Spanish economy enters recession after historic Covid-19 fall

A person walks past shuttered businesses in Madrid on July 24. Paul Hanna/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Spanish economy shrank 18.5% in the second quarter -- its worst drop on record -- as the strict nationwide lockdown and restrictions took a toll on the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

This is the second consecutive negative quarter for Spain which has now entered recession. The economy dropped 5.2% in the first quarter.

Falling exports and weak service activities particularly in hospitality dragged the economy down. The economy is down 22.1% year on year.

The UK recently re-imposed a 14 day mandatory quarantine measures for travelers arriving from Spain, a move that could disrupt travel and impact tourism -- a vital part of the Spanish economy -- leading to a slower recovery.

Researchers on Wednesday published scathing critiques of a study US President Donald Trump repeatedly touted on Twitter. That study, published earlier this month in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, claimed to show that hydroxychloroquine saved lives. 

Trump tweeted about it enthusiastically. 

Scathing criticism: But the study had multiple errors, flaws and biases, according to letters to the journal's editors.

"As a result of the flaws in the analysis the conclusions reached in [the study] are invalid," Graham Atkinson, an independent consultant in healthcare policy, wrote in one of the letters. 

The study was conducted at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. It contradicts many other studies, which have found the drug does not help Covid-19 patients. 

"We've acknowledged the varying conclusions multiple studies have reached, along with the limitations of our retrospective [hydroxychloroquine] study as well as those of other published studies on the topic," according to a statement on Wednesday from Tammy Battaglia, a spokeswoman for Henry Ford.

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A member of the U.S. Army stands in front of military helicopters at U.S. Army Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on June 8, 2019. Jean Chung/Bloomberg/Getty Images

A total of 126 coronavirus cases linked to the United States Forces Korea (USFK) have been reported in South Korea, the USFK said on Friday.

In an open letter to the Unification Minister on Friday, Lee Jae-gang, Vice Governor for Peace of Gyeonggi province, called for the annual US-South Korea military drills to be canceled this year, citing concerns over the virus.

Lee said that the joint military exercise could cause the spread of Covid-19.

According to a statement from the Gyeonggi government, 105 confirmed cases in Pyongtaek -- where the US Army's Camp Humphreys base is located -- are USFK soldiers, accounting for more than 70% of all infections in the city.

This year’s joint drills are believed to have been scheduled for August 17, with a reduced scale, according to the Gyeonggi government's statement.

Children younger than 5 have between 10 and 100 times more genetic material from the novel coronavirus in their noses compared to older children and adults, according to a small study published Thursday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

While the study didn't measure transmissibility, it raises questions -- just as schools start to reopen -- about how easily the virus may be spread by the under-5 set.

Heald-Sargent and her team analyzed 145 swab samples collected from patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 within a week of symptom onset; 46 of them were from children under 5, 51 were from 5- to 17-year-olds, and 48 were from adults between 18 and 65. The samples were collected between the end of March and the end of April from various inpatient, outpatient, emergency department and drive-through testing sites at a pediatric tertiary medical center in Chicago.

They found that those under 5 had a statistically significant greater amount of virus particles in the nose correlating to "a 10-fold to 100-fold greater amount of the coronavirus in the upper respiratory tract ... " the researchers wrote in their paper.

Heald-Sargent says more studies need to look at transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in children. "So far this transmission doesn't seem to be primarily coming from children," she said.

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Passengers head to their departure gates at the domestic terminal of Tokyo's Haneda airport in Japan, on July 25. Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

Tokyo reported 463 new Covid-19 infections Friday, a new single-day high for Japan's capital for the second day in a row, according to Gov. Yuriko Koike.

Although many of the new cases were people in their 20s and 30s, Koike said the outbreak was starting to spread to older citizens in their 60s.

Koike said Tokyo was considering issuing its own version of a state of emergency in the future if warranted.

Tokyo recorded a total of 6,466 cases in July -- a more than six-fold increase from the previous month.

Tumbling markets: Tokyo stocks slumped in afternoon trading as cities around Japan continued to report new cases. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index shed 2.5% to trade below 21,800 points for the first time since June 15.

New infections nationwide have exceeded 1,000 for the past two days, prompting the Tokyo government to ask bars and karaoke parlors to close by 10 p.m. from August 3 to August 31.

Despite the resurgence in cases, the national government has resisted reinstating a state of emergency.

Women hold signs as HOP! and Air France employees protest against the end of the air shuttle service between Bordeaux-Mérignac and Paris-Orly outside Air France offices in Bordeaux, south-western France, on Friday, July 30. Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

France's economy contracted by 13.8% in the second quarter of this year, amid nationwide lockdown measures imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Official growth statistics show that the shutdown of non-essential activities between mid-March and May hit almost every area of the economy.

According to the figures, the gradual ending of restrictions did lead to a slight recovery in May and June. The slump follows a 5.9% contraction in the first quarter.

Morocco recorded 1,046 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, its highest single-day increase since the pandemic hit the country in early March, the country's MAP news agency reported, citing the Health Ministry.

The total number of infections in Morocco now stands at 23,259, according to MAP.

The country also recorded 12 coronavirus-related fatalities on Thursday, bringing its total death toll to 346, MAP added.

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Blood plasma taken from coronavirus survivors and infused into hospitalized patients reduced their mortality rate by about 57%, a team of researchers reported Thursday.

“These results favor the efficacy of convalescent plasma as a COVID-19 therapeutic agent,” wrote the researchers, who are working with US federal government support to study plasma for coronavirus patients.

Century-old method: The team looked at all the studies they could find on the approach, which has been used in epidemics for at least 100 years. The idea is that blood from disease survivors is loaded with antibodies and other immune system compounds that can kick-start an immune response to a fresh infection. It’s a relatively cheap and low-tech approach.

They came up with studies covering more than 800 coronavirus patients around the world, including three randomized controlled trials, which are considered the strongest type of study because they involve randomly assigning patients to one treatment or another for a fair comparison. 

“All studies included patients with severe or life-threatening COVID-19,” the team wrote in their report published on the pre-print server MedRxiv, which has not been peer-reviewed.

What are the findings: The researchers found patients transfused with convalescent plasma exhibiting a lower mortality rate. About 13% of patients who got plasma died, compared to 25% of those who did not get the infusions. That’s a 57% reduction in mortality.

A total of 67,619 new coronavirus cases and 1,233 deaths were recorded across the United States on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The number of confirmed cases in the US now stands at 4,494,601, including at least 152,055 virus-related fatalities.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

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