We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest: New Zealand GDP fell 1.6% in first quarter, biggest since 1991 Radio New Zealand reports that the country’s GDP fell by 1.6% in the first quarter. It was the first contraction in growth since late 2010 and the biggest single quarterly fall since 1991. Most sectors of the economy contracted with the biggest in construction, retail and travel. The number was worse than expected and the economy shrank by 0.2% in the year ended March. However, economists are warning the second quarter to June will show the major impact on growth with expectations of a fall of as much as 20%. Argentina"s president enters voluntary isolation amid coronavirus surge Uki Goñi reports for the Guardian from Buenos Aires: Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández has gone into voluntary isolation amid growing concerns over a surge of coronavirus infections, including several cases among the country’s political elite. The decision to quarantine the president – whose popularity is riding high on his no-nonsense response to the pandemic – was taken due to the “significant increase in the circulation of the virus,” presidential doctor Federico Saavedra said in a statement on Wednesday. Until now, Argentina’s strong coronavirus lockdown, had been a standout success in the containment of the pandemic that is ripping through its South American neighbours Brazil and Chile. But that may start changing after Argentina’s reported cases more than quadrupled in the last month following the gradual lockdown relaxation that began on 10 May. Leadership is broken. From the coronavirus pandemic and police brutality to the marginalisation of minority communities around the world, our leaders are failing us. Self-serving and divisive, they are gambling with public health and the future of younger generations. We have to make them raise their game. This is what the Guardian is for. As an open, independent news organisation we investigate, interrogate and expose the incompetence and indifference of those in power. Your support helps us produce quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism every day - and publish it free so everyone can read. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. Kari Paul The video conferencing platform Zoom announced on Wednesday it has reversed course and decided to provide end-to-end encryption to all customers, not just those who pay for a subscription. The video platform exploded in popularity after coronavirus-related lockdowns and is now seeing as many as 300 million daily users, up from just 10 million in December. Zoom faced criticism from civil rights groups for its plans to exclude free calls from encryption services, which secure communication so it can only be read by the users involved. The company’s CEO, Eric Yuan, had explained that Zoom planned to exclude free calls from end-to-end encryption to make sure it is still possible to “work together with FBI, with local law enforcement in case some people use Zoom for a bad purpose”. But “basic security shouldn’t be a premium feature that’s only available to wealthy individuals and big corporations,” Evan Greer, the deputy director at the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, said at the time. Zoom changed its decision after speaking with civil liberties organizations, child safety advocates, encryption experts, government representatives, and users, Yuan said in a statement announcing the change. The enhanced encryption will be available starting in July. I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus news for the next few hours. It would be great to hear from you on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com – questions, comments, tips and news from your part of the world are most welcome. Hi, Helen Sullivan joining you now, and bringing you this important news: Australia and New Zealand have begun negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK in what the Australian trade minister said was “a strong signal of our mutual support for free trade” in a post-Covid-19 world. Boris Johnson hailed the opening of trade talks with Australia as an opportunity to bring the two countries closer together, and to exchange Penguin bars for Arnott’s Tim Tams with reduced tariffs. ‘How long can the British people be deprived of the opportunity to have Tim Tams at a reasonable price?’ the prime minister joked: Summary Here’s a summary of the latest developments: The global death toll from coronavirus is approaching half a million people, with more than 8.2 million confirmed cases of the disease worldwide. The Johns Hopkins University tracker is recording more than 445,000 deaths from Covid-19 across the world, as of Wednesday evening UK time. One in four fatalities are in the US, making it by far the worst-hit country. The cheap steroid British researchers believe can help save lives should be used only for the most serious cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. The WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said research was at last providing “green shoots of hope”. America’s top public health expert has warned the nation it is “still in the first wave” of coronavirus infections and deaths, as six states report record numbers of new cases amid continued rapid easing of lockdown restrictions. However, the state of New York recorded 17 coronavirus deaths on 16 June, its lowest daily death toll since the start of the outbreak. Just 10 weeks ago 800 New Yorkers died in a single day, so the decline is extraordinary. Germany has agreed to ban large events, including festivals and fairs, for another four months to guard against a second spike in cases. Chancellor Angela Merkel held a meeting of all 16 state premiers where they agreed to extend the ban on big events until at least the end of October. Millions of people in Beijing are living under renewed restrictions as a spike in virus cases continues. The city reported another 31 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 137 in the past week. Before the recent spike, the Chinese capital had gone 57 days without a locally-transmitted case. The World Health Organization (WHO) has halted trials of the malaria drug championed by Donald Trump for treating coronavirus. WHO said it had stopped testing hydroxychloroquine as part of its multi-country trial because it had showed no benefit. It comes two days after US regulators revoked the emergency authorisation for its use, amid growing evidence it doesn’t work and could cause serious side-effects. WHO welcomed the UK’s successful trial of dexamethasone, the low-cost anti-inflammatory drug found to save lives when used on coronavirus patients. The global body said it marked a “lifesaving breakthrough” in the fight against the virus and ordered its own analysis on the drug. However, some scientists - including South Korea’s top public health official - expressed caution on the drug. Roche Holding AG’s Actemra did not improve symptoms in patients with early-stage Covid-19 pneumonia, scientists conducting a study of the drug in Italy have said. The revelation raises questions about the potential of the Swiss drugmakers’ rheumatoid arthritis drug to treat the infection. The study compared patients who received anti-inflammation drug Actemra to those given standard treatment, and concluded that Actemra did not reduce severe respiratory symptoms, intensive care visits, or death. According to Reuters, the trial ended early after enrolling 126 patients, about one third of the expected number, according to a press release issued by the groups that conducted the study. In the US, the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has accused the incumbent Donald Trump of “surrendering” to the pandemic and failing to stay prepared for a resurgence that could put a US economic recovery at risk. American people sacrificed so much to fight this virus ... we may lose some the progress we’ve begun to make. All because he’s lost interest. Now he’s just flat surrendering the fight. Trump is eager to reopen the economy and resume political campaigning even as the number of cases has started to rise again, with record increases reported this week in the states of Oklahoma, Texas and Oregon. The president is planning his first rally since people were forced to stay at home three months ago in heavily Republican Oklahoma, over the objections of public health officials. Biden said: He’s so eager to get back to campaign rallies that he*s putting people at risk. Citizens and residents of the United Arab Emirates will be allowed to travel to countries deemed low-risk for catching the virus from next Tuesday, local officials have said. Prospective travellers must test negative and must quarantine on their return to the UAE for up to 14 days, a spokesman for the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority has said. Saif Al Dhaheri said airport authorities will check travellers for symptoms. Those with a fever or showing respiratory problems will be isolated and barred from travel. Dhaheri did not give a list of countries for each risk category, but said all travel to high-risk countries would remain banned. Travel to medium-risk countries would be allowed on a case-by-case basis, for people seeking health treatment, visiting immediate family or those on military, diplomatic or official business. Sudan has extended the lockdown in the state of Khartoum to 29 June as it tries to curb the virus’ spread, its Security and Defence Council has said. Khartoum state, including the capital, is the Arab African country’s most populous. Curfew hours will remain unchanged, from 3pm until 6am (CAT), the council said after approving the recommendations of its Supreme Committee for Health Emergencies. Sudan will start a process to bring back stranded expatriates through flights and border crossings starting from Sunday, the statement said. Those who do not have medical certificates proving that they are not carrying the virus will be transferred to quarantine centres until they can be tested, it added. Last week, Sudan extended the closure of airports to international and internal scheduled commercial flights until 28 June. The country had reported 7,435 cases as of Saturday, including 468 deaths. The borders of more than a dozen countries in West Africa could be reopened within weeks under proposals from government ministers there. The measures could be in place in the first half of July, with travellers from other countries with low or controlled levels of coronavirus spread allowed in by the end of the month. Members of the 15-country ECOWAS trade bloc have imposed varying levels of travel restrictions in response to the pandemic, with many shutting their borders entirely. The new proposal, contained in an ECOWAS summary of a virtual meeting last week of foreign ministers and trade ministers, called for coordinated efforts to re-open cross-border trade. It said a first phase consisting of opening up domestic air and land transport should be implemented this month. Many governments in the region have already begun to do so. A second phase, involving the opening of land, air and maritime borders within the region, should happen by 15 July at the latest. A third phase, involving the opening of air and land borders to “countries with low and controlled levels of Covid-19 contamination rates”, should occur by 31 July but will depend on the evolution of the pandemic, the report said. France’s death toll rose by 28 to 29,575 on Wednesday, a figure more in line with the current trend after a spike in deaths on Tuesday due to the inclusion of weekly data for nursing homes. Yet the number of new confirmed cases was at a four-day high of 458, at 158,174, and slightly above the daily average of 434 seen over the last seven days. On Tuesday, the death toll was up by 111 but that figure included 73 fatalities in nursing homes. If only hospital deaths are taken into account, the average daily increase stands at 26. France’s health ministry said that the number of people in hospital fell by 268 to 10,267 and the number of people in intensive care fell by 48 to 772. Both numbers have been on a downtrend for about 10 weeks. An official study of patients in the US city Atlanta has found that black patients are more likely to be hospitalised than white patients, highlighting racial disparities in the country’s healthcare system. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said about 79% of black patients were hospitalised, against 13% of white patients across six metropolitan hospitals and outpatient clinics between March and April 2020. The researchers found such an association even when they controlled for underlying conditions such as diabetes. This suggested that other factors like healthcare access or the possibility of bias might explain the higher rates. Hospitalised patients tended to be older, male, black, and have underlying conditions, said the researchers. They added that black Americans were more likely to be frontline industry or essential workers, raising their risks for infection. Apart from age, race and underlying conditions, lack of insurance, smoking and obesity were independently associated with the likelihood of hospitalisation for the 531 Atlanta patients studied, researchers said. The Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández has been hospitalised for Covid-19 and is being treated for pneumonia, a health official has said, shortly after the Central American leader’s diagnosis was revealed. While his condition is serious enough to require specialised hospital care, including receiving medicine via an intravenous drip, the president is generally in good health, said Francis Contreras, a spokesman for Honduran health agency SINAGER. The US has suffered 722 more deaths and registered 27,975 new cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That takes the official totals to 116,862 and 2,132,321, respectively. Reserve new treatment for most serious cases – WHO The cheap steroid British researchers believe can help save lives should be used only for the most serious cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. The WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said research was at last providing “green shoots of hope”. Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, a generic drug used since the 1960s to reduce inflammation in diseases such as arthritis, cut death rates by around a third among the most severely ill patients admitted to hospital. The head of the WHO’s emergencies programme, Dr Mike Ryan, said the drug should only be used in the cases where it has been shown to help. It is exceptionally important in this case, that the drug is reserved for use in severely ill and critical patients who can benefit from this drug clearly. Summary Right, I’m handing over to my colleague Kevin Rawlinson in London so I will leave you with this summary. Thank you for following, and for the tweets and emails. Josh. The global death toll from coronavirus is approaching half a million people, with more than 8.2 million confirmed cases of the disease worldwide. The Johns Hopkins University tracker is recording more than 445,000 deaths from Covid-19 across the world, as of Wednesday evening UK time. One in four fatalities are in the US, making it by far the worst-hit country. America’s top public health expert has warned the nation it is “still in the first wave” of coronavirus infections and deaths, as six states report record numbers of new cases amid continued rapid easing of lockdown restrictions. However, the state of New York recorded 17 coronavirus deaths on 16 June, its lowest daily death toll since the start of the outbreak. Just 10 weeks ago 800 New Yorkers died in a single day, so the decline is extraordinary. Germany has agreed to ban large events, including festivals and fairs, for another four months to guard against a second spike in cases. Chancellor Angela Merkel held a meeting of all 16 state premiers where they agreed to extend the ban on big events until at least the end of October. Millions of people in Beijing are living under renewed restrictions as a spike in virus cases continues. The city reported another 31 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 137 in the past week. Before the recent spike, the Chinese capital had gone 57 days without a locally-transmitted case. The World Health Organization (WHO) has halted trials of the malaria drug championed by Donald Trump for treating coronavirus. WHO said it had stopped testing hydroxychloroquine as part of its multi-country trial because it had showed no benefit. It comes two days after US regulators revoked the emergency authorisation for its use, amid growing evidence it doesn’t work and could cause serious side-effects. WHO welcomed the UK’s successful trial of dexamethasone, the low-cost anti-inflammatory drug found to save lives when used on coronavirus patients. The global body said it marked a “lifesaving breakthrough” in the fight against the virus and ordered its own analysis on the drug. However, some scientists - including South Korea’s top public health official - expressed caution on the drug.