Bali could reopen to tourists as early as October, thanks to its success in controlling the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have established the European Union’s first travel bubble.
In Australia, National Cabinet has adopted a mental health plan and a “case out of nowhere” has been confirmed in central Queensland.
This story is being updated throughout Friday. You can also listen to the latest episode of the Coronacast podcast.
Friday’s top stories
- Federal Government announces extra mental health funding
- China marks a month since last coronavirus death
- Central Queensland aged-care nurse tests positive, 21 new cases in Victoria
- Coronavirus detected in Bangladesh refugee camp
- Parts of Japan emerge from coronavirus restrictions
- Brazilian President says more will die if economy not saved
Bali to reopen to tourists in October
Indonesia’s tropical holiday island of Bali could reopen to tourists in October, thanks to its success in controlling the coronavirus outbreak.
Bali has reported 343 coronavirus cases and four deaths, a much lower fatality rate compared to 16,496 cases and 1,076 deaths in the whole archipelago.
If the infection curve continues to improve, the tourism ministry is looking to revitalise destinations and do promotional work for some parts of the country, including Bali, between June and October, according to Secretary of the Ministry Ni Wayan Giri Adnyan said.
Bali’s economy depends largely on visitors. Its gross domestic product (GDP) contracted 1.14 per cent on-year from January to March, compared to a 2.97 per cent GDP expansion nationally.
Foreign tourist arrivals into Indonesia plunged more than 60 per cent in March, compared to the year-earlier month, with Chinese arrivals sliding more than 97 per cent.
Scope of fatalities in British nursing homes revealed
Official British statistics show that more than 12,000 residents of nursing homes have died with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.
The Office for National Statistics says 12,526 aged care residents in England and Wales died with confirmed or suspected coronavirus infections between the start of the outbreak and May 1, accounting for 27 per cent of the 45,899 total deaths of residents during the period.
Britain has struggled to get a full picture of the scale of the epidemic in nursing homes. At first, the Government recorded only COVID-19 deaths that occurred in hospitals, though that has now changed.
The country’s official death toll stands at 33,614, the highest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe.
Baltic ‘travel bubble’ opens up
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have opened their common borders, creating the first “travel bubble” within the European Union in a bid to jump-start economies broken down by the coronavirus pandemic.
A dozen Estonian border guards removed all signs directing vehicles to stop at the border and huddled together at the roadside for cake and coffee.
“We have the little celebration because the border is now open again,” one officer said as the first cars sped through.
Citizens and residents of the three Baltic nations are now free to travel within the region, though anyone entering from outside will need to self-isolate for 14 days.
The neighbours opened as the EU executive sought to coax the 27 member states to reopen internal borders and restart wider travel.
New coronavirus infections in the three countries have slowed to a trickle, with none of them reporting more than a dozen new cases on Thursday. The region as a whole has recorded fewer than 150 deaths from the disease.
Further to the south-west, Germany is loosening quarantine rules for travellers arriving from the European Union, the Schengen passport-free zone and the United Kingdom.
Authorities will only recommend travellers go into quarantine if they arrive from countries with elevated numbers of infections, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said.
A mandatory two-week quarantine still applies for travellers from countries outside the EU.
National Cabinet adopts mental health plan
The Federal Government says it will spend an additional $48.1 million on mental health following National Cabinet’s adoption of a National Mental Health and Wellbeing Pandemic Response Plan.
Health Minister Greg Hunt outlined how that money would be spent:
- $7.3 million will go towards collecting mental health data
- $29.5 million will go towards outreach to vulnerable communities
- $11.3 million will be spent on communication, including a national “it’s OK not to be OK” campaign
The plan was put together by National Health Commission chief executive Christine Morgan and Mr Hunt said states and territories would be making their own contributions.
He said the pandemic had created “specific mental health challenges”, including the loneliness of isolation and anxiety about jobs and finances.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison also announced that mental health consultations had returned to pre-pandemic levels, adding that half of those were being done through telehealth.
National Cabinet was also briefed on the economic impacts of the crisis by the heads of Treasury, the Reserve Bank and APRA.
Yesterday, Australia recorded its largest-ever monthly jump in unemployment. Nearly 600,000 people lost their jobs, while a further 600,000 saw their working hours cut back.
Elective surgeries back on the table
The Prime Minister and National Cabinet also agreed today to restart all elective surgeries.
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy flagged the increases would depend on the pressure on each state’s or territory’s health system from coronavirus.
“Clearly in those states that are having essentially no cases, they want to go fairly quickly back to full elective activity,” he said.
“Those states that still have some transmission are probably going to take it a bit more gently.
“But everybody is now heading towards full elective surgery, which is a really important thing.”
China marks a month since last coronavirus death
China has gone a month without announcing any new deaths from the coronavirus, with authorities reporting there are currently fewer than 100 patients in treatment.
The National Health Commission reported four new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, all local cross-infections in the north-eastern province of Jilin, where a cluster of uncertain origin has been detected in recent days.
Just 91 people remain in treatment for COVID-19 and 623 others are in isolation for being suspected cases or for having tested positive without showing symptoms. That includes 11 new cases.
In total, China has reported 4,633 deaths among 82,933 cases since the virus was first detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan.
Some buildings are testing residents for the virus as Wuhan attempts to test all its 11 million people in 10 days.
The city ordered local communities to test everyone after six new cases surfaced last weekend, the first infections there in more than a month.
It has managed to test more than 3 million residents since April, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
It will now focus on those who have not been tested before, people living in residential complexes where previous cases have been co