily toll: Britain reported 938 fatalities on Wednesday, taking its death toll past 7,000, as London's mayor said the lockdown will continue for the foreseeable future. PM Boris Johnson remains in intensive care.

The cluster effect: how social gatherings were rocket fuel for coronavirus

Philip Oltermann in Berlin, Helen Davidson in Sydney, Oliver Laughland in New Orleans, Rebecca Ratcliffe in Bangkok, Joanna Walters in New York Kim Willsher in Paris and Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo

Holding hands, kissing, sharing drinks from the same glass all helped spread the virus

On 15 February, a merry crowd wearing clown wigs and jester hats gathered in the town hall of Gangelt, a small western German municipality nestled by the Dutch border, to ring in the peak of the carnival season.

Beer and wine flowed aplenty as approximately 350 adults in fancy dress locked arms on long wooden benches and swayed to the rhythm of music provided by a live band.

During an interval in the programme, guests got up to mingle with friends and relatives at other tables, greeting each other as Rhineland tradition commands, with a Bützchen, or peck on the cheek.

Coronavirus: Fox News positively promotes anti-malaria drug nearly 300 times in two weeks, report says

Scientists warn more data is needed to show if the drug treats Covid-19

Danielle Zoellner @dani__zoellner

Fox News has positively covered the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine nearly 300 times in just a two-week period, according to a report.

Media Matters for America, a progressive, nonprofit media watchdog, documented how many times conservative news organisation Fox News promoted hydroxychloroquine on its programs from 23 March to 6 April.

The organisation found the drug and its variant chloroquine, which could help treat symptoms of Covid-19, was promoted 275 times for its potential benefits against the novel virus. To contrast, there were only 29 negative mentions about the drugs.

Coronavirus: A stress test for democracy

Governments are facing unprecedented problems in the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas democracies operate on consensus, autocrats react with sweeping measures threatening the rule of law. Who is better prepared for the crisis?

When the Chinese government sealed off Wuhan, a metropolis of some 11 million inhabitants, from the outside world on January 23, the rest of the world looked toward Asia with astonishment. It seemed inconceivable that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and its resulting disease, COVID-19, would also hit the industrialized nations in Europe and North America with such force.

As France considers digital tracking to battle coronavirus, critics raise privacy concerns

In France and elsewhere, governments are looking at the use of apps to track citizens through their smartphones as part of efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus. But critics worry that once such tracking systems are in place, governments may be tempted to use them for something else.

In the mind of France’s Interior Minister, Christophe Castaner, there is no question: If an application can help fight the Covid-19 pandemic in France by alerting smartphone users that they have been close to a sick person, it should be used.

Castaner said it is essential that the government use all the information available to it to curb the epidemic. "Tracking is one of the solutions that have been adopted by a number of countries, so we have decided to work with them in looking at these options," he said in an interview with France 2 television on April 5. "I am convinced that if [these apps] allow us to fight the virus and if they do not infringe on individual liberties, tracking is a tool that will be accepted by the French people."

Jailed Kashmiri separatist Yasin Malik 'being denied fair trial'

Slapped with a slew of cases, many in disputed Himalayan region fear the leading pro-freedom leader could be executed.

by Hanan Zaffar

Imprisoned in New Delhi and slapped with a series of cases, including reopening of 30 years old murder charges, a top Kashmiri separatist leader is being denied a fair trial, his family and rights activists have alleged.

Yasin Malik, one of Indian-administered Kashmir's prominent pro-independence leaders, is the chief of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was banned by the Indian government last year and declared an "unlawful association" that fomented "terrorism".