Coronavirus updates: confirmed cases around the world pass 600,000

Uusimaa has most of Finland’s 1025 confirmed coronavirus cases.

The Finnish parliament unanimously approved the measures on Friday night.

Feeling brave? Scientists at Oxford University are recruiting volunteers to take part in the UK’s first coronavirus vaccine trial.

Police enforcing the coronavirus lockdown in South Africa fired rubber bullets at shoppers queuing outside a supermarket in Johannesburg, according to an Agence France-Presse photographer.

The agency said about 10 police vehicles had arrived in Yeoville, a poor part of the city’s central business district, where several hundred people who had gathered outside a Shoprite supermarket were failing to observe physical distancing rules.

Startled shoppers trampled on each other and a woman with a baby on her back fell to the ground, the report said. Police later used whips to get the shoppers into line.

South Africa, which has 1,170 confirmed coronavirus cases, recorded its first death from the virus on Friday.

The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has ordered the population of 57 million to stay at home for 21 days, and has deployed the security forces to enforce the lockdown.

The number of people on Jersey confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus has reached 52, and one person is confirmed to have died.

There are 83 tests still pending and 601 people have tested negative, according to an update the island’s government published on Facebook on Friday evening.

For readers more interested in the latest coronavirus news from the UK, my colleague Lucy Campbell has just published our UK-focused live blog. That means I will only be taking the top UK news lines for this blog, which from now on will focus on global developments.

Health officials in the Philippines reported 14 new coronavirus deaths and 272 new cases on Saturday, according to Reuters.

The numbers reported represent the country’s largest daily increase in deaths and infections since the outbreak began .

The total number of confirmed infections in the Philippines is now 1,075, of whom 68 have died, the health ministry said. Four patients have recovered, bringing the number of recoveries to 35.

In a sign of the wider impact of the crisis now enveloping the world, wildlife rescue centres around the world are struggling to treat endangered species, Gloria Dickie reports.

As the coronavirus spreads from country to country, disrupting global travel and the economy, the centres are struggling to make ends meet. The Centre for Orangutan Protection in Kalimantan in Indonesia’s section of Borneo has temporarily shut down to minimise the spread of the virus.

Others such as Merazonia in Ecuador rely on tourism dollars to care for their animals. Since China’s shutdown of Wuhan in January, visitor numbers have also plummeted at Asia’s wildlife centres.

The lockdown implemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus is disrupting UK government plans to recruit 20,000 new police officers – a key manifesto pledge of the Conservative party at the December election.

Assessment centres have been hit by sweeping closures of premises, PA Media reports. Katy Bourne, the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), who also serves as PCC for Sussex told the agency:

We began a big recruitment drive and along comes this virus. We don’t want to stop that recruitment. The national call has a lot of officers who are in the pipeline who have been through the assessment centres and are still waiting to come out to forces and so on.

The assessment centres nationally where you expect people to turn up to classrooms, obviously those can’t function because we are all isolated, we have got to stay at home.

So, it’s keeping those officers warm or those potential officers warm in the system.

It’s really how do forces deal with the numbers that they have got.

Bourne also said it was critical that police officers get the equipment they need to stay safe during the pandemic.

The personal protective equipment (PPE) has been a big issue nationally. The police are out and about in the country they need protection.

I know from Sussex’s point of view they have managed to secure some. I know some police forces in other areas of the country have really struggled.

The supplies are there but it’s getting it out to those forces.

After a week in which France’s government has come under increasing criticism for perceived lack of transparency, the prime minister, Édouard Philippe, and the health minister, Olivier Véran, are holding a press conference on Saturday to outline the situation in detail and answer questions, Kim Willsher reports from Paris.

We will have the usual announcement of the daily update figures early evening.

The controversial hospital professor Didier Raoult from Marseille released new research late on Friday on 80 patients conducted over six to 10 days, which apparently shows that hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin is effective in treating Covid-19 patients.

Let’s begin with the latest from the UK. In Wales, teachers have been urged to keep schools open for NHS staff and carers during the two-week Easter holidays, PA Media reports.

The education minister, Kirsty Williams, who described school workers as national heroes for keeping more than 700 schools open during the coronavirus epidemic, said:

It takes a community to raise a child and that statement has never been more true. In this time of national need, our school community has stepped up and met the challenge.

More than 700 schools have stayed open to look after the children of NHS staff, carers, people who are saving lives. I am now asking you to do more and keep schools open during what would have been school holidays.

It has never been more important for our children and young people to be surrounded by the people they know and trust.

I am asking you to be flexible, and to offer up some time during the Easter period to continue to support both vulnerable children and the families of our critical workers.

Williams also confirmed that the families of children who get free school meals would continue to be assisted during the break. She said:

Wales has a strong tradition of supporting communities and I can confirm that the funding announced last week to support children in receipt of free school meals can be used to carry on providing free school meals over the Easter holiday.

This will allow local authorities to continue with their local arrangements while we establish a national scheme to support children in receipt of free school meals.

In devising a national scheme I will ensure that local authorities will still be able to maintain their own approaches, should they want to do so.

They will have the discretion to opt into a national scheme or continue to provide flexible support if that is their preference, such as direct payments or deliveries to families who are unable to leave their homes, due to isolation requirements.

I believe this will be a sustainable approach, that will enable families to budget and plan their spend according to their needs.

Hello everybody, this is Damien Gayle taking the reins of the live blog from London. As usual I will be bringing you the latest coronavirus updates from our network of correspondents around the world, from the news wires and anywhere else I can find it.

And as usual I will need the help of the Guardian’s global readership. Please send any coronavirus news from your part of the world to me at [email protected] or via a direct message to my Twitter profile, @damiengayle. Let me know what we’re missing.

The NHS could have prevented “chaos and panic” had the system not been left “wholly unprepared for this pandemic”, the editor of a British medical journal has said.

Numerous warnings were issued but these were not heeded, Richard Horton wrote in The Lancet. He cited an example from his journal on 20 January, pointing to a global epidemic: “Preparedness plans should be readied for deployment at short notice, including securing supply chains of pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment, hospital supplies and the necessary human resources to deal with the consequences of a global outbreak of this magnitude.”

Dr Horton wrote that the government’s Contain-Delay-Mitigate-Research plan had failed. “It failed, in part, because ministers didn’t follow WHO’s advice to ‘test, test, test’ every suspected case. They didn’t isolate and quarantine. They didn’t contact trace.

“These basic principles of public health and infectious disease control were ignored, for reasons that remain opaque.

“The result has been chaos and panic across the NHS.”

Dr Horton’s warning came as the UK saw its biggest day-on-day rise in deaths since the Covid-19 outbreak began, while Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock said they had tested positive for the virus and frontline testing of NHS workers was set to begin.

The US Navy is the military service hit hardest by the coronavirus, as it scrambles to contain its first at-sea outbreak, with at least two dozen infected aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, one of 11 active aircraft carriers whose mission is central to the Pentagon’s strategy for deterring war with China and Iran.

The Roosevelt and its contingent of warplanes may be sidelined for days, sitting pier side in Guam as the entire crew more than 5,000 is tested, Reuters reports.

Navy leaders say the carrier could return to duty at any time if required, but the sudden setback is seen as a harbinger of more trouble to come.

The carrier, like other Navy ships, is vulnerable to infectious disease spread given its close quarters. The massive ship is more than 1,000 feet long; sailors are spread out across a labyrinth of decks linked by steep ladder-like stairs and narrow corridors.

Enlisted sailors and officers have separate living quarters, but they routinely grab their food from crowded buffet lines and eat at tables joined end-to-end.

Although the US Navy is much smaller than the US Army, it accounts for at least one-third of all reported Covid-19 cases in the military. None has been reported among Navy submarine crews, which are widely deployed and include subs armed with long-range nuclear missiles on constant patrol.

The US embassy in Riyadh said on Saturday it was working with the Saudi authorities to arrange repatriation flights to the United States on a commercial airline.

“No flights or departure/arrival locations have been confirmed at this time,” it said in a statement.

“It is likely that flights will be scheduled with little advance notice.”

Meanwhile a video shared on Twitter claims to shows a father crying after coming home to his son. The doctor is heard saying “No, no,” in Arabic as his son rushes to greet him.

There are 1,104 reported cases in the country, and three deaths.