An entire city of nine million people in China will be tested for COVID-19 in just five days after a small number of new cases emerged. People in Qingdao have been joining long queues for test centers following the confirmation of 12 infections. Qingdao’s new infections came shortly after China had completed its Golden Week holiday, during which millions of people travel domestically to meet up with families.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious disease expert, has criticized Donald Trump’s reelection campaign for using his words out of context to make it appear as if he was praising the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,” Fauci said in a statement to CNN on Sunday.
The virus responsible for Covid-19 can remain infectious on surfaces such as banknotes, phone screens and stainless steel for 28 days, researchers say. The findings from Australia’s national science agency suggest SARS-Cov-2 can survive for far longer than thought. However, the experiment was conducted in the dark. UV light has already been shown to kill the virus.
A Russian-brokered humanitarian ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh was under severe strain on Sunday a day after it was agreed, with Azerbaijan and Armenia accusing each other of serious violations and crimes against civilians. The ceasefire, clinched after marathon talks in Moscow advocated by President Vladimir Putin, was meant to halt fighting to allow ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forces to swap prisoners and war dead.
Bangladesh’s cabinet on Monday approved the death penalty for rapists amid nationwide protests in the wake of a series of gang rapes and sexual assaults. Bangladesh has seen a surge of sexual crimes in recent years, with nearly 1,000 incidents reported between January and September, more than a fifth of them gang rapes, according to human rights group Ain-o-Salish Kendra.