European Union urged to evacuate overcrowded Greek island camps
Jennifer Rankin, Guardian
The European Union has been urged to evacuate asylum seekers from overcrowded camps on the Greek islands in order to save lives.
The European parliament’s civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee has called for the evacuation of 42,000 people on the Greek islands as “an urgent preventive” measure to avoid “many deaths” from coronavirus.
The first case of Covid-19 on the islands was confirmed earlier this month when a Greek woman on Lesbos tested positive. MEPs fear that if the virus spreads it could become a public health emergency in the squalid camps, where thousands live in unsanitary conditions, often without electricity, heating or running water.
“Many of those in the camps are already in precarious health situations due to the bad conditions in which they have lived for a long time,” states the letter from Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a Spanish socialist MEP, who chairs the committee. “There is no chance of isolation or social distancing, nor is it possible to ensure appropriate hygienic conditions,” he wrote.
Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis, has announced the country will go into a full lockdown on Wednesday to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, with the army deployed to help enforce it.
“Romanians will face new restrictions,” Iohannis said in a televised address, citing the “complexity of the situation”.
Romania had already introduced a state of emergency and a night-time curfew but Iohannis announced that as of Wednesday, the previous “recommendation” to citizens to stay indoors “will become an obligation based on the principle: ‘We’re staying at home’”.
The AFP news agency reported that Romanians will only be allowed to leave their houses during the day to go to work or get essential supplies.
People over 65 years old - one of the groups most at risk from complications from the virus - are to be barred from leaving the house altogether.
Police and gendarmes have been enforcing the night-time curfew since Monday evening and will now be joined by the army.
Romania reported 762 confirmed cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, a jump of almost 200 from the previous day, with eight deaths.
Poland bans gatherings of more than two people
Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has announced a series of new restrictions in the country in a televised briefing together with the minister of health, writes the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, Shaun Walker, from Budapest.
As of tomorrow, gatherings of more than two people are prohibited. People can still leave home to go to work, buy medicine or take exercise. “But this does not mean we are to gather, or that we can go to the playground with children,” said health minister Łukasz Szumowski.
The move makes Poland the latest European nation to go into lockdown over coronavirus. Other measures announced on Tuesday included limiting the number of passengers on public transport to 50% of the seat capacity to ensure distancing.
Poland introduced some of the earliest restrictions on Europe, despite a relatively low number of cases. The country shut its borders to foreign citizens on 15 March, and most flight and train connections were swiftly cancelled.
It has also closed schools, cinemas and theatres and had already introduced a “state of epidemic” which recommended people to stay at home. Poland currently has 774 confirmed cases of coronavirus and nine deaths.
Service personel in Afghanistan test postive for coronavirus
Akhtar Mohammad Makoii
Four service members of international coalition forces tested positive for Coronavirus in Afghanista, writes my colleague Akhtar Mohammad Makoii.
The headquarters of Resolute Support, NATO mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement that the service members were newly arrived to Afghanistan and were in a screening facility when they became symptomatic and were moved to isolation.
“Nationalities and details will be withheld pending release from the appropriate national authorities” the statement said.
“There are approximately 1500 servicemembers and civilians living in screening facilities as preventative measure. Most are either newly - arriving or returning from leave. These service members are living in screening facilities out of an abundance of caution, not because they are sick”.
Guardian
