16:37

Dan Collyns has written this dispatch on how Peru will extend its lockdown faced with an rising number of Covid-19 infections:

Peru’s president Martín Vizcarra told the country’s 32m people in his daily press briefing that the strict lockdown they had endured for the last 39 days would be extended until May 10 rather than lifted this Sunday.

The message was not unexpected as the number of Covid-19 cases has doubled in the last nine days to 20,194 with 572 deaths and rising patient numbers, reported at 2,786, which are putting hospitals under pressure. Reuters reports cases of bodies being kept in hallways, masks being reused, and protests from medical workers concerned about their safety.

“The most important thing in Peru is its people,” said Vizcarra announcing the two-week extension. “These are the efforts we have to make to beat this disease.” He added “lifestyle changes” like social distancing and using a mask would have to become habits until there was a vaccine.

“To begin with, there was skepticism, they said it was an exaggeration,” the president said, referring to the quarantine measures.

“Now, when we see the effects in an important part of the population we realise that the right measures were taken at the right time because with this country’s precarious health system imagine what it would have been like [if the quarantine had not been applied].”

Some 6.8m poor households would receive additional cash transfers worth 760 soles ( £182) over the next two weeks, Vizcarra announced. Last month, in the response to the coronavirus, Peru launched the biggest economic stimulus package in the region worth 90bn soles (£21bn) – equivalent to about 12% of GDP.