Coronavirus updates: Twitter says staff can work from home forever

Twitter’s decision to allow staff to work from home “forever” is sending ripples around the business community.

Many have predicted other tech firms will follow suit – and one digital innovation expert even called it “era-defining news”.

“Some people may not take this seriously as it’s Twitter – but
we can learn a lot from Silicon Valley about workplace flexibility,” said New York-based
Sree Sreenivasan, a Loeb Visiting Professor at the Stony
Brook University School of Journalism.

“There has been a mentality that working from home was
stealing from the boss and face-time in the office was more important.

“But people are proving they can be far more productive and
get tasks done working from home.

“A lot of people tell me they are working harder
at home and are exhausted.”

Thailand has reported no new virus infections for the past 24 hours – the first time since 9 March the daily toll was zero.

There are 3,017 cases overall in Thailand with 56 deaths. Of the remaining cases, all but 163 have recovered.

A Japanese sumo wrestler has died at the age of 28 from complications caused by Covid-19, say media reports quoting the Japan Sumo Association (JSA).

Shobushi was admitted to hospital on 8 April. He was taken into intensive care on 19 April, and died from multiple organ failure.

Last month, the JSA said that at least five sumo wrestlers had contracted the virus.

Australian authorities say an 81-year-old woman, a passenger on the Ruby Princess, died in New South Wales overnight.

The Princess is the Carnival-operated cruise ship linked to 700 virus cases and now 22 deaths.

In March, authorities allowed the ship to dock in Sydney and unload more than 2,700 passengers while there were reports of illness on board.

There are separate police, government and coroner investigations into what went wrong.

One of those, a special public inquiry, has rigorously questioned witnesses including ship employees, state health authorities and port officials.

The testimonies have suggested a number of errors were made – including miscommunication between officials and a failure to carry out due diligence. The investigations continue.

The top US infectious diseases doctor has warned senators the virus will spread if the country opens up too soon.

Dr Anthony Fauci said if federal guidelines to reopen are not followed, “little spikes” will become outbreaks.

His message is at odds with the upbeat tone of President Trump who is keen to get the economy going again.

Dr Fauci was speaking via video to a Republican-led committee of the US Senate.

Up to 50 people can now say farewell to their loved ones in New Zealand, said authorities, backtracking on a previous ruling.

It comes just hours before New Zealand moves into alert level 2 – which allows retail stores, restaurants, cinemas and other public spaces to reopen.

Under the level two rules, mass gatherings are limited to under 100 people – but the government had maintained that funerals would be restricted to 10 people.

Opposition leader Simon Bridges called the restriction “inhumane”.

“It’s not just unkind, it’s inhumane. If you can socially distance at a movie theatre with 99 other people you can do the same at a funeral,” he told Newstalk ZB.

Funeral parlours however, will need to ensure that measures including social distancing are met.

Inspector Munish Pratap Singh was about to finish his shift around 22:00 when a helpless father called him with an unusual request.

“Could you please get a birthday cake for my son? It’s his birthday and he is really sad,” the father said.

Insp Singh is not used to dealing with such requests, but these are no ordinary times. All shops were shut in his area, but he called a baker he knew and – luckily – a cake was available.

“The happiness on the boy’s face made everything worthwhile. My team and I forgot how tired we were,” he says.

Insp Singh is not alone among his colleagues with such a simple act of kindness.

Many other officers in India have delivered birthday cakes to children and the elderly, given food to the homeless and provided essential medicines.

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All 323,000 foreign workers living in dormitories in Singapore will be tested for the virus, authorities have said.

Singapore, which was held up as a model in how to beat Covid-19, has since been hit with a large-scale outbreak amongst its migrant worker community.

The island is home to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, often from South Asia, many of whom work in construction.

The construction workers live in tightly-packed dorms, with up to 16 migrants packed in a room. Thousands of workers across a dozen dormitories in Singapore have been placed under quarantine, but hundreds are testing positive each day.

So far, more than 32,000 workers in dorms have been tested – about 10% of the total. National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said about 3,000 tests were carried out each day.

There are currently 24,671 confirmed cases in Singapore – almost all migrant workers – and 21 deaths.

Parking restrictions were eased in Wellington, New Zealand during the lockdown. But things got back to normal pretty quickly.

According to the NZ Herald, more than 800 tickets were issued on Tuesday, as paid parking returned.

“We think we’ve given people a pretty good run up and a warning that enforcement was going to start again,” a city council spokesman told the Herald.

“I know a lot of people would love us to put the parking wardens away and never see them again, but unfortunately that’s never going to happen – they’re back.”

There has been another rise in infections linked to a cluster in Seoul’s nightlife district Itaewon, taking the total to 119.

The nightlife outbreak came after the government began relaxing some social distancing rules – showing how difficult it is to control infections after returning to normal life.

South Korea, through extensive testing and contact tracing, had managed to bring daily cases down to single digits without enforcing a national lockdown.

Tracing the nightclubs cluster has proved difficult, though, as some clubbers provided false names or numbers when entering LGBT clubs.

Overall, there have been just under 11,000 confirmed infections in South Korea with about 1,000 still active and the rest recovered. The death toll stands at 259.

The western state of Maharashtra will release nearly half of its prisoners – 17,000 out of 35,000 – in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19 in its jails.

On Tuesday, the state’s home minister said that Arthur Road jail in the state’s capital, Mumbai, had recorded at least 180 positive cases.

“This measure has been taken to ensure that social distancing norms are observed in every jail of the state and spreading of Covid-19 is prevented,” Anil Deshmukh told local media.

He added that those being released would be out on temporary bail – and that those jailed for “serious crimes” including murder, rape, and financial fraud, would stay in prison.

India has reported more than 70,000 cases, including 2,293 deaths. Maharashtra is one of the worst-affected states in the country, with more than 24,000 infections.

Björn Ulvaeus is one of the singer/songwriters for the Swedish pop group Abba and co-wrote the songs for the hit musical Mamma Mia! It’s been playing in London’s West End for two decades.

But Björn predicts a slow recovery for musicals and theatre – saying it will be a long time before people will want to sit in packed auditoriums:

The vice mayor of China’s Jilin city has warned of a “huge risk” that the virus could spread further, amid a spate of cases in the province.

Gai Dongping told reporters that authorities in Jilin city would step up measures to curb and contain the virus, according to a Reuters report.

The city – which shares the same name as the north-eastern province – has already stopped outgoing train services.

The province reported six new virus cases today – last week, 11 local cases were reported in nearby Shulan, all said to be linked to one local laundrywoman.

Shulan has implemented a more severe lockdown than Jilin city.

In Venezuela, the price of food has increased by 80% since lockdown, and fuel is being rationed.

The United Nations calls Venezuela one of the most vulnerable countries in the world – there is high malnutrition, 20% of hospitals have no running water, and over 70% of doctors have emigrated.

Official Covid-19 cases in the country are low but there is a fear among doctors that should the coronavirus spread, it would be catastrophic.

Philippines budget airline Cebu Pacific has extended the cancellation of its domestic and international flights from 16 to 31 May.

The carrier says affected passengers can either rebook or have their payments refunded.

The country was one of the first in the region to implement a strict lockdown and has just announced an extension in big cities like Manila and Cebu until June.

There are more than 11,000 confirmed cases in the country and 751 deaths have been linked to the virus.

Like in many other South East Asian countries, however, there is concern that low testing capability might leave many cases undetected.

Tensions between China and Australia aren’t dying down, and the latest “beef” (Australian slang for fight) is about… beef.

First a recap. Last month, Australia joined the US in calling for a global
investigation into the origins of the virus and how it spread from China.

That drew fervent criticism from Beijing, with its ambassador warning that Chinese
consumers might boycott Australian products as a result.

Given China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and buys
over a third of its exports – this was viewed as a threat of “economic coercion” in
Canberra.

Then yesterday, China slapped a temporary ban on beef imports
from Australia’s four largest producers – citing concerns with inaccurate labelling.

Both Australia and China have dismissed suggestions these
moves could be political retaliation.

However, as analysts point out, they always seem to come to
a head when a diplomatic fight is going on.

Life is starting to get back to normal in some parts of California – with offices allowed to open and some restaurants able to offer sit-down dining services.

Some shopping malls in certain counties will be allowed to partially reopen, though tattoo parlours, nail salons and gyms still remain firmly shut.

“It’s a mistake to over-promise what reopening means,” said Governor Gavin Newsom in a daily press briefing.

The easing of restrictions comes as infections in California appear to be stabilising. But the state allows local governments to impose their own stricter guidelines – areas like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area for example, have not yet eased restrictions.

The company behind the experimental coronavirus treatment remdesivir has signed non-exclusive licensing deals with five drugmakers based in India and Pakistan to make and sell the antiviral medicine in 127 countries.

Gilead Sciences said the agreements cover almost all of the world’s low-income and lower-middle income countries, including Afghanistan, India, North Korea, Pakistan and South Africa.

The pacts also include several upper-middle and high-income nations.

This month both the US and Japan authorised remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19 patients.

Many other pharmaceutical companies are racing to develop a treatment or vaccine to combat the pandemic.

• Read more about remdesivir here

The United States has recorded 1,894 deaths linked to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 82,339, according to the real-time tally by the Johns Hopkins University.

The latest daily increase was a sharp rise after tolls had fallen below 1,000 on both Sunday and Monday.

The total number of confirmed infections in the US stands at 1,369,386.