Global cases pass 500,000 – as it happened

26 Mar 202002.57 EDT

Gordon Brown says world leaders should create temporary global government

Larry Elliott

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown has urged world leaders to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical and economic crises caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The former Labour prime minister, who was at the centre of the international efforts to tackle the impact of the near-meltdown of the banks in 2008, said there was a need for a taskforce involving world leaders, health experts and the heads of the international organisations that would have executive powers to coordinate the response.

A virtual meeting of the G20 group of developed and developing countries, chaired by Saudi Arabia, will be held on Thursday, but Brown said it would have been preferable to have also included the UN security council.

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In the UK, the coronavirus crisis has led to a drop in recorded crime, by as much as 20% in some areas.

The Guardian’s Vikram Dodd and Helen Pidd report that offences such as burglary and violence were down last week compared with the previous seven days, after Boris Johnson made his first request for people to stay home on the Monday.

The fall this week could be even larger after the prime minister changed his pleas for social distancing into an order to stay inside.

In one force, Durham, rated by inspectors as one of the best in England, the drop in crime was 20%. Officers recorded an average of 130 crimes a day, as opposed to an average of 165 the previous week.

26 Mar 202002.31 EDT

Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns

Fiona Harvey

Protectionist measures by national governments during the coronavirus crisis could provoke food shortages around the world, the UN’s food body has warned.

Harvests have been good and the outlook for staple crops is promising, but a shortage of field workers brought on by the virus crisis and a move towards protectionism – tariffs and export bans – mean problems could quickly appear in the coming weeks, Maximo Torero, chief economist of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, told the Guardian.

“The worst that can happen is that governments restrict the flow of food,” he said. “All measures against free trade will be counterproductive. Now is not the time for restrictions or putting in place trade barriers. Now is the time to protect the flow of food around the world.”

Governments must resist calls from some quarters to protect their own food supply by restricting exports, he said, as some have begun to do.

Asian markets mostly rose or clawed back early losses Thursday as investors breathed a sigh of relief that US senators have finally passed a gargantuan stimulus package for the world’s top economy after being delayed by wrangling over details.

The unprecedented $2 trillion plan – described by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a “wartime level of investment”– helped spur a surge across global equities as panicked traders worried about the impact of the coronavirus sweeping the planet.

The monster deal thrashed out between Republicans, Democrats and the White House includes cash payments to American taxpayers and several hundred billion dollars in grants and loans to small businesses and core industries. It also buttresses hospitals desperately in need of medical equipment and expands unemployment benefits.

Traders reacted positively to the latest developments.

Hong Kong was marginally higher after spending most of the morning down, Sydney climbed three percent, Mumbai climbed 2.6$ and Seoul put on 0.9%.

Jakarta soared more than 9%, Manila more than 5% and Wellington 4%. Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Taipei also posted strong gains.

But Tokyo, which soared by almost a fifth in three days, was down 3.2%, while Shanghai was also slightly down.

The Russian government has ordered the civil aviation authority to suspend all regular and charter flights to and from Russia from March 27, the government said on its website.

Russian airlines will still be allowed to fly to other countries to bring Russian citizens back or if they are authorised by special government decisions.

Russia has reported 658 Covid-19 cases and three deaths.

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Iran, which has the sixth-highest number of confirmed infections globally at 27,017, has extended the closure of schools and universities and the suspension of gatherings, Reuters reports.

Russia will ground all international flights from midnight, according to the government, AP reports. We’ll have more on this soon.

26 Mar 202001.58 EDT

New York medical staff brace for a surge of coronavirus patients

Jessica Glenza

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Frontline medical workers in New York are braced for a surge of patients unlike anything they have seen in their careers, with the state at the center of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

New York City’s infamously bustling streets have almost emptied of pedestrians and cars, but inside its hospitals, emergency departments and critical care units are already busy with Covid-19 patients.

“We’re trying to expand the capacity in our intensive care unit, knowing we will continue to see a lot of critical cases,” said Erick Eiting, vice-chair of emergency medicine and professor at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, a 700-bedhospital in lower Manhattan. Eiting’s days are now filled by the pings of an app, which notifies doctors when a Covid-19 test comes back positive. He says it pings constantly.

Dr Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine doctor at Columbia University Medical Center, described hearing a “cacophony of coughing” in the facility. Nearly every patient he saw in a recent day had Covid-19.