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Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur.
- US President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently halt US funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) and quit an organisation he earlier derided as a “puppet of China” in a letter to the agency’s director general that he shared on Twitter.
- The WHO chief has promised an independent review of the global pandemic response, after countries at a virtual meeting of the World Health Assembly called for a probe.
- The US has set aside $11 billion to ramp up coronavirus testing as the country reopens.
- Globally, there have been more than 4.7 million known cases of COVID-19, and more than 318,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 1.7 million people have recovered.
Here are all the latest updates:
Tuesday, May 19
03:30 GMT – Trump threatens to halt funding permanently if WHO does not reform
US President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently halt funding for the WHO and withdraw the United States from the UN health agency if it does not make “substantive improvements” in the next 30 days.
Earlier on Monday he attacked the WHO as a “puppet of China”. The president froze US funding for the WHO in April.
This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
02:30 GMT – Children in New South Wales to return to school next week
Children in the Australian state of New South Wales will return to school full-time from next week, the state’s Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.
Berjiklian said the state government had used the time that children were at home to prepare schools as a COVID-safe environment, but warned that temporary closures would probably be necessary to contain sporadic outbreaks of the virus.
The decision caught the state’s teachers’ union by surprise. It “caused a lot of concern, frustration and anger among teachers and principals,” Teachers Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos told ABC television. About 800,000 children attend school in NSW, Australia’s most heavily-populated state.
From May 25, here’s the plan for a full-time return to schools for NSW students. Find out more: https://t.co/k8nhFDLocW pic.twitter.com/PwUaopranu
— NSW DoE (@NSWEducation) May 18, 2020
02:00 GMT – Medical evacuations for indigenous people in Amazon with COVID-19
The coronavirus is spreading so fast among indigenous people in the most remote parts of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest that doctors are having to evacuate the most seriously-ill patients by plane.
“It’s the last opportunity to save their lives,” Edson Santos Rodrigues, a paediatric doctor working on medevac plans in Amazonas told Reuters. “Sometimes we don’t get there in time because we cannot land at night on remote airfields that have no lights.”
Brazil’s indigenous health service, Sesai, reported on Monday that at least 23 indigenous people had died from COVID-19. The country’s main tribal umbrella group APIB, which counts cases among indigenous people who have moved to the cities, reported 103 confirmed deaths on Monday up from 18 on April 3.
00:30 GMT – US promises $11b for expanded coronavirus testing
The US Department of Health and Human Services has set aside $11 billion in new funding to support coronavirus testing.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will provide $10.25 billion to states, territories and local jurisdictions, the CDC said in a statement. The Indian Health Service will provide $750 million to IHS, tribal and urban Indian Health programmes, it added.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the “historic investment” would enable the US to track and control the spread of the virus as the country reopens.
“For the sake of all Americans health and well-being, we must help Americans get safely back to work and school, and that requires continued expansion of testing, surveillance and contact tracing,” he said.
23:30 GMT (Monday) – Trump rounds on WHO over handling of pandemic
US President Donald Trump has again attacked the WHO calling the UN agency a “puppet of China” that has “done a very sad job” in handling the coronavirus.
“The United States pays them $450 million a year, China pays them $38 million a year, And they’re a puppet of China. They’re China-centric to put it nicer, but they’re a puppet of China,” Trump told reporters in Washington.
Trump has already suspended US funding of the WHO.
Trump’s comments came after the US administration continued to put pressure on the WHO over its handling of the pandemic at a key meeting of the agency’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly.
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Global COVID-19 response increasingly political |
23:00 GMT (Monday) – UNESCO says 90 percent of world’s museums closed
Studies from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council of Museums have confirmed that more than 85,000 museums across the world – about 90 percent of all institutions – have shut because of the coronavirus.
Almost 13 percent may never reopen, UNESCO added.
UNESCO said protection of staff, digitisation and inventory, as well as online content development were priorities for museums but noted that there were large disparities in digital access between different regions.
Museums may be temporarily closed, but they remain a source of knowledge and discovery for many – now through virtual tours in particular.
This International Museum Day, let’s celebrate the inspirational power of museums & thank museum workers for their valuable contribution. pic.twitter.com/vbtxeGlos4
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 18, 2020
Read all the updates from yesterday (May 18) here.
