Travel relief for Britons as government reviews two-week quarantine
From CNN’s Luke McGee and Vasco Cotovio in London
The British government says it will announce travel agreements with countries such as France, Greece and Spain next week as it reviews its policy of imposing a 14-day quarantine for travellers arriving in Britain.
“Countries have been classified as green, amber and red depending on their risk assessment, informed by factors including the prevalence of coronavirus within the country, our confidence in the reliability of their data, and crucially the trajectory of the disease in the country,” a government statement read. “Low risk countries in the green and amber categories will be exempt from public health measures at the border.”
A full list of the low risk countries will be published next week and travel to those destinations will be able to resume the following week.
“Our new risk-assessment system will enable us to carefully open a number of safe travel routes around the world — giving people the opportunity for a summer holiday abroad and boosting the UK economy through tourism and business,” a government spokesperson said.
“But we will not hesitate to put on the brakes if any risks re-emerge, and this system will enable us to take swift action to re-introduce self-isolation measures if new outbreaks occur overseas,” the spokesperson added.
The UK decided to slam its border shut as it emerged from one of the continent’s worst coronavirus outbreaks in early June. Critics said the 14-day quarantine would torpedo the last shreds of hope for its travel industry.
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US officials say they appreciate European transparency over coronavirus travel ban
From CNN’s Kylie Atwood
Several diplomats told CNN on Friday that the European Union will likely ban American travelers as the bloc begins to open up international travel, over fears of the spiking infections in the US.
In response, a US State Department official told CNN, “We appreciate the transparency and concerted efforts of our European partners and allies to combat this pandemic, and we are committed to coordinating with them as we look forward to reopening our economies and easing restrictions.”
The official also quoted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said earlier this week that the US was working with “our friends in the EU proper to determine how it is we can best safely reopen international travel.”
“We have to make sure that we have all of the elements in place to reopen travel between the EU and the United States,” Pompeo said at a press briefing. “I’m very confident that in the coming weeks we’ll figure that out as between not only the United States and the EU, but the United States and other parts of the world too.”
Colombia reports its highest one-day surge in coronavirus cases
From CNN’s Luke Henderson and Stefano Pozzebon
Colombia reported 3,843 new cases of the coronavirus on Friday — the country’s biggest single-day jump in cases so far.
It also reported 157 new deaths.
The country now has at least 80,811 cases and 2,786 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Colombia has the fifth-highest number of cases among the Latin American countries. The list is topped by Brazil, Peru, Chile and Mexico.
India has more than half a million coronavirus cases
From CNN’s Manveena Suri in New Delhi and Isaac Yee in Hong Kong
On Saturday, India’s health ministry said it had recorded 18,552 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours — its biggest daily jump so far.
The figure tipped the national total past half a million, with India now reporting 508,953 confirmed cases to date.
More than 295,000 of those cases have recovered, according to the health ministry.
The health ministry also recorded 384 new deaths in the past day, raising the toll to 15,685.
The fresh infections came as the Delhi government announced that serological surveys will be conducted across the city. The surveys will help officials understand the spread of infection and develop a “comprehensive strategy,” the government said.
Texas governor says “in hindsight” he reopened bars too soon
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott acknowledged on Friday that he had allowed the state’s bars to reopen too soon.
“If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would’ve been to slow down the opening of bars,” he said in an interview with CNN affiliate KVIA.
“Now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting – you know, a bar setting in reality just doesn’t work with a pandemic. People go to bars to get close and to drink and to socialize. And that’s the kind of thing that stokes the spread of the coronavirus. So, sure, in hindsight it may have been better to have slowed the opening of the bar setting,” he said.
Texas has seen its case numbers spike dramatically this week. The state reported its highest daily jump in new cases on Thursday, while Friday saw 5,707 new cases and 28 more related deaths.
Every single beauty salon worker in Beijing is being tested for the coronavirus
From CNN’s Shawn Deng in Beijing and Isaac Yee in Hong Kong
China recorded 21 new coronavirus cases on Friday — including 17 which were locally transmitted in Beijing, according to the country’s National Health Commission.
The other four were imported cases, reported in Guangdong, Shanghai and Gansu.
Twelve more asymptomatic cases were also confirmed nationwide. The NHC counts these asymptomatic positive cases separately.
The new cases come after Beijing’s Hairdressing and Beauty Association issued an emergency notice requiring all staff at hair, nail and beauty salons to be tested for the virus, according to the state-run Beijing Daily newspaper.
The report added that customers entering salons will continue to have their temperature taken and present their health QR codes, which are color-coded to represent a person’s health status and risk level.
Los Angeles health care system risks being overwhelmed, county health director warns
Los Angeles County’s health care system could be overwhelmed “without immediate actions to slow the spread” of Covid-19, a public health expert has warned.
The county has a total of 93,232 cases and 3,267 deaths so far.
“While we did anticipate increases in cases as sectors reopened, we did not expect the increases to be this steep this quickly,” county Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said in a press release on Friday. “Without immediate actions to slow the spread, we risk having too many people requiring hospital care and possibly overwhelming our healthcare system.”
The department has reported increases in cases, hospitalizations and the positivity rate for testing in recent weeks, according to the press release.
##Reopening
Alaska’s largest city is making public face coverings mandatory
From CNN’s Andy Rose
The mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, issued an order Friday requiring people to wear face coverings in public.
The order will go into effect at 8 a.m. Monday morning local time.
“Unfortunately, not enough people are practicing the distancing needed to keep the curve flat, so we have a choice between doing nothing, hunkering down, or masking up,” Mayor Ethan Berkowitz said in a statement.
Anchorage has experienced a significant increase in new cases over the past week, according to the city’s health department. Officials say some of the cases come from non-residents who are in the state as seasonal workers in the seafood industry.
Fact check: As pandemic situation worsens, Pence paints a deceptively rosy picture
Analysis from CNN’s Daniel Dale
At Friday’s press briefing by the White House’s coronavirus task force — the first in nearly two months — Vice President Mike Pence painted a rosy picture of a country steadily getting safer and back to normal.
It was a picture at odds with reality.
Leaving out critical information, Pence delivered a more polished version of the upbeat, all-is-well dishonesty that was a hallmark of previous briefings by President Donald Trump, who did not attend the Friday session.
“Despite what you heard, we are in the middle of a public health disaster,” CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said on air after the briefing.
Pence boasted that “we flattened the curve.”
Fact check: The curve for the number of new confirmed cases did decline and plateau in April and May, but has headed sharply upward again in June.
Pence claimed that “all 50 states” are “opening up safely and responsibly.”
Fact check: About 30 states are experiencing increases in the rate of new cases, and states reopened without having met the administration’s recommended safety milestones.
Pence claimed the country is finished with the painful part of the pandemic, saying “we’re in a much better place” than two months ago and the US is no longer “in a time of great losses and great hardship.”
Fact check: He was right that the current number of daily deaths is substantially lower than it was at its peak — but the pandemic is still killing more than 500 Americans a day. The May unemployment rate was 13.3%. In other words, the loss and the hardship continue.
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