Bhinneka News Online: Wednesday Morning Briefing: U.S. protesters, angry at Floyd's death, defy curfew but violence subsides

U.S. Protests

Demonstrators defy curfew but violence subsides

U.S. protesters ignored curfews overnight as they vented their anger over the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, but there was a marked drop in the violence that prompted President Donald Trump to threaten to deploy the military.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of cities coast to coast for an eighth night as National Guard troops lined the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Exclusive: A majority of Americans sympathize with nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd and disapprove of President Donald Trump’s response to the unrest, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The survey conducted on Monday and Tuesday found 64% of American adults were “sympathetic to people who are out protesting right now,” while 27% said they were not and 9% were unsure.

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

India's peak still weeks away

India's coronavirus infections crossed 200,000, official figures showed on Wednesday, and a peak could still be weeks away in the world's second-most populous country, where the economy has begun re-opening after a lockdown imposed in March.

"We are very far away for the peak," said Dr Nivedita Gupta, of the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research. Government officials have previously said it could be later this month, or even July, before cases start to fall off. Six other nations, including the United States, Britain and Brazil, have higher caseloads, and India's mortality rate has been comparably low. But infections are rising as it ends a lockdown of its 1.3 billion people.

Asymptomatic but not infectious

After testing 9.9 million of 11 million people in a vast testing campaign that began on May 14, the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began, has found no new cases of people suffering from the disease and 300 asymptomatic carriers of the virus.

China does not count people who are infected with the virus but do not show symptoms of the disease as confirmed cases. Officials told reporters that the asymptomatic carriers had been found not to be infectious; masks, toothbrushes, phones, door handles and elevator buttons that they touched had no traces of the virus.

Sea, sand and social distancing

A cluster of Caribbean islands are reopening this month for international tourism, hoping to burnish their reputations as oases of tranquility after containing their coronavirus outbreaks and implementing strict new public health protocols.

The Caribbean is the most tourism dependent region in the world. The move is a pilot test for other regions planning to restart tourism after pandemic-induced lockdowns.

Antigua and Barbuda, the U.S. Virgin Islands and St. Lucia are the first to reopen this week. Jamaica and Aruba are set to follow later in the month, with July target dates for the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

Sweden 'could have done better'

Sweden should have done more to combat the coronavirus, the epidemiologist behind a national strategy that avoided the strict lockdowns seen in many other countries said.

Anders Tegnell's comments followed mounting criticism of the government's handling of the crisis and a policy that has relied largely on voluntary action, social distancing and common-sense hygiene advice but has failed to prevent the virus spreading. Sweden has a lower COVID-19 mortality rate than European countries such as Britain, Spain and Italy which enforced stringent lockdowns.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Axa, Sweden, Woolworths, Russia
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

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EMERGING FROM LOCKDOWN

Nelson Aguilar used to sell the rabbits that he raises on his Havana rooftop to restaurants. Now, with an ongoing pandemic, the 70-year-old uses them as currency, exchanging them for food or detergent to avoid multi-hour queues at poorly stocked shops.

He’s not alone. More Cubans are turning to bartering to meet their shopping needs, be it in person or on social media groups, as the novel coronavirus crisis worsens existing shortages of basic goods in the Communist-run island.

The easing of coronavirus lockdowns in cities around the world could lead to a rise in evictions of slum dwellers, housing experts warned on Wednesday, with healthcare workers and migrants also facing difficulties finding homes.

More than 6 million people have been reported infected with the coronavirus globally, according to a Reuters tally, with slums from Brazil to the Philippines emerging as hotspots.

COVID Science

Immune system overreaction may not be cause of bad outcomes

Respiratory failure in patients with COVID-19 has been attributed by doctors to an overreaction of the immune system known as a cytokine storm that leads to tissue damage in the lungs.

New data appear to turn that theory on its head. In a new study, only 4% of the 71 patients with severe COVID-19 had a true cytokine storm, Paul Thomas of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and Ali Ellebedy of Washington University School of Medicine told Reuters in a joint email.

Instead, their team found, most COVID-19 patients had some increased cytokines, but overall they had lower levels of cytokines unleashed by the immune system than seen in typical cases of influenza.

COVID-19 survivors will need rehab therapy, experts say

Patients should not be left to recover from COVID-19 on their own, according to a panel of UK experts. The specialists from a wide variety of disciplines, including sport and exercise medicine, general internal medicine, psychology and pain, issued detailed rehabilitation recommendations for patients with lingering affects of the illness, in particular for active individuals like military personnel and athletes.

"It is predicted that 45% of patients discharged from hospital will require support from healthcare and social care and 4% will require rehabilitation in a bedded setting," the experts concluded in the guidelines published on Sunday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.