Coronavirus: the vaccine is still far away, and the Olympics can be canceled

The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the world exceeded five million. Because of the pandemic, the International Olympic Committee is considering the abolition of the Games in Tokyo, the UN is talking about a slowdown in human development.

The number of confirmed infections in all countries on Thursday, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, exceeded five million, rising by about 15 thousand over the past day. The number of virus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic is nearly 330,000.

These are statistics from governments. Experts agree that the actual number of people infected in the world is probably much higher. Testing for the virus does not concern everyone, not all cases of infection fall into official reports.

All the latest news related to the coronavirus pandemic is in the daily review of the BBC Russian Service.

Olympic Games in Tokyopostponed by the July 2021 pandemic will not be rescheduled a second time, said Thomas Bach, head of the International Olympic Committee in an interview with the BBC.

He supported the position of the Japanese organizing committee – if the pandemic is not taken under control by next year, then the game will have to be canceled.

“Honestly, I understand [позицию Японии], because you cannot forever pay salaries to three to five thousand employees of the organizing committee, “he said.

Cancellation of the Olympic Games is a rarity. In their entire history, this happened five times – the winter and summer Olympiads of 1940 and 1944 were canceled because of the Second World War, and the summer Olympiad of 1916 because of the First World War.

AT UN warn that the Covid-19 pandemic could lead to a record drop in the Human Development Index, which the UN Human Development Program regularly calculates for different countries.

The Human Development Index is a combined indicator of development in different countries and regions of the world. It takes into account the level of education, health care, economic activity, Internet access and other indicators in each country. Norway regularly becomes the index leader.

Because of the pandemic, the global average development index for the first time in 30 years will fall, according to the UN.

As a result of the pandemic, average per capita income worldwide will fall by about four percent, the report said. In addition, the pandemic, according to the UN, can indirectly cause about six thousand child deaths over the next six months. In the report, these deaths are called preventable.

AT Great Britain over the past 24 hours, 338 people died in connection with Covid-19, the government said, relying on data collected daily in hospitals and (with a certain delay) in nursing homes.

The authorities of several European countries urged citizens not to go to the beaches. In France, beaches opened this week, but you can’t sunbathe on them, you can only swim, run or fish. On Wednesday evening, in one of the prefectures of Brittany, five beaches were closed again, due to the “inappropriate behavior” of vacationers.

Several municipalities in the Netherlands have asked to refrain from visiting visitors to Germany from their beaches, where Thursday was a public holiday. The roads to the resort town of Vlissingen are temporarily blocked.

In Britain, a scandal erupted on Wednesday over crowds of vacationers on the beach in Southend-on-Sea. Wednesday was the hottest day this year, and many British rushed to the beaches. Photos appeared on social networks. An employee of the National Health Service wrote a tweet about this, which was shared by more than seven thousand people.

AT USA last week, 2.4 million people applied for unemployment benefits. Back in late May, unemployment in the United States reached the level of the Great Depression.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Michael Cohen, former Donald Trump lawyer, was released from prison, Reuters reported with reference to its sources. He served just over a year from the three-year sentence to which he was sentenced in 2018.

American scientist William HazeltineOne of the world’s leading experts in the study of HIV and the human genome, said Thursday that it is better not to count on a vaccine in the fight against coronavirus.

“I would not count on her,” he said in response to a question about the vaccine.

However, the virus can be learned to control through contact tracing and social distance, the scientist believes. He also believes that governments are not taking enough measures to “isolate” virus carriers by force.

AT The Netherlands a coronavirus outbreak detected at a meat factory. After testing half of the 600 employees of the Vion-owned enterprise in Gelderland, the virus was detected in forty. The meat factory is closed.

Tour operators Greece tourist arrivals are expected to fall by 70%. On the eve of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that his country has shown the world how to deal with the virus, and the tourist season will resume in June.

Tourists will be able to return to Spain already in July, provided that the government by that time could guarantee them free movement around the country, Spanish Minister for Environmental Transformation Teresa Ribera said in an interview with the Financial Times.

AT Japan large cities exit quarantine. The state of emergency on Thursday is canceled in the prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto and Hyougo. In the metropolitan area and several other municipalities, quarantine may be lifted next week.

8849 new cases of coronavirus were recorded in Russia, of which 2913 in Moscow. A total of 317,554 people in the country confirmed the diagnosis from the beginning of the epidemic.

Ukraine partially quarantines from Thursday: city and suburban transport will resume operation and hotels will open, and from May 25 metro will again work in large cities.

Government Scotland published a plan to cancel antiviral measures. It involves the opening of all schools from August 11.

Schools will combine distance learning with classroom lessons. During the first phase of the abolition of quarantine measures in Scotland, according to the first Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, they plan to open parks, allow them to sunbathe, and also lift the ban on certain sports, in particular golf and tennis.

Scotland leaves quarantine according to its own plan, which differs from the plan submitted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Sturgeon criticized Johnson’s plan.

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