Malaysia’s Top Glove Corporation Bhd, which makes one in every five plastic gloves globally, expects a product shortage as demand from Europe and the United States spikes because of the widening coronavirus outbreak is exceeding its capacity, Reuters reports.
The company has extended shipping times to cope with the demand surge, Executive Chairman Lim Wee Chai told Reuters by phone on Friday.
Lim said orders received in the past few weeks, mainly from Europe and the United States, were almost double the company’s production capacity. Top Glove can produce 200 million natural and synthetic rubber gloves a day.
In New York city, where mayor Bill de Blasio said earlier that he had asked the federal government to deliver 400 more ventilators to city hospitals by Wednesday and warned that without reinforcements the city will run out of masks, gowns and other hospital supplies in a week, a 68-bed field hospital is being built in Manhattan’s Central Park.
Samaritan’s Purse, a charity run by Christian evangelical preacher Franklin Graham, built a similar temporary facility in Italy to help deal with the crisis there.
He said the New York City version could be up and running Tuesday.
carolynryan
(@carolynryan)I’m in Central Park – they’re building field hospitals for coronavirus patients pic.twitter.com/agpcmVNnXh
Dozens of prisoners broke furniture and torched buildings during a riot in a Thai jail on Sunday sparked by fears of a coronavirus outbreak in the facility, AFP reports.
During the violence some convicts escaped from the Buriram prison where more than 2,000 are held, the justice ministry said. Seven have been arrested.
Local media showed footage of black smoke billowing from the prison’s multiple blocks in the country’s northeast, and a Corrections Department official said drones were deployed to investigate what weapons the prisoners were using.
Six prisoners were injured in the melee by broken glass, according to Narat Sawetana, director general of the Corrections Department. More than 1,500 prisoners had to be evacuated before the rioting could be stopped.
Thailand has recorded 1,388 cases of the coronavirus, including seven deaths.
At least two prisoners in the country have caught the highly contagious virus.
In a bid to prevent outbreaks in jails, authorities have banned visitors and are quarantining new inmates for 14 days.
Similar panic over the coronavirus sparked a prison riot in the Colombian capital of Bogota last Sunday that killed 23 inmates.
Coronavirus forecast to cut UK economic output by 15%
The coronavirus pandemic could cause UK economic output to plunge by an unprecedented 15% in the second quarter of the year and unemploymentto more than double, according to dire forecasts.
The deepest recession since the financial crisis is now all but unavoidable, according to analysts at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), after businesses shut up shop and consumer spending fell dramatically as a result of lockdown restrictions.
The centre said it expected the economy to have shrunk marginally in the first three months of the year by 0.5%, followed by the steepest economic contraction since comparable records began more than 20 years ago.
The predicted slump would dwarf the 2.2% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2008 as the banking crash took hold, marking by far the worst three-month period since at least 1997.
In the US, the family of John Prine, one of the most influential figures in folk and country music, says the singer-songwriter is critically ill and has been placed on a ventilator while being treated for Covid-19-type symptoms.
A message posted on Prine’s Twitter page Sunday said the Angel from Montgomery singer has been hospitalized since Thursday and his condition worsened on Saturday.
“This is hard news for us to share,” Prine’s family said. “But so many of you have loved and supported John over the years, we wanted to let you know, and give you the chance to send on more of that love and support now. And know that we love you, and that John loves you.”
Prine’s wife and manager, Fiona Whelan Prine, this month said she had tested positive for the coronavirus. She said the couple were quarantined and isolated from each other.
The 73-year-old Prine has twice fought cancer. Most recently, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2013 and had part of a lung removed.
The number of people with flu-like-symptoms on a Covid-19 stricken cruise ship off the coast of Panama has risen by almost a third in two days, from 138 to 179.
Holland America Line, who runs the Zaandam cruise liner, confirmed that nobody else had died on board after four elderly passengers passed away earlier this week. The cause of death has so far not been stated.
On the Zaandam 69 guests and 110 crew are ill with flu like symptoms. On Friday, 53 guests and 85 crew were sick on the cruise liner, where two people have so far tested positive for covid-19.
The Zaandam and its sister ship the Rotterdam are preparing to pass through the Panama canal after the Central American country reversed a decision to stop the vessels from crossing. Hundreds of asymptomatic passengers were moved to the Rotterdam over the weekend. None have presented with flu-like symptoms so far.
On Sunday evening, it was still unclear whether the two boats would be allowed to dock in Fort Lauderdale after local authorities raised concerns about the health risks the crew and passengers pose to the local population.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis has called for President Trump to intervene in the situation and has suggested the vessels should be redirected to nearby Navy bases.
Hundreds of worshipers attend Louisiana church service
Hundreds of worshippers attended services at a Louisiana church on Sunday, flouting a ban on large gatherings, angering neighbours and seemingly turning a deaf ear to their governor, who once again warned that hospitals could soon be overwhelmed with new cases of the coronavirus, AP reports.
An estimated 500 people of all ages filed inside the mustard-yellow and beige Life Tabernacle church in Central, a city of nearly 29,000 outside Baton Rouge.
Assistant ministers and worshippers who stood outside the front doors and in the parking lot of Life Tabernacle told news reporters to leave, saying cameras would not be allowed on the property and they had been told not to talk to the news media.
