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Coronavirus live news: Italy's death toll far higher than reported, says country's statistics office

French hospital discovers Covid-19 case from December; cases in Germany likely to be 10 times higher than official count, say researchers; Japan extends state of emergency as global cases top 3.5m
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Britain’s Covid-19 death toll has risen by 288 to 28,734, according to figures announced by health secretary Matt Hancock.
The increase was the smallest since late March, Hancock said, adding that he expected it to rise in coming days as the numbers tended to be lower over the weekend.
Coronavirus deaths in Italy climbed by 195 on Monday, up from 174 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, but the daily tally of new infections declined to 1,221 from 1,389 on Sunday.
Italy’s daily death toll in recent weeks has always fallen on Sundays and risen the following day, while the underlying trend has been steadily declining since a peak above 900 daily fatalities around the end of March.
The total death toll now stands at 29,079 the agency said, the second highest in the world after the United States.
The number of confirmed cases amounts to 211,938.
Italy’s true death toll from the disease is much higher than is reported in the daily bulletins, the national statistics agency said in an analysis of mortalities from all causes released on Monday.
There were 1,479 people in intensive care on Monday against 1,501 the day before, maintaining a long-running decline.
Of those originally infected, 82,879 were declared recovered against 81,654 on Sunday.
US senators returned to Washington for the first time in nearly six weeks on Monday, amid concerns that their legislative sessions could put lawmakers and staff at risk of contracting the Covid-19.
The Senate was due to reconvene to address partisan differences over the next step in legislation to combat the pandemic and to scrutinize a series of nominations for senior government posts put forward by president Donald Trump.
Democrats and Republicans are at odds over the contents of any new coronavirus legislation. Democrats want up to $1tn to help state and local governments weather the brunt of the pandemic.
Republicans are demanding liability protections for businesses, which Democrats oppose, as a condition for moving forward on any bill.
Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said Trump is looking at ways to stimulate travel and wants tax changes for business entertainment expenses to get people to go back to restaurants.
The Capitol dome at dusk in Washington, the day before Senate resumed.
 The Capitol dome at dusk in Washington, the day before Senate resumed. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP
With Washington still under a stay-at-home order, lawmakers have been advised by the congressional physician to wear masks, maintain a distance of six feet (2 metres) and limit the number of staff on Capitol Hill.
The first real test of the recommendations will come at 5.30pm (ET), when senators are due for a roll call vote on Robert Feitel’s nomination to be inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, called the Republican-led Senate back into session, saying lawmakers would join American workers in essential sectors of the economy to address “critical business” on several fronts.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives chose instead to remain in recess this week because of potential health risks.
With some Democratic lawmakers warning that the Senate’s return could risk spreading the virus, the Trump administration last week offered Congress 1,000 coronavirus tests.
McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down the offer over the weekend, a decision that came under fire on Monday.
“By Congress not wanting the special 5 minute testing apparatus, they are saying that they are not ‘essential’,” Trump wrote in a tweet.
US speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, wears a mask as she arrives at her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill.
 US speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, wears a mask as she arrives at her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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There were feelings of relief and trepidation as people in Italy returned to the streets after almost two months indoors under a strict lockdown.
Rina Sondhi, who lives in the Umbrian town of Orvieto, said:
I literally haven’t been out of the house. The biggest shock for me was the fresh air.
Today I feel liberated, but with caution – that’s the important thing, we can have the freedom but we must be really careful.
An estimated 4 million people returned to work on Monday as part of what the Italian government called the second phase of the country’s coronavirus emergency, with the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, appealing to the public in a Facebook post on Sunday night to “act responsibly”.
Trenord, the company that manages train services in Lombardy, Italy’s industrial hub and the region worst affected by the outbreak, said the commuter flow in the morning rush-hour was about 30% of pre-outbreak levels.
Usually buzzing with activity in the morning, people wearing face masks queued outside bars in Orvieto as they waited for their espresso. “This is a great step even if we have to remain cautious – it gives you something else to smile about,” said Slavik Cebanu.
Jaskaran Singh, who works in Caffè Barrique, said: “We are happy to be able to open even if things are still restricted, and to see some movement. I just hope everything goes well.”
Jaskaran Singh, a worker at Caffè Barrique, as Italy slowly emerges from strict lockdown.
 Jaskaran Singh, a worker at Caffè Barrique, as Italy slowly emerges from strict lockdown. Photograph: Angela Giuffrida/The Guardian
Although the infection rate has been steadily falling, fear of the virus lingers.
Valentina Santanicchio, a chef whose restaurant in Orvieto, Capitano del Popolo, has been providing home deliveries, said:
In some ways, I’m more afraid than when we closed, as a lot will now depend on people managing the moment in a responsible way.
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The Czech government has agreed to lift a ban on international bus and train travel from 11 May, a member of the government said.
The measure was put in place on 14 March in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19.
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Traditional Thai dancers wearing protective face shields perform at the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, which was reopened after the Thai government relaxed lockdown measures.
 Traditional Thai dancers wearing protective face shields perform at the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, which was reopened after the Thai government relaxed lockdown measures. Photograph: Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images
Yemen has reported two new coronavirus infections in Hadhramout, the national emergency coronavirus committee said on Monday, raising the number of diagnosed infections in the war-town country to 12 with two deaths.
The province of Hadhramout was where Yemen recorded its first case of Covid-19 on 10 April.
The United Nations says it fears the coronavirus could be spreading undetected among an acutely malnourished population with inadequate testing capabilities.
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French hospital discovers Covid-19 case from December

A French hospital has retested old samples from pneumonia patients and discovered that it treated a man who had Covid-19 as early as 27 December, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.
Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told BFM TV that scientists had retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who tested negative for the flu.
“Of the 24, we had one who was positive for Covid-19 on December 27,” he told the news channel on Sunday.
Each sample was retested several times to ensure there were no errors, he added.
France, which has seen almost 25,000 people die from the virus since 1 March, confirmed its first three Covid-19 cases on 24 January, including two patients in Paris and another in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.
Cohen said it was too early to know if the patient whose 27 December test was Covid-19 positive is France’s “patient zero”.
Knowing who was the first is critical to understanding how the virus spread.
Cohen said the patient had survived and that an investigation to trace the first contamination has been carried out. He said:
He was sick for 15 days and infected his two children, but not his wife, who works in a supermarket.
He was amazed, he didn’t understand how he had been infected. We put the puzzle together and he had not made any trips. The only contact that he had was with his wife.
The man’s wife worked alongside a Sushi stand, close to colleagues of Chinese origin, Cohen said.
It was not clear whether those colleagues had travelled to China, and the local health authority should investigate, he said.
“We’re wondering whether she was asymptomatic,” he said.
“He may be the ‘patient zero’, but perhaps there are others in other regions.”
So far 6.3 million workers in Britain have been furloughed, with £8bn ($9.9bn) claimed from the government to sustain their wages during the coronavirus lockdown, tax authorities said on Monday.
HM Revenue and Customs said on Twitter that 800,000 employers had furloughed their staff, citing figures up to midnight on Sunday.
HM Revenue & Customs(@HMRCgovuk)
The Job Retention Scheme launched on 20 April.

By midnight 3 May a total of:

➡️ 6.3m jobs furloughed *
➡️ 800K employers furloughing **
➡️ Total value of claims £8bn

Apply for a grant to cover the wages of your furloughed staff now: https://t.co/bx1Nszshsr pic.twitter.com/29n9h0RB2k
May 4, 2020
The major Canadian province of Quebec, among the worst hit by the coronavirus, started gradually restarting its economy on Monday, while prime minister Justin Trudeau maintained his cautious stance.
Quebec is allowing stores with an outside entrance for customers to reopen but this does not apply to Montreal, Canada’s second largest city, where retail establishments must wait until 11 May.
Although Quebec makes up 24% of the Canadian population, it accounts for 54% of the cases and 60% of the deaths. Canada has so far reported 60,000 positive diagnoses and 3,800 deaths.
A resident waves from her room inside a long-term care facility in Quebec, following a number of coronavirus deaths.
 A resident waves from her room inside a long-term care facility in Quebec, following a number of coronavirus deaths. Photograph: Christinne Muschi/Reuters
Trudeau and senior medical health officials have repeatedly stressed any reopening efforts must be carried out carefully to head off a second wave of the virus.
The provinces have a large amount of control over their economies and healthcare systems, and Trudeau has so far not offered any criticism.
“If a province started to reopen and sadly saw an explosion in new cases, it would be up to that province to react. And I know the inhabitants of that province would certainly stress that they wanted to see a different approach,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Trudeau appeared uncertain when asked by public broadcaster Radio Canada whether he would allow his children to go back to school if he lived in Quebec.
He paused for a couple of seconds before replying “I don’t know”, while noting schools in Ontario – the most populous of Canada’s 10 provinces – were not going to reopen soon.
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