France further eases Covid-19 lockdown with Paris cafes to reopen – as it happened

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Here’s a summary of the key developments of the last few hours. I’m handing over to my colleague Helen Sullivan in Sydney - thanks for reading along and writing in.

• Cases worldwide near 7.9 million. According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government figures, there have been 431,543 known coronavirus deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic. The number of confirmed cases stands at 7,854,514.
• Brazil has registered a further 612 deaths, taking the country’s death toll to 43,332, Reuters reports. The health ministry announced 17,110 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country’s total to 867,624.
  
• Chilean copper miners’ unions have demanded a re-evaluation of the operational continuity plans of the country’s biggest mines during what they said was an “alarming” increase in coronavirus cases among workers.
  
• Veteran Congolese politician Pierre Lumbi, once an advisor to former president Joseph Kabila and a leading opposition figure, has died from the coronavirus, Reuters is reporting.
  
• France has reported nine new coronavirus deaths taking the total to 29,407 and marking the fifth day with under 30 fatalities, Reuters reports.
  
• England’s coronavirus lockdown should not be further lifted until the government’s contact-tracing system has proven to be “robust and effective”, the World Health Organization has said after widespread criticism of the first results of the new tracking operation.
• French president Emmanuel Macron has said that all of France will move into the ‘green zone’ regarding coronavirus risks from Monday. Gatherings will remain tightly controlled but restaurants will reopen in the Paris region.
• The number of new coronavirus cases in Turkey rose to 1,562 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Sunday, almost double the level to which they had fallen in early June when Ankara lifted travel restrictions and reopened facilities.
  
• Egypt will reopen all its airports on 1 July, the civil aviation minister said on Sunday, after suspending regular international flights in March.

Ghana’s health minister Kwaku Agyeman Manu is in a stable condition after contracting the coronavirus, Reuters reports president Nana Akufo-Addo announcing.

“Let us wish our hardworking minister for health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty,” Akufo-Addo said in a broadcast.

Akufo-Addo confirmed that final year students in secondary schools and universities would resume classes on Monday as the West African nation pursues its phased lifting of restrictions that were put in place to curb the pandemic.

Ghana has recorded 11,964 positive coronavirus cases, one of the highest in the region, but has also carried out one of the highest numbers of tests in the continent at 254,331 and has one of lowest numbers of deaths from the virus.

With 54 deaths reported thus far in Ghana, the ratio of deaths to positive cases stands at 0.4%, compared to the global average of 5.5%, and the African average of 2.6%, Akufo-Addo said.

Veteran Congolese politician Pierre Lumbi, once an advisor to former president Joseph Kabila and latterly a leading opposition figure, has died from the coronavirus, Reuters is reporting.

A prominent member of civil society in the 1990s, Lumbi held several ministerial portfolios before advising Kabila on security. In 2016 he was elected as a senator for South Kivu province and worked as campaign manager for Martin Fayulu in his bid to win the 2018 election.

“Very saddened by the death of Senator P. Lumbi,” Fayulu said on Twitter.

His family said he died from the coronavirus at the Centre Medical Kinshasa hospital in Congo’s capital, according to local media. The Democratic Republic of Congo has recorded 4,478 coronavirus cases with 107 deaths.

Chilean copper miners’ unions have demanded a re-evaluation of the operational continuity plans of the country’s biggest mines during what they said was an “alarming” increase in coronavirus cases among workers, Reuters reports.

In a statement signed by the union leadership of state-owned Codelco, the Mines Federation - which groups the majority of workers for Chile’s major copper mines - rejected the “business as usual” discourse advanced by miners and the mines minister, Baldo Prokurica.

“The increase in cases is alarming and demonstrates that the preventive measures implemented with health and safety protocols aimed at self-care are not working and makes it evident that contrary to what the union believed, security and isolation measures have not immunized workers from contagion,” the statement added.

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The statement comes just days after unionised workers at Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner, said they were weighing walking off the job at some sites in order to implement a self-imposed quarantine after one of their members died from Covid-19.

Chile has more than 170,000 cases and 3,300 deaths from Covid-19, one of the highest rates of infection in the world per 100,000 inhabitants.

Brazil has registered a further 612 deaths, taking the country’s death toll to 43,332, Reuters reports. The health ministry announced 17,110 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country’s total to 867,624.

Significantly more women than men are experiencing problems with their mental health as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Jamie Doward writes.

New research by Lisa Spantig and Ben Etheridge, economists at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, suggests it is because women are more adversely affected by social isolation during lockdown.

Full report here.

Here are the ten countries with the highest number of known cases, according to Johns Hopkins tracker. The true figures for deaths and cases are likely to be higher, due to differing definitions and testing rates, time lags and suspected underreporting.

US 2,090,358

Brazil 850,514

Russia 528,267

India 320,922

UK 297,342

Spain 243,928

Italy 236,989

Peru 225,132

France 194,153

Germany 187,518

UK care homes are receiving far more coronavirus testing kits than they order, raising concern that the extra supplies help the government inflate the number of people it claims have been tested.

The apparently widespread nature of the practice in England has prompted fresh suspicion that ministers are counting swab kits sent out as tests done to exaggerate official figures.

“We have had providers who told us they asked for 100 tests and got 500 tests. It doesn’t make sense,” Nadra Ahmed, executive chair of the National Care Association, which represents independent care homes, told the Guardian.

Read Denis Campbell and Robert Booth’s report here.

France has reported nine new coronavirus deaths taking the total to 29,407 and marking the fifth day with under 30 fatalities, Reuters reports.

The government also reported the number of people in hospital fell by 28 to 10,881 and those in intensive care units fell by two to 869, with both tallies continuing weeks-long down-trends.

The number of new cases was up 407, bringing the total number of infections to 157,220.

Here’s our latest summary of coronavirus developments worldwide.

• Deaths worldwide pass 430,000. According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government figures, there have been 431,269 known coronavirus deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic.
• All of mainland France will move into the ‘green zone’ of a lower state of alert on coronavirus from Monday, the president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced.
• England’s coronavirus lockdown should not be further lifted until the government’s contact-tracing system has proven to be “robust and effective”, the World Health Organization has said
• Republican lawmakers are downplaying concerns that a Donald Trump indoor rally planned for Tulsa, Oklahoma, for next weekend could contribute to the spread Covid-19, amid an increase in cases in the city.
• Beijing carried out mass testing for the coronavirus on Sunday after a new outbreak in the city that prompted travel warnings across the country amid fears of a second wave.
• Almost 11,000 German holidaymakers will begin arriving in the Balearic islands from Monday as part of a pilot scheme to help Spain reactivate its tourism sector following disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.