Coronavirus Live Updates: News of the Virus, Vaccines and Variants


A pop-up Covid-19 vaccination center in Newark on Friday. The United States is vaccinating fewer people on a daily basis than earlier this month, though coronavirus cases remain stubbornly high.
Credit…James Estrin/The New York Times

Vaccination rates are falling in the United States, despite the spread of highly contagious virus variants that are fueling the country’s alarmingly high caseload.

More than 50,000 new U.S. cases were reported on Saturday, and case rates are similar to those of the second wave last summer. But the average number of vaccine doses being administered each day, which rose for months and peaked at 3.38 million, has now fallen to 2.86 million, its lowest level since March 31, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vaccination rate stopped climbing on April 13, when federal health officials recommended pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine to allow researchers to examine a rare blood-clotting disorder that emerged in six recipients. The Food and Drug Administration lifted the pause on Friday, opting to add a warning about the risk to vaccine labeling.

Experts aren’t sure why vaccination rates have begun falling, or whether vaccine hesitancy, an issue before the Johnson & Johnson pause, is entirely to blame. They suggest the issue is more complicated. Many Americans who were eager and able to be vaccinated have now been inoculated, experts believe, and among the unvaccinated, some are totally opposed while others would get a vaccine if it were more accessible to them.

Whatever the reason for the slowdown in vaccinations, it could delay the arrival of herd immunity, the point at which the coronavirus cannot spread easily because it cannot find enough vulnerable people to infect. The longer that takes, the more time there is for dangerous variants to arise and possibly evade vaccines.

Elected leaders and public health officials are left struggling to tailor their messages, and their tactics, to persuade not only the vaccine hesitant but also the indifferent. As mass vaccination sites begin to close, more patients could get vaccinated by their own doctors, with whom people are most at ease — a shift that would require the Biden administration to distribute the vaccines in much smaller shipments to many more providers.

Resuming use of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine should help with hard-to-reach populations like Americans in remote communities, migrants and older people who may have difficulty leaving their homes.

White House and state health officials are calling the next phase of the vaccination campaign “the ground game,” and are likening it to a get-out-the-vote effort.

“We’re entering a new phase” in the country’s vaccination effort, said Dr. Mark McClellan, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University. “In most parts of the country now, there are unfilled vaccination appointments available.”

People who were clamoring for a vaccine have been inoculated, including those who were willing to schedule appointments and wait in long lines at mass vaccination sites, he said.

“Now, it’s more about bringing vaccines to the people who want them but haven’t been able to easily reach the existing sites,” Dr. McClellan said. Walk-in availability, which New York City allowed at city-run sites starting on Friday, could also help vaccinate more people, he said.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, cautioned that it would be “hugely problematic” to broadly denounce those who had yet to get a vaccine — because of indifference or inconvenience — as “resisters.” He said on National Public Radio last week that “there are lots of people who are perfectly happy to get a vaccine but aren’t desperate for it — aren’t convinced that they need it badly.”

Rupali J. Limaye, a professor who studies vaccine behavior at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said as vaccinations continued, some might think: “If these other people are vaccinated, why do I need to get it?” but added, “We still need those people to get it to reach herd immunity.”

With temperatures getting warmer, many states have already eased social-distancing measures, and some have even appeared to return to normal activity, alarming officials. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has said that restrictions should remain in place until there are fewer than 10,000 new cases a day — a number that the United States will not reach by Aug. 1, according to projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

“It will feel over in the summer,” said Ali H. Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the institute. “But somebody like me who works in public health will feel like swimming upstream, telling people in the summer we are not out of danger.”

United States › United StatesOn Apr. 24 14-day change
New cases 50,575 –12%
New deaths 725 –1%
World › WorldOn Apr. 24 14-day change
New cases 403,538 +17%
New deaths 8,837 +3%

U.S. vaccinations ›

Where states are reporting vaccines given
Medical staff moving a hospital bed from the intensive care unit at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., on Thursday.
Credit…Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

Hospitals in Michigan, the state with the worst current coronavirus outbreak in the country, are admitting about twice as many young adults with coronavirus now as they did during the fall peak, according to the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.

“I am putting more patients in their 20s and 30s and 40s on oxygen and on life support than at any other time in this pandemic,” said Dr. Erin Brennan, an emergency room physician in Detroit.

Public health experts say the outbreak — driven by the B.1.1.7 variant of the virus, which is more contagious and more severe — is spreading rapidly in younger age groups in the state.

Public health experts point to a number of factors contributing to the changing demographics. As pandemic restrictions have been loosened, younger people are out and about, socializing and in the work force, at a time when just one-third of American adults are fully vaccinated, most of them over 65.

“The restrictions were our pause button,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “As soon as you press play, you are going to see the virus race back as quickly as it can.”

Some health experts said it was conceivable that more younger people were being hospitalized now because the hospitals are not overflowing and have room for borderline cases who might have been sent home during the holiday surge.

But at the Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., near Detroit, doctors said they had not lowered the bar for admission: The younger people in their care may often have fewer chronic health problems than older patients do, but they nonetheless exhibited serious symptoms that required immediate intervention.

People waiting to get vaccinated in New Orleans this month.
Credit…Emily Kask for The New York Times

More than five million Americans, or nearly 8 percent of those who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, have missed their second doses, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is more than double the rate among people who got inoculated in the first several weeks of the nationwide vaccination campaign.

Even as the country wrestles with the problem of millions of people who are wary about getting vaccinated at all, local health officials are confronting a new challenge of ensuring that those who do get inoculated are doing so fully.

The reasons vary for why people are missing their second shots. In interviews, some said they feared the side effects, including flulike symptoms, which were more common and stronger after the second dose. Others said they felt that they were sufficiently protected with a single shot.

Those attitudes were expected, but another hurdle has been surprisingly prevalent. A number of vaccine providers have canceled second-dose appointments because they ran out of supply or didn’t have the right brand in stock.

Walgreens, one of the biggest vaccine providers, sent some people who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to get their second doses at pharmacies that had only the other vaccine on hand.

Several Walgreens customers said in interviews that they scrambled, in some cases with help from pharmacy staff members, to find somewhere to get the correct second dose. Others, presumably, simply gave up.

Video

transcript

transcript

How ICE’s Mishandling of Covid-19 Fueled Outbreaks Around the Country

To date, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported over 12,000 virus cases. Our investigation found that the impact of infection extended beyond U.S. detention centers.

[music playing] “Family and friends are in mourning tonight over the death of the first undocumented immigrant to die of Covid-19 while in ICE custody.” “The second immigrant has died of Covid-19 after being in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” “And now the health crisis is colliding with the immigration crisis at the southern border.” Since the start of the pandemic, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported over 12,000 cases of Covid-19 in detention. But our investigation found that this number doesn’t tell the full story and that the agency also played a role in spreading the virus. “There were many things that ICE did wrong and many things that they actually did that made the problem much worse.” [emergency sirens] As Covid-19 cases were soaring over the summer of 2020, ICE had an infection rate 20 times that of the general population and five times that of prisons. To understand the consequences, we traveled across the country and talked to data scientists, local leaders, lawyers, former detainees and the family members of a nurse who used to work inside a detention center. We found a pattern of neglect and secrecy, and we found evidence that outbreaks inside ICE detention centers fueled outbreaks outside, in the communities that surround them. “Every time I think about those almost seven months I was there, I was so scared. I don’t want to die here.” “She was working 12-hour shifts, three days a week. For someone to tell us that she didn’t get sick from work, I mean, it’s — I don’t understand.” “We know how Covid spreads. You’re going to be in close contact in that detention center. After enough time, someone’s going to get it.” [rustling] “Here. This is the first paper they gave me on Sept. 15. It said I asked for protection. And I was mad because I said, I never asked for protection. I don’t feel like I need a protection. I need clinic. I need a hospital. I need a doctor.” Sandra has lived in the U.S. for over 30 years and has raised her seven children here. She’s a Mexican immigrant and is undocumented. She was detained in April 2020 and held for just shy of seven months in this detention center in El Paso, Texas. “When I got there, they were not keeping distance. They were not using masks. Most of the time, there were like 40 to 50 people in the same barrack.” “We started hearing about people who were vulnerable to serious illness and death from Covid-19 and saying that they couldn’t get masks. They couldn’t get soap. The guards would turn off the television when news about Covid-19 would come on. And so it was really a very scary time.” In April, just days before Sandra was detained, a federal court said that ICE exhibited callous indifference to the safety and well-being of its detainees, and ordered the agency to start releasing people who are at a greater risk of dying from Covid-19. “And we just weren’t seeing that. People who had medical vulnerabilities were being denied release consistently, and that happened to Sandra. I knew she was going to get it. I just didn’t know if I could get her out before she got it.” “When I started having symptoms, I was in the dorm with the other girls. I told the guard, ‘I don’t feel good. Last night, I had a fever.’ She said, ‘OK, go to the clinic.’ The nurse — I told her, ‘I think I have the Covid.’ And then she said, ‘No, you don’t have the Covid. Don’t say that. If you say you have the Covid, then you’re going to be sick. Don’t say that.’ And I went back to the barrack.” [typing] “What is the information about ICE’s protocols for determining when an individual in custody is tested?” “Individuals are generally tested when they’re showing symptoms of Covid-19.” “Not till then? Not till then?” “Generally, that’s true.” But this wasn’t true for Sandra. She left the clinic that day without a test, and she wasn’t tested for Covid-19 until five days later. “Everybody got infected. It was like more than 25 girls.” While Sandra waited for her result, she was placed into solitary confinement. And because her paperwork said she was there for protective custody, not for medical observation, guards didn’t know that she was possibly contagious. “I had to explain, like on three or four guards, that I was there because of a Covid test. As soon as I said that, they put the gloves and put the mask. The whole facility was doing a really bad job.” Sandra tested positive for the virus on Sept. 17, and was released on bail in November. People end up in ICE custody for a variety of reasons. And as an agency, ICE has wide discretion over who it detains and releases. “Police! Come to the door!” Most people in ICE custody don’t have a single criminal conviction. They just don’t have legal status in the U.S. ICE told us it has worked to reduce the number of people in custody and said the agency has taken extensive steps to safeguard detainees, staff and contractors. But the virus kept spreading. “ICE acts as if the detention center is this isolated spot in the middle of a city, but it’s really not. Tons of guards are going in and out. Tons of contract workers are going in and out. And then they’re going home to their families. We don’t really think about that.” [music playing] “I got to get this. Hello? What happened?” This is Jose Asuncion. He’s a commissioner in Frio County, Texas, a small county just south of San Antonio with a population of only 20,000 people. “You have a wonderful day today.” What makes this county unique is that it’s home to two ICE detention facilities. “The majority of people here depend on incarceration jobs for their paycheck. And because of that, I think the community is largely supportive of them. Any time a private prison comes into a community, it’s the same promise: You’ll have jobs. You’ll have tax revenue. And you’ll have utility revenue. Sounds like a great deal. [Sighs.]” “Number of positive tests for Covid-19 in the South Texas community of Pearsall has some Frio County leaders concerned tonight.” “Early on in the pandemic, it really seemed like it wasn’t going to spread down to these rural areas of Texas. It seemed like a New York problem — and maybe a few other cities. But then the cases started coming in only at the detention center.” On May 5, 2020, there were 10 known cases of Covid-19 in Frio County, all of them linked to the South Texas ICE processing center. Three days later, the number had tripled. “It was clear the eye of the storm was the detention center, and it was inevitable that it was going to spread to the community.” ICE outsources the day-to-day operations of this facility to a company called GEO, the second-largest private prison company in the country. [music playing] “The first thing we wanted was just information, and we were not getting any answers. The only resort we had was public pressure.” So Jose and eight other local officials sent an open letter to the GEO Group that included a list of 20 questions about testing, P.P.E., and employee safety protocols. And they asked GEO’S management to address them at the next County Commissioner meeting. “And now we go to item No. 2. Jose?” “Is anyone from GEO here today?” “No.” No one from GEO attended the meeting, and the company instead sent a brief letter. They confirmed that five employees did test positive for Covid-19, but they didn’t provide any other numbers. “I think we probably need to put more pressure on them.” ICE detention is a $3.1 billion industry, funded entirely by U.S. taxpayers. But the vast majority of detainees are held in facilities run by private prison companies, which aren’t required to share information with the public. In a statement to The New York Times, GEO said that they strongly reject the baseless allegations about the South Texas ICE processing center and said they disclosed all Covid-19 related information to local health officials and to ICE. “Even though they present themselves as a community partner, they ain’t sharing any information with us.” Jose and his colleagues sent the open letter in May, but by July, Frio County was among the worst counties in the country for Covid-19. Today, one in seven residents have been infected. “There are a lot of people who see the problem that these private prisons pose, but who wants to jeopardize what other people see as an opportunity? Who wants to jeopardize their own job?” The thing is, these problems aren’t unique to Frio County. “ICE has always been known not to be the most transparent agency.” Which has led a team of researchers to take on the problem of extremely limited data themselves. “So when we look at this map, what we’re seeing here is all the locations that ICE is reporting Covid infection data for. The higher the peak here, the higher number of cases that have occurred in that facility.” Every day, ICE posts new data to its website that shows confirmed cases, detainee deaths and total confirmed cases per facility. But notably absent is any data on staff members. “I could see how someone could put this information and think that they are doing their due diligence, but if we’re interested in community spread, without those staff members, it’s extremely difficult to say what is the greater community risk that’s happening.” ICE detainees are held in at least 163 facilities throughout the country, with larger outbreaks mostly concentrated at detention centers in southern border states. Neal and their team at U.C.L.A. have taken the research a step further, and their early analysis reveals a pattern consistent with community spread. Take Frio County, for example. Since the start of the pandemic, outbreaks inside their ICE detention center were generally followed by outbreaks in the community, and they’ve seen this not just in Frio, but across the country. The team looked at 10 ICE facilities with the worst outbreaks — in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas — and they found similar patterns suggesting community spread in all 10. “It’s not just about the risk of spread in ICE detention centers. It’s about the risk of spread that occurs at ICE detention centers and then who comes into contact with them and where are they going. What does the exchange look like?” [music playing] [rustling] “I never imagined that this would happen, that I would lose my mom to this. You can’t imagine.” For 20 years, Nataly Garcia’s mother, Blanca Garcia, worked as a nurse inside of the Webb County Detention Center in Laredo, Texas, an ICE facility run by the private contractor CoreCivic. “She was, I would say, like the head of the house [laughs]. She liked to tend to her plants and doing her sewing. She was my best friend, and I would talk to her about everything. I’m a mama’s girl. She was working 12-hour shifts throughout the pandemic, and I think about that every day, knowing that maybe if I had insisted a little bit more, she would be here. If I had annoyed her enough, she wouldn’t have gone to work.” Nataly’s mother became sick with Covid-19 in August, shortly after the detention center was placed under a mandatory quarantine order due to an outbreak among detainees. But by then, it was too late for Blanca. She died a few weeks later. “I haven’t gone through any of this. All her things that were in her locker. There’s a mask that she was making. She probably wore them. So I don’t know what protocols that they had.” After her mom died, Nataly reached out to CoreCivic to file a worker’s compensation claim, which would pay a lifetime benefit to her father. The company referred her to its insurance carrier, who eventually sent a letter denying the claim, concluding that there was not a causal relation between Blanca’s diagnosis of Covid-19 and her employment at CoreCivic. “I mean, obviously, it was a shocker. Like, how can they say that? She would just go to work, come back, and I would just have school online. And my father, I mean, he wasn’t working. It’s like a slap in the face to the years my mom dedicated to them.” “Did you hear a word from them since your mom passed away?” “No.” CoreCivic declined to comment on the specific circumstances of Blanca’s death but said they found no indication that she contracted the virus at work. The company is facing at least three separate lawsuits from former employees who claim CoreCivic put them at risk by failing to follow basic Covid-19 protocols. CoreCivic denies the claims. It says it has rigorously followed C.D.C. and ICE guidelines and it has always provided appropriate P.P.E. for its employees. “The health and safety of ICE detainees are the agency’s highest priorities. Transparency remains critically important in our response to this pandemic as we continue to debunk myths and correct misinformation.” [music playing] 2020 was the deadliest year for people in ICE custody since 2006. To date, at least 10 people have died of Covid-19 after spending time in ICE custody. The number of staff deaths has not been disclosed. “And the failure to control Covid outbreaks in detention, jails and prisons is critically impairing our efforts to contain the spread of the virus in our communities. This is because jails and prisons and detention facilities are not islands. In fact, they’re more like bus terminals with people constantly coming and going.” [music playing]

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To date, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported over 12,000 virus cases. Our investigation found that the impact of infection extended beyond U.S. detention centers.CreditCredit…The New York Times

The United States currently has the largest immigration detention system in the world. On any given day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, holds tens of thousands of people in about 200 facilities across the country. And throughout the pandemic, these facilities have become some of the most dangerous places in the United States when it comes to Covid-19 outbreaks.

The New York Times compared estimated infection rates in ICE detention centers with infection rates in prisons and in the general population. As Covid cases rose last June, ICE detention facilities had an average infection rate five times that of prisons and 20 times that of the general population.

To understand the risks the ICE facilities posed, we talked to former detainees, data scientists, lawyers, county officials and the family of a former ICE contractor about the spread of Covid inside and outside ICE detention centers. We also reviewed court documents, medical records of detainees and government inspection reports from June 2020 to March. This video shows what we found.

Bodies awaiting cremation on Friday in East Delhi.
Credit…Atul Loke for The New York Times

NEW DELHI — With a devastating second wave of Covid-19 sweeping across India and lifesaving supplemental oxygen in short supply, India’s government on Sunday said it ordered Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to take down dozens of social media posts critical of its handling of the pandemic.

The order was aimed at roughly 100 posts that included critiques from opposition politicians and calls for Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, to resign. The government said that the posts could incite panic, used images out of context and could hinder its response to the pandemic.

The companies complied with the requests for now, in part by making the posts invisible to those using the sites inside India. In the past, the companies have reposted some content after determining that it didn’t break the law.

The takedown orders come as India’s public health crisis spirals into a political one, and set the stage for a widening struggle between American social media platforms and Mr. Modi’s government over who decides what can be said online.

On Sunday, the country reported more than 349,691 new infections and 2,767 deaths, marking the fourth consecutive day it set a world record in daily infection statistics, though experts warn that the true numbers are probably much higher. The country now accounts for almost half of all new cases globally. Its health system appears to be teetering. Hospitals across the country have scrambled to get enough oxygen for patients.

In New Delhi, the capital, hospitals this weekend turned away patients after running out of oxygen and beds. Last week, at least 22 patients were killed in a hospital in the city of Nashik, after a leak cut off their oxygen supplies.

Online photos of bodies on plywood hospital beds and the countless fires of overworked crematories have gone viral. Desperate patients and their families have pleaded online for help from the government, horrifying an international audience.

Mr. Modi has been under attack for ignoring the advice of experts about the risks of loosening restrictions, after he held large political rallies with little regard for social distancing. Some of the content now offline in India highlighted that contradiction, using lurid images to contrast Mr. Modi’s rallies with the flames of funeral pyres.

Frank Del Rio, chief executive of Norwegian Cruise Line, right, helped ring the New York Stock Exchange opening bell in 2019. His pay more than doubled last year, even as Norwegian barely survived the pandemic.
Credit…Richard Drew/Associated Press

The pandemic decimated Boeing’s business, and the company announced plans to lay off 30,000 workers. Yet its chief executive, David Calhoun, was rewarded with about $21.1 million in compensation.

It was a similar story last year at Norwegian Cruise Line, which lost $4 billion and furloughed 20 percent of its staff while its chief executive’s pay doubled — and at Hilton, where nearly a quarter of the corporate staff was fired while the company’s top executive received compensation worth $55.9 million.

The divergent fortunes of chief executives and everyday workers in the United States during the pandemic illustrate the sharp divides in a nation on the precipice of an economic boom but still racked by steep inequality.

“We’ve created this class of centimillionaires and billionaires who have not been good for this country,” said Nell Minow, vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, an investment consulting firm. “They may build a wing on a museum. But it’s not infrastructure — it’s not the middle class.”

The aftermath of a fire at a hospital in Baghdad on Sunday.
Credit…Murtaja Lateef/EPA, via Shutterstock

A fire sparked by an exploding oxygen cylinder killed at least 82 people, many of them Covid-19 patients, at a Baghdad hospital late Saturday, the latest example of the pandemic’s devastating impact on a country riddled with corruption, mismanagement and a legacy of decrepit infrastructure.

The hospital, a facility dedicated to Covid-19 patients in one of Baghdad’s poorer neighborhoods, had no smoke detectors, sprinkler system or fire hoses, said Maj. Gen. Khadhim Bohan, the head of Iraq’s civil defense forces. The fire spread quickly because of flammable material used in false ceilings in the intensive care ward, he said.

“If there had been smoke detectors, the situation would have been totally different,” General Bohan said.

Some of the victims were older patients on ventilators who could not move from their beds when the fire started, officials said. At least 110 people were injured.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Khadimi called the fire a crime and ordered an investigation within 24 hours into possible negligence at the hospital, the Ibn al-Khatib.

Iraq last week surpassed one million reported Covid cases since the pandemic began, and the country of 39 million is in the midst of a ferocious second wave of infections. New daily cases recently hit a record of more than 8,000.

Fans filled the stadium as the band Six60 performed at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday.
Credit…David Rowland/Associated Press

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — More than 50,000 fans packed into Eden Park stadium, New Zealand’s largest, on Saturday night for what is believed to be the largest live in-person concert since the pandemic began.

Through a combination of swift lockdowns and border closures, New Zealand has all but eliminated the coronavirus, with 2,600 cases and 26 deaths reported since the start of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database.

Masks are rarely worn, and there are no social-distancing requirements in place. Instead, people are encouraged to scan in on the country’s tracking and tracing system, and hand sanitizer is widely available.

“Next time they tell you it’s impossible, show them this,” Six60, the New Zealand band headlining the concert, wrote in a comment on an aerial photograph of the crowd, posted to its Instagram account.

The event sold out in a matter of weeks. Featuring pyrotechnics and a Maori kapa haka group, it was the first time a musical act had been permitted to headline an event at Eden Park.

While hard-hit countries like Spain, which last month held an experimental indoor concert for 5,000 fans, test out safe ways to resurrect live music in a post-Covid environment, venues in New Zealand have been operating much as they did before the pandemic.

Less than 3 percent of New Zealand’s population has received a dose of a vaccine, according to a New York Times database, and audience members are not required to present proof of inoculation or a negative virus test.

Large live music events are also being organized in other places that have been able to curb the spread of the virus. In Taiwan, the singer-songwriter Eric Chou played sold-out events last year at Taipei Arena, with tickets capped at 10,000 people. In China, over 4,000 live concerts were held during the first week of October for the country’s National Day celebrations.

Perhaps the greatest change for New Zealand is the lack of international performers. With the border closed to almost everyone but citizens and some essential workers, performing artists have had to apply for special permission to enter the country, then spend two weeks quarantining in hotels. The Australian children’s entertainment group The Wiggles and a tribute act to the band Queen have been among those granted special entry visas for entry.

New Zealanders have instead embraced local acts. A national tour by the singer-songwriter Marlon Williams sold out in New Zealand’s largest cities. The singer Benee, who gained fame from TikTok and hails from Auckland, headlined the annual music festival Rhythm and Vines near the city of Gisborne, which attracted 23,000 attendees.

A new trans-Tasman travel corridor, which permits quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand, began last week, opening the way for the Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett to announce a 10-date tour in July.

The National Police in Spain said on Saturday that they had arrested a man who went to his workplace and a gym while showing Covid-19 symptoms, spreading the virus to 22 people.

The 40-year-old man was arrested on charges of a “crime of injury” in Manacor, a city on the island of Majorca, after an investigation that started in late January after an outbreak in the city.

Though the man showed symptoms at his workplace — “a well-known establishment in Manacor” — he did not want to go home, which concerned his co-workers, the police said in a statement. After his workday ended, the man got a coronavirus test.

He was notified of his positive test result at the end of the next day, the police said, after he had gone to a gym and again to work, where he had a fever of 104 degrees Fahrenheit and coughed while lowering his mask, saying, “I am going to infect you all with the coronavirus.”

The man infected eight people directly: five at his workplace and three at his gym, the police said. Those people infected another 14 people, including three children, among them a 1-year-old, the police said. None of the people involved in the outbreak has been hospitalized.

[An earlier version of this briefing misstated the day the police spoke. It was Saturday, not Monday.]



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