About 1 million people in and around the Spanish capital yesterday were placed under new “stay-at-home” orders to contain a COVID-19 surge, as the US death toll neared 200,000.
However, unlike other nations that are tightening curbs to battle outbreaks, India pressed ahead with its measures to kick-start its battered economy, reopening the Taj Mahal and some schools — despite having the second-highest caseload in the world.
The restrictions in Madrid are to last for two weeks, affecting people living mainly in densely populated, low-income neighborhoods, who will be allowed only to travel for essential reasons such as work, medical care or taking children to school.
Photo: Reuters
People on Sunday took to the streets in some of the affected districts in protest against the new measures.
They sported placards reading: “No to a class-based lockdown” and “They’re destroying our district and now they’re locking us up.”
“We think that they are laughing at us a little bit,” said nurse Bethania Perez, as hundreds protested against the measure. “We will still be able to go to work, and go into other areas that are not under lockdown, where we might be able to raise the infections and also still be vulnerable to infections in our own area.”
The Spanish government says the orders are necessary because COVID-19 cases in the districts are much higher than the national average.
The number of global COVID-19 infections has passed 31 million, with more than 960,000 deaths.
In India, infections are surging, with tens of thousands of new cases being reported every day, but with the economy reeling, the government has gradually eased what was once among the world’s strictest lockdowns — despite warnings from some experts about the coronavirus spreading across the vast nation of 1.3 billion people.
The Quebec government on Sunday announced new restrictions on gatherings to prevent a second wave of infections.
The number of people allowed in “rented halls, places of worship, festive events, weddings” dropped yesterday from 250 to 50, Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services Christian Dube said.
In three of the regions in the province — including the cities of Montreal and Quebec, which have increased to an “orange” alert level — such gatherings are limited to 25 people, Dube told a news conference.
Meanwhile, the pandemic is having a “devastating” impact on people displaced and affected by conflict, tipping many into hunger and homelessness, a study by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) showed.
The report, titled Downward Spiral, is based on assessments and surveys in 14 countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Somalia and Yemen.
Nearly three quarters of the 1,400 people surveyed said that they had seen a clear deterioration in their conditions since the pandemic broke out.
For instance, 70 percent “had to cut the number of meals for their household,” 77 percent had lost a job or income from work, and 73 percent said they were less likely to send their children to school due to “economic hardship.”
“The world’s most vulnerable communities are in a dangerous downward spiral,” NRC secretary-general Jan Egeland said in a statement. “Already forced from their homes by violence, often with limited rights to work or access to government services, the economic impact of the pandemic is pushing them to catastrophe.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not