Ecuador struggles to secure enough virus test supplies

13 Jun 202020.05 EDT

Melissa Davey

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13 Jun 202019.43 EDT

Ecuador struggles for test supplies

Melissa Davey

A major laboratory in Ecuador’s capital closed and halted processing coronavirus tests Friday because technicians did not have basic supplies like tubes, pipettes, masks and gloves needed to safely analyse the specimens.

The Biotechnology Institute at Quitos Central University had been expected to receive and process tens of thousands of tests but its director said only 5,150 could be done before running out of equipment. “We can’t process any more tests because of a technical failing,” Lucy Baldeón said. Ecuador is one of nations hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic in Latin America. As major cities like Quito begin to reopen, authorities have insisted on the need to increases testing. But those efforts have been complicated by corruption scandals, delays in acquiring tests and now shortages of essential lab materials.

“We have the tests and we can’t use them,” city councilman Bernardo Abad said. “They were purchased but the city didn’t prepare.”

The Central University lab is one of two contracted directly by Quito officials to boost the city’s testing capability. The other has not yet begun processing specimens. The Ministry of Public Health operates its own labs and conducted 16,379 tests in Quito from March to May. That testing is expected to continue, though to date has fallen short of what many believe is needed in the city of 2.7m people. Ecuador has done 133,458 molecular and rapid COVID-19 tests in all, according to the health ministry, and nation’s per capita rate trails far behind countries like Chile and Peru that have greatly expanded testing.

White House infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has said his advice to people who want to attend US president Donald Trump’s campaign rallies is the same for Black Lives Matter and anti-Trump protestors. He said the gatherings are “a danger” and “risky.”

Trump announced his campaign rallies are planned for 19 June, known as Juneteenth in the US, a holiday marking the end of slavery. Trump has insisted he did not choose the date on purpose. “The fact that I’m having a rally on that day - you can really think about that very positively as a celebration,” Trump told Fox News. “Because a rally to me is a celebration. It’s an interesting date. It wasn’t done for that reason, but it’s an interesting date.”

12 Jun 202018.38 EDT

Protests to occur throughout Australia on Saturday

Melissa Davey

Black Lives Matter advocates and refugee activists will hold protests throughout Australia on Saturday, despite warnings from health authorities they could lead to Covid-19 outbreaks. Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Brendan Murphy, said on Friday, “These sort of events really are dangerous”. However the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced on the same day that major sports stadiums may allow 10,000 people by July.

It follows protests last weekend, when people took to the streets campaigning for an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody. There have been 437 known Aboriginal deaths since the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody delivered its final report in 1991, and yet despite this, change has been slow. The protests were sparked in solidarity with the US following the brutal death of unarmed man George Floyd on 25 May.

One man was diagnosed with the virus following the Melbourne protests, with health authorities saying he was likely infected prior to the rally. Victoria police issued fines of $1652 each to the three people who organised the protest.

More protests took place in Sydney and Perth on Friday night. About 300 people who gathered in Sydney’s city were outnumbered by about 600 police officers, in an event deemed unlawful because police were not formally notified. The peaceful protest was also brief, ending around 8pm.

Thousands of protesters will gather in Perth for Saturday’s protest at Langley Park. Organisers have ignored Premier Mark McGowan’s pleas to delay the protest until after the coronavirus pandemic is over. Meanwhile, refugee activists will spread themselves out in Melbourne in an attempt to avoid the same fines issued to the organisers of last weekend’s rally. The group said its rallies will have no more than 20 people in eight different locations to protest against the indefinite detention of asylum seekers.

Egypt has confirmed 1,577 new coronavirus cases, the highest daily increase in almost two weeks.

In total, the Arab world’s most populous country has registered 41,303 cases including 1,422 deaths, the ministry said in a statement.

South Africa’s confirmed coronavirus infections have risen by more than 10,000 in five days to 61,927 on Friday, official figures showed.

Positive cases stood at 50,879 on Monday, just a week after the continent’s worst-hit country further eased lockdown restrictions.

South Africa accounts for nearly 25 percent of the continent’s total cases, according to the World Health Organization.

The latest figures released by the health ministry showed that the virus has so far killed 1,354 people in the country since the first case was detected in March.

Most of South Africa’s infections - around two-thirds - are found in the Western Cape province, a popular tourist destination home to the coastal city of Cape Town.

Brazil’s death toll from the virus has overtaken the UK to become the second highest in the world.

The figure stands at 41,828, the country’s health ministry said, with only the US having more fatalities.
Brazil has registered 828,810 confirmed Covid-19 cases.

The UK’s death toll is 41,566, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Scotland Yard has issued restrictions on Black Lives Matter and counterprotests protests planned for Saturday in England with all marching and assembly to end at 5pm.

Police have warned demonstrators they would be in breach of the coronavirus act and set out conditions to keep the two sets of demos apart.

A newborn baby in the UK who was diagnosed with a heart defect has defied the odds after contracting coronavirus.

Raees Hassain, from Rochdale in Greater Manchester, had a “remote” chance of survival after being rushed to hospital at six weeks old.

After being diagnosed with a rare case of transposition of the great arteries, he tested positive for Covid-19.

But five weeks after being rushed to hospital, Raees is back at home with his family after life-saving surgery.

His mother Farah told the BBC: “Doctors say there is no reason he can’t do anything he wants to.

“He can climb mountains, be a racer, whatever he wants. He has a life now.”

The front page of Saturday’s UK edition of The Guardian.

Requiring the wearing of masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus in areas at the epicenter of the global pandemic may have prevented tens of thousands of infections, a new study suggests.

Mask-wearing is even more important for preventing the virus’ spread than social distancing and stay-at-home orders, researchers said in the study published in PNAS: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Infection trends shifted dramatically when mask-wearing rules were implemented on April 6 in northern Italy and April 17 in New York City - at the time among the hardest hit areas of the world by the health crisis - the study found.

“This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9,” researchers calculated.

When mask wearing went into effect in New York, the daily new infection rate fell by about 3% per day, researchers said. In the rest of the country, daily new infections continued to increase.

US stocks ended higher on Friday as bargain hunters stepped back into the market following sharp losses a day earlier - but all three major indexes suffered their biggest weekly percentage declines since March.

The day’s trading was marked by wild swings, with the S&P 500 up about 3% at its high of the session and down about 0.6% at the low.

The Federal Reserve’s indication earlier this week of a long road to recovery and rising Covid-19 cases in the United States had cast a pall over investor optimism about a swift economic rebound, and the S&P 500 dropped about 6% on Thursday.

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