Vladimir Putin still working remotely during coronavirus pandemic

MOSCOW — The spokesman for Vladimir Putin says the Russian president will continue working remotely for at least another week amid the coronavirus pandemic. Dmitry Peskov said on state television Putin and people who work with him are being tested regularly. Russia’s coronavirus task force says the number of infections in the country was 5,389, which is up almost 700 than the previous day. There have been 45 deaths recorded. ___ ROME — Rome’s main hospital for treating COVID-19 infections says more patients were discharged than admitted for the first time since Italy’s outbreak began. Spallanzani Hospital’s daily bulletin on coronavirus cases was another positive sign that Italy’s rigid lockdown measures have apparently slowed the contagion. The lockdown has been four weeks now. Health authorities in Lombardy said last week overwhelmed hospitals were starting to feel some relief. The northern region has more than half of Italy’s 15,000 deaths. Spallanzani had treated the first known COVID-19 cases in Italy, which was a vacationing Chinese couple who fell sick in late January. They were discharged last month. ___ PARIS — An Airbus plane has traveled from China to France and returned with a cargo of 4 million face masks. The European multinational said in a statement that the flight landing in France on Sunday morning was its third such mission between China and France. Airbus says it is continuing “to purchase and supply millions of face masks from China.” It added the large majority of the masks will be donated to governments of the Airbus home countries, which are predominately France, Germany, Spain and the U.K. ___ COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s military troops and police personnel are performing musical programs to boost the mental health of citizens under lockdown during coronavirus pandemic. The programs cater to people living in apartments who can't leave due to the curfew. Music bands go to each of the apartments and perform on a makeshift stage. Sri Lanka has been under a countrywide curfew since March 20. Police are strictly imposing the curfew. There have been 13,716 people arrested for violating curfew and 3,423 vehicles seized. Curfew will be lifted for eight hours in 19 districts on Monday to allow people to buy food and other essentials. The curfew in six other districts which have been identified as high-risk areas will continue indefinitely. Five people have died due to the virus in Sri Lanka and the total number of confirmed cases are at 166. ___ JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN — Officials in South Sudan say the country has recorded its first case of COVID-19. It makes it the 51st of Africa’s 54 countries to have the disease. First Vice President Riek Machar and the U.N. mission in South Sudan confirmed the positive case of a U.N. worker who arrived in the country from the Netherlands on Feb. 28. Officials say the patient is a 29-year-old woman who is in quarantine and recovering. South Sudan has 11 million people but Machar says the country currently has four ventilators. South Sudan has already imposed a night curfew and closed its borders to combat the spread of the coronavirus. ___ PRAGUE — More than 300 pilots in the Czech Republic have joined forces in a group of volunteers who use their private planes to distribute medical equipment all across the country. The “Pilots to the People” project is meant to help the state authorities fighting the epidemic of the coronavirus “to deliver supplies to any place in the country as soon as possible.” The service is offered free of charge and the pilots pay for the gas. There’s a network of some 200 airports in the country they can use, making it possible to efficiently serve the entire country. The group says their goal is to transport the material to any hospital, clinic or any other place where it’s needed in within two hours. Dan Stastny, one of the founders of the project told The Associated Press on Sunday. that besides the speed, they "can land at any sort of airstrip for ultralight planes which is a great advantage.” The volunteers mostly include amateurs, sport and small planes pilots. ___ BANGKOK — A Muslim separatist group in Thailand has announced it is suspending guerrilla activity to facilitate humanitarian access during the COVID-19 crisis. The Barisan Revolusi Nasional says in a statement posted Sunday on its Facebook page that it was acting “in order to create a safer and more suitable environment ... for health care agencies and other organizations tasked with preventing and containing the outbreak of Coronavirus.” It says its suspension will remain in effect as long as the group is not attacked by government forces. The group, generally known as the BRN, has been leading a loose alliance fighting for autonomy for Thailand’s three southernmost provinces, the only ones with Muslim majorities in the predominantly Buddhist nation. About 7,000 people have been killed since the conflict flared up in 2004. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that warring parties in 11 countries had responded positively to his appeal for a global cease-fire to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. ___ ATHENS, Greece — Greece has put a migrant facility outside Athens on lockdown for 14 days after a 53-year-old Afghan developed coronavirus symptoms Saturday afternoon. Authorities say the man has been taken to an Athens hospital and is under “full medical evaluation.” They have not specified the seriousness of his condition. The lockdown began Sunday morning. The facility is called an “open” one in official parlance, meaning the migrants there could leave and enter as they wished. There are about 2,500 migrants living there, not all of whom are registered, according to Mihalis Hassiotis, a municipal councillor of Oropos, a town north of Athens where the facility is located. The migrants stay in containers in crowded conditions. Hassiotis says the facility was designed initially for 500 and expanded over the years. ___ MADRID — The rate of the coronavirus outbreak continues to slow in Spain, the country with the second most infections behind the United States. Spain recorded 6,023 confirmed new infections on Sunday, taking the national tally to 130,759. That is down from an increase of 7,026 infections in the previous 24-hour period, confirming the downward tendency of the past week. Confirmed new deaths also dropped to 674 fatalities, taking the national tally to 12,418. That is the first time new deaths have fallen below 800 new fatalities in the past week. As its outbreak loses steam, Spain’s government has started to cautiously consider when it can start to reactivate an economy that has been shut down and put hundreds of thousands out of work. “We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told the nation Saturday. But to get there, Sánchez announced that he would ask the Parliament to extend the state of emergency by two more weeks, taking the lockdown on mobility until April 26. He added that a team of experts is also studying how to plan for a gradual loosening of restrictions to reactive the country’s dormant economy and social life. ___ THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A Dutch military transport plane carrying a mobile field hospital made up of six intensive care beds is on its way to the Caribbean nation of Sint Maarten to help fight the coronavirus. The Dutch government says the C-17 plane that left a military airbase in Eindhoven early Sunday morning was also carrying equipment to set up a further six IC beds in the semi-autonomous nation’s hospital, along with protective gear and medicines. Dutch State Secretary for Health Paul Blokhuis says the country is closely cooperating with Sint Maarten and other Caribbean islands that make up part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands “to rein in the spread of corona as much as possible and at the same time provide the best care possible for corona patients.” According to figures released April 2 by the government of Sint Maarten, 23 people have tested positive and two people have died in the outbreak. The half-island nation has a population of some 41,000.

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Vladimir Putin still working remotely during coronavirus pandemic

MOSCOW — The spokesman for Vladimir Putin says the Russian president will continue working remotely for at least another week amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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