Coronavirus disaster in the Americas

This 24 June 2020 video says about itself:

Chile‘s President Sebastian Piñera is being accused of breaking his own government’s coronavirus rules.

He attended the funeral of his 104-year-old uncle, former Archbishop Bernardino Piñera , along with more than 30 others, 10 more than is allowed. The ceremony included live music and photographers.

More than 250,000 people are known to have contracted the disease in Chile.

Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman reports from Santiago, Chile.

Ex-Archbishop Piñera died from COVID-19. On August 21, 2019, Chile’s nuncio Ivo Scapolo announced that the Vatican had launched an investigation into claims that Piñera sexually abused at least one child 50 years prior.

JUDGE ORDERS BOLSONARO TO WEAR MASK A Brazilian judge ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a mask in public after the right-winger attended political rallies without one in the middle of the world’s second-worst coronavirus outbreak. Federal Judge Renato Borelli ruled in a decision made public on Tuesday that Bolsonaro was subject to a fine of 2,000 reais ($387) a day if he continued to disobey a local ordinance in the federal district meant to slow the pandemic. [Reuters]

TRUMP SPENDS RALLY DOWNPLAYING VIRUS, MAKING RACIST JOKES Speaking in a state where coronavirus cases are repeatedly setting daily infection records, and following the news that U.S. cases surged 25% last week, President Donald Trump told a crowd of young Arizona supporters that everything was under control. “Someday it’ll be recognized by history,” he said of his pandemic response. This is “hopefully the end of the pandemic,” Trump told about 3,000 college students, most of whom did not wear masks. He then turned to his repeated racist joke, saying “COVID-19, I said that’s an odd name,” after calling the virus “Wuhan”, and “kung flu”. [HuffPost]

Trump Made a Racist Joke in a Phoenix Megachurch and the Crowd Went Wild: here.

TRUMP’S CORONAVIRUS CONFESSION IS BEING USED IN ATTACK ADS Trump’s own words from this weekend’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, are being used against him in a series of new attack ads from his critics on both the left and the right. Trump said he ordered his advisers to “slow the testing down” for coronavirus infections so the U.S. wouldn’t have so many cases ― an order that would fly in the face of medical advice. Progressive PAC MeidasTouch called it “mass murder on a national scale.” Meanwhile, ex-Trump aide Sebastian Gorka has boasted about not wearing COVID-19 “burqas.” [HuffPost]

TRUMP USES PANDEMIC TO PUSH ANTI-IMMIGRATION AGENDA Trump is using the coronavirus pandemic to justify a crackdown on immigration that puts vulnerable migrants at risk, separates families, and could deepen the current economic crisis. Since declaring a national emergency over COVID-19 in March, Trump has halted refugee resettlement, deported unaccompanied children fleeing violence and abuse, suspended some categories of legal immigration, closed the border to asylum-seekers and repeatedly pushed back court hearings for people awaiting them in Mexico. On Monday, he restricted legal immigration even further via executive order as he ramps up his struggling reelection campaign. [HuffPost]