The premier of the Australian state of Victoria has issued a stern warning to Melburnians not to travel to regional Victoria, saying the “odds are very poor” for city dwellers thinking of escaping the city’s “ring of steel” .
The state will be effectively divided from Thursday, as regional Victoria gradually reopens from Covid-19 restrictions, while Melbourne remains in a tight lockdown.
“Anyone who thinks they might take a punt on heading to regional Victoria and not get caught, I think your odds are very poor,” the premier said.
The warning comes as Victoria recorded 28 new Covid-19 cases overnight, along with eight deaths, six of those linked to aged care. The last time new case numbers were in the 20s was on 24 June.
An official said Wednesday that Mexico City suffered 20,535 excess deaths attributable to Covid-19 between April and August, almost double the number reported in the official death toll of 11,318, AP reports.
The head of the city’s Digital Innovation Agency, David Merino, said there were 30,462 excess deaths in the city between 1 April and the end of August, about two-thirds of which were determined to be due to coronavirus. Excess deaths are computed by comparing the number of deaths in previous years and comparing them to 2020.
Merino wrote in his Twitter account that 92% of those deaths were in hospitals and 7% at private residences. The city of almost 9 million inhabitants, like the rest of Mexico, has had an extremely low testing rate and officials have acknowledged that the numbers of test-confirmed cases and deaths probably underestimate the real figures.
These are figures that describe a tragedy, Merino wrote.
Merino did specify how the city had assigned that number of excess deaths to Covid-19, but city officials have been leading an effort to review death certificates to determine how many untested people had probably died of coronavirus.
It was also unclear whether test-confirmed cases were included in the excess-death figures.
Here is the full story on New Zealand:
New Zealand has entered a recession with the economy contracting 12.2% in the June quarter – the largest drop since such records began in 1987.
Paul Pascoe at Stats NZ said the GDP fall was “by far the largest on record in New Zealand” and reflected months spent in lockdown.
Industries such as retail, accommodation, restaurants and transport saw significant declines; as did construction and manufacturing at 25.8% and 13% respectively.
Household domestic spending dropped by 12%.
Annually, GDP fell by 2% – the first annual decline since the March 2010 quarter.
New Zealand’s economic retraction is higher than Australia’s 7% and Canada at 11.5%, but much less than in India, Singapore and the UK:
New York mayor to furlough all staff – including himself – for one week
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to furlough everyone in his office, including himself, for week without pay in order to close a budget shortfall created by the pandemic, Reuters reports.
The coronavirus outbreak had caused the city to lose $9 billion in revenue and forced a $7 billion cut to the city’s annual budget, de Blasio told reporters.
The furloughs will save only about $1 million, the mayor said, but may serve as a useful symbol as he continues to negotiate with labor unions representing municipal employees over broader payroll savings. De Blasio plans to work without pay during his own week-long furlough, the New York Times reported.
“It was not a decision I made lightly,” he told reporters. “To have to do this is painful for them and their families, but it is the right thing to do at this moment in history.”
With the furloughs and other savings, the mayor’s office budget this fiscal year will be 12% smaller than it was last year, de Blasio said, though he did not provide absolute totals.
The policy will affect 495 staff, the Times reported, and the week-long furloughs will be staggered among them between October and March 2021. De Blasio has warned he may have to lay off 22,000 city employees if savings cannot be found in the negotiations with the labor unions.
Thousands of stroke patients have suffered avoidable disability because NHS care for them was disrupted during the pandemic, a report claims.
Many people who had just had a stroke found it harder to obtain clot-busting drugs or undergo surgery to remove a blood clot from their brain, both of which need to happen quickly.
Rehabilitation services, which are vital to help reduce the impact of a stroke, also stopped working normally as the NHS focused on Covid, the Stroke Association said. It is concerned “many could lose out on the opportunity to make their best possible recovery”:
New Zealand sees record fall in GDP
New Zealand’s Gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 12.2% in the June 2020 quarter, the largest quarterly fall recorded since 1987, as the Covid-19 restrictions impacted economic activity, Stats NZ said today.
National accounts senior manager Paul Pascoe said: “The 12.2% fall in quarterly GDP is by far the largest on record in New Zealand.”
Annually, GDP fell by 2.0%. This is the first annual decline since the March 2010 quarter.
Throughout the quarter New Zealand’s borders remained closed.
“Industries like retail, accommodation and restaurants, and transport saw significant declines in production because they were most directly affected by the international travel ban and strict nationwide lockdown,” Mr Pascoe said.
Household spending also dropped by just over 12%.
— to www.theguardian.com
