Spain edges out of Covid-19 lockdown as the wider world takes further steps
Spain is beginning to exit their Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced that facemasks will be mandatory on public transport from Monday.
He says 14.5 million mask will be distributed to residents.
Meanwhile, adults and older children have been allowed outdoors to exercise for the first time in seven weeks.
Italy
Italy’s special commissioner for coronavirus says antibody blood tests will begin on Monday, along with a gradual loosening of Italy’s two-month lockdown.
Domenico Arcuri calls it a new challenge, “which by now is clear to everyone, we don’t know how long it will last”.
The government says it will administer the first 150,000 antibody blood tests on a sample population starting on Monday. More nasal tests have been distributed throughout the country in a bid to identify and isolate positive cases.
Italy is opening parks and allowing funerals to resume with a maximum 15 people. Individuals must observe social distancing rules.
Singapore
Selected businesses will be allowed to reopen from May 12 in a cautious rollback of Singapore’s two-month partial lockdown to curb the virus spread.
The city-state has seen a sharp rise in infections, with 932 new cases on Saturday to take its total to 17,101. About 85% of its infections are linked to foreign workers living in crowded dormitories.
Despite this, the health ministry said cases in the local community have declined. It said the average daily infections in the community has dropped by more than half to 12 in the past week, while cases with unknown sources have also fallen to an average of six a day.
China
China, where the pandemic began in December, reported one new infection and no deaths in the 24 hours until midnight on Friday.
The country has reported a total of 82,875 confirmed cases and 4,633 deaths.
The National Health Commission reported 43 people were released from hospitals on Friday after being declared recovered, raising the total to 77,685. There were a total 557 people still in hospital on the mainland.
Pakistan
Pakistan recorded its highest single day increase in new Covid-19 infections with 1,297 cases reported to bring the total in the country of 220 million people to 18,114.
The increase also coincides with a a growing number of daily tests being carried out. In the last 24 hours Pakistan conducted more than 9,000 tests, also its largest single day testing as it struggles to climb to daily testing of 20,000 promised nearly two weeks ago by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Even as the number of new cases increase pictures in local newspapers showed large numbers of the faithful attending some of Pakistan’s mosques with only sporadic signs of the social distancing rules imposed by the government when it refused to shut down mosques during Ramadan, Islam’s fasting month.
Mr Khan’s government has also suggested it might ease lockdown rules governing retail shops ahead of the holiday of Eid-ul Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan, later this month.
South Korea
South Korea has reported six fresh cases of coronavirus, continuing a month-long streak of below 100.
Infections continue to wane in the hardest-hit city of Daegu, where no new cases were detected.
Figures released by South Korea’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought national figures to 10,780 cases and 250 virus-related deaths.
At least 1,081 cases have been linked to international arrivals, but these cases have also declined in recent weeks as the government strengthened border controls, such as enforcing 14-day quarantines on all passengers coming from overseas.
