COVID Latest: Hydroxychloroquine Study Halted After 'Uncertainty', Deaths
Tuesday: Trump golfs as U.S. deaths near 100K; Boris Johnson's top aide under fire
Morning! It’s Tuesday, May 26. Here’s today’s ‘5+5: coronavirus edition’.
Each day I’m bringing you 5 things to know about COVID-19 + 5 non-corona things too.
If you haven’t already, please sign up above ^^ to get this every day in your emails (and tell your friends).
You can email me at joshbutler.journalist@protonmail.com for tips, ideas or want to chat. You can also find me on Twitter at @joshbutler; on Facebook; or on Instagram.
Wash your hands and sneeze into your elbow. Remember physical distancing - at least 1.5 metres of separation.
Latest Australian stats: as of 9pm Monday, Australia has 7118 reported cases of COVID-19 (that’s +9 since the day before), with 6532 reported as ‘recovered’; there have been 102 deaths; and more than 1,244,000 tests have been done, according to the latest federal Department of Health stats. Full global stats breakdown below.
5 CORONAVIRUS THINGS
Hydroxychloroquine trial stopped after “uncertainty”, deaths
The World Health Organisation has temporarily halted a trial into the use of anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus. Use of the drug, touted by U.S. President Donald Trump — who recently said he was actually taking it — has been linked in some studies to higher death rates. The WHO said today that “in the light of this uncertainty” that it would “err on the side of caution and suspend enrollment temporarily” into the trial (link).
‘Questionable tactics’ from job providers
The New Daily has published an exclusive on employment agencies allegedly misbehaving through the coronavirus pandemic (link). Job providers are paid fees by the government for each person they help into work, and some employees of these agencies claim they’re being pressured to keep meeting targets even amidst the COVID economic downturn and unemployment spikes.
The New Daily alleges “a pattern of questionable tactics by private job providers”, with one man who already had a job claiming he was pressured to sign a contract agreeing to keep attending job interviews.
Calls for Boris Johnson’s chief adviser to resign over breaching COVID laws
A major scandal is boiling over in the United Kingdom, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top staffer Dominic Cummings facing calls to resign over claims he breached the country’s strict COVID lockdown laws in March (link). Cummings is Johnson’s chief adviser (imagine the Peta Credlin to Tony Abbott), and in late March, his wife — a British journalist — became ill, exhibiting coronavirus symptoms. He went home to care for her, then returned to the PM’s residence in Downing Street, before that night driving around 400km to the rural town of Durham so his family could isolate at his parents’ house. This is despite British rules at the time requiring people to self-isolate for a fortnight after experiencing symptoms, so Cummings going back to work and then driving five hours to a different home is not exactly ideal.
Cumings and Johnson were both later diagnosed with COVID. Facing ferocious calls to step down, Cummings overnight held an extraordinary press conference, in which he confirmed he left the family property several times during a period he was supposed to be isolating, including once to pick up his wife and son from hospital. He also confirmed the family had driven to a small town 50km away, despite the rules against ‘unnecessary journeys’, claiming that the virus had damaged his eyesight and he needed to test whether he could drive back to London.
Cummings flatly rejected calls to resign, claiming all his actions were allowed, and that the laws “inevitably do not cover all circumstances, including those that I found myself in”. This is a long and tricky story, but wild. It goes to questions over whether ruling elites believe laws apply as equally to themselves as they do to everyone else — especially as the British COVID death toll and total cases sit at second and fourth in the world respectively.
Trump defends golfing as U.S. death toll nears 100K
Staying on inappropriate government responses to coronavirus, U.S. President Donald Trump has predictably issued a multi-tweet screed against critics who bagged him for playing golf over the weekend (link). Trump played a round in Virginia, what he said was his first in three months, later calling news media “sick” and “deranged” for reporting it.
In between, the President retweeted messages calling Hillary Clinton a “skank”, and shared a decade-old conspiracy theory about the death of an employee of talk show host Joe Scarborough — a Trump critic. All this happened on Memorial Day Weekend, where America honours war casualties, and as the U.S. COVID death toll sits over 98,000.
Today’s stats:
The latest stats from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (as of 6.30am AEST Tuesday) report 5,467,945 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. There have been 344,731 deaths.
The United States has 1,657,441 confirmed cases, with Brazil next but far behind on 363,211, then Russia (353,427). The U.S. has the most deaths (98,034), then the United Kingdom (36,996) and Italy third on 32,877.
In Australia, the latest federal stats (as of 9pm Monday) show 7118 cases, 6532 people recovered, 102 deaths, and 1,244,200 tests.
The latest Australian graph:
5 NON-CORONAVIRUS THINGS
Bizarre weather continues to batter the entire country, with huge storms in WA, and massive winds and bitter cold on the east coast (link).
The $51 million raised by Celeste Barber’s online bushfire fundraiser cannot go to other charities but it can be distributed to injured firefighters, a court has ruled (link).
The ‘black summer’ bushfire season was predicted and will happen again, a parliamentary inquiry into disaster response has heard (link). “This isn’t a one-off event that we’re looking at here,” a Bureau of Meteorology climate expert said.
On a related note, climate change in the deep parts of the ocean could accelerate to seven times its current rate by the middle of this century, a scary new report claims (link).
Considering the above points, please enjoy watching this coal-fired power station have its chimneys blown up (link).
IMPORTANT EVERY DAY
Be hygienic; wash your hands properly, at least 30 seconds with soap and water, multiple times a day (here’s how you need to do it, plus a handy Dr Karl video tutorial); sneeze and cough into your elbows.
Listen to only official information from the World Health Organisation and legitimate health bodies — Don’t share dodgy stuff on Facebook. If it looks too good (or bad) to be true, it often is.
World Health Organisation latest statistics here.
Australian government latest statistics here.
Signing off — stay safe, be healthy, look after yourself and others.
Josh