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Tue. 8:21 a.m.: Latest world virus headlines — Indonesia to release prisoners to limit virus

Indian paramedics prepare to transport a group of residents to a quarantine facility today amid concerns over the spread of the new coronavirus at the Nizamuddin area of New Delhi, India. Police have cordoned off the area after several people who attended an Islamic congregation earlier this month here tested positive for Covid-19. (AP Photo)

Here summaries of the latest headlines worldwide on the coronavirus pandemic, including:

• With highest death toll, Italy holds minute of silence.

• Spain records its highest number of new deaths from virus.

• Chinese officials warn country’s epidemic isn’t over yet.

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JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia plans to release 30,000 prisoners to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Indonesia Law and Human Rights Ministry’s spokesman Bambang Wiyono says the Ministry has issued a Ministerial Decree to regulate the release of adult prisoners that had served two-thirds of their sentences and half of the sentences for children prisoners.

Indonesia Law and Human Rights Ministry recorded 270,386 prisoners across the country while the capacity of the prisons is only 131,931 prisoners.

Indonesia has reported 1,528 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 136 deaths.

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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — A government health institute in Slovakia estimates the number of people ill with coronavirus could reach the peak by mid-July with some 170,000 infected.

Director Martin Smatana says the strict restrictions approved by the government seems to be helping to slow the spreading of the virus.

Smatana says if the country keeps complying, it has a chance to avoid what happened in the countries and places the worst hit by the pandemic.

Prime Minister Igor Matovic says the authorities are working to double the number of ventilators to 1,000.

Slovakia, the country of nearly 5.5 million, has 363 cases of COVID-19. No one has died.

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MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government is studying the possibility of deploying ships that can serve as “floating quarantine hospitals” for people infected by the coronavirus after leading hospitals are filled up to capacity.

The government says in a report to Congress that ships could be fitted with medical equipment and deployed anywhere in the archipelago. At least six private metropolitan Manila hospitals have announced they were full and can no longer accept COVID-19 patients.

The Department of Public Works and Highway also created a special group to convert unused public buildings and evacuation shelters into treatment centers, containment areas and emergency food hubs.

Philippine health officials reported 538 new COVID-19 cases today, bringing the country’s total to 2,084 and 88 deaths. The number of infections is expected to spike after more testing laboratories open.

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ROME — Italy has observed a minute of silence and flown its flags at half-staff in a collective, nationwide gesture to honor the victims of the coronavirus and their families.

The Vatican also lowered its flags today to honor the dead in the country with the greatest toll from the virus, which stands at more than 11,500.

The noon minute of silence was observed in cities and towns around the country.

The office of Premier Giuseppe Conte said the gesture was a sign of national mourning and solidarity with the victims, their families “and as a sign of collective participation in mourning with the hardest-hit communities.”

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BEIJING — Chinese officials say the coronavirus epidemic isn’t over in their country and that daunting challenges remain.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said today that authorities need to make sure that infected people arriving from abroad don’t spread the disease and start new outbreaks.

She hit back at U.S. criticism of her country’s handling of the epidemic, saying that China and the U.S. should work together to fight it.

“We also hope that some U.S. officials can follow through in the spirit of the two heads of states’ call and create more favorable conditions for the two countries to cooperate in the fight against the disease,” she said. The two leaders talked late last week.

Hua noted that some local Chinese governments and companies have provided virus-related medical supplies to the United States, even as the demand for those supplies remains high in China.

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai’s government says it will inject equity into Emirates airlines as the Middle East’s largest carrier grounds nearly all of its flights due to coronavirus restrictions on travel at its hub in the world’s busiest airport for international travel.

Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said in a statement today that liquidity would be given to the state-owned airline “considering its strategic importance” to Dubai and the economy of the United Arab Emirates, but he did not say how much credit would be pumped into the airline.

Emirates carried around 58 million passengers last year, helping to transform Dubai’s airport into the world’s busiest for international travel for several years running.

Also today, low-cost carrier flydubai became the latest airline to announce pay cuts of its staff of nearly 4,000, though not all staff are being affected the same.

The company told The Associated Press it was reducing salaries to between 25-50 percent for a three-month period starting in April.

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MADRID — Spain recorded today 849 new coronavirus deaths, the highest number since the pandemic hit the southern European country, according to the country’s health ministry.

With both new infections and deaths up around 11 percent each, to a total of 94,417 confirmed cases and 8,189 fatalities, Spain is seeing a slight rebound in the outbreak.

That’s despite an overall timid slowdown in its spread for the past week, allowing authorities to focus on avoiding the collapse of the health system. At least one third of Spain’s 17 regions were already at their limit of capacity in terms of intensive care unit usage, while new beds are being added in hotels, exhibition and sports centers across the country.

At least 14 percent of those infected are much needed medical personnel. Many of them lack proper protective gear.

The government also wants to cushion the social effects of a major economic slowdown. Spain is officially “hibernating,” with new measures halting all but essential economic activity coming into full force today.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing Cabinet is expected to add a new 700-million-euro aid package, including zero interest loans, as well as suspend evictions for families who can’t afford to pay their home rent.

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LONDON — More people with the new coronavirus have died in Britain than previously announced, according to newly published figures that include deaths both in and out of hospitals.

The Office for National Statistics says that 210 deaths recorded England and Wales up to March 20 mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate. That is 40 more than the 170 deaths among people with the virus reported by the Department of Health for the same period.

The two sets of figures use different reporting methods and timing. The Department of Health statistics record hospital deaths. Today’s higher figure includes people who died in nursing homes and other settings. Some of those are people who were not tested for the virus but were suspected of having it.

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BERLIN — German zoos are asking the government for a 100 million-euro ($110 million) aid package to help cover costs as their revenue has fallen away due to the coronavirus crisis.

Germany has largely shut down public life and introduced a ban over a week ago on gatherings of more than two people in public. The restrictions are expected to remain in place until after Easter. An association representing 56 zoos wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel, her finance and economy ministers as well as state governors today.

The group’s chairman, Leipzig zoo director Joerg Junhold, said that “unlike other facilities, we cannot simply shut down our operations – our animals still have to be fed and cared for.”

With zoos closed to visitors, he said that “at the moment we are working without revenues but with expenses at a consistently high level.” He said that a big zoo currently has a weekly revenue shortfall of about 500,000 euros.

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BRUSSELS — Belgian authorities say a 12-year-old girl has died of the coronavirus, by far the youngest person among the more than 700 victims in the country.

Announcing the news today, national crisis-center coronavirus spokesman Emmanuel Andre said it is “an emotionally difficult moment, because it involves a child, and it has also upset the medical and scientific community.”

“We are thinking of her family and friends. It is an event that is very rare, but one which upsets us greatly,” Andre said. No details about the girl were provided.

He said that 98 people had died from the disease over the last 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 705 in a country of around 11.5 million people. More than 12,705 cases have been confirmed in total so far.

Andre said that Belgian authorities expect the spread of the disease to reach its peak in coming days, and that “we will arrive at a point where we’re close to saturation point at our hospitals.”

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MOSCOW — Russia registered 500 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus today in the biggest spike since the beginning of the outbreak that brought the country’s total to 2,337 cases.

The report comes as Russia edges closer to declaring a state of emergency, with many regions and cities ordering lockdowns and sweeping self-isolation protocols.

Moscow, the country’s capital, has been on lockdown since Monday, with most businesses closed and residents not allowed to leave their apartments except for grocery shopping, buying medicines, taking out trash or walking their dogs. Similar regimes are in place in more than 30 Russian regions.

Human rights advocates and lawyers in Russia argue that, in accordance with the Russian legislation, such lockdowns can’t be legally enforced until the state of emergency is declared by the president. The Kremlin has so far said that Moscow authorities have been within their rights to impose a lockdown.

Today, the State Duma, Russia’s lower parliament house, hastily adopted a law allowing the Cabinet to declare the state of emergency, rubber-stamping it through all three required readings in one day.

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BEIJING — China will delay the national college entrance exam by a month to ensure the health of students and allow more time for them to prepare, the education ministry announced today.

Amid sharply declining numbers of virus cases, the hugely important exam will now be held on July 7 and 8. However, the capital Beijing and hardest-hit Hubei Province “can put forward their proposals on the exam dates for their regions” and publish the schedule after gaining approval from the ministry, the announcement said.

More than 10 million students plan to take the exam this year. Schools in some regions have begun to reopen, although ministry officials say the restart of classes will happen gradually, under tight hygienic conditions and only in areas where the threat of the virus is lowest.

China “has passed through the most dangerous, most critical stage of the crisis,” but can’t afford to let its guard down, Ma Xiaowei, director of the National Health Commission, told reporters at a separate news conference today.

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Denmark could start lifting some restrictions next month if the coronavirus curve continues to flatten out.

Frederiksen said late Monday that if Danes continue to stand together — at a distance — the government will consider gradually opening up in two weeks’ time.

She underlined that the crisis was far from over but there was growing evidence that Denmark, which started a gradual lockdown on March 11, had “succeeded in delaying the infection,” adding it gave “a rise to optimism.”

Also in the Nordic region, Finland has decided to extend by a month the duration of the emergency conditions in the southern part of the country affecting the daily lives of some 1.7 million people, nearly a third of Finland’s population.

The measures set by the Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s government were originally set to expire April 13 but the restrictions, now extended to May 13, were aimed at slowing “down the spread of coronavirus infections and to protect those at risk.”

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LONDON — British supermarkets had their busiest month in history as demand soared from people preparing to stay at home to avoid the new coronavirus.

New figures from market research firm Kantar show that British grocery sales jumped by 20.6 percent in March compared with a year earlier, making it the fastest rate of growth on record.

As Britain prepared for a lockdown, images of supermarket shelves stripped of essentials like pasta and toilet paper circulated on social media, prompting British supermarkets to take out newspaper ads urging people not to panic buy.

Grocery sales totaled 10.8 billion pounds ($13.3 billion) over the past four weeks, surpassing the level seen during the busy Christmas season, Kantar said. The average household bought the equivalent of five extra days of groceries, it found.

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NEW DELHI — A neighborhood in the Indian capital where a religious sect is headquartered has been sealed off from outsiders after police evacuated more than 1,000 people believed to have been exposed to the coronavirus during a religious gathering earlier this month before the government imposed the world’s largest lockdown.

Police said today that hundreds of people, many of them foreign nationals, carried the virus to several other parts of India after attending a mosque in the crowded majority-Muslim enclave of Nizamuddin West.

Paramedics have transported hundreds of Muslim worshippers to nearby quarantine facilities. Officials say at least 300 people have symptoms of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

Officials in other Indian states raced to confine others who attended the Nizamuddin mosque.

India has 1,200 confirmed cases of the coronavirus across the country, including 32 deaths, a quarter of which have been linked to the gathering.

A 21-day long nationwide lockdown that began last week has resulted in the suspension of trains and airline services and effectively kept 1.3 billion Indians at home for all but essential trips to places like markets or pharmacies.

The overall number of known cases in India is small compared with the United States, Italy and China, but health experts say India could be weeks away from a huge surge that could overwhelm its already strained public health system.

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