Posted: 29 May 2020 05:26 AM PDT

The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

TOP OF THE HOUR:

— Israel reports virus outbreaks at recently reopened schools.

— Berlin-based pianist plans marathon performance.

JERUSALEM — Israel's Health Ministry is warning people not to "slip into complacency" about the coronavirus after recording a spike in new cases.

The ministry reported another 64 cases late Thursday after weeks of steady improvement when the total number of active cases dropped below 2,000. New outbreaks have been linked to schools, which recently reopened after weeks of lockdown.

Israel imposed sweeping restrictions on travel and movement in mid-March. It has reported about 16,900 cases and 284 deaths.

Authorities have lifted most of the restrictions in recent weeks. This week bars, restaurants, pools and hotels were allowed to reopen. Authorities are urging people to wear masks in public and practice social distancing, but in recent days many have appeared to ignore the rules.

MALE, Maldives — The Maldives has increased the number of hours people can spend out of their homes and opened some businesses in its first relaxation of restrictions since mid-April.

The government says three passes will be issued per family and each will allow two hours out twice every week. Only one family member had been allowed to go out every week for one hour, with most supplies home delivered.

Most shops and workshops will be allowed to open and taxis and trucks can operate. The government says the spread of the virus has reached a manageable level and its prepared to handle a spike.

There are 1,513 COVID-19 patients in this tiny archipelago state of 400,000 people and five reported deaths.

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Passenger traffic has resumed at the main airport in Slovenia after more than two months of suspension.

An Air Serbia flight from the capital of Belgrade on Friday was the first to land at the Ljubljana airport. Authorities say they expect most airlines to return by early July.

Traffic relaunch at the airport is set in stages: Lufthansa, Montenegro Airlines and a Polish carrier should return by mid-June, while Swiss Air, Air Brussels, Transavio and British Airways will come next.

The STA news agency says Finnair and Iberia have decided not to fly to Slovenia this summer season. The report says Fraport Slovenia operator of the Ljubljana airport has recorded only 15% of its regular revenue since passenger flying was halted in mid-March.

Slovenia has been easing the lockdown measures in the past few weeks.

The Alpine home country of U.S. first lady Melania Trump, Slovenia is a popular tourism destination, particularly for sport enthusiasts and nature lovers.

BERLIN — Russian-German pianist Igor Levit plans a marathon performance of Erik Satie's "Vexations."

Levit told German news agency dpa the virus outbreak and the resulting lockdowns have been "brutal for us artists — physically, mentally and emotionally." Satie's work fits on a single sheet of music and involves 840 repetitions.

The Berlin-based pianist says he'll perform Saturday for about 20 hours. The concert will be streamed on various classical music sites and Levit's Twitter and Instagram accounts.

BARCELONA, Spain — Employees in Spain of Japanese giant Nissan took to the streets for the second day in a row to protest the closure of three Barcelona plants as the carmaker scales down its global production.

Hundreds of workers have surrounded on Friday at least four of Nissan's car dealerships in or around the northeastern city, covering their windows with leaflets reading "Nissan betrays 25,000 families" and "We will keep fighting" among others.

The closures by the end of the year would mean the loss of 3,000 direct jobs, and some 20,000 additional ones in the supply chain could be affected.

Both Spain's central government and the regional authorities of Catalonia, where the affected factories are, have vowed to help unions revert the Japanese company's decision. Industry Minister Reyes Maroto on Friday said that the proposal could be a "joint private-public partnership."

Although Nissan had been mulling for months to scale down its production in Europe and other parts of the world, the company is suffering like many other automakers from a plunge in demand for vehicles amid the coronavirus pandemic.

ANKARA, Turkey — Worshippers in Turkey have held their first communal Friday prayers in 74 days after the government reopened some mosques as part of its plans to relax measures in place to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

Prayers were held in the courtyards of a select number of mosques on Friday, to minimize the risk of infection.

Authorities distributed masks at the entrance to the mosques, sprayed hand sanitizers, and checked temperatures for fever.

Worshippers were asked to bring their own prayer rugs, but some mosques offered disposable paper rugs which were placed 1.5 meters (5 feet) apart.

The partial opening of the mosques follows a slowdown in the confirmed COVID-19 infections and deaths in the country.

On Thursday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to lift restrictions on movement between cities and reopen restaurants, cafes, sports centers, beaches and museums on June 1.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The number of coronavirus cases in Indonesia has surpassed 25,000 with more than 1,500 virus-related deaths as authorities are stepping up to lift large-scale social restrictions next week.

Indonesia's COVID-19 Task Force on Friday reported 678 new cases in the last 24 hours, taking the country's total to 25,216 with 1,520 deaths, the highest death toll in Southeast Asia. It also reported 6,492 recoveries.

Jakarta, the first large city to enforce partial lockdown rules in the country, has hinted that the restriction policy would not be extended after June 4.

The State-Owned Enterprises Ministry has instructed state-run companies to allow its employees to return to work in mid-June by observing health guidelines amid a surge in cases and fears of a new wave of infections with the return of hundreds of thousands of people to cities after Islamic holidays.

The government's data showed that nearly 50,000 people are under isolation and monitoring for possibly having the virus or after testing positive without showing any symptoms, while another 12,499 patients who remain in treatment are waiting for the lab-test results.

AMSTERDAM — Dutch authorities have closed a third meatpacking plant in a week for fear it would be source of coronavirus transmission.

The Van Rooi plant in the southern Netherlands was closed on health grounds after 16% of a sample of 130 workers tested positive.

"The test results show that there is a risk that the company can become a hotspot to spread the coronavirus within a short timespan," the regional security authority said in a statement.

The plant will be closed until at least June 2. Over 30,000 people work in the Dutch meatpacking and slaughterhouse industry.

PARIS — France has reported more than 3,000 new daily virus infections in the biggest such one-day rise in more than three weeks — and the first major increase since France started gradually reopening May 11.

The new figure was not included in the government's daily virus press release Thursday night, but was put on a government virus tracking website.

The national public health agency and Health Ministry didn't provide a reason for the rise Friday. It comes as testing has become more easily available in France, though it is unclear whether that is part of the reason.

The French government has gradually increased the number of tests it is conducting after widespread criticism early in the pandemic that it was not testing widely enough.

Scattered virus outbreaks have been reported since France's reopening began, notably in some schools that were subsequently shut down.

France has reported more than 28,000 virus deaths in hospitals and nursing homes and more than 149,000 people who have tested positive with the virus.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A Latvian company has launched a virus tracing app, one of the first with the joint Apple-Google operating system software — the newly released exposure notification API — saying the software that is using Bluetooth technology can detect and register other nearby mobile devices.

The country's health ministry says all data on the app, called ″Apturi Covid,″ Latvian for "Stop Covid," is encrypted and stored directly on the device. It won't be accessible to the phone owner or other users of the app that is voluntary to use.

The software "will give people the opportunity to return to their daily lives by ensure faster awareness of contact people, according to the app's Facebook page.

Latvia has 1,064 confirmed cases and 24 deaths, the Baltic News Service says.

"With the use of modern technology, we can once again gain time and go a step further. The new app will allow epidemiologists to identify contacts more quickly,″ says Elina Dimiņa, head of the Infectious Diseases Surveillance and Immunization.

Due to the decentralized and encrypted nature of the app, it aligns with EU regulations on data protection.

A Swiss coronavirus contact-tracing app was launched this month but was limited to hospital workers, members of the Swiss army and civil servants. The Latvian app is estimated to initially be used by at least 1/5 of the country's population of nearly 2 million.

MOSCOW — Russia has reported the highest daily spike in coronavirus deaths once again on Friday, with health officials registering 232 deaths in the last 24 hours, which bought the country's total to 4,374.

Russia's comparatively low mortality rate continues to raise questions among experts both in Russia and in the West, with some suggesting that the country's government may be underreporting virus-related deaths for political reasons. Russian officials deny the allegations and attribute the low numbers to the effectiveness of the measures taken to curb the spread of the outbreak.

Russia's coronavirus caseload has exceeded 387,000 on Friday, with health officials reporting over 8,500 new infections.

President Vladimir Putin announced earlier this month the lifting of some lockdown restrictions, saying that Russia was able to "slow down the epidemic." The vast majority of the country's regions have been on lockdown since March 30.

TOKYO — Tokyo will remove shutdown requests on more businesses in June when theaters, cinemas, fitness gyms and retailers can reopen after a coronavirus state of emergency ended this week.

Governor Yuriko Koike says Tokyo is ready to move to Step 2 of a three-phase roadmap designed to gradually reopen businesses in the city.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared an end to a seven-week emergency on Monday, saying the infections have subsided enough to resume social and economic activity under a "new normal" requiring physical distancing and other disease prevention measures.

Tokyo reported 22 new cases Friday, triggering concerns of an underlying risk and a possible second wave of infections. Koike says infections are not accelerating and hospitals have space.

Libraries, museums and schools, considered to be lowest risk, reopened in Tokyo this week. Under Step 2, theaters, cinemas, fitness gyms, cram schools and retailers can resume businesses. Night clubs, karaoke and live music houses, which are considered more prone to infections, will be last.

Even though its emergency measures only involved requests for social distancing and some business closures, Japan so far has about 16,700 cases and 870 deaths, significantly fewer than many other countries.

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa says it has a backlog of nearly 100,000 unprocessed tests for the coronavirus.

A health ministry statement overnight puts the backlog at 96,480 on Monday. The ministry says "this challenge is caused by the limited availability of test kits globally." It says priority is given to processing tests from patients admitted to hospitals and health workers.

South Africa has conducted more tests for the virus than any other country in Africa — more than 655,000 — and has more confirmed cases than any other country on the continent with 27,403. The ministry says one of the latest people to die in South Africa was an employee with the National Health Laboratory Services.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Muslims in some parts of Indonesia attended Friday prayers as mosques closed by the coronavirus were allowed to start reopening in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

The guidelines for worship facilities released by religious affairs minister Fachrul Razi. Worshippers usually pray shoulder to shoulder, and they huddle, hug and shake hands once the prayer ends, with cheek-to-cheek kisses common.

Muslims in the Jakarta nearby city of Bekasi were expected to stay at least 1 meter (yard) apart from one another without shaking hands and would hear shorter sermons. No children were allowed to join the prayers, and police and soldiers were there to ensure health protocols such as social distancing and wearing a mask were observed.

Similar scenes were seen in another satellite city of Bogor, and Makassar, one of Indonesia's big cities on Sulawesi island.

President Joko Widodo says his administration wants Indonesia to remain productive economically but also safe from the virus. He says any measures to start the so-called "new normal" would be based on epidemiological data.

Indonesia had recorded more than 24,500 COVID-19 cases by Thursday and nearly 1,500 deaths, the most in Southeast Asia.

The Latest: Spain to offer families minimum monthly income - WNYT

Posted: 29 May 2020 06:41 AM PDT

- Russian government acknowledges deaths of likely COVID-19 victims.

- New York City to begin reopening on June 8, governor says.

___

BEIJING - Around 400 German managers, workers and family members have begun returning to China aboard charter flights as multinational companies in the world's second-largest economy seek to get their operations running again at full speed.

A pair of flights from Frankfurt to the Chinese business hubs of Tianjin and Shanghai were organized by the German Chamber of Commerce in China in cooperation with Germany's diplomatic missions and airline Lufthansa and are the first repatriation flights from Europe to China for foreign nationals. China has largely banned all foreigners from entering China because of the coronavirus outbreak.

"This is an important step to reconnect China's and Germany's economies," Jens Hildebrandt, executive director of the German Chamber of Commerce in North China, was quoted as saying in a news release. "It is our common interest to contribute in helping the economy return to normalcy and pre-virus levels." More than 5,200 German companies operate in China, employing more than 1 million people. "We know there is a huge demand in the German business community to get more foreign employees back to China," Hildebrandt was quoted as saying.

The first flight with 200 passengers was due to arrive shortly before noon on Saturday in Tianjin, a port city just east of the capital Beijing. Another flight to Shanghai. The second flight was expected to arrive in Shanghai around midday on Thursday, June 4.

___

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea reported 39 new cases of the coronavirus, most of them in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where officials have found more than a hundred infections linked to warehouse workers.

Figures from South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought national totals to 11,441 cases and 269 deaths. At least 12 of the new cases were linked to international arrivals.

KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong said during a virus briefing Friday afternoon that at least 102 infections have been linked to workers at a massive warehouse operated by Coupang, a local e-commerce giant that has seen orders spike during the epidemic.

The company has been criticized for failing to implement proper preventive measures and enforce distance between employees, with virus discovered on the safety helmets, laptops, keyboards and other equipment they share.

Health workers have also found at least 266 infections linked to nightclubs and other entertainment venues in the Seoul metropolitan area, which saw huge crowds in early May as officials eased social distancing guidelines.

The resurgence in infections have alarmed officials as millions of children have been returning to schools nationwide.

While shutting nightspots and public spaces to slow the spread of the virus, government officials have so far maintained the phased reopening of schools, expressing hope that the recent transmissions could be contained quickly.

___

BEIJING - China reported four new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Saturday, all brought from outside the country and no new deaths.

Just 63 people remained in treatment and another 401 were under isolation and monitoring for showing signs of having the virus or of testing positive for it without showing any symptoms.

China has reported a total of 4,634 deaths among 82,999 cases since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese industrial city of Wuhan. Although virtually everyone still wears masks in public, most offices, shops and restaurants have re-opened, although the economic fallout from months of lockdown in most of the country have left millions unemployed and, combined with a worsening trade dispute with the U.S. and drop in global demand, it remains unclear how many jobs will return.

___

Health officials said Friday that they were seeking to "inform mass numbers of unknown people" after a person who attended crowded pool parties over Memorial Day weekend at Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks tested positive for COVID-19.

Camden County Health Department said in a release that the resident of Boone County in mid-Missouri tested positive on Sunday after arriving at the lake area a day earlier. Officials said there have been no reported cases of the virus linked to coronavirus in residents of Camden County, where the parties seen in videos and photos posted on social media took place.

Because "mass numbers of unknown people" need to be notified, the officials released a brief timeline of the person's whereabouts last weekend, including stops at a bar called Backwater Jacks, a bar and restaurant that has a pool, as well as a dining and pool venue called Shady Gators and Lazy Gators.

Backwater Jacks owner Gary Prewitt said previously in a statement that no laws were broken, though the images appeared to show people violating Republican Gov. Mike Parson's state order requiring social distancing.

Parson allowed businesses and attractions to reopen May 4, but the state order requires 6-foot (2-meter) social distancing through at least the end of May.

___

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations secretary-general has announced the deaths of two U.N. peacekeepers from COVID-19.

Antonio Guterres made the announcement at a ceremony Friday, which is the International Day of U.N. Peacekeepers, saying both peacekeepers were serving in Mali. The U.N. said one was from Cambodia and the other from El Salvador.

Guterres said the COVID-19 pandemic has changed almost everything, but not "the service, sacrifice and selflessness" of the more than 95,000 men and women serving in the U.N.'s 13 peacekeeping missions around the world.

According to the U.N. peacekeeping department, there have been 137 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in U.N. peacekeeping operations, with the greatest number by far - 90 cases - in Mali. The deaths are the first from the virus among peacekeepers.

More than 3,900 U.N. staffers have died on duty since 1948. That includes more than 100 U.N. peacekeepers killed in Mali since 2013 when the mission began in the aftermath of a French-led military operation to oust Islamic extremists from power.

___

NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans will likely ease restrictions on gatherings and businesses more slowly than the rest of Louisiana, a city health official said Friday.

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards is expected to announce Monday whether Louisiana will further ease restrictions when current emergency orders expire June 5.

But New Orleans - where huge Mardi Gras crowds in late February are suspected of contributing to a deadly COVID-19 outbreak - will likely move more slowly than the state, city health department director Jennifer Avegno said.

"New Orleans has to be more careful," Avegno said during a live-streamed news conference. "Because what happens regionally affects us more than it does a lot of other places. Not just regionally within Louisiana but regionally within the Gulf South."

One concern she cited was large Memorial Day gatherings along the Gulf Coast in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi that might have included New Orleans residents. She noted a photo of large gatherings on a northwest Florida beach.

"There is no social distancing. This kind of sight gives public health folks a whole lot of heartburn," Avegno said.

City officials want more time to collect and analyze data to determine the effect of New Orleans residents' visits to such Memorial Day events before further loosening restrictions.

___

ORLANDO, Fla. - Universal Orlando plans to reopen its hotels to guests on June 2, more than two months after they were closed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

In a statement Friday, Universal said the hotels will be carefully managed in phases, and will reopen with a range of best practice and hygiene procedures.

Guests staying in the resort hotels will be able to visit Universal's theme parks on June 3 and 4, before they fully reopen to the public on June 5.

SeaWorld plans to reopen on June 11 and Walt Disney World announced it will begin reopening in phases on July 11.

___

MOSCOW - The Russian government has presented updated coronavirus statistics to include deaths of those who tested positive for the virus but died of other causes.

Friday's announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova followed criticism from some Russian and Western experts who alleged that Russian authorities were under-reporting COVID-19 deaths for political reasons.

Golikova said 1,675 people died of COVID-19 in April. Of that number, 1,136 deaths were directly caused by COVID-19, while the remaining 539 people tested negative but had symptoms indicating they most likely died of the virus. In addition, Golikova said 1,038 others tested positive for the virus but died of other causes.

If all those deaths are attributed to COVID-19, the nation's total toll for April would be 2,713 or nearly 60% more than the previously announced number.

Golikova said Russia was closely following the World Health Organization's guidance on registering coronavirus deaths.

___

ROME - Italy's health ministry has reported no critical coronavirus infection spikes in any region, giving a positive go-ahead for the planned June 3 reopening of Italy to inter-regional travel by Italians and Europeans alike.

The ministry on Friday issued a region-by-region breakdown of infection rates over the past week. The weekly report is part of Italy's post-lockdown strategy to keep a close eye on infection rates and the ability of the national health system to respond to any new COVID-19 clusters in the onetime European epicenter of the pandemic.

The report said regions such as hard-hit Lombardy still showed a complex, high level of virus circulation, but said the situation was coming under control. The ministry recommended "caution, especially in the moment in which the frequency of movement of people across the national territory increases."

Also Friday, Lombardy's regional governor was interrogated by prosecutors investigating the failure of authorities to lock down Alzano Lombardo and other towns in Bergamo province after the first positive case there was registered Feb. 23. It took two weeks for the government to lock down all of Lombardy, allowing the virus to spread exponentially and kill thousands.

___

LAS VEGAS - Bleak numbers show the economic impact of Nevada casino and business closures because of the coronavirus pandemic.

With most businesses and all casinos shuttered through April, state regulators reported Friday that monthly gambling tax revenues were down nearly 100% compared with a year ago. Tourism officials tallied fewer than 107,000 visitors to Las Vegas during the month, down 97% from a year ago.

Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak this week lifted closure orders on more businesses and said gambling can resume on June 4. McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas reported handling less than 4% of the passengers in April than it did in April 2019.

___

Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

The Latest: Univ of Virginia to reopen for students in Aug - Sentinel & Enterprise

Posted: 29 May 2020 09:05 AM PDT

By The Associated Press

TOP OF THE HOUR:

— Two United Nations peacekeepers serving in Mali have died of COVID-19.

— New Orleans likely to reopen more slowly than rest of Louisiana.

— Russian government acknowledges deaths of likely COVID-19 victims.

— New York City to begin reopening on June 8, governor says.

___

BEIJING — Around 400 German managers, workers and family members have begun returning to China aboard charter flights as multinational companies in the world's second-largest economy seek to get their operations running again at full speed.

___

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea reported 39 new cases of the coronavirus, most of them in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where officials have found more than a hundred infections linked to warehouse workers.

The resurgence in infections have alarmed officials as millions of children have been returning to schools nationwide.

___

BEIJING — China reported four new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Saturday, all brought from outside the country and no new deaths.

Just 63 people remained in treatment and another 401 were under isolation and monitoring for showing signs of having the virus or of testing positive for it without showing any symptoms.

___

Parson allowed businesses and attractions to reopen May 4, but the state order requires 6-foot (2-meter) social distancing through at least the end of May.

___

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations secretary-general has announced the deaths of two U.N. peacekeepers from COVID-19.

According to the U.N. peacekeeping department, there have been 137 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in U.N. peacekeeping operations, with the greatest number by far — 90 cases — in Mali. The deaths are the first from the virus among peacekeepers.

___

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans will likely ease restrictions on gatherings and businesses more slowly than the rest of Louisiana, a city health official said Friday.

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards is expected to announce Monday whether Louisiana will further ease restrictions when current emergency orders expire June 5.

But New Orleans — where huge Mardi Gras crowds in late February are suspected of contributing to a deadly COVID-19 outbreak — will likely move more slowly than the state, city health department director Jennifer Avegno said.

"There is no social distancing. This kind of sight gives public health folks a whole lot of heartburn," Avegno said.

City officials want more time to collect and analyze data to determine the effect of New Orleans residents' visits to such Memorial Day events before further loosening restrictions.

___

ORLANDO, Fla. — Universal Orlando plans to reopen its hotels to guests on June 2, more than two months after they were closed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

In a statement Friday, Universal said the hotels will be carefully managed in phases, and will reopen with a range of best practice and hygiene procedures.

Guests staying in the resort hotels will be able to visit Universal's theme parks on June 3 and 4, before they fully reopen to the public on June 5.

SeaWorld plans to reopen on June 11 and Walt Disney World announced it will begin reopening in phases on July 11.

___

MOSCOW — The Russian government has presented updated coronavirus statistics to include deaths of those who tested positive for the virus but died of other causes.

If all those deaths are attributed to COVID-19, the nation's total toll for April would be 2,713 or nearly 60% more than the previously announced number.

Golikova said Russia was closely following the World Health Organization's guidance on registering coronavirus deaths.

___

ROME — Italy's health ministry has reported no critical coronavirus infection spikes in any region, giving a positive go-ahead for the planned June 3 reopening of Italy to inter-regional travel by Italians and Europeans alike.

___

LAS VEGAS — Bleak numbers show the economic impact of Nevada casino and business closures because of the coronavirus pandemic.

___

Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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